Britain announced Monday it will build 12 new attack submarines and dramatically increase defense spending as Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared the country is moving to “war-fighting readiness” amid growing Russian aggression.
The Strategic Defence Review 2025 calls for increasing defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with an ambition to reach 3% in the next Parliament. The government will invest 15 billion pounds ($20.3 billion) in nuclear warheads and build at least six new weapons factories.
“We are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces, so we must be ready to fight and win,” Starmer wrote in The Sun newspaper. Speaking at a Glasgow shipyard Monday, he said the military must be ready to deter threats.
The review marks Britain’s most significant military transformation since the end of the Cold War, with a focus on drone warfare, artificial intelligence, and cyber capabilities, rather than traditional forces. Officials said the military will become “10 times more lethal” by combining AI and autonomous systems with conventional weapons.
Under the plan, most future military units will be unmanned, with only one-fifth using crewed vehicles and the rest relying on drones and single-use weapons. A new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command will be established by year’s end, with 1 billion pounds allocated for homeland missile and cyber defenses.
The announcement comes as NATO allies face pressure from US President Donald Trump to increase defense spending. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has reportedly asked members to spend 3.5% of GDP on their militaries plus 1.5% on defense-related projects by 2032.
Britain currently spends about 2% of GDP on defense, meeting NATO’s minimum target. The review describes current threats as “more serious and less predictable than at any time since the Cold War,” pointing to war in Europe, Russian aggression, and daily cyber attacks.
However, public support for the spending increases remains mixed. A YouGov poll released Monday showed 49% of Britons support increasing defense spending, but only 29% would support raising taxes or cutting other spending to fund the increases.
The review was led by former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson and includes recommendations for procuring up to 7,000 British-made long-range weapons and expanding the submarine fleet under the AUKUS partnership with the United States and Australia.
The question is whether the ambitious plans can be delivered given fiscal constraints. The government has not provided specific timelines for reaching the 3% spending target, saying it depends on economic conditions.
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