A high-profile effort to establish a global state-backed lender to assist in rearmament has been thwarted by Britain’s refusal to support a multilateral defense bank.
Britain has officially ruled out membership in the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, or DSRB, for the first time since senior British ex-military officials, former NATO security advisers, and bankers made their comprehensive plans public last year.
The representatives of these concepts do not speak for the government or any of its ministers, and the UK government does not support the DSRB plans.
In a statement, Britain’s finance ministry, or Treasury, said that the country has no plans to participate in this project.
It comes before 41 nations, including the United States, Japan, Germany, and Britain, are invited to a meeting in the City of London on Monday to discuss how to finance the new bank.
With a triple-A credit rating, DSRB wants to establish itself as a global state-backed defense bank that can raise $135 billion, or 100 billion pounds, to finance defense projects, especially in nations that would not have access to lower-cost financing.
It was intended to be more extensive and global in scope than European programs, such as the European Union’s SAFE loan program, which is worth 150 billion euros ($176 billion), and enhanced guarantees provided by the European Investment Bank.
In a statement, the DSRB noted that over 35 states from the EU, NATO, and the Indo-Pacific region, including all G7 countries of which Britain is a member, had confirmed their intention to attend the conference on Monday.
“This strong turnout demonstrates the broad international interest in exploring new financial mechanisms to strengthen defence, security, and resilience,” the statement added.
“This process is still in its early stages for governments. No country has formally committed to any global organizations yet, as is always the case,” it continued.
UK officials are worried that the DSRB proposal won’t achieve the government’s objectives of boosting the value of defense spending and cooperating with allies to boost efficiency.
The DSRB was expected to gain Britain as one of its primary patrons, according to some experts, who were advised by a group of senior retired military people, including Stuart Peach, a former British chief of the defense staff and former chairman of the NATO military committee.
According to defense industry sources, it might be challenging to get multilateral support for the project. In a field that is getting more and more congested with defense sector funding schemes, the DSRB is fighting for support.
Despite their difficult public finances, many NATO countries have significantly raised their military expenditures and committed to do more in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s requests that Europe increase its defense spending following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Following NATO leaders’ June offer of hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending for core defense (including troops and weapons) and related sectors like cybersecurity, the DSRB sought to be broader and truly international to try to meet the enormity of the budget needs.
In August, the DSRB said that Commerzbank, ING, JP Morgan, LBBW, and RBC Capital Markets were among the private sector banks it had enlisted to assist with its launch.
