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

Britain is on course to becoming a ‘2nd tier’ European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak armed force that undermines its usefulness to allies, a specialist has actually warned.

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

The stark assessment weighed that succeeding federal government failures in policy and attracting financial investment had actually caused Britain to lose out on the ‘industries of the future’ courted by established economies.

‘Britain no longer has the industrial base to logistically sustain a war with a near-peer like Russia for more than two 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 evaluates that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in terms of per capita income by 2030, and that the main European nation’s armed force will quickly surpass the U.K.’s along lines of both workforce and equipment on the current trajectory.

‘The concern is that once we are devalued to a second tier middle power, it’s going to be almost difficult to return. Nations do not come back from this,’ Dr Ibrahim informed MailOnline today.

‘This is going to be accelerated decrease unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who are able to make the challenging choices 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 teams from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim invited the federal government’s choice to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but warned much deeper, systemic concerns threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as a globally influential power.

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

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‘Not just is the U.K. predicted to have a lower GDP per capita than Poland by 2030, but likewise a smaller army and one that is unable to sustain deployment at scale.’

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

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

‘This is a massive oversight on the part of subsequent governments, not just Starmer’s issue, of failing to purchase our military and essentially contracting out security to the United States and NATO,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘With the U.S. getting tiredness of supplying the security umbrella to Europe, Europe now needs to base on its own and the U.K. would have been in a premium position to really lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.’

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low efficiency are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also working to adjust’ to the Trump administration’s shock to the rules-based international order, said Dr Ibrahim.

The former consultant to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the ‘weakening’ of the institutions once ‘secured’ by the U.S., Britain is responding by hurting the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, ‘seems to be making progressively expensive gestures’ like the ₤ ۹bn handover of the strategic Chagos Islands and opening talks on reparations for Caribbean Slavery.

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

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

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security believe thank cautioned at the time that ‘the move demonstrates fretting tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government explains as being characterised by great power competitors’.

Require the U.K. to supply reparations for its historic role in the slave trade were rekindled also in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a conference of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the program.

An Opposition 2 main fight 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 throughout an interview in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

‘We comprehend soldiers and missiles however fail to completely envisage the threat that having no alternative to China’s supply chains may have on our capability to respond to military aggressiveness.’

He recommended a brand-new security model to ‘improve the U.K.’s strategic dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk evaluation, 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 growth, Britain will become a reduced power, reliant on more powerful allies and vulnerable to foreign browbeating,’ the Foreign Policy columnist stated.

‘As worldwide economic competition magnifies, the U.K. needs to decide whether to welcome a vibrant development agenda or resign itself to permanent decrease.’

Britain’s commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be laudable, however the pursuit will hinder growth and obscure tactical objectives, he warned.

‘I am not stating that the environment is not essential. But we simply can not manage to do this.

‘We are a country that has failed to buy our financial, in our energy facilities. And we have considerable resources at our disposal.’

Nuclear power, consisting of making use of little modular reactors, might be a benefit for the British economy and energy self-reliance.

‘But we’ve stopped working to commercialise them and undoubtedly that’s going to take a considerable quantity of time.’

Britain did present a brand-new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had actually insisted was essential to finding the money for expensive plant-building tasks.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s innovation firm, has been declared for its grants for small energy-producing business in the house, entrepreneurs have cautioned a larger culture of ‘risk hostility’ in the U.K. suppresses financial investment.

In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million people 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 consistently stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, permitting the pattern of handled decrease.

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

‘The danger to this order … has actually developed partly since of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to deliberate foreign efforts to subvert the recognition of the real prowling risk they posture.’

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

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is inadequate. He urged a top-down reform of ‘essentially our entire 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 take up immense amounts of funds and they’ll just keep growing substantially,’ he informed MailOnline.

‘You might double the NHS budget and it will truly not make much of a damage. So all of this will require fundamental reform and will take a great deal of courage from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them unpopular.’

The report details recommendations in extreme tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a renewed concentrate on protecting Britain’s role as a leader in modern industries, energy security, and international trade.

Vladimir Putin talks with the governor of Arkhangelsk area Alexander Tsybulsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File picture. Britain’s economic stagnancy might see it quickly become a ‘2nd tier’ partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of in 2015 that Euro location economic performance has been ‘controlled’ because around 2018, highlighting ‘multifaceted difficulties of energy reliance, producing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade dynamics’.

There stay profound disparities between European economies; German deindustrialisation has actually hit organizations difficult and forced redundancies, while Spain has actually grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This stays vulnerable, nevertheless, with locals progressively upset by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of inexpensive lodging and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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