Keir Starmer’s Defense Review Reaches for the High-Tech Future and Nukes — While Dodging Today’s Threats and Costs

The Army plans to adopt the RCH 155mm system, which will be mounted on Boxer armored vehicles. Once development is complete — expected around 2030 — Britain will become the first country in the world to field self-propelled howitzers with a 360-degree rotating turret capable of firing on the move. Until then, as the British themselves quip, their artillery is smaller than it was during the Napoleonic Wars.

Technically, the UK's 43 M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) can also be counted as part of its artillery capability, with a goal of expanding to 76 by 2029. However, these are not directly comparable to traditional howitzers, as each rocket costs at least 30 times more than a standard artillery shell. The core advantage of artillery — affordability and massed firepower — simply doesn’t apply in the same way to high-cost precision rockets.

The active-duty strength of the British Army has fallen below 72,500 — its lowest level since the 18th century. The new strategic document promises to grow the force, but primarily through the reserves — and only if funding allows.

Starmer’s foreword to the strategy is equally vague in its promise to raise defense spending to 3% of GDP — sometime after 2030. The interim goal is to reach 2.5% by 2027, which would amount to about £7 billion in additional annual funding. But given past underinvestment and inflation, this increase is widely seen as more cosmetic than transformative.

In a recent episode of The Times podcast, former UK Chief of the General Staff General Patrick Sanders pointed out that the strategy — drafted since spring 2024 under Prime Minister Starmer’s direction — acknowledges that the long-standing focus on high-tech capabilities has masked the erosion of actual military readiness. Yet, in some respects, he argued, the new strategy perpetuates that same problem rather than solving it.

According to him the defense investments of Starmer's government are are going into exquisite, very expensive capabilities that won’t arrive until the next decade — or even the one after that.

"The active-duty strength of the British Army has fallen below 72,500 — its lowest level since the 18th century."

Sanders was referring to the UK’s development of new nuclear warheads, its acquisition of AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines, and the GCAP sixth-generation fighter program — all in a situation where, according to him, the total cost of Britain’s nuclear capability (including warheads, submarines, fire control systems, logistics, and infrastructure) already consumes 40 percent of the country’s annual defense budget allocated specifically to military capabilities. The retired general argued that the UK should first focus on increasing the lethality of its existing forces and dramatically speeding up the buildup of its conventional munitions stockpiles.

For balance, it should be noted that, unlike many of its allies, the UK chooses to keep much of its limited munitions stockpile close to the front lines — including at the NATO forward-deployed battalion in Estonia, which it leads. Ammunition is supposed to be where the threat is — a model other NATO countries would do well to follow. But as British media have also openly discussed, the UK’s current conventional force is too thin to sustain serious combat in more than one theater at a time — and even then, only for a limited number of days.

As part of AUKUS — the trilateral defense partnership between the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States (not a formal alliance, but increasingly functioning as one) — Britain plans to develop and acquire seven nuclear-powered submarines, at a projected cost of £15 billion. These submarines would be interoperable within the AUKUS framework. The partnership also aims to jointly develop artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cyber warfare capabilities, hypersonic missiles, and undersea warfare technologies.

When asked by a journalist why the UK needs seven new nuclear-powered attack submarines, Lord Robertson explained that the goal is to protect undersea infrastructure.

London is set to direct tens of billions of pounds in defense spending over the coming decades toward joint programs and strengthening ties with non-NATO partners.

Under the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) — a next-generation fighter jet initiative projected to cost £12 billion in the next decade — Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom are jointly developing a sixth-generation combat aircraft. This will form a core component of Britain’s future air strategy, which will integrate manned aircraft, unmanned platforms, next-generation weapons, advanced networks, and real-time data sharing.

As a result, London is channeling tens of billions of pounds — a substantial share of its future defense budget — into collaborative programs and deeper ties with non-NATO partners. While these priorities are largely driven by economic (the programs are expected to create thousands of jobs in the UK) and diplomatic considerations (ensuring close alignment with the United States and maintaining global relevance alongside a major power), they inevitably have strategic implications for NATO's posture in Europe.

Notably, the UK is not expected to significantly expand its conventional military capabilities over the next decade — the kind of force needed to defend NATO’s eastern flank in the event of a major war. While the government has pledged to equip and arm a two-division reserve corps assigned to NATO, that commitment merely reiterates a previous promise already on the books.

