Defence spending is surging. Investment opportunities abound, as conflict and geopolitics have catalysed a surge of interest in the sector. Private equity funds, sovereign investors, and venture capital are increasingly drawn to defence and dual-use opportunities, attracted by long-term demand signals, government backing, and geopolitical urgency. However, beneath this momentum lies a persistent disconnect: investor assumptions about defence businesses often diverge sharply from how procurement and delivery function in practice.

The gap between procurement reality and investment expectation is a primary driver of underperformance. Successfully navigating the complex terrain is becoming an essential skill for an increasing number of funds making their initial defence investments.

We will always need defence, right?

Today’s geopolitics makes defence look like a uniquely attractive investment. It shows demand stability (underpinned by expanding government budgets), multi-year programme announcements, and strengthening political and social consensus around rearmament. This narrative of predictable, long-duration revenue streams is bringing interest from many investors. However, the reality of military procurement is far less certain.

Defence demand is not simply a function of budget allocation; it is mediated through complex requirement-setting processes, shifting strategic priorities, and iterative programme design. Requirements evolve, often materially, over the life cycle of a programme. What begins as a clearly defined capability can become an over-specified, technologically ambitious system that is difficult to deliver at scale. History offers many notable examples in this respect, from the TSR2 supersonic low-level strike aircraft of the 1960s to the recent Ajax armoured fighting vehicle.

This is a novel risk for investors. Headline demand does not translate cleanly into executable contracts.

Have you got it in black?

The United Kingdom’s (UK) defence is not unique in its persistent pursuit of ‘exquisite’ requirements, with little attention paid to industrial feasibility. Programmes are frequently designed to deliver cutting-edge capability, with narrow specifications and high-performance thresholds. While arguably militarily desirable, this approach often overlooks the realities of manufacturing capacity and supply chain resilience.

Thus, for many companies positioned to benefit from increased defence spending, the habit of adding cost to programmes to build new manufacturing may cause them to struggle to convert the opportunity properly. Investors may assume that increased engineering complexity means larger margins. However, in defence, additional requirements frequently do not come with additional funds. The result is either eroded margins or fewer final systems delivered.

Those close to the money benefit from being close to the design and development process. In practical terms, the more advanced the requirement, the less predictable the commercial outcome.

Knowing how and knowing why

All this being said, cross-industry synergies are being found, particularly in firms with expertise in mass manufacturing. Companies grappling properly with the tension between requirements and technology are designing to match manufacturing capacity, rather than building new machinery to match designs. They are resisting the pressure to augment every component, funding extensive in-house Research and Development (R&D), and offering solutions prior to any official requirement set. This means that those who understand several industries will have novel opportunities.

Everybody’s problem: The supply chain

A further divergence between procurement and investment assumptions lies in the defence supply chain. Investors often assess target companies based on their position within a programme: whether prime, Tier 1 supplier, or niche capability provider. However, this linear view can obscure the supply chain fragility that affects the entire nation.

Defence supply chains are not currently configured for rapid scaling. They rely on specialised components, limited suppliers, and long lead times. Efforts to increase production volumes, particularly in response to geopolitical shocks, have exposed bottlenecks that were previously invisible. Rare earths are perhaps the most visible manifestation of this, but so are specialty alloys, substances used in explosives, and other industrial chemicals.

This introduces second-order risks to investments: revenue growth can be highly constrained by upstream limitations and cost pressures driven by scarce suppliers. A company’s ability to capitalise on demand is often not determined by its own capacity, but by the resilience of its ecosystem.

Security is not a dirty word

Nobody is surprised that security is a constraint when working in defence. A business must be sharp on its own physical and cyber security, and have an excellent understanding of its own supply chains and its employees. Vulnerabilities can repel customer interest or fatally damage the prospect of a contract.

In addition, the security assessments to do business are usually controlled not by the customer, but by a separate vetting agency within His Majesty’s (HM) Government. This bureaucracy must be navigated, but companies can make this easier or harder for themselves with thoughtful choices of employees and suppliers.

Finally, anyone close to defence operating commercially across borders will be familiar with the term ‘ITAR’ – the United States’ (US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Every country has its own version, and they can be highly constraining for defence businesses operating across borders. Most investors understand regulatory risk; this is defence’s additional dimension.

Overseas market access can be limited, as the regulations can cover controlled components, technical data, and services. Needless to say, these rules can limit and complicate exit options.

What the heck is TEPIDOIL?

A further complication, but also an opportunity, is the depth and breadth of support the customer expects. Governments have learned – albeit imperfectly – that it is rarely enough to procure just the equipment. A ‘capability’ needs people trained, software updated, infrastructure built, and the logistics serviced throughout its life.

The British acronym for these elements is TEPIDOIL.* America uses the less mnemonic DOTMLPF-P.** Technology aggregators, or defence primes, are excellent at packaging these aspects; investors must understand where their companies fit in this ecosystem and the associated costs.

