In his first defence speech since stepping down, Michael has called on the government to set a new, higher target of 2.5 per cent of GDP for defence spending by the end of the Parliament, warning that Britain\u2019s \u201csecurity is at stake\u201d.<\/p>\n
Michael listed the \u201cnew and growing threats\u201d since he took office in July 2014.\u00a0 He highlighted the threats Daesh posed in the Middle East to energy supplies, key shipping lanes and allies in the Gulf as well as inspiring attacks on British and European cities.\u00a0 He also noted the increasing use of cyber by state and non-state actors sheltered by Russia, Iran and North Korea, and the fragility of democracies in Africa.<\/p>\n
Michael warned of the increasing spending gap with Russia.\u00a0 He said Britain \u201chas to do better\u201d than the NATO 2 per cent target in light of increased Russian naval activity, cyber and hybrid insurgence and its proxy war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Michael also reviewed the pressures on the defence budget from the decline in sterling, the need to reprofile nuclear spending, and to deliver efficiency savings earlier.\u00a0 He wants the Treasury to provide immediate relief of \u00a31 billion, in return for removing back-office and inter-service duplication.\u00a0 \u201cEfficiency savings are a continuous process, not a one-off exercise,\u201d he said: \u201call three services need to work much more collaboratively in everything from helicopters to medical and logistics support\u201d.\u00a0 In return, defence spending should rise from 2.1 per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP over the next four years.<\/p>\n
Concluding his speech, Michael called on Britain to reassess its role in the world.\u00a0 \u201cIf we retreat from our vision of a confident, outward-looking Global Britain\u201d, he cautioned, \u201cthen we will drift downwards to being a bit-part world player, a part-time champion of democracy and freedom.\u00a0 That would mean walking away from our international obligations, letting down our allies, and in the end leaving us less safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the contrary, we should be doing more in the world: our troops, planes and ships should be seen on every continent, in every sky, on all seven seas.\u00a0 And our ambition needs a fully-funded budget to match.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read Michael’s speech here:\u00a0Reflections on Defence speech 22nd January 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In his first defence speech since stepping down, Michael has called on the government to set a new, higher target of 2.5 per cent of GDP for defence spending by the end of the Parliament, warning that Britain\u2019s \u201csecurity is at stake\u201d. Michael listed the \u201cnew and growing threats\u201d since he took office in July … Continue reading “Fallon Calls for New Defence Spending Target”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[675,54,750,497,749,751,747,748],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2171,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelfallon.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}