Defence for a World in Need

European leaders have not had an easy couple of weeks. From being blasted for their over-reliance on US military power (amongst other things), to Trump’s ‘dictator’ accusations against Zelensky and seeming willingness to cut Ukraine out of any ‘peace’ talks with Putin, as well as the US siding with Putin and other ‘hostile’ nations against Europe and Ukraine in a vote at the UN, leaders from across the continent have been floundering to make sense of the geopolitical turn which they are experiencing.

In Germany, the man likely to become the new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has talked up greater German defence spending, committed to independence from the USA, and mooted the death of NATO, all inside a week of his party’s victory at the polls. Meanwhile, Macron and Starmer have been trying to walk a fine line, staunchly defending Ukraine without upsetting President Trump.

Perhaps a shock given Labour’s feet-dragging on defence-spending so far, this week Starmer announced a significant £6 billion increase towards the defence budget. With the ever-looming spectre of the £22 billion black hole, an alert observer might ask where would the money come from?

To the chagrin of the now former International Development Minister, Anneliese Dodds (who, at the time of writing, has just resigned from her position), the funding Starmer had earmarked was coming directly out of her international aid budget.

The reallocation of £6 billion to defence, sees the international aid budget fall from 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) to 0.3%. Historically, the UK committed to spending 0.7% on international aid in a 1970 UN Resolution, later enshrined into law in 2015. It wasn’t, however, until 2013 that the UK actually met this commitment.

And it didn’t last long. In 2021, Boris Johnson’s government reduced aid spending to 0.5% of GNI, off the back of the economic challenges posed by the pandemic. And although Labour’s early days in office were spent highlighting it’s internationalist credentials it has now cut the budget further to 0.3%, the lowest level since 1999.

Starmer, in his announcement in the Commons, spoke of the changing international landscape as presenting a “generational challenges” that requires “a generational response”.

This, he argued, would “demand some extremely difficult and painful choices” but that our era requires courage of the British people once again, and so “this Government will begin the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war. We will deliver our commitment to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence, but we will bring it forward so that we reach that level in 2027 and we will maintain that for the rest of this Parliament”.

He was backed by many (but by no means all) of his MPs who came out to bat for the changes: “We recognise that the decision to reduce international development spending to fund our defence commitment is a difficult decision. But in an increasingly uncertain, contested world, we were left with no choice. The defence and security of the British people must always come first. That is the number one priority of the Labour government.”

Whilst some have derided the announcements as a bid to curry favour with President Trump, Starmer’s appeals to the realities of geopolitics were supported by the comments of a senior UK official: “People should not see this decision as simply about getting through one meeting on Thursday. This is a fundamental shift in the way the government is operating on defence and security. It’s a recognition of the moment we’re in.” 

Yet as noted above, this decision was far from popular with many. 138 leaders of the UK International Non-Governmental Organization (INGO) sector, ‘humanitarian organisations’ in plain English, penned a joint letter criticising the decision. Op-eds have been written criticising the morality, as well as the economic, international relations, and defence logic behind the move.

It is unlikely any of this will gather much traction amongst the country at large. One Labour aide, according to Politico’s Playbook, argued the anger would mainly be limited to the “middle class, educated, London-type voter”. Perhaps more strikingly, 64% of the UK believe the Government should reduce spending on overseas aid.

As well they should, you could argue. In a time of declining living standards, vast economic inequality, and an extremely challenging domestic and international context, why should a nation divert some, or even any, of its funds overseas?

Besides, when you have stories such as this, this, this, or this, highlighting the corruption, ineffectiveness, injustice and seemingly bizarre allocation of aid to countries that are some of the most successful in the world, it isn’t hard to see why many have a problem with aid spending.

Despite the negative headlines, proponents of international aid are clear. They argue a utilitarian case, as did Sarah Champion, Chair of the International Development Committee this week, “Cutting the aid budget to fund defence spending is a false economy that will only make the world less safe. Conflict is often an outcome of desperation, climate and insecurity; our finances should be spent on preventing this, not the deadly consequences.”

Or, on other occasions, argue the ethical case: “No government should balance its books on the backs of the world's most marginalised people. The previous UK aid cuts and the current US aid freeze have already shown their impact: children are now at risk of missing out on vaccines, girls may lose access to education, and healthcare services in refugee camps are being withdrawn.”

At one level, the debate concerning international aid is nothing new. Questions over whether it works, whether it is simple a tool of colonialism, whether it furthers corruption are longstanding and one could make a strong case for them. As are, however, the arguments about the real wins of international aid, from eradicating disease to helping combat poverty.

What then has propelled this debate front and centre of the British headlines this week? Quite frankly, Starmer is right. The world is changing.

The election of Donald Trump back in November 2024, has seen the international landscape transformed and not unexpectedly. After all, he did campaign calling for an end to the war in Ukraine as well as urging European leaders to take responsibility for their own safety and security.