* Training, Equipment, People, Infrastructure, Doctrine, Organisation, Information, Logistics
** Doctrine, Organisations, Training, Materiel, Leader development, Personnel, Facilities, Policy

Procurement timelines versus investment horizons

Perhaps the most fundamental misalignment is temporal. Private capital typically operates on investment horizons of 3-7 years for private equity, or up to a decade for infrastructure or sovereign funds. Defence procurement, by contrast, can operate on timelines that can extend well beyond a decade.

This creates a tension where investors seek exit pathways, but procurement processes work to long, uncertain development cycles. Even when contracts are secured, revenue realisation may be back-loaded, contingent on milestones, or subject to renegotiation. For funds operating under time constraints, this can materially impact returns.

So, investors need a different mindset for defence. Traditional private equity playbooks, focused on rapid value creation and exit, require informed application in this sector.

Ever-shifting goalposts

The political cliché that ‘there are no votes in defence’ is losing its power, while the social cliché that military activity is inherently unethical is shifting. There have even been suggestions to add an ‘S’ for ‘Security’ to the framework of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), although this might be more a red herring than coherent plan. Dual-use technology is valuable to watch as leading in this space, especially as the line separating single-use from dual-use blurs further. These aspects are changing for investors, and should be factored in when building investment strategies and their narratives.

Not a bridge too far

The apparent disconnect between procurement and investment assumptions can appear profound. However, with the right communication, the incentives of HM Government, the British Armed Forces, and investors can be highly aligned. Investors who can see past the undulations of security, tolerate the jargon, and think deeper than budget announcements or programme headlines will be rewarded.

Compelling macro energy drives the current wave of defence investment. The broadening appeal and necessity of defence investments for a balanced portfolio will further increase the premium on those investors adept in this terrain.

Wg. Cdr. Ben Goodwin MBE is an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and a fighter pilot with experience in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa. He has been posted to the Ministry of Defence and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Brussels. Previously, he worked at the trading arm of a large bank, focused on foreign exchange and government bonds.

This article was written by the author in a personal capacity. The opinions expressed are his own, and do not reflect the views of HM Government or the Ministry of Defence.

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On Thursday, 23rd April, the Council on Geostrategy celebrated its five-year anniversary at the Locarno Suite in the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO). This article provides an amended transcript of the speech given by James Rogers, Co-founder (Research) at the Council, to outline the organisation’s intellectual framework.

I would like to say a few words about the intellectual framework we have sought to develop and promote over the past five years at the Council on Geostrategy. This is at the foundation of what we do – and what we intend to do in the future. Perhaps uniquely among British think tanks, we have an intellectual mission, and we have had it ever since we mobilised just over five years ago. That mission is to help regenerate applied geopolitics – otherwise known as geostrategy – in the United Kingdom (UK).

But what does that mean in practice? It means moving beyond post-national idealism and focusing on the foundational realities of national power, including geography, resources, technology, and state capability. Our work is rooted in the belief that you cannot shape the world of tomorrow if you do not understand the enduring physical constraints and the changing strategic realities of today.

For that reason, our ontology has been driven by three lodestars.

First, the centrality of the nation. As I said at the beginning, we are not just another international affairs think tank that proposes global solutions to global challenges. We put the British national interest at the heart of our work. In a geopolitical age, a strong, resilient and confident country is vital; it is the best vehicle for mobilising the power we need to protect our interests.

Second, a deep respect for geographic reality. We look at the world through the lens of a maritime nation. In our very first paper – entitled ‘A “Crowe Memorandum” for the twenty-first century’, after the famous Memo of Sir Eyre Crowe in 1907 – we explained that the narrow debates of the early 2020s over the relative importance of the Euro-Atlantic versus the Indo-Pacific were outmoded for the simple reason that the two regions were merging together.

We were quickly proven right. Soon after publication came the announcement of AUKUS, the Hiroshima Accord, and, in a different way, Russia’s renewed aggression against Ukraine, which has drawn North Korea, Iran, and the People’s Republic of China – Indo-Pacific states – into a war on European soil.

Third, assertive realism. Not only do we engage at the hard edge of systemic competition; we embrace it. We recognise that upholding a free and open international order requires a willingness to confront authoritarian challengers, analyse their national strategies, and prescribe actionable ways to out-compete them. That is why we have pioneered work on net assessment and strategic advantage, as well as the importance of strengthening our national powerbase, our nuclear deterrent, and the alliances that extend our influence.

This intellectual approach has been described as ‘politely disruptive’ by one serving minister. We challenge policymakers with bold, sometimes uncomfortable truths, replacing standard globalism with rigorous, actionable geostrategy. That is why we have used infographics and geopolitical maps so extensively; they project in a single visualisation what may still not be clear after 10,000 words of text. Our most important piece of work so far is our geopolitical atlas. If you have not seen it yet, then please take a look.

So where does this leave us? Over the past five years, our politely disruptive approach has proven essential. The geopolitical shocks of the 2020s have shown us that we need a different framework if we are to prevail in an increasingly confrontational and transactional world.

