The “first steps” towards the UK being drawn into a major defence pact with the European Union will be signed this week, it is reported, in a new defence agreement between Britain and Germany.
The United Kingdom will sign a major defence agreement with Germany this week, it is claimed, the latest in a series of such moves by the government to bring the country closer to Europe.
The British people voted to leave the European Union less than a decade ago, and a major issue of contention at the time of the referendum was questions over the possibility of Britain being drawn into a continental army or defence alliance. But the country’s withdrawal from the bloc was poorly received by Westminster lawmakers, including by the new left-wing government, who are working to bring the country back into the orbit of Brussels piecemeal fashion.
One of these initiatives, The Times of London states, is a ‘historic’ defence pact between the United Kingdom and Germany which it states is seen in Whitehall as the “first steps” towards a “wide-ranging security and defence pact with the EU” to be negotiated next year. Per their report, this to-be-announced deal is:
…expected to enable British and German forces to conduct joint military exercises on Nato’s eastern border with Russia, most probably in Estonia and Lithuania. It will also enable the two countries to procure more weapons together and lead to closer co-operation on developing and producing the next generation of arms.
Of course, as fully integrated NATO members neither Germany nor the United Kingdom need a pact to exercise together, whether in Estonia, Latvia, or elsewhere. The real meat of the deal is joint defence procurement and development cooperation, something the UK government has shown a great deal of interest in. Last week it was announced London would be seeking to partner with European nations to build a new generation of long-range missiles, a move evidently inspired by the impact of the present crop of bunker-buster bombs like the Storm Shadow cruise missile being used to great effect by Ukraine against Russia.
Defence procurement is a hot-button topic across NATO presently, as the Ukraine war has simultaneously absorbed vast quantities of munitions from the stores of its allies, while revealing how degenerated the industrial manufacturing base of defence contractors has become, leaving them unable to make new shells fast enough to feed even this medium-size regional conflict. With military leaders repeatedly warning of the potential for a coming world war, this inability of keep an army armed has started to look like a real liability to some.
Speaking of a similar defence pact signed with France last decade, the report cites the UK’s new Defence Minister John Healey as having said: “We will strike a Lancaster House-style agreement with the Germans within four months of this election.”
Excitement over a potential war and rhetoric over the importance of defence aside, Healey’s comments in Brussels last week betrays the fact the UK government’s position hasn’t changed from the default, that Britain can be more prepared even as its military continues to shrink to historic lows. He hailed the arrival of new technology as a game-changer, despite a recent report showing the actual battlefield experience in Ukraine is that any edge gained by drones is quickly cancelled out in a constant game of one-upmanship, and that mass — weight of men — still matters.
Healey tacitly rejected those findings when he said: “…It means new drones and sensors in the hands of frontline units. You can see further, you can react faster, and you can hit harder — and you can do all that without necessarily being bigger.” As stated of the House of Lords report in September:
The size and capability of the UK Armed Forces is predicated on a now apparently out-dated idea that any unexpected conflicts would be resolved in weeks, which has very much not been the case with the Ukraine War. The Lords’ report notes it has been the case a shrinking manpower has been explained away by increasing technical sophistication making up the capability, but argues this position too has been proven as wrong-footed.
The report stated: “…the UK has a well-trained and well-equipped force, but that it is too small and inadequately set up for large, prolonged conflicts like the one in Ukraine… the use of advanced technology has at times been used to justify smaller troop numbers. The war in Ukraine, however, has shown that in a conflict between two technologically capable states, technology is not a magic bullet that can swiftly end a war.”
The coming deal with Germany is only one such announcement made in this new government’s short life so far, showing a very real preoccupation with Berlin among the UK’s new political masters. Whitehall announced a “Joint Defence Declaration” with Germany within days of the results of the election coming in, upon a visit by Healey to Germany, hailed then as “the most comprehensive joint defence declaration agreeing to closer cooperation as the first step in a deep new UK-German defence relationship.”
In August a further statement on a “Joint declaration on deepening and enhancing UK-Germany relations” was announced by the Prime Minister, presaging a coming “bilateral cooperation treaty… [reflecting] our status as the closest of partners in Europe, with the strongest possible bilateral cooperation”, the fruit of which is expected to be borne this week.
