Project continuity matters more than a fixed GDP target

How can the navy get what it needs while staying within 2.5 percent of GDP?

Start with required capabilities and maintain long-term program consistency; the percentage alone cannot determine a sound force.

A fixed percentage cannot substitute for defining missions and funding them consistently. Long-term project continuity keeps yards, skills, and fleet plans from being repeatedly broken and rebuilt. The cancelled seventh and eighth Type 45 destroyers illustrate the capability lost when a program is cut after its industrial machinery is already in motion. Publicly naming ships could make cancellation politically harder, with London, the final Type 26 frigate, offered as an example of a name carrying particular weight. One unverified source suggests Decoy and Diana were considered for the cancelled Type 45s. Diana is discussed as a traditional naval name referring to the goddess of hunting, although its modern associations could also have complicated a cancellation. The suggestion that the ships were cut before their names could create that pressure remains conjecture based on that single source.