If we allow ourselves to weaken, we should be under no illusion: the opponents of openness, democracy, and freedom – what Britain stands for – will merely grow in strength. And we won’t be the first to suffer: our allies and partners, especially those smaller countries nearest to the geopolitical fault lines, will be the first to feel our adversaries’ wrath.

But before I close, I just want to thank our hosts here at the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, our board members, our generous supporters, and, above all, our brilliant colleagues at the Council who do the hard work – organisational and analytical – every single day.

As we look to the next five years, I want to be clear: the Council on Geostrategy remains committed to generating the bold, rigorous, and unapologetically British strategic thought that this era demands.

Thank you for joining us to celebrate this milestone – and enjoy the rest of the night!

The Council on Geostrategy also received thoughts from two of our associates regarding the Council’s impact on British strategic policy over the past five years:

Richard Ballett

Council on Geostrategy

In its first five years, the Council on Geostrategy has played a key role in renewing British national security policy debates. It has helped to diversify what had become a somewhat stale intellectual ecosystem by injecting fresh perspectives and offering practical solutions rather than merely admiring policy problems. There is not enough space to list all the important contributions the Council has made; but three notable ones include the following:

On nuclear weapons: The Council has made several interventions to ongoing debates about the UK’s future nuclear forces, including options to augment, diversify, and enhance existing capabilities; the pros and cons of different options; and practical steps that should be taken for these to be realised.

On the PRC: The Council’s China Observatory has provided the policy community with realistic assessments of Beijing, and shone a light on some of the serious threats that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pose to British interests.

On sea power: The Council has reinvigorated debates in Whitehall about the future of the UK’s sea power, including practical solutions to rebuild the nation’s shipbuilding industry, augment its maritime forces, and posture these capabilities in an astute fashion to maximise British strategic advantage.

Jennifer Parker

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy; Founder and Principal, Barrier Strategic Advisory; Adjunct Fellow in Naval Studies, UNSW Canberra; and Expert Associate, ANU National Security College

Looking back at the last five years, the Council on Geostrategy’s real value has not just been its research; it has been its refusal to let British strategy slide into comfortable complacency. At a time when the global order was being rapidly reshaped, the Council forced a much-needed, and often uncomfortable, conversation about the return of state competition. It is one thing to acknowledge that the world is getting more dangerous; it is another to map out exactly what that means for a country such as the UK.

Its work on the Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’ is the best example of this impact. The Council was among the loudest voices pointing out that the ‘tilt’ is just a slogan unless it is underpinned by a permanent presence and real-world capability. It successfully shifted the framing from political rhetoric to the hard work of delivery, making it clear that British security is now inextricably linked to the stability of distant maritime trade routes and the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.

With AUKUS, the Council looked past the noise of the submarine headlines. It reframed the partnership as a generational integration of three maritime powers, emphasising the industrial discipline and focus to achieve it. In a space where strategy often gets lost in buzzwords, the Council on Geostrategy has been at the forefront of discussion, keeping the focus on the unforgiving realities of geography and hard power.

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His Majesty’s (HM) Government has shelved the process of transferring the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – the controversial ‘Chagos deal’ – to Mauritius amid fluctuating relations with the United States (US) since early 2026. Having first agreed to cede the archipelago in 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) signed the deal with Mauritius in May 2025, which included retention of the joint British-American military base on Diego Garcia for a cost of at least £101 million per year for 99 years.

While HM Government adhered to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius was wrongful, it was advisory, not legally binding. Thus, considering the most recent development in the BIOT deal and the UK’s loss of face on the global stage, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked seven experts: Is Britain overly subservient to international law?

Dr Hillary Briffa

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer in National Security Studies, King’s College London

The UK is not overly subservient to international law. The BIOT case indicates a different problem: inconsistency. Britain is usually happy to invoke international law when it supports its wider foreign policy position, but more hesitant when legal rulings cut across strategic interests or the legacies of empire.

From the Mauritian perspective, Chagos is a decolonisation issue. It goes to the heart of how independence was handled, and whether that process was lawful. In 2019, the ICJ concluded that Mauritius’ decolonisation had not been completed lawfully because the Chagos Archipelago had been detached before independence. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly then backed this position, and called on the UK to end its administration of the islands.

The ruling is salient beyond the BIOT itself. For small states, international law is one of the few tools available to push back against raw power. If larger states brush aside rulings when they become inconvenient, the message is stark: rules only apply when you are weak. This is not a good look for a country that regularly presents itself as a champion of the ‘rules-based international order’.

There are other issues too. Diego Garcia still carries major strategic value, and the rights and wishes of Chagossians must be taken seriously. Even so, the proposed deal showed that legal principle and strategic interest can be reconciled. Sovereignty could pass to Mauritius while the base continues to operate under lease.

