UK Military Spend to Be Overtaken by India

[thestringshredder]

The size of Britain’s military budget is set to be surpassed by India’s in the next few years, a development that would see the United Kingdom spend less on defense than its former colonial subject, a defense analysis firm said Wednesday.

HIS Jane’s said that projections show that Britain — once No. 4 in terms of global military spending — had fallen into fifth place behind Russia this year and is due to slip into sixth place behind in India in 2017.

“The U.K.’s standing is not a strong as the public perceive it to be,” Ben Moores, an IHS Jane’s analyst, said in a statement. Britain, like many other European nations, has cut defense spending in a bid to deal with burdensome debts even as developing nations boost their military budgets to catch up with Western powers.

The Sun newspaper, Britain’s top-selling tabloid, said the figures make a mockery of U.K. leader David Cameron’s recent assurances to the military that, “we have the fourth largest budget in the world and we have some of the finest armed forces in the world. While I’m prime minster that is the way it will always stay.”

In a statement, Britain’s Ministry of Defense disputed some of Jane’s figures and described the prediction that India would soon overtake its former imperial master as “baseless speculation.”

But independent analysis of budgets, growth forecasts, and inflation figures suggests that Jane’s prediction was well founded, according to Samuel Perlo-Freeman, whose Stockholm International Peace Research Institute tracks governments’ defense spending.

Perlo-Freeman confirmed that Britain had fallen behind Russia, and said his analysis showed that India’s defense budget — now pegged at $46.9 billion compared to the $49.3 billion projected for Britain in 2015-16 — would only have to grow by about 6 percent in nominal dollar terms to overtake that of its former ruler.

“Given that they have projected real GDP growth rates (from the IMF) of 5.7 percent this year, 6.3 percent next year, and 6.6 percent in 2015, this would seem fairly likely,” he said in an email.

Inflation, currency fluctuations, and a fall in military spending could all complicate the picture, but Perlo-Freeman said it was still reasonable to assume that the two nations’ defense budgets would be neck-and-neck by 2016.

In its statement, the British military insisted it wasn’t the size of a nation’s defense budget that mattered.

“Ultimately defense spending can only be judged by the quality of the product, not what is suggested in a theoretical league table,” it said.

Link - UK Military Spend to Be Overtaken by India | idrw.org

 

[Manindra]

Good news or bad news, I don't know

 

[Psyops]

Just look at the way they are describing India and Britain here

"Former colonial subject", "Former imperial master", "Former ruler".

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

Just look at the way they are describing India and Britain here

"Former colonial subject", "Former imperial master", "Former ruler".

Same for just about the bulk of the world carribean,pak,aus,canada and all commonwealth.Even at a time america.
China on the other hand was not only britain but all of europe and japan's *****.

 

[Bhai Zakir]

Just look at the way they are describing India and Britain here

"Former colonial subject", "Former imperial master", "Former ruler".

They do the same for china, hong kong, pak etc. etc.


--------------------------------

India's military budget is small compares to the present requirements.

 

[Gautam]

Britain has good neighbors may be

 

[Dash]

Just look at the way they are describing India and Britain here

"Former colonial subject", "Former imperial master", "Former ruler".

Just look at how they are describing India TODAY...

 

[rcrmj]

what we have is that in 2012 GDP in nominal
U.K was $2.4 trillion with 60 million population
India was $1.8 trillion (decreased even compared to 2011, we all know why) with 1.1 billion dead poors

in order to reach that mark it will take india 5 years with U.K's economy will stand still and india with constant 6% on GDP but no depreciation of its fragile Rupee``

so the funny implication tells us that a primitive factor driven society is spending more money for defence in proportion than a developed wealthy country who has global military presence```the conclusion is either indian government officials are cynical or it is just indians warmongering nature`

 

[janon]

what we have is that in 2012 GDP in nominal
U.K was $2.4 trillion with 60 million population
India was $1.8 trillion (decreased even compared to 2011, we all know why) with 1.1 billion dead poors

in order to reach that mark it will take india 5 years with U.K's economy will stand still and india with constant 6% on GDP but no depreciation of its fragile Rupee``

so the funny implication tells us that a primitive factor driven society is spending more money for defence in proportion than a developed wealthy country who has global military presence```the conclusion is either indian government officials are cynical or it is just indians warmongering nature`

You missed another, more obvious conclusion. That the UK can ride on the coattail of NATO and the big American war machine, which spends 700 billion dollars a year, and has bases in every corner of the globe. Britain does not intend to fight a war alone, it will depend on the US and other NATO partners for warfighting assets. India does not have that luxury/dependency (whichever way you want to look at it). We have to fight our own wars. Nobody is going to provide us airlifters and AEWACs and JSTArs and SLCMs during a war. So India naturally has to spend more than Britain.

Another factor you missed is that India has more formidable threats than Britain. Pakistan has one of the largest militaries on earth, and by their own admission, want to steal a state of ours. And of course there is china on the other side. Britain sits in the middle of a sea which serves as a defensive moat, and has no hostile neighbours.

