Cameron Urges British Military to Spend More to Tackle ISIS
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — After his government promised last week to hit NATO spending targets, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said on Sunday that he wanted more of the military budget to be spent on tackling Islamic extremism, citing special forces, spy planes and drones as probable priorities. In comments released by his office, Mr. Cameron suggested that a wide-ranging review of military capabilities, currently being conducted by Britain’s military leaders, should give special consideration to emerging threats, including terrorism and cyberattacks. “I have tasked the defense and security chiefs to look specifically at how we do more to counter the threat posed by ISIL and Islamist extremism,” Mr. Cameron said, referring to the Islamic State. “This could include more spy planes, drones and special forces. In the last five years, I have seen just how vital these assets are in keeping us safe,” he added. After months of pressure from the United States, Britain last week unexpectedly committed to hitting a NATO target of spending 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defense until 2020. Until the announcement, made on Wednesday, British ministers had refused to make such a pledge, arguing that they first needed to conduct their defense review to assess the threats, before deciding on spending. That process now appears to have been turned on its head, with Mr. Cameron arguing in his latest remarks that, “now we know how much we will spend, what matters next is how we spend it.” While the statement mentioned the threat posed by “an increasingly aggressive Russia,” it said that Mr. Cameron hoped that the Strategic Defense and Security Review, which is supposed to conclude this fall, would prioritize protection from evolving threats, such as terrorism, extremism and cyberattacks. It added that Britain’s response needed to be more agile and adaptable, and highlighted the importance of cooperation with partners, including the United States, to ensure that British naval vessels can project drones and deploy special forces. Just a handful of NATO nations meet the alliance’s 2 percent target, and Britain’s announcement that it would do so until 2020 was welcomed by the United States. Some British lawmakers have been more skeptical, including Crispin Blunt, the Conservative chairman of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, who argued that the pledge was “not quite as profound as it appears.” “The government is apparently changing the way they measure defense spending to meet this important target by including expenditure outside the Ministry of Defense budget, including 2.5 billion pounds on the secret intelligence agencies,” Mr. Blunt said in a statement last week. Michael Fallon, the defense minister, argued last month that it was impossible for the government to massage its NATO spending figures because the definition of what qualifies for the 2 percent target, is agreed within the trans-Atlantic alliance, which issues statistics on the expenditure of its members. However Mr. Cameron’s comments are likely to intensify the debate over what, precisely, the NATO spending pledge should mean in concrete terms for the British military. Along with France, Britain is one of two European nations with sizable armed forces, but the British Army has undergone significant cuts in recent years as the country sought to curb spending and restore its public finances after the financial crash of 2008. Critics had argued that Britain’s global influence was receding, a notion also fostered by a parliamentary vote in 2013 against airstrikes in Syria, and the discussion, before a referendum to be held by the end of 2017, on whether to leave the European Union. |