At the level of official rhetoric, NATO features prominently in the UK’s 143-page defense strategy document. The four-letter acronym — a favorite in Estonia — appears no fewer than 187 times, including references to a new “NATO First” force posture policy, which commits Britain to designing its future military structure on the assumption that it will fight alongside allies.

Paradoxically, however, Starmer’s strategy includes no specific resource commitments that would meaningfully strengthen NATO’s conventional deterrence against the threat from Russia — a threat the strategy otherwise acknowledges with surprising realism. It even considers the possibility of missile strikes on British soil and includes expanded discussion of civil defense and what Estonians would call “resilience.” But there are no concrete financial pledges, and even the promised expansion of the Army reserve is contingent on funding availability.

Europeans have long mocked the Bundeswehr’s poor combat readiness — but before long, it may be the British military that becomes the punchline.

Europeans have long made jokes about the Bundeswehr’s poor combat readiness — but in light of decisions by the new German chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government, it may soon be the British military that becomes the punchline.

What is clearly spelled out, however, is a £15 billion investment by 2029 in the “sovereign nuclear warhead” program, which aims to replace the UK’s aging warheads.

According to the strategy document, nuclear deterrence is the Starmer government’s top defense priority. Nuclear weapons have been a central element of British defense policy since World War II — but never before has the conventional force been in such poor shape.

In addition to the AUKUS-related attack submarines, the UK also plans to replace its four nuclear-armed submarines — in service since the 1990s — with new Dreadnought-class boats. These will use the British-made Rolls-Royce PWR3 reactor, which is virtually silent and designed to run for the full service life of the submarine without refueling. The UK has never had the resources for a full nuclear triad (land-, air-, and sea-based launch systems), so it has relied exclusively on a continuous at-sea deterrent.

Before the strategy document was finalized, British media reported discussions about equipping the costly F-35 fighter jets with nuclear weapons. But that proposal, along with the much-discussed pledge to raise defense spending to 3% of GDP, did not make it into the final version.

Recent polls show moderate public support in the UK for increasing defense spending — but support varies depending on how the extra funds are raised. While a notable 49% of respondents favor higher defense spending, 57% oppose funding it through tax increases or cuts to public services. Still, the share of those willing to accept spending cuts to fund defense has grown significantly since June 2022, reaching 44%. For comparison, a 2023 survey commissioned by the Estonian Ministry of Defense found similar levels of support there (43%), suggesting that public backing for defense increases in the UK is not especially weak by international standards.

According to recent polling data reported by Ipsos.com, 35 percent of Britons believe the United Kingdom should stop pretending to be a great power. The notion that Britain’s defense strategy is focused on maintaining the appearance of being a major global player was also criticized last week by MP Mike Martin, a veteran of the Afghanistan campaign.

Boris Johnson’s 2021 defense strategy called for a major shift in focus toward Asia and continued cuts to troop numbers. That strategy did not age well. In light of the war in Ukraine, Rishi Sunak’s government was forced to revise it off-cycle in 2023 — but even then, he proposed cutting an additional 10,000 active-duty troops from the regular force.

To a large extent, the UK government has found itself boxed in by earlier decisions — most notably, the choice a decade ago to build two aircraft carriers. Along with other high-end projects, this has thrown the force structure so out of balance that the entire conventional British Army could now reportedly fit inside Wembley Stadium. The strategy promises to make the existing force “ten times more lethal” through technological upgrades, but only £6 billion is earmarked for munitions investment through 2030. By comparison, one of NATO’s smallest member states, Estonia, is investing €5 billion in munitions by the end of the decade, despite having a conventional force structure at least three times smaller.

Prime Minister Starmer’s defense initiative centers on nuclear capability and technological transformation. In the coming years, conventional combat readiness is not expected to grow significantly — meaning little is being done to strengthen Europe’s fragile security situation.

The Guardian editorial described Starmer's defense review as a cautious budget hike dressed up as crisis management. It nods to a looming emergency in Europe, but the kind of spending such a crisis demands is being kicked down the road. Britain's actual contribution to NATO’s conventional deterrence remains modest — and falls far short of the bold language coming out of London in recent years. A vision without resources is just a hallucination.