Therefore, the real question is whether Britain is willing to follow international law even when it is not the easiest option, because doing so strengthens its credibility, shows that its principles are applied consistently, and gives real meaning to its support for a rules-based international order.

Brig. (rtd.) Rory Copinger-Symes CBE

Senior Adviser, Bondi Partners and SecureCloud+, and Non-Executive Director, Halo International Group

The question contains a flaw. International law is not a buffet from which nations select convenient portions. You are either a signatory to its frameworks or you are not. To describe the UK as ‘overly subservient’ to obligations it has voluntarily and formally undertaken is simply to describe a nation honouring its word.

The real issue is not subservience, but interpretation. Britain’s courts and political culture have developed a habit of reading international obligations in their most expansive form. Where treaty language is ambiguous, the UK defaults to constraint. France deploys its military across the Sahel with minimal legal hand-wringing. Hungary defies European Court rulings with impunity. Britain ties itself in knots over the removal of a single foreign national.

This distinction matters acutely in the Indo-Pacific. The UK’s AUKUS commitments and its broader strategic focus eastward demand credibility – which comes from being a reliable partner. Yet, export licensing delays, legal constraints on intelligence cooperation, and institutional caution about sub-threshold operations all erode that credibility.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not agonise over legal interpretation. It shapes facts on the ground – in the South China Sea, in Taiwan’s approaches, and in its economic coercion of regional partners – while remaining nominally within the letter of international frameworks. Britain, meanwhile, applies the spirit of those same frameworks with a rigour that its adversaries find baffling and its allies find frustrating.

The BIOT dispute crystallises this perfectly. A decision with profound basing implications for Diego Garcia – and therefore for British and American power projection across the Indian Ocean – became entangled in legal and moral obligations that, however genuine, carried strategic costs that were either ignored or underweighted.

The UK does not need to abandon international law. Rather, it needs to rediscover the confidence to interpret it – as every serious state does – in light of its own national interest. That is not subservience. That is sovereignty.

Deniz Güzel

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and English-qualified lawyer

The shelving of the BIOT deal is a welcome turn to a saga which the UK should never have entertained. It submitted to a lawfare campaign orchestrated by Mauritius, which mobilised votes at the UN General Assembly against Britain’s sovereignty over the territory, triggering an advisory opinion from the ICJ that considered the UK’s administration of the territory to be a ‘wrongful act’.

In 2024, David Lammy, then Foreign Secretary, claimed that the deal would strengthen Britain’s ability to challenge Russian and Chinese violations of international law in Ukraine and the South China Sea. This supported the view of Lord Hermer, Attorney General, that the UK should rebuild its reputation as a leader in international law by first honouring its legal obligations.

However, while Britain frets about the consequences of ignoring a non-binding opinion on the BIOT or constrains itself through a restrictive approach to military targeting in Iran, the PRC and Russia will continue to breach and instrumentalise international law to achieve objectives contrary to British and allied interests. The UK should not assume that its ‘goodness’ is enough, and should recognise that the legal domain is now a central arena of strategic competition that it must navigate. By clinging to a nostalgic and idealised vision of international law, Britain risks rendering itself strategically weak and unprepared for a harsher world.

The UK should, therefore, integrate lawfare into its broader strategic outlook, enabling it to identify and counter hostile legal campaigns, reassess treaty commitments that impose outdated constraints, resist over‑expansive judicial interpretations, and shape international law in emerging domains such as space. Only by adopting a proactive, rather than restrictive, approach to international law can British interests be protected effectively on the international stage.

David Landsman OBE*

Chair, British Foreign Policy Group

International law differs from domestic law for the political reason that states have sovereignty. Sovereign states choose whether to accede to treaties and to accept international laws. They may do so as a condition of their relationships with others – e.g., European Union (EU) members accepting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – but the decision is still political. No international body has the legitimacy of a sovereign nation.

International organisations, including courts, only have authority if their sovereign members choose to accept it. In practice, their decisions can be influenced by states’ political interests. There is also the risk of a ‘principal-agent’ conflict if an organisation and the professionals associated with it advance their own interests and values distinct from the views of its members. Appeals to an ‘international rules-based system’ are political rather than legal, and in a multipolar world, more contested.

Rules are, of course, essential for trust in business, and international agreements on arms control and the environment, for example, bring wider benefits. However, the UK needs to be clear-eyed about its and others’ interests, and more selective about the commitments it makes: caveating them where national interests require, and opting out where necessary.

Not complying with laws a country has accepted destroys trust: refusing to comply is legitimate and should be respected. The latest version of HM Government’s Ministerial Code, which requires ministers to comply with international law on par with national law, is an abrogation of the sovereign state’s duty to its citizens and their interests.

*This response is written in a personal capacity, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the British Foreign Policy Group.

Dr Timothy Less

Senior Adviser for Geopolitics, Centre for Risk Studies, and Convenor, Geopolitical Risk Analysis Study Group, University of Cambridge

I agree that Britain has become overly subservient to international law. For a succession of governments, homage to international law has become the guiding principle of foreign policy at serious cost to the UK. The BIOT deal is the clearest example of this, but the same applies in multiple arenas – from the recent decision to deny American access to British military bases to policy on asylum and immigration.

