The U.K. will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines and create an army ready to fight a war in Europe as part of a boost to military spending

Britain is getting a defense boost aimed at sending a message to Moscow, and to Trump

Louise Holmes, MBDA UK Deputy Managing Director, shows Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey, left, a storm shadow missile on an assembly line at the MBDA Storm Shadow factory in Stevenage, England, Saturday May 31, 2025. (Dan Kitwood/Pool via AP)

Louise Holmes, MBDA UK Deputy Managing Director, shows Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey, left, a storm shadow missile on an assembly line at the MBDA Storm Shadow factory in Stevenage, England, Saturday May 31, 2025. (Dan Kitwood/Pool via AP)

Louise Holmes, MBDA UK Deputy Managing Director, shows Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey, left, a storm shadow missile on an assembly line at the MBDA Storm Shadow factory in Stevenage, England, Saturday May 31, 2025. (Dan Kitwood/Pool via AP)

Louise Holmes, MBDA UK Deputy Managing Director, shows Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey, left, a storm shadow missile on an assembly line at the MBDA Storm Shadow factory in Stevenage, England, Saturday May 31, 2025. (Dan Kitwood/Pool via AP)

LONDON — The United Kingdom will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines, get its army ready to fight a war in Europe and become “a battle-ready, armor-clad nation,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, part of a boost to military spending designed to send a message to Moscow — and Washington.

Starmer said Britain “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses” as he pledged to undertake the most sweeping changes to Britain’s defenses since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.

“The threat we face is more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” Starmer told workers and journalists at a navy shipyard in Scotland.

Like other NATO members, the U.K. has been reassessing its defense spending since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The government announced military plans in response to a strategic defense review commissioned by Starmer and led by George Robertson, a former U.K. defense secretary and NATO secretary general. It’s the first such review since 2021, and lands in a world shaken and transformed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and by the re-election of President Donald Trump last year.

Months after Britain’s last major defense review was published in 2021, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said with confidence that the era of “fighting big tank battles on European landmass” are over. Three months later, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.

Starmer’s center-left Labour Party government says it will accept all 62 recommendations made in the review, aiming to help the U.K. confront growing threats on land, air sea and in cyberspace.

The measures include increasing production of submarines and weapons and “learning the lessons of Ukraine,” which has rapidly developed its drone technology to counter Moscow’s forces and even hit targets deep inside Russia.

The government said the U.K, will also establish a cyber command to counter “daily” Russia-linked attacks on Britain’s defenses.

Monday’s announcements include building “up to 12” nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines under the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the United States. The government also says it will invest 15 billion pounds in Britain’s nuclear arsenal, which consists of missiles carried on a handful of submarines. Details of those plans are likely to be kept secret.

The government will also increase conventional Britain’s weapons stockpiles with up to 7,000 U.K.-built long-range weapons.

Starmer said rearming would create a “defense dividend” of thousands of well-paid manufacturing jobs — a contrast to the post-Cold War “peace dividend” that saw Western nations channel money away from defense into other areas.

Defense Secretary John Healey said the changes would send “a message to Moscow,” and transform the country’s military following decades of retrenchment, though he said he does not expect the number of soldiers — currently at a two-century low — to rise until the early 2030s.

Healey said plans for defense spending to hit 2.5% of national income by 2027 a year are “on track” and that there’s “no doubt” it will hit 3% before 2034.

Starmer said the 3% goal is an “ambition,” rather than a firm promise, and it’s unclear where the cash-strapped Treasury will find the money. The government has already, contentiously, cut international aid spending to reach the 2.5% target.

Starmer said he wouldn’t make a firm pledge until he knew “precisely where the money is coming from.”

Even 3% falls short of what some leaders in NATO think is needed to deter Russia from future attacks on its neighbors. NATO chief Mark Rutte says leaders of the 32 member countries will debate a commitment to spend at least 3.5% of GDP on defense when they meet in the Netherlands this month.

It’s also a message to Trump that Europe is heeding his demand for NATO members to spend more on their own defense.

European countries, led by the U.K. and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defense posture as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.

Starmer said his government would make “Britain’s biggest contribution to NATO since its creation.”

“We will never fight alone,” he said. “Our defense policy will always be NATO-first.”

James Cartlidge, defense spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party, welcomed more money for defense but was skeptical of the government’s 3% pledge,

“All of Labour’s strategic defence review promises will be taken with a pinch of salt unless they can show there will actually be enough money to pay for them,” he said.

Cold War-level military spending needed, warns ex-defence secretary

One man not impressed by the government’s defence announcements is someone who in a parallel universe might have been making them.

Grant Shapps, the former Tory defence secretary, says the review being unveiled today does little more than confirm what we already knew – and says the prime minister has been too slow.

