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UK General Election: There Are No Votes in Defence

The astute reader may have noticed the “c” in “defence” contained in the title – these words weren’t spoken by an American. It’s actually quite hard to imagine such a statement coming from a public figure in the U.S. Issues such as defense, foreign affairs, and America’s place in the world are consistently major issues of contention in U.S. elections. Instead of being spoken by a nihilistic foreign general or pacifistic journalist, however, they allegedly came from Philip Hammond, the UK’s Foreign Secretary (and former Defence Secretary), in the run up to the British general election last week.

If this UK election is news to you, you are not alone. The election process by which Britons pick their government is swift in comparison to America’s presidential elections, which now stretch well over a year. The indifference the international community has shown towards this election has also been remarked upon. In any event – and to the surprise of almost everyone – David Cameron’s Conservative Party was returned to power for another five years with a majority government, removing the need for another coalition.

How UK Defense Measures Up

By all accounts, one would have expected defense to have been a significant factor in this election. Concern that Britain will not meet the NATO target of spending 2% of GDP on defense for 2015/16 abound at home, despite Cameron lecturing other states at the NATO summit last year for failing to reach this target. Adding to these concerns, the latest projections from the Royal United Services Institute (Britain’s leading defense think tank) have Britain falling below 2% for the first time since records began.

Unease abroad also grows – especially from America. Over the last year and a half, high profile criticism over Britain’s defense cuts has come from Robert GatesPresident Obama