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

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

Research teacher Dr Azeem Ibrahim OBE concluded in a damning new report that the U.K. has actually 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 present growth rates.

The plain assessment weighed that succeeding government failures in regulation and bring in investment had actually caused Britain to lose out on the ‘industries of the future’ courted by established 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 wrote in The Henry Jackson Society’s most current report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

The report examines that Britain is now on track to fall back Poland in regards to per capita income by 2030, which the main European country’s military will soon go beyond the U.K.’s along lines of both manpower and devices on the existing trajectory.

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

‘This is going to be accelerated decline unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who have the ability to make the tough choices right now.’

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

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

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

Dr Ibrahim invited the government’s decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however alerted much deeper, systemic issues threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as an internationally influential power.

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

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

This is of particular issue at a time of heightened geopolitical tension, with Britain pegged to be among the leading forces in Europe’s fast rearmament job.

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

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

‘With the U.S. getting fatigue of providing 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 in fact lead European defence. But none of the European nations are.’

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low productivity are nothing brand-new. But Britain is now likewise ‘failing to adjust’ to the Trump administration’s shock to the rules-based global order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

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

The U.K., he said, ‘seems to be making progressively pricey gestures’ like the ₤ 9bn 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, but an arrangement was announced by the Labour government last October.

Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think thank cautioned at the time that ‘the relocation shows worrying tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government refers to as being characterised by terrific power competition’.

Calls for the U.K. to provide reparations for its historic role in the servant trade were revived also in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the agenda.

An Opposition 2 main fight tank of the British forces during the NATO’s Spring Storm exercise 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. appears to be acting against its own security interests in part due to a narrow understanding of risk.

‘We comprehend soldiers and missiles but stop working to totally develop of the danger that having no option to China’s supply chains may have on our capability to react to military aggression.’

He suggested a new security model to ‘improve the U.K.’s strategic dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and danger evaluation, access to rare earth minerals in a market dominated by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and independence via investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on nuclear energy.

‘Without immediate policy changes to reignite growth, Britain will become a decreased power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,’ the Foreign Policy writer said.

‘As international financial competition magnifies, the U.K. needs to choose whether to embrace a strong development program or resign itself to irreparable decline.’

Britain’s dedication to the idea of Net Zero may be laudable, but the pursuit will hinder growth and obscure strategic objectives, he alerted.

‘I am not saying that the environment is trivial. But we simply can not pay for to do this.

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

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

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

Britain did present a brand-new funding model for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour political leaders had actually firmly insisted was key to discovering the cash for costly plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s innovation company, has actually been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing business at home, entrepreneurs have actually alerted a wider culture of ‘danger hostility’ in the U.K. suppresses 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 picture of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has actually regularly failed to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, allowing the pattern of handled decline.

But the revival of autocracies on the world phase dangers further undermining the rules-based worldwide order from which Britain ‘benefits enormously’ as a globalised economy.

‘The risk to this order … has actually developed partially due to the fact that of the lack of a robust will to defend it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to overturn the acknowledgment of the true hiding threat they pose.’

The Trump administration’s warning to NATO allies in Europe that they will have to do their own bidding has gone some way towards waking Britain up to the urgency of buying defence.

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is not enough. He prompted a top-down reform of ‘basically 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 essentially bodies that use up enormous amounts of funds and they’ll just keep growing substantially,’ he told MailOnline.

‘You could double the NHS spending plan and it will really not make much of a damage. So all of this will require essential reform and will take a lot of courage from whomever is in power due to the fact that it will make them undesirable.’

The report lays out suggestions in extreme tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a restored focus on protecting Britain’s role as a leader in modern industries, energy security, and international trade.

Vladimir Putin talks to the guv of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky throughout their conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File image. Britain’s financial stagnation could see it quickly 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 persistence that Europe spend for its own defence has actually cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s dire situation after decades of sluggish growth and decreased costs.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro location financial performance has actually been ‘controlled’ given that around 2018, showing ‘complex difficulties of energy reliance, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and shifting global trade dynamics’.

There remain profound discrepancies between European economies; German deindustrialisation has struck companies tough and forced redundancies, while Spain has grown in line with its tourism-focused economy.

This remains delicate, however, with residents progressively agitated by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are priced out of economical lodging and caught in low paying seasonal tasks.

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

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