// Defense

Source: Financial Times

Britain’s inability to move quickly on military procurement is creating a brain drain at precisely the moment it needs domestic innovation to strengthen its defense posture—executives aren’t waiting for bureaucratic processes to catch up. This reveals a critical vulnerability in how government contracts function: when approval timelines stretch too long, talent and capital simply relocate to faster-moving markets like the US, taking intellectual property and institutional knowledge with them. The “standstill” in UK defense spending isn’t just a budget problem; it’s an economic competitiveness problem that threatens to hollow out a strategic sector.