The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, promised on Monday to take his country to a state of “preparation for war”, announcing plans to build up to 12 new attack submarines and invest billions of pounds in armament, in order to strengthen themselves for a world trapped between a hostile and aggressive Russia and a United States that retracts.
The ambitious rearme is part of a strategic review of the defense carried out by the Government, which described the new and threatening panorama and requested that the production of drones be increased and more ammunition and equipment accumulate.
“The threat we face is now more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any other time since the Cold War,” Starmer said Monday in a Glasgow shipyard. He pointed out “the war in Europe, the new nuclear risks, the daily cyberattacks” and “the growing Russian aggression” in British waters and skies.
As to underline his disturbing message, Starmer presented his plans hours after one of the most intense air bombings of the three years of war in Ukraine, in which Ukrainian drones attacked air bases deep in the Russian territory.
The strategic review, headed by George Robertson, former secretary general of the OTAN, was established last year, shortly after Starmer won the general elections. However, his work has acquired a renewed urgency in the face of the growing evidence of the weakening of the commitment of President Donald Trump with European security and his ambivalent and, sometimes servile attitude towards the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
Among its recommendations: the acquisition of up to seven thousand long -range weapons of British manufacturing and the creation of a new cybercroming, together with an investment of one billion pounds, equivalent to US $ 1,350 million, in digital capacity. Money will be invested in the protection of critical British underwater infrastructure, as well as in drones, which have demonstrated their great efficacy in the war in Ukraine.
More than 1,500 million pounds of additional financing will be allocated to repair and renew the homes of the military to contribute to recruitment and retention in the British army, where the number of troops has fallen to the lowest level since the Napoleonic era.
“This is the most ambitious defense review for a generation. It had to be,” said Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director general of the Royal Institute of United Services, a research organization in London. The United Kingdom, he said, “simultaneously face two fundamental challenges, one geopolitical and another technological.”
On Monday, the Government insisted on the benefits that the investment in Rearme will have for the national economy; But the unknown that weighs on the new strategy is how much the United Kingdom can be allowed to spend in a time of tax difficulties.
Starmer has promised to increase British disbursement to 2.5 percent of the gross national product, paying it using foreign aid resources. In statements to BBC, He said that the United Kingdom needed to “move forward from there,” but added that he could not set a precise date for when that figure increased to 3 percent until he was sure what exactly the origin of the money would be.
In a statement, the government said that its fleet of nuclear propulsion submarines and conventional weapons would be significantly expanded, with up to 12 new units that will be built within the framework of a security alliance with the United States and Australia, known as Aukus, conceived to counteract the growing influence of China.
As Trump has shown to have a lower commitment to distant military alliances, doubts have emerged about the pact.
Chalmers said that the British commitment to build more submarines “is not a protection against total decoupling of the United States. But it can provide some security against a scenario in which the United States is no longer willing to export complete submarines to Australia.”
The Government described the new strategy as a “historical change in our deterrence and defense: move on to the war preparation to deter threats and strengthen security in the Euro -Atlantic zone.”
The review also requested that young people receive education in schools on the role of the Armed Forces, as part of a “national conversation” whose intention is to strengthen the preparation of the country for war, and that the number of cadets would be expanded by 30 percent. The review suggests that laws that grant the government more reserve powers in case of a climb towards war are introduced. This could include plans to allow the mobilization of reserves and access to infrastructure of the private sector and the industry.
In his Monday speech, Starmer struggled to reaffirm the United Kingdom’s commitment to the Otan and the transatlantic alliance, a strategy that has continued to regularly cultivate with Trump in security and trade issues.
The review also suggested the purchase of combat planes capable of shooting tactical nuclear weapons, a possible omen of a lower British dependence on the US nuclear umbrella.
Mike Martin, legislator of the Democratic and veteran military liberal party, wrote on social networks that the details of the review known so far were a “sign that the British government no longer fully trusts that the Americans commit themselves to European security.”
He wrote: “The unequivocal signal is the nuclear weapons thrown from the air,” and added that “this is a key capacity that the US provides and that allows a nuclear climb without destroying Moscow with nuclear weapons fired from our submarines.”
British governments have made defense reviews at least once every decade since World War II. The last one was performed in 2021 and was updated in 2023.
Robertson, who is now a member of the House of Lords, had the help of Fiona Hill, exassora of the first Trump government, and Richard Barrons, exsubilfe of the British Staff of British Defense. Hill, born in the United Kingdom and expert in Russia, emerged as an open critical voice of Trump’s relationship with Putin after leaving the National Security Council in July 2019.
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The tone of the recent document contrasted with the one prepared four years ago, in which the conservative Government of Boris Johnson promised to link more closely to the United Kingdom with the United States. That review presented Johnson’s vision of a “global United Kingdom” after Brexit, that his successors greatly ruled out and that Starmer has replaced with an effort to restore ties with the European Union.