Originally Posted by
melmothtw
With GDP having fallen sharply since the Brexit vote and further still following Covid, and only now beginning to rise slightly ahead of projected stagnation in 2023 (PWC's prognosis, not mine), I wouldn't count on an increase in % of GDP spending actually resulting in more money to spend.
I'm no mathematician so happy to be corrected, but I think GDP would need to collapse by something like 25% in order for 3% of GDP not to represent a real increase in defence spending over 2.2%. By comparison, the 2008 financial crisis resulted in a GDP reduction of a little over 6%. Of course any GDP reduction would trim the size of the spending increase, but if my rusty o-level maths is anywhere near correct we'd be approaching Mad Max territory before it wiped it out completely.