Rishi Sunak's war drums in the middle of an election year in the United Kingdom

It doesn't seem like a coincidence. 2024, the year in which the Conservative Government of the United Kingdom faces the polls with a gloomy prognosis – all polls indicate an advantage of at least 18 percentage points for the Labor opposition – is the year chosen to show military muscle. “The era in which we were able to reap the dividends of peace has ended. “In the next five years we will face multiple scenarios of war, against Russia, China, Iraq or North Korea,” British Defense Minister Grant Shapps said this Monday in his first speech with content since he was appointed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the end of August. The peace dividends, Shapps has explained, were a result of the end of the Cold War during Margaret Thatcher's tenure. Years without clear enemies in which public money could be allocated to education and health rather than to tanks or fighter jets.

In the last months of Boris Johnson as prime minister, when his reputation was already at rock bottom due to the scandal of partygate —the parties banned in Downing Street during the pandemic confinement—the war drums came to their rescue. Unconditional support for Ukraine, and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, briefly restored Johnson's popularity. The idea that the United Kingdom continued to be a country whose military weight is decisive in any international conflict—the Rule Britannia so sweet to the ears of those who supported Brexit—has been the lifeline of a Conservative Party in search of its place in the world after loosening its ties with the European Union.

And Sunak has also chosen that trick. Within 24 hours, he made a surprise trip to kyiv to meet with Zelensky and reaffirm his commitment to the Ukrainian cause, with the announcement of an extra 2.9 billion euros in military aid. At the same time, the joint attack by American and British forces on Houthi rebel installations in Yemen was announced, due to their continuous attacks in recent weeks on commercial and military vessels that cross the Red Sea route.

“In times of danger, we are going to invest in strengthening the defense of our critical infrastructures, we are going to continue building alliances and we are going to be firm in defending our principles: international security, the rule of law and the freedom to decide our own future. “Any attack against these principles will be an attack against everything we believe in, on which both our well-being and our lives depend,” Sunak said this Monday in parliament.

Aware that any military intervention for which the next steps are not very well known – for example, Iraq in 2003 or Syria in 2013 – can be a political hornet's nest, Sunak showed respect to Parliament and the opposition – Labor has supported the intervention in Yemen—and avoided aggressive rhetoric. He had left that in the hands of his Defense Minister, who hours before had not hesitated to describe the leftist forces as weak in the face of current threats in the world.

“This is the time to decide our defense policy. The choice is hard. Some, especially on the left, are tempted to always undervalue our country. “They believe that the United Kingdom no longer has the strength to influence world events, that we should retreat and ignore what happens beyond our shores,” Shapps accused in his speech.

“We find ourselves at the dawn of a new era in which we are moving from a post-war world to a pre-war one. Old enemies have been resurrected, and new enemies are taking shape. The foundations on which the old world order was based have been deeply shaken,” Shapps announced, without anticipating any increase in spending in the Defense budget beyond what the British Government had already announced.

The United Kingdom allocates more than 58 billion annually to military spending, approximately 2% of its budget. It has recently announced new budget items to modernize its nuclear arsenal and to resupply ammunition and weapons, after a year of continuous supply of material to Ukraine. Shapps has called on NATO members that have not yet done so to comply with the commitment to allocate 2% to defense. Downing Street has reaffirmed its willingness to reach 2.5% when the accounts allow.

The Minister of Defense has also announced the United Kingdom's decision to send more than 20,000 members of its armed forces to the joint military exercises Exercise Steadfast Defender organized by NATO in the first half of 2024, with the participation of its 31 partner countries along with Sweden.

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