Share Credit: Cpl. Tim Laurence/Royal Air Force All across Europe, NATO members are spending more on defense—nearly 4% more in real terms from 2019 to 2020, according to the alliance’s latest report. So it perhaps seems counterintuitive that the UK, one of its most stalwart members, is cutting back on capabilities in spite of a planned £24 billion ($33 billion) uptick in defense spending over the next four years. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy has called for a pivot to the Far East and spending on new technologies, cyber, uncrewed systems, hypersonic missiles and directed-energy weapons. But the review took a grim reaper’s scythe to some of the UK’s most vaunted capabilities—combat air, air mobility and, most crucially, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) fleets—to pay for the pivot.