Aircraft
UK Reboots Defense Spending Plan
Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond has laid out a new and more realistic defense procurement plan for the UK. (Photo: UK MoD)
Defense Secretary Phillip Hammond has laid out a new and more realistic defense procurement plan for the UK. (Photo: UK MoD)

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) published its equipment spending plan for the next 10 years for the first time. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond–known in political circles as “spreadsheet Phil”–has made a virtue of cutting unrealistic ambition in UK defense spending plans, following a painful review in 2010 that made substantial force cuts that are still being implemented. But although Hammond described the new equipment plan as “affordable,” it became clear this week that the UK defense budget will not be spared a further round of spending cuts for 2015-16 across all government departments that is now deemed necessary, because of the country’s poor economic performance.