Poland Set to ‘Quickly Overtake Britain in Military Strength And Income’

Britain is on course to becoming a ‘second tier’ European nation like Spain or Italy due to economic decrease and a weak military that its usefulness to allies, an expert has actually cautioned.

Research professor Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning new report that the U.K. has been paralysed by low financial investment, high tax and misdirected policies that could see it lose its standing as a top-tier middle power at current development rates.

The stark evaluation weighed that successive federal government failures in regulation and attracting financial investment had triggered Britain to lose out on the ‘industries of the future’ courted by developed economies.

‘Britain no longer has the commercial base to logistically sustain a war with a near-peer like Russia for more than 2 months,’ he composed in The Henry Jackson Society’s latest report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report examines that Britain is now on track to fall behind Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, which the main European nation’s armed force will soon surpass the U.K.’s along lines of both manpower and equipment on the existing trajectory.

‘The concern is that as soon as we are downgraded to a 2nd tier middle power, it’s going to be virtually difficult to get back. Nations don’t return from this,’ Dr Ibrahim told MailOnline today.

‘This is going to be sped up decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have strong leaders who have the ability to make the difficult decisions today.’

People pass boarded up stores on March 20, 2024 in Hastings, England

A British soldier reloads his rifle on February 17, 2025 in Smardan, Romania

Staff Sergeant Rai utilizes a radio to speak with Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire variety on Rovajärvi Training Area, throughout Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim invited the federal government’s decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but alerted much deeper, systemic problems threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a worldwide prominent power.

With a weakening commercial base, Britain’s usefulness to its allies is now ‘falling back even second-tier European powers’, he alerted.

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‘Not only is the U.K. anticipated to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, however also a smaller sized army and one that is not able to sustain deployment at scale.’

This is of specific issue at a time of increased geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe’s rapid rearmament task.

‘There are 230 brigades in Ukraine right now, Russian and Ukrainian. Not a single European country to install a single heavy armoured brigade.’

‘This is a massive oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not simply Starmer’s issue, of failing to invest in our military and basically outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,’ he told MailOnline.

‘With the U.S. getting fatigue of offering the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now has to base on its own and the U.K. would have remained in a premium position to actually lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.’

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low efficiency are absolutely nothing new. But Britain is now likewise ‘stopping working to change’ to the Trump administration’s shock to the rules-based worldwide order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

The former consultant to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind in the report that in spite of the ‘weakening’ of the organizations when ‘protected’ by the U.S., Britain is responding by harming the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, ‘appears to be making increasingly pricey gestures’ like the ₤ 9bn handover of the tactical Chagos Islands and opening talks on reparations for Caribbean Slavery.

The surrender of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean has actually been the source of much analysis.

Negotiations between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but an agreement was announced by the Labour federal government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security believe thank alerted at the time that ‘the relocation shows fretting strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government explains as being characterised by terrific power competition’.

Require the U.K. to provide reparations for its historical role in the slave trade were rekindled likewise in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 2 primary battle tank of the British forces during the NATO’s Spring Storm workout in Kilingi-Nomme, Estonia, Wednesday, May 15, 2024

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk speak during a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

Dr Ibhramin evaluated that the U.K. appears to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of threat.

‘We comprehend soldiers and rockets however fail to totally develop of the threat that having no option to China’s supply chains may have on our ability to respond to military aggressiveness.’

He recommended a new security model to ‘enhance the U.K.’s strategic dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and danger assessment, access to unusual earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence by means of financial investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

‘Without immediate policy modifications to reignite development, Britain will become a reduced power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,’ the Foreign Policy columnist stated.

‘As worldwide economic competition magnifies, the U.K. needs to decide whether to accept a bold development agenda or resign itself to irreparable decline.’

Britain’s commitment to the idea of Net Zero might be laudable, but the pursuit will inhibit growth and odd tactical goals, he warned.

‘I am not saying that the environment is not essential. But we just can not afford to do this.

‘We are a nation that has stopped working to purchase our financial, in our energy infrastructure. And we have significant resources at our disposal.’

Nuclear power, including making use of little modular reactors, could be an advantage for the British economy and energy independence.

‘But we have actually stopped working to commercialise them and undoubtedly that’s going to take a substantial amount of time.’

Britain did present a brand-new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour political leaders had insisted was key to finding the cash for costly plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s development company, has been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing companies in your home, entrepreneurs have alerted a wider culture of ‘danger hostility’ in the U.K. stifles investment.

In 2022, earnings for the poorest 14 million individuals fell by 7.5%, per the ONS. Pictured: Waterlooville High Street, Waterlooville, Hants

Undated file image of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually regularly stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian hazard’, permitting the pattern of handled decline.

But the resurgence of autocracies on the world stage threats further undermining the rules-based international order from which Britain ‘benefits immensely’ as a globalised economy.

‘The danger to this order … has actually established partially because of the absence of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to ponder foreign attempts to subvert the acknowledgment of the true prowling threat they position.’

The Trump administration’s warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has actually gone some method towards waking Britain as much as the seriousness of purchasing defence.

But Dr Ibrahim alerted that this is inadequate. He prompted a top-down reform of ‘essentially our whole state’ to bring the ossified state back to life and sustain it.

‘Reforming the well-being state, reforming the NHS, reforming pensions – these are basically bodies that use up tremendous amounts of funds and they’ll just keep growing significantly,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘You might double the NHS spending plan and it will actually not make much of a damage. So all of this will need basic reform and will take a lot of nerve from whomever is in power because it will make them out of favor.’

The report describes suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth immigration policies, and a renewed focus on securing Britain’s role as a leader in high-tech industries, energy security, and international trade.

Vladimir Putin speaks with the governor of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File photo. Britain’s economic stagnation could see it soon end up being a ‘2nd tier’ partner

Boarded-up stores in Blackpool as more than 13,000 shops closed their doors for good in 2024

Britain is not alone in falling behind. The Trump administration’s insistence that Europe pay for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s alarming circumstance after years of slow development and reduced spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research assessed at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial performance has actually been ‘controlled’ because around 2018, highlighting ‘multifaceted difficulties of energy dependency, making vulnerabilities, and moving global trade dynamics’.

There stay extensive discrepancies in between European economies; German deindustrialisation has struck companies hard and forced redundancies, while Spain has actually grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This stays fragile, however, with residents progressively agitated by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of inexpensive accommodation and trapped in low paying seasonal jobs.

The Henry Jackson Society is a diplomacy and nationwide security think thank based in the UK.

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