Even if one did not take his campaign statements sincerely, he made similar arguments in his first term in office and, given the comprehensive manner of his victory and improved clarity of thought and action amongst his team, one should not be surprised.

Trump is committed to America first. It makes neither economic, military, nor moral sense, in his view, to commit vast American resources to a conflict which has little to do with America, won’t threaten her borders or security any time soon, which has little chance of resolving itself naturally, all whilst there are ‘bigger’ threats to reckon with in the form of China.

You can agree with him or not, but there is an undeniable logic to his view of international affairs. For European leaders, however, this is a vast shock to their ecosystem, for they have long assumed that American economic and military support would persist. It now seems that assumption cannot so be taken for granted.

And so European leaders have pivoted, using the language of Trump and increasing military spending in a bid to keep him on side. All the while, trying to win him over to a continued support of what many view as an existential conflict for the future of Europe in Ukraine.

Now a generous observer can see the sense in this emerging geopolitical strategy. Vice-President J.D. Vance has even made a Christian case for this way of seeing the world who got into a spat on the matter with British political commentator Rory Stewart.

Before you dismiss it as a nonsense, Vance’s appeal to the idea of ‘ordo amoris’ carries undeniable weight in Christian public theology.

Meaning the ordering of love, Vance’s argument goes back to the thinking of Aquinas who “argued that the right ordering of love consists in first loving God, and then ourselves (in a healthy, non-egocentric sort of way, of course), and then our neighbour.”

The article cited above goes on to say, “The proper ordering of love is to be based on the closeness of the connection between ourselves and the potential recipient of our love, defined in such terms as the closeness of the relationship of that person to ourselves and their physical proximity to us”.

This seems to find some credence too in verses urging the early Church to pay particular attention to the family of believers (Galatians 6:10) Or verses calling for the importance of providing for one’s family (1 Timothy 5-8). Likewise, Old Testament laws concerning welfare and poverty relief seem to take proximity into account in, for example, the concept of the kinsman-redeemer (Ruth 4:8).

Yet, Bishop Graham Tomlin has offered a helpful counter-balance. In his commentary on the dispute, he writes: “Our love does begin with those closest to us. It is entirely natural to love our family, friends and those we encounter every day. Yet to suggest that somehow this is an alternative to the love of the stranger is a mistake.”

He states “The problem comes when we think of love as like a kind of cake. There are only so many slices of cake and you have to be careful who you give them out to because sooner or later they will run out. In this way of thinking, love is a limited commodity where you have to be sparing who you love, because there isn't enough to go round.

Yet divine love is a bit more like fire. When you take a light from a candle and light another candle with it, the first candle is not diminished, but continues to burn brightly. Fire can be passed on from one place to another and spread widely because it's not finite in the way that a cake is.”  

The overflowing and never-ceasing love of God is a powerful challenge to our more natural self-love which seeks any opportunity to prioritise the self, to draw up the bridge, and close ranks. Just consider some of the qualities of God’s love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: love is patient, kind, it does not envy or boast and it always perseveres. In other words, true love in a biblical sense is always ‘other-orientated’.

And for all that there is a clear need to focus on the responsibilities God has placed around us, one sees in the pages of Scripture that the Gospel compels us to go beyond where we might naturally wish to go.

Now, how this applies to a government given limited responsibility with a duty to its people and to God, to punish those who do wrong and commend those who do right is a thorny public theology question on which genuine, God-fearing believers may disagree.

The more obvious ‘compassionate’ choice is for international aid spending, but is that true compassion if aid props up corruption, inequality, and stymies development and security, especially whilst people at home are in great distress? On the counter, the withdrawal of aid spending falls short of that equally Christian instinct to be generous with what one has, and that more will be demanded from those who to whom more has been given.

A challenge perhaps as I finish.

For all that I am largely sympathetic to Vance’s argument, my reading of the world does not point to a direction of travel in which love is being more correctly ‘ordered’, but to a world in which the strong rule over the weak, in which those who have money and power can dictate terms to those who don’t, and in which self-interest reigns.

This I do not place solely at the door of Trump, who I think has understood the naked real-politick of international affairs and is responding in kind. After all Russia, China, and a host of others have long played according to the strong vs weak rule book.

Nevertheless, I do think this is the world in which we live, and as such I welcome Starmer’s commitment to the defence of these isles. Yet I wonder as others have, whether the money could be found from a location that would enable the UK to maintain international generosity, such as the seizure of Russian assets or a tax on extreme wealth.

Whilst I understand the instinct given the times in which we live and the anger at the dysfunction of our state, the widespread support for a reduction in aid I think has little do with a healthy critique of the failures of aid spending and more to the selfish instinct.

Yet, before we bemoan others, perhaps as Christians we ought to look at ourselves first.

After all Stewardship’s generosity report indicates we fall quite a way short of a traditional understanding of giving. Times are hard and we do have responsibility to those closest to us, yet equally as people who have known “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich”, (2 Corinthians 8:9). I would hope we would be at the forefront of calling our nation in practice and in principle to generosity, be they good times or bad.