Despite the very difficult position of Theresa May and her government, the new Secretary of Defense, Penny Mordaunt, seems to want to deeply change the lines, in terms of the budget allocated to the defense of the Kingdom, helped in this by Jeremy Hunt , the foreign secretary.
Both announced their ambition to increase the budget of the armies "to the required level", that is to say to the level necessary to be able to face the geopolitical upheavals in progress, which will, according to them (and in my opinion) , greatly alter the global geopolitical map, such as the balance of power. In the viewfinder of the Secretary of Defense, the military strengthening of Russia, considered very worrying, as well as that of China, but also of Iran, to name only the most obvious powers. In addition, the dynamic duo attacked NATO's famous "2% rule", which for many years acted as a political mirror, causing leaders to lose sight of the real issues. of Defense to stick to a purely accounting approach.
Without openly setting numerical objectives with regard to GDP, although the two ministers openly support the 4% threshold targeted by the United States, Penny Mordaunt has already warned, during her speech investiture, that she would lead the life say to the Department of the Treasury, to obtain the necessary credits in order to recapitalize the armed forces, and give them the means to carry out their missions, themselves defined according to the role that the United Kingdom in the future.
The speech by the two British politicians, also widely reported by the press across the Channel, shows that not only is there political space for those in favor of strengthening defense, but that it is possible to bring this into existence. will, even in a party that is traditionally very liberal and attached to balanced budgets. It also shows the perverse effects of the famous 2% rule, which was, let us remember, widely used during the 2017 French presidential campaign, and which even served as a framework for the 2017 Strategic Review, de facto altering the conception of threats in an extremely constrained framework.
Let us hope that the dynamism and will displayed by Me Penny Mordaunt and Jeremy Hunt can spread across Europe, particularly in France, and inspire the emergence of objective and ambitious political reflection on the needs and means necessary to National and European Defense.
Otherwise, we risk re-experiencing, in the more or less long term, a scenario comparable to that of the 30s...