D.C. Memo: British PM Wants Rural Broadband Program to Count Toward NATO Quota
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NATO: If he were a part of the British government, would he be known as Gen. Adam Cassady? At this week’s NATO summit in The Hague, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer (Labour) was to arrive with a new plan for how the United Kingdom intended to reach the goal of spending 5% of GDP on defense. (President Trump has asked the NATO allies to increase defense spending from 2% to 5% of GDP annually.) Starmer wants Downing Street support for rural broadband deployment projects to count as defense spending. “It could allow the UK to hit NATO’s new defense spending target of five per cent of GDP without committing any further public money,” the Telegraph reported on June 17. Evidently, the Starmer government would consider Project Gigabit’s $6.8 billion program budget as the fiscal equivalent of a Royal Air Force squadron of F-38B Lightning fighter jets. Project Gigabit is the UK’s version of the U.S. BEAD program run by acting NTIA administrator Adam Cassady. The UK’s goal is to reach 99% of premises with gigabit speeds by 2032. Downing Street has other ideas for reaching the 5% defense threshold: Local policing ($23.6 billion), offshore wind grants ($408 million), and bridge strengthening and the Lower Thames Crossing ($1.36 billion). Former UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace, who served under PM Boris Johnson (Con.), didn’t think much of Starmer’s plan. “When I was at the [Ministery of Defense], the Treasury even tried to include spending on asylum seekers against my budget. Nearly all these tricks are actually against the rules set out by NATO and none of these funding streams fool the Americans, nor deter an enemy,” he said.
