Obama's blunt warning to David Cameron

Barack Obama has told David Cameron that Britain must stick to its Nato spending target, or set a damaging example to its European allies.

In a blunt warning not to cut the UK defence budget, the US President personally insisted to the Prime Minister that a failure to hit the 2 per cent of GDP spending target would undermine the military alliance.

The American President made the direct appeal during private meetings when the Prime Minister visited Washington last month.

Mr Obama’s intervention highlights growing US concern that its main military partner will imminently fall below the alliance target,and Britain’s Armed Forces face more austerity cuts after the election.

Military leaders fear the Treasury will try to claw back a fresh £1 billion a year from the Ministry of Defence budget to try to fill Britain’s stubborn budget deficit.

Diplomatic sources said the British ambassador to Washington was now facing an intense lobbying campaign to get the Government to commit to the 2 per cent spending level.

One source said Mr Obama had warned the Prime Minister last month that “if Britain doesn’t spend 2 per cent on defence, then no one in Europe will.”

Britain is one of only four Nato members currently hitting the target and David Cameron used last year’s Wales summit to lecture Nato members about the need to spend more.

Yet he has refused to commit Britain to the target beyond next year and defence spending is forecast to drop to around 1.7 per cent by 2020, even without further cuts. The Ministry of Defence budget is now also seen as the most vulnerable in Whitehall to a Treasury raid, after the main parties said they would protect spending on aid, pensions and the NHS.

^{A British Army sniper in Helmand province, last year (MoD)}

One American official confirmed Washington had been applying pressure at a “high-level”.

He said: “We’ve been saying, 'We are worried that you are not going to hit two per cent, after all you said in Wales.'”

There are growing calls among backbench MPs from both sides of the Commons for the Government to protect defence spending.

Earlier this week two former defence ministers said it would be “a fundamental and unforgivable error” to underestimate the security risks and global instability Britain now faces.

^{RAF Tornado jets (MoD)}

Kathleen McInnis, a US defence policy expert at Chatham House, said Mr Cameron’s failure to commit to the spending target “had raised eyebrows across Washington and across Europe as well.”

She said: “This is a critically important issue for the US and it is understandably concerned that the UK may fall below the target, especially after articulating so clearly in Wales how important it was.”

America is increasingly frustrated that it is shouldering too much of the burden for defending Europe and wants European nations to “step up to the plate”.

“This is a clear signal that the UK isn’t going to”, she said.

The rise of the Islamic State and Russian aggression in Ukraine have left the world more dangerous than when the last cost-cutting defence review was held in 2010, military leaders have warned the Government.

^{British Army Warrior fighting vehicles on exercise last year in Poland, in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine (MoD)}

They are calling for a thorough Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) after the election, to see if the pared back military is still fit for the new world.

But Mr Cameron has said he wants a “light touch SDSR”, raising concerns it will be superficial and focused on saving money.

Government officials have also said that if the economy keeps growing at its current rate “then the military will not be able to spend 2 per cent”.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, again refused earlier this week to pledge Britain will meet the 2 per cent level.

^{HMS Argyll patrolling in the Caribbean. Defence chiefs fear they will be asked to find another £1 billion of savings each year}

He said: “I’m not going to pre judge our defence review.”

But commanders say that without the funding, the Armed Forces will be unable to pay for even the slimmed down structure outlined after the last defence cuts.

One senior Army source said: “It’s simple, if we don’t get 2 per cent next Parliament, we can’t deliver on the Army 2020 structure.”

Culled from: Telegraph.co.uk