I base this view on three considerations.

First, the primary duty of any government in the international arena is to uphold national interest. That does not mean disregarding international law. On the contrary, the UK has an interest in promoting a rules-based system that provides predictability and order. But, where international law comes into serious conflict with national interest, the latter should prevail.

Second, international law is not law in the same sense as domestic law. It is not enacted by a sovereign legislature or enforced by a central authority. Rather, it is a body of norms, treaties, and agreements on how states should behave in the international arena, and is inherently more flexible and contingent than domestic law – to the point that states can resile from treaties that contravene their interests.

Third, in today’s geopolitical climate, excessive deference can be counterproductive. The logic of self-restraint presumes adherence to international law by other states – especially Britain’s adversaries. However, that is not the world we inhabit today, if ever we did.

The UK’s opponents ignore, reinterpret, or instrumentalise international law to advance their own interests, and for Britain to bind itself rigidly to it is to place the country at a strategic disadvantage, or worse – as in the case of the BIOT deal – to undermine its national interest.

Dr Danielle Reeder

Freelance security and defence consultant

A major theme within the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the legal consequences of separating the Chagos Islands from Mauritius concerned the principle of self-determination and the human rights implications of colonial rule. Neither the method of ending the UK’s administration over the Chagos Archipelago, nor the manner in which the deal was executed, can be deemed as having seriously foregrounded these particular legal issues.

The drafters of the BIOT deal were correct in understanding that decolonisation is not a political choice, despite the way the deal is currently being discussed. It is a mandated condition of modern international relations. It is merely a fact that maintaining 20th century colonies into the 21st – and 22nd – centuries is logistically problematic.

That is not to say that Britain’s hands were tied, or that the deal was adequately comprehensive – poor upfront explanation to the public, renegotiating on terms overly favourable to the new Mauritian government, and U-turns based on winds of change from Washington all deserve critique.

Maintaining vital military assets abroad should not be conflated with maintaining colonies, even if the current location of bases are credited to a colonial past. Trying to posture to any state, particularly Russia or the PRC, through lawfare cannot have a controlled effect. The UK is in no position to be drawn into bygone spheres-of-influence policy, or continue simply to react to American decisions du jour.

The various pitfalls of the BIOT deal are not indicative of subservience to international law. They signal a problem with Britain’s purported vision of its global leadership model. The UK has to mind the ripple effects of being seen to ignore international law, but it must also consider its strategic coherence – which it is currently struggling to do effectively.

The Rt. Hon. Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Minister for the Indo-Pacific (2022-2024) and Secretary of State for International Trade (2021-2022)

Shelving the handover of the BIOT to Mauritius demonstrates a belated understanding that Britain’s Indo‑Pacific posture rests not on words, but on hard power and the needs of critical allies. Diego Garcia is one of the most globally strategically important islands, underpinning the UK’s Five Eyes power projection capability. It is remote, unglamorous, and indispensable.

Washington’s refusal to agree to changes to the UK-US Treaty, which would enable the giveaway, is a clear reminder that interdependence and trust with Five Eyes partners must be the determining factor in Britain’s decisions. Even when individual leaders are throwing tomatoes at each other, the deep ties and reasons for the alliance are undiminished, and must be protected.

The BIOT deal is not an isolated issue; it sits squarely within the UK’s need to be a serious Indo‑Pacific actor. HM Government has remembered what disruption to choke points does to British economic security vis-à-vis the Strait of Hormuz and consequent energy price hikes. If this happened in the Malacca or Taiwan Straits, it would affect everything from food and phones to chips and cheap Chinese imports. The UK cannot assume someone else will protect its economic interests – it has to be there.

From the South China Sea to the Red Sea, freedom of navigation is under daily pressure. Diego Garcia supports persistent maritime domain awareness, enables rapid response operations, and underwrites deterrence across those key chokepoints.

By shelving the deal, Britain has – perhaps accidentally – chosen strategic continuity over legal resolution. That choice will reassure partners living in this increasingly contested region where sub-threshold coercion, attacks on undersea cables, militarisation of sea lanes, and the weaponisation of legal ambiguity is a daily reality.

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The British Overseas Territories are currently receiving an overdue public appraisal. Recent Iranian attacks on the United Kingdom’s (UK) territories in Cyprus and Diego Garcia follow in the wake of a contentious agreement to cede sovereignty over the latter. Critics of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) deal allege the UK’s strategic naivety, succumbing to lawfare and diplomatic statecraft spearheaded by Russia. These events are symptomatic of both a deteriorating global order and intensifying international competition.

Strategic choices

The precedent set through the recognition of Mauritius’ claim to the BIOT could undermine the position of other British territories, including the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus. Like the BIOT, these airfields were also retained upon the recognition of independence of a former Crown Colony. Unlike the American-operated base on Diego Garcia, however, they are home to British military and intelligence operations, and have performed a key staging role for the UK’s operations in the Middle East for decades.