He points out the Conservatives – who we shouldn’t forget oversaw a sizeable hollowing out of the armed forces – were committing to spend 2.5% of GDP on defence at the last election.

The government wants to hit 2.5% in the next few years, and then 3% during the next parliament, but Shapps says we now need to get to 4.5%.

Trump’s made US backing ‘less secure’

Shapps tells our presenter Kamali Melbourne 4.5% is “the sort of level we were at in the Cold War”.

“Remember in the Cold War, we had the US absolutely behind us,” he adds, “whereas now you must say, I think realistically, that it’s certainly less secure at the moment with President Trump.”

The days of America paying for Europe’s defence are over, Shapps says, even once Trump leaves office, and now the question is how quickly countries like Britain can do it alone.

“It will cost us more down the line if we don’t stop aggressors like Putin.”

Britain is set to publish on Monday a major review of its defence strategy and armed forces as the government warned of “growing” Russian aggression and the changing nature of modern warfare. UK to publish major defence review to face ‘new era of threat’

Prime Minister Keir Starmer cautioned on Sunday that the UK was being “directly threatened” by hostile states as his government announced a raft of new defence measures.

“We will restore Britain’s war-fighting readiness as the central purpose of our armed forces,” Starmer wrote in a statement published by The Sun.

The UK has been racing to rearm in the face of the threat from Russia and fears that US President Donald Trump will no longer help protect Europe.

On Monday, the Labour government will publish its Strategic Defence Review, a document that will assess threats facing the UK and make recommendations.

The review warns that Britain is entering “a new era of threat” as drones and artificial intelligence transform modern warfare, The Guardian newspaper reported over the weekend.

Starmer said it would serve as “a blueprint for strength and security for decades to come”.

His government pledged in February to lift defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2027 in the “largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the Cold War”.

And despite budget constraints, it aims for spending to rise to 3 percent in the next parliamentary term, due in 2029.

The Labour government has said it will cut UK overseas aid to help fund the spending.

The last such defence review was commissioned in 2021 by the previous Conservative government, and was revised in 2023 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Based on the recommendations of the review, which is led by former NATO secretary general George Robertson, Starmer announced measures to boost stockpiles and weapons production capacity, which could be scaled up if needed.

This includes £1.5 billion for building “at least six munitions and energetics factories”, procuring 7,000 domestically built long-range weapons, and spending £6 billion on munitions over the current parliamentary term.

The government also said it would build 12 new attack submarines as part of its AUKUS military alliance with Australia and the United States, and invest £15 billion in its nuclear warhead programme.

The defence ministry last week pledged £1 billion for the creation of a “cyber command” to help on the battlefield.

“We’re in a world that is changing now… and it is a world of growing threats,” Defence Secretary John Healey told the BBC in an interview Sunday.

“It’s growing Russian aggression. It’s those daily cyberattacks, it’s new nuclear risks, and it’s increasing tension in other parts of the world as well,” he said.

While launching the review, Robertson said it would tackle with threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, calling them a “deadly quartet”.

But in his op-ed in The Sun, Starmer did not mention China, while warning that “The Kremlin is working hand in hand with its cronies in Iran and North Korea.”

The softer rhetoric on China is in line with the Labour government’s efforts to thaw relations with Beijing, which reached new lows under former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government.

The review describes Russia as an “immediate and pressing” threat, but calls China a “sophisticated and persistent challenge”, according to The Guardian.

At a time when Washington is demanding that its NATO allies bolster their own defences, Britain is considering strengthening its deterrent by buying nuclear-missile capable aircrafts from the United States, The Sunday Times reported.

Without confirming or denying, Healey said Sunday that “strong deterrence is absolutely essential in order to keep Britain and the British people safe”.

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Defence review to send ‘message to Moscow’, says Healey

1 day ago Share Save Paul Seddon Political reporter Laura Kuenssberg • @bbclaurak Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg Share Save

Reuters

The defence review will send a “message to Moscow”, the defence secretary has said, as he warned Russia was launching cyber-attacks on UK military networks “every day”. John Healey told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg the review would set out plans to deter “growing Russian aggression” in a “world that is changing”. The report, to be unveiled on Monday, is expected to conclude the UK faces a “new era of threat” and will warn of the “immediate and pressing” danger posed by Russia and other countries, including China. It will also commit £1.5bn to build six new factories to make munitions, in a bid to revive Britain’s industrial base.

The new funding will see UK munitions spending hit £6bn during this parliament, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said, and create 1,800 new jobs. As part of its defence review, the government said it would build new factories to make key munitions and explosives to have an “always on” munitions production capacity that could be scaled up quickly. Long-range weapons including drones and missiles would be procured over several years. Ministers said the extra investment – which came after Healey said that UK defence spending would rise to 3% of GDP by 2034 at the latest – would strengthen the armed forces and boost British jobs. The war in Ukraine has highlighted serious deficiencies in the West’s ability to produce weapons and munitions, and senior British military officers have long warned about the UK’s depleted stockpiles.

