George Robertson, the former secretary general of NATO who was personally chosen by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to lead the United Kingdom's 2025 Strategic Defence Review, has broken with his reputation for diplomatic restraint to issue a stinging public rebuke of the British government's approach to military funding. In a speech delivered in Salisbury, Robertson declared that "there is a corrosive complacency today in Britain's political leadership," warning that the country is "underprepared, underinsured, under attack" and that its national security "is in peril."

Robertson, 80, who served as NATO secretary general from 1999 to 2003 and as defence secretary under Tony Blair, directed particular criticism at the Treasury, accusing "non-military experts" there of "vandalism" and suggesting that Britain cannot be defended while welfare spending continues to expand unchecked. He also singled out Chancellor Rachel Reeves, noting she devoted just 40 words to defence in her budget speech last year and made no mention of it at all in her spring statement. The critique carries unusual weight precisely because Robertson is, as one observer noted, a quintessential establishment figure who has long avoided rocking the boat.

General Sir Richard Barrons, a former commander of Joint Forces Command who co-authored the defence review alongside Robertson and former White House adviser Fiona Hill, reinforced the warnings in a BBC interview. Barrons went so far as to concede that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had a point when he recently mocked the Royal Navy's capabilities, saying: "I couldn't argue with him, because although the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force and the army are, in their bones, outstanding institutions, they are simply too small and too undernourished to deal with the world we now live in." He added bluntly that "the American cavalry is no longer going to come and rescue us."

The controversy is sharpened by recent events. When Iran struck British military facilities at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus earlier this year, London's response was widely seen as inadequate — the government dispatched only a single frigate, HMS Dragon, which took nearly three weeks to arrive due to maintenance requirements. The episode drew mockery from Washington and exposed the gap between Britain's stated ambitions and its actual military capacity. Starmer had pledged to raise defence spending from the current 2.3% of GDP to 3% by 2029 and 3.5% by 2035, but a promised Defence Investment Plan — a ten-year roadmap for achieving those targets — has still not been published, months after its original deadline.

The government responded by insisting it is "meeting the commitments set out in the Strategic Defence Review to address current threats," but that answer has done little to quiet critics across the political spectrum. The spectacle of a Labour elder statesman, handpicked by a Labour prime minister to review national security, publicly accusing his own government of failing to act on his findings has given the debate a rare urgency — and left Starmer's administration with difficult questions it has so far declined to answer directly.