Si vis pacem, para bellum - Are we Ready for War?

When we woke to the news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine four years ago, we were collectively stunned.  It was difficult for American colleagues to comprehend the scale and the depth of the psychological shock.  We had lived for so long in a Europe free of war that we had begun to accept it as the norm, forgetting that for centuries before the advent of the European Union, our continent had been torn asunder regularly by bloody nationalism surging across borders to leave generations shorn of their youth, left lying face down in the mud.

Habemus Bellum

Russia’s invasion changed everything.  Suddenly we ‘had a war’ and attitudes needed to change in response. Over the past couple of weeks, I have attended a number of webinars, conferences, seminars and round-tables at which the growing drum-beat of war has been inescapable. To quote the UK Armed Forces Minister ‘The shadow of war is at our door’.

As countries scramble to re-arm In response to this threat, the explosion in defence spending has been jaw-dropping.  In 2025, Europe spent €300 billion (due to rise to over €800 billion p.a by the end of the decade).  Ukraine spent €70 billion on defence.  Germany is already spending $100 billion a year (with budget provisions for spending €1 trillion on defence by the end of the decade), surpassing the UK ($77 billion) and France ($70 billion). Poland is already spending 4.5% of its GDP.  And Europe is not alone. Across the Middle East, collective spending in 2025 was $223 billion – up 15% since 2023.  Israel is now spending 9% of its GDP on defence.  The US spent nearly $1 trillion in 2025.  China spent $250 billion – much less than the US, but a 7.2% increase compared with 2024.  Russia is spending around 11% of its GDP on defence and associated war costs. 

To Govern is to Choose

This bonanza in spending is astonishing.  But sustaining it will require difficult, unpleasant and deeply unpopular decisions. The UK is a good example.  In 2025, the government spent 2.4% of its GDP on defence and has pledged to raise that to 2.5% p.a by next year and 3% by the next Parliament.  In concrete spending amounts, moving from 2.4 – 3% would mean an increase from the current spending of around £60 billion to around £80-£85 billion p.a. To put that increase in context, the entire annual UK Home Office budget is around £22 billion. 

I have no way of knowing whether predictions of war with Russia within two years are accurate or credible.  But the Government clearly feels they are.  To prepare, Ministers argue that defence of the UK is a whole of society obligation and that the country must be ready to make sacrifices to ensure that the military is war-ready.

In its 18 months in power, the Labour government has already chosen to push taxation up to its highest levels for decades: more taxation to pay for a sustained boost to military spending might prove simply too painful politically.  So, the Government will have to make a fateful choice: in order to increase the defence budget, where will its spending axe fall? Such a dilemma begs the question of what, in the end, makes a government legitimate? An unscientific sweep of the opinion polls suggests that the population’s answer to that question is not a military capacity to seize and hold territory, but rather the government’s ability to feed, clothe, educate and keep healthy its people.  It is far from clear to me that the majority of the population is ready to sacrifice expenditure on health, education, welfare, justice or roads to the benefit of defence spending.

Non praeparare est ad defectum praeparare

Of course, no one wants to face the question of how to prepare for war, during peacetime, but equally, if we wait until we are at war, it is too late. But, just as with saving for a pension, or asking communities to accept higher energy bills and greater disruption as an insurance against climate change, government will be asking society to make a significant down-payment now against a future risk which may, or may not materialise. Without comprehensive societal support for the necessity of a stronger military, asking the population to make those sacrifices is likely to be met with sullen refusal. 

So, if the Government really believes that war is all but inevitable and the only path to avoid it is to prepare like Hell for it, then it has a crucial job to do in building a narrative which is sufficiently articulate to convince the population of the immediacy  and credibility of the threat of war and the consequent need, therefore, to take the difficult decisions about investment.  If the government fails or does not have the political leadership or courage to win that argument, the population will only be convinced once events have overtaken it, by which time it will be too late.

Scepticism Rules, OK?

And the population is very far from being convinced – either of the immediacy or the reality of the threat of war.  War with whom? Why? Why now?  Has this always been a latent threat? Or has the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from the global scene, hiding behind the red hats of the America First façade made the world so much more dangerous that the threat has surged from nowhere, unexpectedly? Why is Trump demanding NATO members increase their spending, not to the agreed 2% of GDP, but to 5% of GDP?  Does he simply want the world to spend its defence budget in the US? Has the increased acceptance of the use of force actually made its wholesale use in a generalised conflict more likely?

Record levels of popular distrust don’t help the government in its job of convincing the public of the danger, either. And that is deeply problematic.  Who is going to be the credible messenger to convince a cynical populace?  The Army? (‘Well, of course the military would claim there is a threat of war.  They want more funding.  They would quite like a little war’). The military-industrial complex? ( ‘Well, of course, the weapons companies would claim war is at our doors.  They have a vested interest - they stand to make a fortune from a war.  They would quite like one’). The media (‘Well, of course they would say that.  Nothing sells news like a bit of hysteria’). A deeply unpopular Prime Minister? 

Vir qui praeteritum suum novit, futurum suum regit...nonne?

Our anticipation of future events is based on our experience of past events.  Our generation’s experience has been one, generally, of peace.  The reality of a future war is so shockingly horrible that we neither believe, nor want to believe in its possibility, simply because we cannot imagine that it could ever be the case.  Just as with climate change, the occurrence of war will be in the future and it is therefore unproveable.  That creates a huge gap between a public deeply resistant to the need to fund the military now for an event they are sceptical will happen and the Government which is clearly convinced not only of the likelihood of war, but of its immediate proximity.

Will Fear of the Polls let the War in the Door?

If the Government genuinely believes ‘War is at our door’, then it will have to develop a much more compelling national narrative than the Armed Forces Minister’s rather glib belief that ‘the population will respond to the call to arms and rally round King and Country’ or that ‘if we prepare for war and it does not happen, we have succeeded’.

If the country is to be ‘war-ready’ in two years, then the Government must urgently devise and deliver a narrative which bridges the gap between its perception of imminent danger and the public’s latent resistance and hostility to spending on a future event, the success of which can only be judged by its not happening. A narrative which convinces the country of the need for a ‘whole of society’ approach to confronting the growing threat of war; steadies the nation’s collective nerve for the endeavour; stiffens the resolve and in-builds resilience.  One which persuades the nation that money which might have bult of a new school, a new hospital or delivered faster GP appointments for ageing relatives, will instead be allocated to a new submarine, a battalion of tanks or a new squadron of fighter planes.

If the government is correct, then convincing a cynical population of the imminence of a war becomes an urgent matter of national survival.  This will be difficult and unpopular.  But if the Government is right, then the time for deploying that narrative is now.  If it leaves it too late, then by the time the population is convinced, war will be in at the door and destroying the kitchen table. I am far from convinced that the Government has the courage to disregard the polls and is ready to take on that challenge.