UK’s Keir Starmer urges allies to hike defense spending

This would equate to around £87 billion a year by the end of the decade, up from £52 billion in 2024-25, ensuring the U.K. remained Europe’s largest military spender alongside Germany. 

NATO’s current spending target is two percent of GDP.

New Defense Secretary John Healey, who will host a roundtable in Washington on Wednesday morning, said the review would also “set out defense reforms to secure faster procurement and better value for money.”

A transatlantic debate

There is an ongoing transatlantic debate about how prepared NATO’s European flank is to defend itself without the full support of the U.S. in the future. The discussion will grow louder and more pressing if Trump wins another term and runs an even more isolationist foreign policy than during his first term.

However, some British defense policy experts say Europe needs to become more self-sufficient whoever is president, as the U.S. is likely under both Democrat or Republican administrations to redirect more resources to the Asia-Pacific region. 

Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general at London’s RUSI defense think tank, wrote in March: “Given the overstretch facing U.S. armed forces, the years ahead could see a greater division of labour among Western allies, in which European states do more for their own defense, and the U.S. focuses more of its effort in East Asia.