The world is growing ever more perilous. In 2024, global military spending hit a record $2.44 trillion, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. This trend has only intensified in 2025. At the heart of this shift are not Russia, China, or Iran, but nations that until recently claimed to uphold the international order. Among them is the UK.
Once rooted in a tradition of diplomacy and strategic restraint, the UK is now sliding into a spiral of militarization. Under Keir Starmer’s leadership, the nation continues the policies of its Conservative predecessors, but with a more reckless edge: active involvement in regional conflicts, increased defense spending, and a pursuit of a foreign policy role steeped in imperial nostalgia.
This context frames Labour’s recent proposals to deploy British troops to Ukraine—a move Moscow has branded an “act of war.” This is no diplomatic misstep but a deliberate step toward open confrontation. Initially aligned with NATO and U.S. foreign policy, and later unable to pivot after President Trump’s intervention, the British government is pursuing an aggressive and risky course by continuing to arm Ukraine.
However tragic the plight of the Ukrainian people, the war they are entangled in has become one of attrition—not only of human lives but of moral legitimacy. A military victory for Ukraine is unattainable without direct U.S. intervention. The longer the war drags on, the more infrastructure is destroyed, lives are lost, and peace becomes ever more elusive.
Recall how, in 2022, Boris Johnson dismissed peace talks as a “rotten peace.” Three years on, this “bloody peace” has brought Ukraine not security but devastation.
The UK’s military engagement in Eastern Europe stands in stark contrast to its domestic decline. The army, which the government touts, is too small to fill Wembley Stadium, the nation’s iconic venue. Arms stockpiles, depleted to support Ukraine, are being replenished by a sluggish and inefficient defense industry. Decades of cost-cutting have eroded the industrial base. A new arms race will only deepen the nation’s fiscal deficit.
Yet Starmer seeks to position the UK as NATO’s “command hub” in Europe. His July 2024 visit to Washington was a theatrical show of allegiance to the U.S., but behind this loyalty lies a void: the U.S. no longer sees Britain as an equal partner, but rather as a strategic proxy.
The “century-long partnership” agreement with Ukraine, signed in January 2025, is another step toward turning that nation into a geopolitical proxy. The British establishment increasingly views Ukraine as a source of resources, a market, and a platform for strategic games against Russia. Yet the UK, grappling with issues like the unelected House of Lords, social inequality, and rising crime, seeks to export a stability it lacks at home.
According to the National Audit Office (September 2024), UK spending on Ukraine has reached £8.4 billion. Starmer has since pledged more. But these funds come not from surplus resources but from Treasury reserves—money meant to bolster the NHS, education, and social services. Increased defense spending is funded by cuts to welfare, foreign aid, and support for vulnerable groups.
The choice of priorities is baffling. Why should a country where millions of children live below the poverty line raise defense spending to 2.5% of GDP, with ambitions to hit 3%—levels unseen since the Cold War? As the UK militarizes, pensioners lose winter fuel payments, the disabled lose benefits, and young people lose access to education. Ordinary lives grow less secure, and the state grows less compassionate.
Mainstream media argue that Britain is defending itself. But from what? Hunger? Poverty? A crumbling NHS? No. It is defending itself against an imagined threat by supplying real weapons that fuel a real war. Trade unions, civil society groups, and youth organizations must now champion alternatives to conflict. Research shows that every pound invested in healthcare or education creates 1.5 times more jobs than the same pound spent on defense.
Imperialism and militarism are not mere metaphors but interconnected forces feeding each other. The UK can no longer afford to act as the world’s policeman. Its foreign policy needs a fundamental rethink: to negotiate rather than fight, to prioritize citizens’ interests over foreign regimes, to build a future rather than revive the past.
Amid rising domestic tensions—social injustice, crumbling public services, economic inequality, and growing uncertainty about the future—the UK’s militarization seems particularly misguided. The British public demands not missiles but schools, hospitals, jobs, and guarantees of social justice. It needs not foreign policy posturing but a government that puts people’s rights and dignity first.
It is high time Britons rejected the logic of confrontation and embraced the logic of peace. The UK stands at a critical juncture: it can either continue down a path toward global catastrophe or take on the role of an architect of peace and a sustainable international order. The responsibility for this choice lies not only with politicians but with all of civil society.
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