We will invest £6bn in security says defence secretary

On a visit to a factory in Stevenage on Saturday, where Storm Shadow missiles are assembled, Healey said the government would support the procurement of up to 7,000 UK-built long-range weapons. He added: “This is a message to Moscow as well. This is Britain standing behind making our Armed Forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight if required.” Senior Western military chiefs have long been warning the UK would quickly run out of ammunition in the event of a war. In 2021, the former head of the US Army in Europe, Gen Ben Hodges, told MPs in a simulated wargame most of the British army’s inventory was exhausted after just eight days. The former head of the British army, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, has also been calling for the UK to boost weapons production. He recently said the army’s diminished stocks of artillery rounds and missiles “would put hairs on the back of your neck”.

The threat posed by Moscow has been a key part of the government’s pitch ahead of Monday’s review, which has assessed the capabilities and equipment that would be needed by the UK’s armed forces in the coming years. Healey said cyber attacks from Russia were taking place “every day” as part of 90,000 attacks on the UK’s military networks from adversaries in the last two years. In the run-up to Monday’s announcement, the government has already confirmed the review will recommend a new “cyber and electromagnetic command” to lead the UK’s defensive cyber operations. Alongside the existing National Cyber Force, it will also play a role in offensive operations – including degrading opponents’ command systems, jamming signals sent to drones or missiles, and intercepting military communications. However, Healey suggested the overall size of the army might not begin rising again until after the next general election, adding his “first job” was to reverse a decline in numbers under the previous government. He added that he then hoped an army target to return to a strength of 73,000 full-time soldiers would be met “in the next Parliament”.

Defence spending targets

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer delivered a major defence policy speech at BAE Systems’ shipyard in Govan today, setting out a vision of national renewal through security, industrial growth and unity.

Speaking ahead of the formal publication of the new Strategic Defence Review, Starmer framed the overhaul as a response to a “more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable” threat environment than at any time since the Cold War.

“Nothing works unless we all work together,” the Prime Minister said, invoking the unofficial motto he encountered aboard a Vanguard-class submarine during a recent visit. That motto, he added, would now guide the UK’s defence posture.

Standing in front of two Type 26 frigates under construction, Starmer announced that the UK would create a “hybrid Royal Navy” that blends drones, warships, submarines and aircraft to patrol the North Atlantic and beyond. This modernised fleet will directly support thousands of shipbuilding jobs, including those at Govan.

As part of the AUKUS partnership, the Prime Minister confirmed that the UK will build up to 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines, significantly expanding the submarine fleet and scaling up the industrial base in Barrow and across the UK supply chain. A new submarine will be delivered every 18 months, marking a dramatic shift in tempo and capacity.

Starmer committed to using defence investment as a tool for broader national regeneration. Among the key announcements:

Six new munitions factories to be built across the UK, creating over 1,000 jobs.

to be built across the UK, creating over 1,000 jobs. Thousands of new long-range weapons to be manufactured domestically, supporting a further 800 jobs.

to be manufactured domestically, supporting a further 800 jobs. £15 billion investment in the sovereign warhead programme , safeguarding the nuclear deterrent and creating 9,000 jobs.

, safeguarding the nuclear deterrent and creating 9,000 jobs. Major growth in the defence industrial base with job creation at every level—from apprentices to engineers.

“We must now seize a defence dividend for the British people,” Starmer declared. “Creating new jobs, skills and community pride across the country.”

The Prime Minister confirmed that Britain would adopt “warfighting readiness” as the central purpose of the Armed Forces, backed by a strategic reserve and fully trained personnel ready to mobilise. He pledged to end the “hollowing out” of the military and deliver the biggest pay rise for service members in 20 years.

He also reaffirmed the UK’s “NATO first” defence policy, calling for Britain’s largest contribution to the alliance since its founding. “We will never fight alone,” he said, underscoring collective security as fundamental to UK strategy.

Starmer vowed to make the UK NATO’s fastest innovator, drawing lessons from Ukraine to integrate drones, AI, cyber capabilities and conventional platforms into a “ten-times more lethal” force by 2035. He stressed that innovation would enhance, not replace, the human elements of defence.

The Prime Minister concluded with a call for unity and shared sacrifice:

“From the supply lines to the front lines… everyone playing their role, doing their duty to the nation and to each other… because when it comes to security and renewal, nothing works unless we all work together.”

The Strategic Defence Review, due to be published in full later today, is expected to outline 62 major reforms across readiness, procurement, innovation and personnel, all of which the government will adopt.