UK military spending: preparing for ‘future wars’, fuelling the arms race

On Thursday 19 November 2020 the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, addressed the House of Commons to provide an update on the work of the ‘Integrated Review’ into defence, security, foreign and diplomatic work.

Mr Johnson’s update was preceded by widespread media reports of significant new spending on the UK’s armed forces: a total of £16.5bn, which amounts to a real terms increase above previously declared spending of £7bn by 2024-25. This is an enormous amount of money to dedicate to weapons of death and destruction at a time when the health, care and social systems of the UK are in crisis and when poverty, hunger and misery stalk the land after ten years of government imposed austerity.

This spending commitment comes before the conclusion of the ‘Integrated Review’ which is due in early 2021 and which may well include further increases in spending.

Just as worrying as this mis-use of money is the political tone struck by the Prime Minister in his statement, which is laced with science fiction- like talk of artificial intelligence, drones, “directed energy weapons”, “inexhaustible lasers”, cyber war and the rest.

Each and every one of these references to putting new technologies to war signals an intensification of risk.

Peace and anti-war activists have been alert to these risks for some time. As the editorial of The Spokesman 141 - Global Tinderbox argued:

“Between 2002 and 2016, the top 100 weapons manufacturers and ‘military service’ companies logged 38% growth in global sales. In 2016, these sales – excluding Chinese companies – amounted to $375 billion, turning $60 billion profit. Between 1998 and 2011, the Pentagon’s budget grew in real terms by 91% while defence industry profits quadrupled.

In the 1970s, investment in the ‘information technology’ sector stood at $17 billion. By 2017, investment in this sector exceeded $700 billion. In the same year, Apple’s market capitalisation stood at $730 billion, Google stood at $581 billion, and Microsoft stood at $497 billion. Meanwhile, Exxon Mobile – the highest placed ‘industrial’ company – had a market capitalisation of $344 billion. By comparison, the arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin had a capitalisation of around $321 billion and Rolls-Royce $21 billion at the end of 2017.

Whilst the United States and other countries continue to purchase – and use – vast quantities of ‘conventional’ weaponry, the extraordinary figures quoted above occurred alongside the unleashing of a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’, powered by significant leaps in capability in computing, robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, ‘autonomous’ vehicles and the rest. Ever greater sums are being spent on military and policing applications of the ‘fruits’ of this ‘Revolution’. So much so, that the sociologist William I. Robinson identifies a trend towards what he terms ‘militarised accumulation’ as a ‘major source of state-organised profit-making’.

If this trend endures – as it surely will, unless arrested by concerted political action – then not only will ‘battlefields’ of the future look like a science fiction dystopia, but the processes that presently blur the lines between ‘wartime’ and ‘peacetime’ will surely accelerate. At what point will a large-scale computer hacking operation spill over into a ‘hot’ war? How much surveillance, how many drones, how many robotic weapons can be deployed before critical mass is reached? How many things must go wrong – and in what sequence – before these embodiments of what Mike Cooley terms our ‘delinquent genius’ might bring an end to us all?

There is already a technological ‘arms race’ and with each new drone, autonomous field gun, hack or military satellite, this race intensifies. Any such intensification will drastically increase the risks of wide-scale military confrontation, including the prospect of nuclear war.

How should such risks be addressed? An important step is to understand the scope of the problem and the present realities of how these technologies have already been deployed ...

The alarm has been sounded, but what are we to do? How can society ensure that artificial intelligence, for example, is put to work for human good, rather than making war? How to harness the miracles of robotic technology to improve, rather than destroy, our planet? How can we guarantee that nanotechnology and biotechnology are put to work for the preservation and not the eradication of life? In answering these questions, we should utilise the work already under way to develop ideas about socially useful production and defence diversification. These are just some of the very pressing questions we now must face.”

Compare these warnings to the contents of Mr Johnson’s update:

“... For decades, British Governments have trimmed and cheese-pared our defence budget. If we go on like this, we risk waking up to discover that our armed forces — the pride of Britain — have fallen below the minimum threshold of viability, and, once lost, they can never be regained. That outcome would not only be craven; it would jeopardise the security of the British people, amounting to a dereliction of duty for any Prime Minister.

... Based on our assessment of the international situation and our foreign policy goals, I have decided that the era of cutting our defence budget must end, and it ends now. I am increasing defence spending by £24.1 billion over the next four years.

... I have done this in the teeth of the pandemic, amid every other demand on our resources, because the defence of the realm and the safety of the British people must come first.

... Everything we do in this country — every job, every business, even how we shop and what we eat—depends on a basic minimum of global security, with a web of feed pipes, of oxygen pipes, that must be kept open: shipping lanes, a functioning internet, safe air corridors, reliable undersea cables, and tranquillity in distant straits.

... But extending British influence requires a once-in-a-generation modernisation of our armed forces, and now is the right time to press ahead, because emerging technologies, visible on the horizon, will make the returns from defence investment infinitely greater. We have a chance to break free from the vicious circle whereby we ordered ever decreasing numbers of ever more expensive items of military hardware, squandering billions along the way. The latest advances will multiply the fighting power of every warship, aircraft and infantry unit many times over, and the prizes will go to the swiftest and most agile nations, not necessarily the biggest. We can achieve as much as British ingenuity and expertise allow.

We will need to act speedily to remove or reduce less relevant capabilities. This will allow our new investment to be focused on the technologies that will revolutionise warfare, forging our military assets into a single network designed to overcome the enemy. A soldier in hostile territory will be alerted to a distant ambush by sensors on satellites or drones, instantly transmitting a warning, using artificial intelligence to devise the optimal response and offering an array of options, from summoning an airstrike to ordering a swarm attack by drones, or paralysing the enemy with cyber-weapons. New advances will surmount the old limits of logistics. Our warships and combat vehicles will carry “directed energy weapons”, destroying targets with inexhaustible lasers. For them, the phrase “out of ammunition” will become redundant.

Nations are racing to master this new doctrine of warfare, and our investment is designed to place Britain among the winners.

The returns will go far beyond our armed forces, and from aerospace to autonomous vehicles, these technologies have a vast array of civilian applications, opening up new vistas of economic progress, creating 10,000 jobs every year — 40,000 in total—levelling up across our country, and reinforcing our Union. We are going to use our extra defence spending to restore Britain’s position as the foremost naval power in Europe, taking forward our plans for eight Type 26 and five Type 31 frigates, and support ships to supply our carriers.

... We will reshape our Army for the age of networked warfare, allowing better equipped soldiers to deploy more quickly, and strengthening the ability of our special forces to operate covertly against our most sophisticated adversaries.

The security and intelligence agencies will continue to protect us around the clock from terrorism and new and evolving threats. We will invest another £1.5 billion in military research and development, designed to master the new technologies of warfare. We will establish a new centre dedicated to artificial intelligence, and a new RAF space command, launching British satellites and our first rocket from Scotland in 2022. I can announce that we have established a National Cyber Force, combining our intelligence agencies and service personnel, which is already operating in cyberspace against terrorism, organised crime and hostile state activity. And the RAF will receive a new fighter system, harnessing artificial intelligence and drone technology to defeat any adversary in air-to-air combat.”

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‘Opposition’ parties welcomed the spending commitments and the voices of concern were thin on the ground. There were certainly no speeches warning of the dangers of accelerating the introduction of new technology into weapon systems, no concerns expressed about allowing ‘artificial intelligence’ to determine targets and weapon choice, no calls to consider the impact of further blurring the lines between war and peace.