British Prime Minister David Cameron “opened the Farnborough International Airshow on Monday with an announcement that the government will spend £1.1 billion (US $1.8 billion) on defense equipment using unspent money from last year’s budget, but declined to commit a future government to retaining defense budget levels at 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP),” Defense News reports.  

“The announcement of spending on surveillance, special operations forces, cyber, active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and other equipment got the weeklong event off to the start it needed after the non-appearance so far of the Lockheed Martin F-35.”  

“But the refusal to guarantee Britain would stay at, or above, 2 percent of GDP for defense spending after the next general election in 2015 holds out the possibility of continuing constraints on budgets here.”