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 armed force that undermines its effectiveness to allies, a specialist has actually cautioned.

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

The plain assessment weighed that succeeding government failures in policy and drawing in investment had triggered 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 examines that Britain is now on track to fall behind Poland in regards to per capita earnings by 2030, which the central European country’s military will quickly go beyond the U.K.’s along lines of both and devices on the existing trajectory.

‘The problem is that when we are reduced to a second tier middle power, it’s going to be practically impossible to return. Nations do not come back from this,’ Dr Ibrahim informed MailOnline today.

‘This is going to be accelerated decline unless we nip this in the bud and have vibrant leaders who are able to make the difficult decisions today.’

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

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

Staff Sergeant Rai utilizes a radio to speak to Archer crews from 19th Regiment Royal Artillery during a live fire range on Rovajärvi Training Area, during Exercise Dynamic Front, Finland

Dr Ibrahim welcomed the federal government’s decision to increase defence costs to 2.5% of GDP from April 2027, but cautioned much deeper, systemic problems threaten to irreversibly knock the U.K. from its position as an internationally influential power.

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

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

This is of particular issue at a time of increased geopolitical stress, with Britain pegged to be amongst the leading forces in Europe’s fast rearmament task.

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

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

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

Slowed defence spending and patterns of low performance are absolutely nothing brand-new. But Britain is now also ‘stopping working to change’ to the Trump administration’s jolt to the rules-based global order, stated Dr Ibrahim.

The former advisor to the 2021 Integrated Defence and Security Review kept in mind in the report that in spite of the ‘weakening’ of the organizations as soon as ‘secured’ by the U.S., Britain is reacting by damaging the last vestiges of its military may and financial power.

The U.K., he said, ‘seems to be making progressively expensive 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 analysis.

Negotiations in between the U.K. and Mauritius were begun by the Tories in 2022, but an arrangement was revealed 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 relocation shows fretting tactical ineptitude in a world that the U.K. federal government explains as being characterised by fantastic power competitors’.

Require the U.K. to supply reparations for its historic role in the servant trade were revived likewise in October in 2015, though Sir Keir Starmer said ahead of a conference of Commonwealth countries that reparations would not be on the program.

A Challenger 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 a press conference in Warsaw, Poland, January 17, 2025

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

‘We understand soldiers and rockets but fail to completely envisage the danger that having no alternative to China’s supply chains may have on our capability to react to military hostility.’

He suggested a new security design to ‘enhance the U.K.’s tactical dynamism’ based upon a rethink of migratory policy and danger assessment, access to unusual earth minerals in a market controlled by China, and the prioritisation of energy security and self-reliance through investment in North Sea gas and a long-overdue rethink on atomic energy.

‘Without instant policy modifications to reignite development, Britain will end up being a lessened power, reliant on stronger allies and vulnerable to foreign coercion,’ the Diplomacy writer said.

‘As international financial competitors heightens, the U.K. should choose whether to welcome a vibrant development program or resign itself to irreparable decline.’

Britain’s dedication to the idea of Net Zero may be laudable, however the pursuit will inhibit development and odd tactical objectives, he alerted.

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

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

Nuclear power, including making use of small modular reactors, could be a benefit for the British economy and energy independence.

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

Britain did present a new financing design for nuclear power stations in 2022, which lobbyists including Labour politicians had insisted was key to finding the cash for costly plant-building jobs.

While Innovate UK, Britain’s innovation agency, has actually been declared for its grants for small energy-producing business in the house, business owners have actually cautioned a broader culture of ‘risk aversion’ in the U.K. suppresses financial investment.

In 2022, incomes for the poorest 14 million individuals 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 consistently failed to acknowledge the looming ‘authoritarian risk’, allowing the trend of managed decline.

But the renewal of autocracies on the world phase threats further weakening the rules-based worldwide order from which Britain ‘benefits tremendously’ as a globalised economy.

‘The threat to this order … has established partly since of the absence of a robust will to protect it, owing in part to deliberate foreign attempts to overturn the acknowledgment of the true prowling danger they present.’

The Trump administration’s alerting to NATO allies in Europe that they will need to do their own bidding has gone some method towards waking Britain approximately the urgency of investing in defence.

But Dr Ibrahim warned that this is insufficient. He prompted 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 quantities of funds and they’ll just keep growing substantially,’ 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 basic reform and will take a lot of nerve from whomever is in power since it will make them unpopular.’

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 industries, energy security, and international trade.

Vladimir Putin speaks with the governor of Arkhangelsk region Alexander Tsybulsky during their conference at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025

File image. Britain’s financial stagnancy might see it soon become a ‘2nd tier’ partner

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

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

The Centre for Economic Policy Research examined at the end of last year that Euro location economic performance has been ‘suppressed’ considering that around 2018, showing ‘diverse difficulties of energy dependency, manufacturing vulnerabilities, and shifting international trade characteristics’.

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

This remains fragile, nevertheless, with locals increasingly upset by the perceived pandering to foreign visitors as they are evaluated of affordable lodging and caught in low paying seasonal jobs.

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

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