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

Britain is on course to ending up being a ‘second tier’ European country like Spain or Italy due to economic decline and a weak military that weakens its effectiveness to allies, a specialist has warned.

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

The plain evaluation weighed that succeeding government failures in policy and bring in financial investment had caused Britain to lose out on the ‘markets of the future’ courted by developed economies.

‘Britain no longer has the industrial 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 newest report, Strategic Prosperity: The Case for Economic Growth as a National Security Priority.

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

‘The concern is that once we are downgraded to a second tier middle power, it’s going to be virtually difficult to return. Nations don’t return 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 difficult decisions right now.’

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

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

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

Dr Ibrahim invited the federal government’s choice to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, however 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 behind even second-tier European powers’, he cautioned.

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‘Not just 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 unable to sustain release at scale.’

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

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

‘This is an enormous oversight on the part of subsequent federal governments, not simply Starmer’s problem, of stopping working to invest in our military and essentially outsourcing security to the United States and NATO,’ he informed MailOnline.

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

Slowed defence costs and patterns of low performance are absolutely nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also ‘failing to change’ to the Trump administration’s shock to the rules-based global order, said Dr Ibrahim.

The previous advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review noted in the report that in spite of the ‘weakening’ of the organizations as soon as ‘protected’ by the U.S., Britain is reacting by damaging the last vestiges of its military might and economic power.

The U.K., he stated, ‘appears to be making significantly costly 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 scrutiny.

Negotiations 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 shows stressing strategic ineptitude in a world that the U.K. government refers to as being characterised by excellent power competition’.

Require the U.K. to provide reparations for its historic function in the slave trade were revived likewise in October last year, though Sir Keir Starmer stated ahead of a meeting of Commonwealth nations that reparations would not be on the program.

An Opposition 2 main fight tank of the British forces throughout 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 a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

‘We comprehend soldiers and rockets but stop working to fully develop of the danger that having no option to China’s supply chains might have on our ability to react to military aggressiveness.’

He recommended a new security design to ‘improve the U.K.’s tactical dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and risk assessment, access to rare 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 instant policy changes to reignite development, Britain will end up being a diminished power, on more powerful allies and susceptible to foreign browbeating,’ the Diplomacy columnist said.

‘As global economic competition magnifies, the U.K. must decide whether to welcome a vibrant growth agenda or resign itself to irreversible decline.’

Britain’s commitment to the concept of Net Zero may be admirable, however the pursuit will prevent development and odd tactical objectives, he alerted.

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

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

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

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

Britain did present a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists consisting of Labour politicians had actually firmly insisted was essential to discovering the cash for pricey plant-building projects.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s development firm, has been heralded for its grants for little energy-producing companies in the house, entrepreneurs have actually warned a broader culture of ‘threat aversion’ in the U.K. suppresses financial 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 photo of The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) or Chagos Islands

Britain has consistently stopped working to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian threat’, allowing the trend of managed decline.

But the resurgence of autocracies on the world phase dangers even more weakening the rules-based worldwide order from which Britain ‘advantages immensely’ as a globalised economy.

‘The hazard to this order … has actually established partially because of the lack of a robust will to safeguard it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to overturn the recognition of the real prowling danger they pose.’

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

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is insufficient. He prompted a top-down reform of ‘basically 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 tremendous amounts of funds and they’ll just keep growing significantly,’ he told MailOnline.

‘You could double the NHS budget and it will really not make much of a dent. So all of this will require fundamental 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 outlines recommendations in extreme tax reform, pro-growth migration policies, and a renewed concentrate on protecting Britain’s function as a leader in modern markets, energy security, and international trade.

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

File image. Britain’s economic stagnancy might see it quickly end up being a ‘2nd tier’ partner

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

Britain is not alone in falling back. The Trump administration’s persistence that Europe pay for its own defence has cast fresh light on the Old Continent’s alarming scenario after decades of sluggish growth and minimized spending.

The Centre for Economic Policy Research evaluated at the end of in 2015 that Euro area economic efficiency has actually been ‘subdued’ given that around 2018, illustrating ‘multifaceted obstacles of energy reliance, making vulnerabilities, and moving global trade characteristics’.

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

This stays vulnerable, however, with locals increasingly upset by the viewed pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of budget-friendly 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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