This is the time for UK military leadership... but we are not up to it

Britain is being thrust to the forefront in Ukraine but we just don't have the men or equipment. What's Starmer's plan?

Bear left! A British Army soldier directs a vehicle during training exercises in Latvia

The “Ramstein Group”. Heard of it? If not, you’re hardly alone. This powerful multilateral military club, created in 2022 to coordinate the provision of weaponry and equipment to Ukraine, has largely flown beneath the media radar.

Named after the Ramstein air base in Germany, the group is built around Nato’s 32 countries but it includes 25 other nations, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea. A further nine states, such as Israel and Taiwan, have provided kit but for political and strategic reasons they are not publicly involved.

The Group meets every month to coordinate donations of aid, from warplanes and heavy weapons to cyber security. So far, these events — some of which are virtual — have been chaired by the United States. On Wednesday, however, another country will take the lead for the first time: Britain, represented by Defence Secretary John Healey.

This is a significant geopolitical moment. America’s step back at Ramstein comes amid signals from the White House that Biden-era support for Ukraine may be on the wane. The new administration has not yet committed to future weapons support and a few days ago, American shipments of kit from Poland were temporarily put on hold.

At the Munich Security Conference next week, General Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, is expected to unveil the White House’s plan to end the war in Europe. This, of course, was one of Trump’s principal pledges on the campaign trail. In those halcyon days, he bragged that it could be achieved within 24 hours; General Kellogg later clarified that it could take 100 days.

The plan is expected to involve freezing the conflict along the current lines and enforcing a ceasefire by deploying British troops. After all, Nato’s 23-nation Allied Rapid Reaction Corps is headquartered in Gloucester, under Lieutenant General Ralph Wooddisse.

Taking these two developments together — British leadership at Ramstein and the prospect of British boots on the ground in Ukraine — it seems that the expected American withdrawal from European security affairs will leave a vacuum which Britain is well-qualified to fill.

At least, that seems to be the assumption. The reality, however, is rather different. The British armed forces, which in previous times presided over an Empire upon which the sun never set, have been cut to unconscionably small levels, the smallest since the early nineteenth century. Back then, our population was 20 million. With that figure now three-and-a-half times the size, the Army of 1823 would proportionately equal 225,000 soldiers today.

Reader, we can field just 73,000 troops. To put this in perspective, these could all comfortably fit into Wembley Stadium and still have 17,000 seats to spare. Our Army is smaller than those of Bangladesh and Romania — individually, not put together — and only just larger than that of Armenia. By comparison, the Russian armed forces have 1.3 million men.

For decades, we have grown so reliant on the American security umbrella that freeloading has become the norm. When Trump was first elected in 2016, only four countries aside from the US met the 2 per cent defence spending target: Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia. The picture is better today, but Nato is still a far cry from being able to function independently from America.

This week will show us what to expect for the next four years of European security. Despite our shared political and strategic interests, our defence priorities cannot always align with those of the United States. This should be the opportunity for Britain to step into a leadership role. Yet we are almost a laughing stock.

Recently, the Army was reported as being so short of ammunition that soldiers had to shout “bang” when firing their rifles. Lord Richards, who served as the chief of the defence staff from 2009 to 2013, told the Telegraph: “Never in my long professional life have the Armed Forces been weaker. The Army in particular is in the poorest shape it’s ever been. Old equipment, woefully understrength, poorly trained and with a dire shortage of ammunition. Yet the geo-strategic outlook has never been more worrying.”

Even the defence secretary — who, let us remind ourselves, is preparing to chair Ramstein on Wednesday and deploy troops to Ukraine in the coming months — has confessed that “what we’ve not been ready to do is to fight. Unless we are ready to fight, we are not in shape to deter.”

For a proud military nation like Britain to have allowed its armed forces to slide into such a moribund state is little short of shameful. Much of the damage was done by the Tories, but this is Labour’s problem now. After all, the pledge to spend more on defence featured in its election-winning manifesto.

So what is Sir Keir Starmer planning to do about this? The Prime Minister has — you guessed it — delayed Britain’s increase of defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP for another seven years. This reportedly “appalled” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is scheduled to meet Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Munich shortly. Not likely to do wonders for the fraying special relationship.

Of course, Starmer is no political genius. From cutting the winter fuel allowance to raising taxes while issuing massive handouts to the public sector; from allowing Lord Alli to fund his wardrobe to resisting a national enquiry into the child rape gangs; from handing over the Chagos Islands and paying the Mauritians for the privilege to contemplating the payment of slavery reparations, his policymaking seems almost designed to get up the nose of the electorate.

But this? This is not about politics but the security of our nation. It is true that after two months of Labour rule, the economy is already heading fast for recession; but Starmer is still able to conjure huge sums for striking public sector workers, the government of Mauritius and even the descendants of slaves.

This is about priorities. The first duty of any prime minister is to keep Britain safe. To abnegate this responsibility at a time of international instability is not just foolish, it is immoral.