Britain’s defence spending row has moved beyond headline budget numbers, after Al Carns’ criticism of MoD waste exposed a deeper fight over drones, procurement priorities and NATO credibility.

The UK’s defence spending row has deepened into a wider argument over whether Britain is modernising fast enough for the wars it may have to deter, after former armed forces minister Al Carns accused the Ministry of Defence of “unbelievable” waste and inefficiency.

In an interview with The Guardian, Carns said the MoD remained burdened by bureaucracy and legacy programmes, and argued that money tied up in older equipment should be redirected toward more innovative systems. His intervention came after John Healey resigned as defence secretary over the government’s Defence Investment Plan, turning a budget dispute into a public test of Britain’s readiness narrative.

The timing matters. The government says the Defence Investment Plan will be published before July’s NATO summit in Ankara. Britain is one of Europe’s core military powers, a nuclear state, a major Ukraine supporter and a country often expected by eastern allies to help lead the European pillar of NATO. A public rupture over spending and procurement therefore carries consequences beyond Westminster.

From spending level to spending quality

The first phase of the row focused on money: whether the Treasury was giving defence enough funding, and whether Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government could credibly move toward NATO’s higher spending target over the next decade.

Carns’ intervention shifts the argument. His criticism is not only that defence needs more money. It is that the money Britain already spends may not be buying enough relevant capability. That is a more difficult problem for the government because it cannot be solved only by announcing a higher percentage of GDP.

The Guardian reported Carns’ criticism of sunk costs and legacy programmes, including the argument that some armoured-vehicle spending should be reconsidered in favour of systems better suited to modern warfare. The political significance is clear: if the MoD is seen as inefficient, the Treasury will resist writing larger cheques; if the Treasury restricts funding, the armed forces will argue that modernisation is impossible.

This is the trap now facing the UK. It must increase capability while convincing taxpayers, allies and industry that extra money will not disappear into slow procurement cycles and outdated force structures.

Ukraine has changed the benchmark

The row also reflects a deeper shift in how European armies understand future warfare. Ukraine has shown the operational value of drones, electronic warfare, dispersed production, rapid software adaptation and lower-cost strike systems that can be produced and modified quickly.

That does not make traditional platforms irrelevant. Tanks, artillery, ships and aircraft still matter. But Ukraine has made it harder for governments to defend procurement plans that look slow, rigid or poorly connected to battlefield evidence. Modernisation is no longer a slogan. It is a test of whether defence ministries can buy at the speed of technological change.

For the UK, this creates an uncomfortable comparison. Britain wants to present itself as a leader in European security. Yet its own defence debate is now asking whether its investment plan is sufficiently weighted toward drones, air defence, munitions, resilience, industrial surge capacity and command systems rather than inherited programmes that consume large budgets.

NATO credibility before Ankara

The Ankara summit gives the dispute an alliance dimension. NATO allies will not only listen to Britain’s promises; they will look for evidence that London can translate spending commitments into deployable capability.

That matters especially to eastern European allies. Countries closer to Russia have become less patient with rhetorical commitments that are not matched by stockpiles, readiness, air defence, logistics and industrial capacity. Britain remains important to NATO, but importance must be sustained by force generation, not reputation alone.

The Guardian’s briefing on 16 June framed the issue as a wider “rhetoric-to-reality” problem for Starmer’s government, noting questions over Britain’s ability to meet NATO’s 3.5% core defence-spending objective by 2035 while current plans move more modestly in the near term. That gap is precisely what allies will watch.

If the Defence Investment Plan appears underfunded, Britain will face criticism over ambition. If it appears funded but unreformed, it will face criticism over efficiency. Either way, the government must show that it understands the war in Ukraine as a procurement lesson, not only a strategic warning.

The industrial question

The spending row also has an industrial dimension. Defence companies need predictable demand, but governments also need industry to deliver faster and at scale. A plan that protects legacy programmes without building capacity in drones, missiles, air defence and munitions would not meet the moment. A plan that chases every new technology without sustainment and integration would be just as weak.

The UK therefore faces a familiar European problem: how to balance existing platforms, new systems and industrial capacity while budgets remain politically contested. The answer cannot be simply “more drones” or “more tanks”. It must be a force design that matches credible threats and can be produced, maintained and replaced during a long crisis.

Defence Matters previously examined how Britain’s spending dispute was becoming a NATO readiness test. The latest Carns intervention makes that test sharper. The question is no longer only whether Britain will spend enough. It is whether Britain can spend differently enough.

That distinction will matter in Ankara. NATO’s European members are being asked to carry more of the burden for deterrence. Britain wants to be counted among the leaders of that effort. To do so, it must show that its defence plan is not merely larger, but more relevant to the kind of war Europe is now watching in Ukraine.