Britain's Suicidal Obsession with Interventionism
Won’t somebody tell Starmer that Britain can barely field a single brigade?
For nearly a millennium, Britain has lingered on the fringes of European affairs—safely stationed behind the English Channel—yet forever eager to meddle in continental conflicts. Now, as the nation’s military might has shrunk to a mere echo of its imperial past, that interventionist impulse has morphed into a dangerous, self-defeating enterprise.
At the recent Munich Security Conference, Vice President Vance’s call for a stronger European commitment to defence was met with mixed reactions. Barely moments later, Labour leader Keir Starmer seized the opportunity to posit a haphazard proposal: Britain should step up as Ukraine’s guarantor, committing boots on the ground to secure its borders. Presumably, Putin’s legions of veterans are supposed to be terrified of this prospect.
And so, after boldly stepping up to fill the security void in Europe—a responsibility the US has long pressed Europeans to shoulder—Prime Minister Starmer capped his lackluster speech by pleading with President Trump to secure Ukraine against Russian aggression—a role he had literally just offered to fill with ‘European partners’. Perhaps he could benefit from reading The Art of the Deal?
But why does Britain do this? Beyond a superficial admiration for Ukraine as a bulwark against Russia—a so-called enemy the British elite have spent decades vilifying—Starmer is ready to send those few, already questioning their enlistment, into the war-torn Donbas under the guise of righteousness, all whilst ignoring the great many practical concerns.
Critically, with the U.S. having ruled out Ukraine’s bid for NATO membership, Britain would be left stranded—unable to invoke Article 5’s collective defense clause, compelling NATO members to bail her out in a conflict with Russia. Unlike the modest deployments in the Baltics, sending thousands of soldiers to Ukraine would place Britain’s already overstretched forces in a perilous, isolated position.
While the financial cost of such a venture would be enormous, a more immediate concern is even graver: Britain can barely field a single brigade.1 Compounding this, the available ammunition stockpile would last only an estimated ten days in any significant conflict.2
Assuming Britain could somehow muster and sustain a credible force in Ukraine—a force that Russia might take seriously—one must also entertain the not-outlandish scenario in which Russia, sensing America's distancing from Europe, invades Finland, Estonia, or Latvia. This would force a British-led contingent in Ukraine into an awkward withdrawal, effectively abandoning Ukraine to its fate.
Perhaps most alarmingly, the Prime Minister assumes Russia will be cowed rather than amused by the sight of Britain’s pitiful army perched on their vast Ukrainian border. Winston Churchill once said,
“From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than weakness, especially military weakness.”
The looming tête-à-tête between Starmer and President Trump in Washington—set for late February 2025—is already overshadowed by criticism from abroad. Even before boarding his flight, Starmer’s proposal has been lambasted by Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz as “completely premature” and “highly inappropriate” following a fractious Paris summit.3
The deteriorating state of the British military is no secret. Years of cuts and chronic underfunding have hollowed out the armed forces, while recruitment woes continue to deepen the crisis. Seasoned soldiers are leaving in droves, and the Conservatives’ flirtation with national service in 2024 raises inconvenient questions about allegiance. Why should young Britons be expected to fight for the capricious whims of successive governments that advocate for everyone's interests except for those of their own?
Estimates suggest that this intervention would require committing around a third of Britain’s 75,000-strong army—a figure projected to fall further to 70,000 due to persistent recruitment shortfalls.4 For a new generation that narrowly escaped the long shadow of the Global War on Terror, the prospect of a gritty, protracted stint in the Donbas—with no clear end in sight—is both disheartening and dangerous.
As Britain grapples with a hollowed-out military and a diminished global role, the specter of a broader conflict looms ominously. A potential global showdown wouldn’t merely expose strategic miscalculations—it would force Britain to confront its deep-seated societal issues. With many living in what were traditionally crucial manpower pools such as London no longer even considering themselves to be English, the crucible of war would summon a national reckoning on the nation’s fractured identity.5
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-army-armed-forces-ukraine-b2482059.html
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1881728/british-army-run-out-of-ammunition-grant-shapps
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/02/17/germany-rejects-starmer-ukraine-peace-plan/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13959493/army-troops-fall-70000-napoleonic-era-britain.html
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/londoners-identify-as-citizens-of-city-first-before-british-english-or-european-poll-finds-a3654936.html
This idiot of a PM is banking on something all failing leaders have, during times of political weakness and relative peace (as in no full blown world war) in the world - No matter what the conflict, when your troops are initially committed and deployed, there is a swell of national pride for them, that the failed politicians/government quickly transfers onto itself.
It's a reprieve paid for by the taxes of the people and the bodies of their sons, daughters, mothers and fathers - who will die on the battle field.
Even more concerning - if people were paying attentions and gave a shite - those same failed leaders feeding these money laundering meat grinders, are banking on the cranage of their own troops being slaughtered to force the other NATO countries to join in the fun. The soldiers are literally chattel, to be spent in order to keep the operation and corruption going, for profit and power. You at home going broke, starving, being raped and murdered matter less to them, than the soldiers they sent and knew would be decimated on the battlefields.
Trump will tell kweer to F'off, politely, because he knows that no one who give a shite about their own country and people benefit from the continued carnage. And he is correct.
The people in the island kingdom have little time left, to bring their corrupted governments to heel and replace them. This military action while concerning and the acme of stupidity, pales in comparison to the invasion and intentionally implemented destruction of your homelands, cultures and families.
It’s not Britain. It’s a tiny clique of hyper-arrogant, entitled egotists who desperately want to be “at the top table”.
Nothing has changed since this enlightening little episode:
"‘The post-war Labour government spent vastly more on defence than on the welfare state partly in an attempt to give Britain influence. Whilst it was deciding whether the UK should also develop an independent nuclear deterrent, the foreign secretary Ernest Bevin arrived back from demeaning negotiations in Washington. “I never wish to be spoken to like that by an American again,” he said, “Britain must have the bomb”’.
- Michael Portillo (Sunday Times, 3/12/2006: http://www.michaelportillo.co.uk/articles/art_nipress/special.htm)
It’s not peculiar to Labour; all politicians have the disease. They are desperate to strut, posture, and glad-hand with the mighty.
Just run Bevin’s words through your mind again. He wasn’t concerned about the defence of the realm. He wasn’t thinking about the balance of power (or terror). No, he was concerned that an American might talk down to HIM. The great, the wonderful Ernest Bevin.
So the UK got thermonuclear weapons. Which probably could not be used without express permission from Washington - see the irony? And which paint a huge target on the whole country, which Russia could - without exaggeration - render uninhabitable with two or three ICBMs.
And Americans continued to talk down to British politicians right up to the present day. Although, because Starmer gambled wrong and stuck his neck out a very long way, Mr Trump’s people will probably not speak to the British at all.