Rebecca Corn

24th November 2007

The highly emotive issue of defence funding has been proffered by the Tory party in an opportunist attempt to pull on the nation’s heart strings by connecting the creation of a permanent defence secretary with the physical safety of our armed forces we have committed abroad. The politically riskier questions of the validity of current and planned military commitments, as well as our spending on military technology such as trident remain un-tackled in an unashamedly simplistic tried and tested American tactic - but surely we are more savvy than that?

 

Yet again the intelligence of UK citizenry is undermined as the political message becomes less nuanced and more reactionary. This is surely an attempt at emotional blackmail, because it is insulting to think that we don't realise that an increase in defence spending will either mean an increase in taxation or a decrease in health and education spending? Surely too, we realise that an increased defence budget would be sucked up in Cold War reminiscent technological advance? How will we effectively tackle climate change if we invest the biggest percentage of our budgets increasingly more effective ways to kill our fellow man instead? Only a paradigm shift towards prioritising the human experience both home and abroad, which encompasses a real focus on the value of the lives of our citizens will truly create a sustainable framework in which to protect our soldiers' lives, as well as everyone else’s. We must value life, holistically. Yes on the front line, but also in nursing homes, in the job queues, in the classroom, and in the A&E waiting room, the lives of our children now and in the future, and the lives of humans on the other side of the line too.

 

Only a human experience centred approach would connect the nonsensical spending habits of a defence focused nation and see the detrimental effect such an approach has on domestic health and education systems, and any hope of a progressive approach to the environment. Spiralling defence budgets have to be funded from somewhere. Tax payers money already goes toward Trident, the British public simply cannot afford to invest more money in machismo and political bravado.

 

Only a human experience centred approach would, after doing these sums, not commit valuable servicemen's lives to conflicts we should not be a part of. These are lessons of the world wars, of Vietnam, and by no means new. Only a shift to a holistic human view would, in realising that our current level of commitments abroad in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond is unsustainable, decide that the risk is too much. We do the sums ourselves. No matter what we said in the pub last night, doing the accounts on the kitchen table this morning we ask can we afford that holiday, or to buy that flash suit, or swanky motor before paying the gas bill, buying the kids' school uniform, or sorting out grandma? We simply can't without over stretching our commitments and reducing the security of the most basic provisions. In the realm of 'defence', the average citizen, no matter how much we are emotionally blackmailed, cannot afford our offensives into brinkmanship. We must learn the lessons of the Cold War and move away from protecting our image as a great military power and instead devote political energy into the protection of the basic human needs of those we otherwise risk by doing so. Perhaps it is time to ask the question also, how much of a terrorist threat is there in Sweden? ..and then, how good is the healthcare?