The size of India is 14 times bigger than Britain's. and therefore we need a larger military to defend every inch of it from the above mentioned hostile powers. Consequently, the size of our army is ten times bigger than britain's, and the air and naval forces are also considerably larger.

In other words, India currently spends less on defence than Britain, and yet maintains a military several times larger. Very ingeneous of us, wouldn't you say?

Now maybe you would like to revise that last sentence based on these new revelations. That we don't have a NATO or Uncle Sam to watch our backsides, and that we actually face real threats, unlike Britain. You might also want to recheck your statement that India has 1.1 billion dead poor, but I will not insist on that - because this is PDF, and when Chinese or Pakistanis are given an explanation to change their view about a military affair, usually they dogmatically talk about 800 million or 900 million or 1.1 billion poor in India as their only retort. PDF wouldn't be the same, if we insisted on you rechecking that particular bit of nonsense.

 

[rcrmj]

You missed another, more obvious conclusion. That the UK can ride on the coattail of NATO and the big American war machine, which spends 700 billion dollars a year, and has bases in every corner of the globe. Britain does not intend to fight a war alone, it will depend on the US and other NATO partners for warfighting assets. India does not have that luxury/dependency (whichever way you want to look at it). We have to fight our own wars. Nobody is going to provide us airlifters and AEWACs and JSTArs and SLCMs during a war. So India naturally has to spend more than Britain.

Another factor you missed is that India has more formidable threats than Britain. Pakistan has one of the largest militaries on earth, and by their own admission, want to steal a state of ours. And of course there is china on the other side. Britain sits in the middle of a sea which serves as a defensive moat, and has no hostile neighbours.

The size of India is 14 times bigger than Britain's. and therefore we need a larger military to defend every inch of it from the above mentioned hostile powers. Consequently, the size of our army is ten times bigger than britain's, and the air and naval forces are also considerably larger.

In other words, India currently spends less on defence than Britain, and yet maintains a military several times larger. Very ingeneous of us, wouldn't you say?

Now maybe you would like to revise that last sentence based on these new revelations. That we don't have a NATO or Uncle Sam to watch our backsides, and that we actually face real threats, unlike Britain. You might also want to recheck your statement that India has 1.1 billion dead poor, but I will not insist on that - because this is PDF, and when Chinese or Pakistanis are given an explanation to change their view about a military affair, usually they dogmatically talk about 800 million or 900 million or 1.1 billion poor in India as their only retort. PDF wouldn't be the same, if we insisted on you rechecking that particular bit of nonsense.

you have your point, but I just stated the obvious which I believe that India is wasting money on defence, you chose Pakistan and China to be your enemy to put boldly, its never too late to solve problems with others when you become dominant and strong in economy.

want to add``apart from boastings from india media, india looks not like going anywhere every time you visit there, some indian colleagues said that's because I get use to rapid development in China``hell, I lived in U.K for more than 10 years, I feel more stuff going on in London than in India

p.s for the U.K tagged alone with U.S in global military presences part, just wanna you know it is not a free ride for the U.K

 

[Hellraiser007]

you have your point, but I just stated the obvious which I believe that India is wasting money on defence, you chose Pakistan and China to be your enemy to put boldly, its never too late to solve problems with others when you become dominant and strong in economy.

want to add``apart from boastings from india media, india looks not like going anywhere every time you visit there, some indian colleagues said that's because I get use to rapid development in China``hell, I lived in U.K for more than 10 years, I feel more stuff going on in London than in India

The growth story will be over soon in China don't worry, China intentionally reducing infra development. On the other hand India is about to invest 1 Trillion in next 5 years only on infra.

India is emerging as manufacturing base with the investments from Japan, South Korea and other western countries. India has also entering in Asean block for trade connectivity.

 

[IND151]

It was inevitable

@post no.9> right explanation

 

[Pulsar]

India was $1.8 trillion (decreased even compared to 2011, we all know why) with 1.1 billion dead poors.

Why can't the Hans learn to write proper English? What the devil is 'dead poors'? Can someone help me out here?

Secondly, you say that India has 1.1 billion 'dead poors'??? The population of India is 1.1 billion. And that includes me. I'm neither poor nor dead, so you're dead wrong about the figure of 1.1 billion being 'dead poors'! QED!

 

[rohitshubham]

ok here's the thing.......
the article clearly states that UK is losing his position because it's cutting his defense budget . it's not only about India increasing his budget but also about the cutting of budget from the UK's side . so, it will lose it's position as military spender to India, hence the progress will be relative.
Moreover with all due respect to the Chinese members here on the forum who are suggesting us to spend more on people's elevation that it's a fact that India is no where compared to levels of development to UK or as a matter of fact even China but it's also a fact that no matter how developed, china is still nothing compared to UK(whether you accept it or not) but china still has the 2nd largest military expenditure in the world, so by going with your logic China should also decrease the budget so please don't cry foul here , military expenditures may be largely based on economy but not solely based on it, there are always other factors which determine the defense budget of the country like hostility with neighbors and size.

 

[DeathInvader]

They already have good infrastructure and state of art equipments that wont need upgradation for next 10 years or more maybe!
That might be just the basic cost of maintaining their armed forces. They are not subjected to border violations and have provocative neighbors unlike India