While the Cyprus bases have been controversial locally for some time, Tehran’s attacks and inadequate British defences have increased their perceived liability to the Cypriot authorities. Nikos Christodoulides, President of Cyprus, labelled the bases a ‘colonial consequence’, requiring ‘frank discussion with the British government’. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, wasted no time in visiting the island to emphasise a new French-Cypriot strategic partnership, declaring that the island ‘can count on France’.

In an era of renewed contest between states and an unreliable hegemon in the United States (US), the ability to defend norms, alliances, and claims of sovereignty requires both a reserve of strategic power and the capacity to wield it. Macron backed up his rhetoric with 11 French Navy warships deployed to the eastern Mediterranean and wider Middle East, including the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. Strategic autonomy extends beyond military power, with France benefiting from a long legacy of policy to develop and guard industrial champions in critical sectors.

The UK is fortunate that its allies – including France, Greece, and the US – were able to assist with the defence of Cyprus. In 2011, Britain deployed a sovereign response group consisting of three amphibious landing ships, a helicopter carrier, a frigate, and two auxiliary supply ships to the island. This exercise served as a demonstration of the UK’s capability at that point to ‘respond at short notice to unforeseen events in an unpredictable and fast-moving world’ as an independent force.

In 2026, additional British aircraft have been deployed to Cyprus, but the struggle to send a single warship to the region illustrates the decline of the Royal Navy. In tasking what few operational ships remain during 2025, His Majesty’s (HM) Government allegedly planned for air defence destroyers HMS Dragon and HMS Duncan to prioritise attendance at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) exercises in 2026 and 2027. The hard choices now forced on ministers are the inevitable product of decades of defence cuts, and delays to new ship orders during the austerity years.

Constrained military resources may force yet more trade-offs between commitments to NATO allies and the UK’s national priorities in future, with the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in 2025, appearing to commit to both equally. The SDR is clear that ‘Role 1’ for the British Armed Forces is to defend and protect Britain, its Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies, while also adopting a ‘NATO first’ doctrine of commitment to European security in response to the strategic challenge posed by Russia.

Sub-threshold threats and drone proliferation

Both the SDR and National Security Strategy (NSS), also published in June 2025, lack depth in their assessments of the Overseas Territories. Beyond commitments to maintaining a military presence in Gibraltar, Cyprus, and the South Atlantic territories, there is little detail on the evolution of sub-threshold and non-military threats in relevant regions, or capabilities required to respond. In contrast, France’s National Strategic Review 2025 details disinformation, malign foreign influence operations, terrorism, and supply chain weaponisation as particular risks to the stability of its overseas territories.

The contrasting treatment reflects a different constitutional relationship between France and its overseas territories compared to Britain. Some French territories are fully integrated, operating under the same laws as the mainland with political representation at the Assemblée nationale (National Assembly of the French Parliament). Even for those with greater autonomy, policing and internal security remain reserved matters for Paris, with gendarmes deployed overseas. The UK, however, retains responsibility for only the defence and foreign affairs of the British Overseas Territories.

A neat delineation of internal security as an area of local competence, with the UK retaining responsibility for defence, may not be suited to evolving sub-threshold and non-military threats. The SDR identifies improved resilience to these types of sabotage, influence, and disinformation as an integral area for defence, requiring input from ‘industry, the finance sector, civil society, academia, education, and communities’. Enhanced partnerships could be implemented with local agencies in the Overseas Territories to build the same type of ‘whole-of-society’ resilience envisioned for the home islands.

Britain’s Caribbean territories merit a single mention in the SDR (a commitment to humanitarian and disaster relief), while the equivalent French review paints a more concerning picture. On the potential for expansion of geographical areas of conflict, it states French Caribbean territories ‘in strategic areas with high stakes’ are vulnerable to ‘manoeuvres to control international migration routes, organised crime…[and] regional disputes that could be exploited by adversaries’. It notes increasing collusion between criminals, terrorist networks, and state actors. These threats were subject to a UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry begun in 2024, but work has not resumed since the general election that July.

Iranian drone attacks on Cyprus serve as a harbinger for a new era of proliferation in drone technology. Beyond states, terrorists and cartels are now exploiting drones and tactics learnt from Ukraine to attack security forces, conduct reconnaissance, and transport illicit payloads. Drone sightings near UK military bases have doubled in the last year, while Russia and Iran have turned to criminals recruited online to carry out sabotage. Britain should prepare for these tactics in its Overseas Territories in light of the strategic Russian threat, as well as collusion with local organised crime.

