Starmer’s strategic defence review looks promising – until you read the small print

As the threat from Russia grows, we finally have a government that is taking our national security seriously, says defence expert Francis Tusa. But unless our prime minister is about to put his money where his mouth is, an inescapable unease around this new plan will persist...

Publishing a strategic defence review right now is, to put it mildly, challenging. Bearing in mind that the footage that has just been released of Ukrainian kamikaze drones blowing up nearly half of Russia’s irreplaceable strategic bomber fleet, thousands of kilometres inside Russian territory, suggests that the “old certainties” – tanks, submarines, large platforms – may not be entirely relevant in modern warfare.

Well, the answer that seems to be contained in the review is the obvious one: you need both, but the balance needs to change decisively.

Various commentators have talked about the British army moving towards a 20-40-40 model: 20 per cent of its armoury would comprise “traditional” weaponry, such as tanks and artillery; 40 per cent would be the cheap-and-cheerful one-way kamikaze drones; and the remaining 40 per cent would consist of higher-end missiles and long-range weaponry. Would this produce a really different-looking British army? For sure.

And the signs are that as part of the review, the Royal Navy will also move to a similar type of model. Already, mine-hunting operations have begun to transition from dedicated mine-hunting ships to motherships that deploy unmanned underwater vehicles.

The navy has been testing a range of uncrewed surface vessels, and the work is looking into how, in the future, a crewed warship would be accompanied by uncrewed vessels so as to increase sea coverage, as well as effectiveness. Submarines, too, will also operate more and more uncrewed systems, to be able to detect enemy submarines much further away and then to engage them from safer distances.

And the RAF will see more uncrewed combat air vehicles, as opposed to fighters with pilots. The common view is that the manned fighter of the future will be accompanied by uncrewed fighters, and will be able to launch shorter-range missiles/drones.

The growth of AI is fuelling the possibilities for uncrewed systems across every part of every battlefield. What might have been seen as impossible a decade ago is now either possible or will be soon. But there will never be a battlefield without fighters, on land, air, or sea – warfare is a human endeavour, and there are many things that will not be handed over to robots. The day when there are no human soldiers or sailors is not going to arrive any time soon.

But if there is some uneasiness about what the prime minister talked about at the review reveal in Glasgow, then it is to do with the uncertainties of the government’s plan. It’s still “setting the ambition to hit 3 per cent”, hedged by the disclaimer that this will be “subject to economic and fiscal conditions” – far from a guarantee.

The prime minister might certainly receive some criticism about this at the Nato summit in The Hague towards the end of this month. An increasing number of Nato nations are already spending more than 3 per cent of GDP (Poland is now above 4 per cent), and are looking to go even higher, so Britain’s reserved view of what can be spent on defence is going to make it look even more out of step with its allies. It is possible that the PM might get ambushed by a drive to pledge to spend 3.5 per cent of GDP on defence, a figure that is being widely floated.

Members of the Royal Navy take part in a military procession to mark VE Day last month (PA)

Some might be surprised at the spending on “non-essential” things such as armed forces housing and infrastructure, but this is required. The appalling state of accommodation is the main reason why army personnel leave; getting this right will hopefully result in more people joining, and then remaining in service for longer – the same being true of pay increases. A defence review is not just about equipment.

There are several challenges. The first is speed. If the UK is to reform and reshape its forces, then this needs to be done within a few years – certainly not decades. The past 15-20 years have seen a marked deterioration in the capabilities of the UK’s forces – they need to be restored, especially if the Russian threat is as persistent as it is believed to be by many European defence departments.

Which brings us to the second challenge: money. There is no point in saying “You’ll get the required cash in 2030” or whenever – the tap needs to be turned on now if we are to see progress. You want to build six new munitions factories? If the spades are to cut soil, the money needs to come today, not next year. Those 7,000 long-range weapons? They must be ordered today, not in several years’ time, and that means money now, at a time when the UK’s fiscal position is less than rosy.

Former defence secretary Grant Shapps (centre) during a visit to view the first prototypes of the Challenger 3 tank in 2024 (PA)

And an extra challenge: wise spending. The UK spends far more, like-for-like, than France and Italy, and gets far less at the other end. If the UK is to get real “bang for its buck”, then it needs to be even more rigorous about how it spends any extra cash. The record of reform here has, historically, been patchy at best.

The UK has put off modernising its defence programmes for at least a decade, and it shows. Despite the evidence from Ukraine of the efficacy of drones, the UK has made little progress on actually buying any. Two years ago, in an interview, the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, said that he wanted to see a British army kamikaze drone unit as soon as possible – there still isn’t one, although Kyiv says that drones are now the largest cause of casualties in the war with Russia.

Will the defence review change UK defence decisively? The mood music has been promising. But there is one last thing to consider: Lord Robertson might be the first person in British politics to deliver two decent defence reviews, both of which are then sabotaged by a lack of spending in the face of Treasury hostility. Watch this space.