Simon Jenkins is right to ask why the debate on defence spending is limited to a question of more or far more expenditure (There is no immediate military threat to Britain. We should spend less on defence, 1 July). Two countervailing points are notably absent from parliamentary discussion and media reporting.
First, while Vladimir Putin’s Russia undoubtedly poses a serious security threat to countries in mainland Europe, ever higher defence spending is not necessarily the answer. The defence budgets of all the European Nato members are already far in excess of Russia’s. The central issue is therefore not more money but more political resolve, in particular, among the European members – where do they draw their red lines and what is their plan to bring Putin’s illegal war to an end?