The role of the River class

Given the island geographies of the Overseas Territories, the capability of the Royal Navy remains paramount. The UK relies on five basic Batch II River class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) to protect the Overseas Territories, with a small simple gun and no hangar for the Wildcat helicopters recently deployed to Cyprus to shoot down Iranian drones. Three older Batch I River class OPVs patrol British home waters at an increasing tempo in response to heightened activity by Russian naval, intelligence-gathering, and ‘shadow fleet’ shipping. The March 2026 commitment by His Majesty’s (HM) Government to seize shadow fleet ships is illustrative of greater future demands on the Royal Navy in the UK’s home waters.

Maritime and aerial drones can be countered with cost-effective modern medium-calibre guns planned for five new Type 31 frigates. The Type 31s are planned to forward deploy overseas to protect global British interests, but the ‘immediate and pressing threat’ of Russia could derail this. With anti-submarine Type 26 frigates under construction now allocated to Norway, the three Batch I River class vessels decommissioning in 2028, and persistent issues with submarine and destroyer availability, any remaining Royal Navy surface ships will likely need to deploy in accordance with ‘NATO first’ in defence of Europe.

Given limited resources, HM Government should therefore procure smaller, cheaper ships to provide greater global presence and better protection of British interests, as mooted for a potential Type 32 frigate. Beyond the UK’s home waters, this includes protection of military basing and intelligence infrastructure overseas, and maritime security in the Caribbean.

A potential design might include a helicopter hangar, modern anti-drone armament, and hull-mounted sonar for undersea surveillance, as built into the French ‘Patrouilleurs Hauturiers’ programme of ten vessels. Some of these capabilities could be retrofitted to the five newer River class OPVs for use either at home or further afield. In tandem, the Royal Navy should also optimise the Type 31 frigate to offer greater both offensive and defensive capabilities in the Euro-Atlantic area, rather than for a global patrol role.

Robin Potter is Academy Associate with the UK in the World Programme at Chatham House. His research focuses on policy reform and intervention to improve resilience against sub-threshold challenges.

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On 25th March, the United Nations (UN) adopted a resolution that declared the transatlantic slave trade to be the ‘gravest crime against humanity’. Spearheaded by Ghana, the resolution received 123 votes in favour, three against, and 52 abstentions – including from the United Kingdom (UK).

While not legally binding, such UN resolutions often carry geopolitical significance. Given the controversy over the righteousness of reparations for the slave trade, and the fact that the British taxpayer would potentially be on the line were such reparations to be initiated, should the UK not embrace a more forceful position? This question forms the basis of this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked four experts: Was Britain right to abstain from the UN vote on slavery reparations?

Prof. Lawrence Goldman FRHistS

Lecturer (CUF) in Modern History, University of Oxford, and Executive Editor, History Reclaimed

Yes, the UK was right to abstain, because the transatlantic slave trade was not a crime in Britain – or anywhere else – during the period when Britain was involved in it (roughly from the 16th century to the early years of the 19th century).

It is looked upon it differently today, of course, but until 1807, when the slave trade was abolished by Parliament, it was, however horrendous, not illegal. It would be against all the principles of English and Scottish law to criminalise retrospectively something that was once legal.

In addition, the following points should be noted:

1. The UN resolution makes no mention of the Arab slave trade out of Africa, which sold even more Africans into the Ottoman Empire and the Near East generally than were transported across the Atlantic; and

2. The first stage of West African slavery involved the capture and enslavement of Africans by other Africans, who sold their captives at the ports to European traders.

Why does the motion not ask for reparations from Arab and African nations that also captured and sold slaves? Also important to note is that in 1807, when Britain became the first major nation to outlaw the trade, more people around the world laboured as forced labourers – whether as slaves, serfs, or indentured servants – than as free men and women.

In short, the UK was right to abstain, because the motion does not condemn all slavery and human sale; only that undertaken by ‘Western’ nations.

Prof. Toni Haastrup

Chair, University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES), and Professor, International Politics, University of Manchester

Britain’s abstention on the UN vote on slavery reparations is a political choice. It is not a principled position. It is an evasion.

To be clear, reparations are not simply about financial transfers between governments. They are about confronting the ongoing legacies of colonialism; the dispossession and the structural inequalities, often gendered, that shape the realities of Africa and African-descendent people globally.

The past is not behind us. It is present in every trade arrangement that perpetuates extraction, every multilateral institution that centres ‘Western’ interests as universal ones, and every decision that reproduces a hierarchy of whose lives are grievable, whose sovereignty is protected, and whose destruction is permitted.

The UK’s abstention at this moment signals a refusal to reckon with these issues. Britain has indeed already helped to develop the architecture of accountability through instruments such as the Basic Principles on the Right to Remedy, which it is now choosing to step back from when being asked to move from rhetoric to action.

What makes the abstention particularly telling is its timing. As Official Development Assistance (ODA) budgets are slashed, and many commitments to justice are quietly being hollowed out, this feels like another nail in the coffin for the idea of a progressive ‘Global Britain’.

So, no, the UK was not right to abstain. It was wrong.

Prof. Alan Lester

Professor of Historical Geography, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex

Britain was wrong to abstain not just on moral grounds – its dominance of transatlantic slavery in the 18th century was one of the greatest crimes against humanity ever – but also because agreeing to reparations talks may well be in the UK’s long-term interests.

To get one thing straight, reparations have been deliberately misrepresented by those opposed to any kind of conversation. They are not the transfer of trillions of dollars, charged to British taxpayers. US$19 trillion (£14.2 trillion) is the amount calculated by Brattle Group consultants as theoretically owed, were the UK ever to pay the wages of generations of enslaved workers, compound interest, and damages for the trauma of racialised captivity.

This is not what the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and its African allies are seeking. They are asking for talks that might ultimately result in agreed bespoke measures (as happened between Germany and Israel after the Second World War). The outcome would most likely be as follows:

• First, an apology and recognition that the scars of transatlantic slavery persist in racial and geographical inequalities maintained through indebtedness, multinational mis-invoicing, punitive debt, and exploitative resource extraction; and

• Second, an agreement on long-term measures of support, such as debt relief, assistance with health care, low-carbon energy transfer, and climate change adaptation.

The refusal even to begin a conversation is denting British moral leadership, creating distrust, and preventing the formation of sorely needed new alliances. Reparative discussions could revive the Commonwealth as a meaningful entity, embracing African countries with some of the world’s most critical minerals that are now being assiduously courted by the People’s Republic of China (PRC). With reparations talks, the UK has a chance to enhance a much-diminished global status, free of dependency on the United States (US).

Martin Plaut

Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London

The answer to the question must be ‘yes’. Slavery is a critically important question, but the way it was posed before the UN was badly misguided. The resolution calls for ‘recognition of the transatlantic slave trade and slavery as the gravest crime against humanity’. By framing the call for action in this manner, the full horror of African enslavement is obscured.

No recognition is given to the far longer, equally substantial, and just as brutal trade across the Indian Ocean. There is no reason to single out the transatlantic trade when it accounted for perhaps 20% or 25% of Africa’s historic enslavement.

The trade with Arabia, or that controlled by Arabian nations, was at least as large as that undertaken by the Europeans or Americans. It began much earlier and continued into the 1960s or 1970s. Should the modern Arab countries not also be approached for reparations if this debate is to encompass the whole gamut of enslavement?

Indigenous slavery by Egypt, the Sokoto Caliphate, and Ethiopia (to name just three) is ignored. So too is the role of indigenous elites in historic enslavement, for which they too should be held to account.

Most importantly of all, the resolution fails to tackle contemporary chattel slavery in at least five African states today: Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Libya, and Sudan. The African Union, Arab League, and UN have all failed to put pressure on member states to end this notorious practice.

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Recent tensions in the Middle East have exposed a deeper structural dilemma in the United Kingdom’s (UK) defence policy. Operational readiness shortfalls have undermined perceptions of British leadership, while the economic consequences of renewed instability risk further constraining defence spending. A recent research briefing from the House of Commons Library suggests that the ongoing Iran conflict will intensify inflationary pressures, eroding the real value of current defence budgets and complicating the delivery of an ambitious industrial strategy. At the same time, Britain faces a renewed alliance dilemma: a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) that must either adapt to the United States (US) under Donald Trump’s presidency, or for the possibility of no America in the alliance at all.

Despite clear British strategic intent to mobilise industry at wartime pace, defence procurement remains constrained by persistent institutional inertia and fragmentation. In practice, this exposes a tension between intent and implementation.

The UK recognises the need for faster capability generation and greater industrial mobilisation, but it attempts to achieve these objectives through national mechanisms rather than collective ones. Nevertheless, Britain does not need to invent a new procurement model. Rather, it should better employ its existing multinational frameworks.

The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) provides such a mechanism. A dynamic UK-led coalition of ten high-trust northern European states, it has proven its value through rapid crisis response, interoperability, and credible deterrence in the High North, Baltic, and North Atlantic theatres. It also holds considerably more potential; alongside its flexible operating framework, it is a structured procurement powerhouse. Already well-aligned, the JEF could aggregate demand, and procure primarily through the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). This would deliver shared capability at scale, fortify NATO’s northern flank, and cement British leadership in practical terms.

There is little resistance to the idea that faster, harmonious military procurement is urgent. In March 2026, the UK, Finland, and the Netherlands issued a joint statement announcing a new mechanism by 2027 to pool demand, accelerate procurement of critical capabilities such as munitions, and expand industrial capacity. Explicitly open to ‘like-minded partners’, this idea is exactly what the JEF can deliver. NSPA could give it scalable procurement.

Europe is rearming amid rising threats, but fragmented national procurement risks turning higher budgets into duplicated systems, delayed deliveries, and fragile sustainment. The JEF offers a firm basis upon which to build.

The procurement challenge and next phase of the JEF

Defence procurement in Europe suffers from three persistent flaws: duplication, procurement delays, and inadequate through-life support. Allies routinely acquire similar capabilities – e.g., maritime patrol aircraft, air defence systems, anti-submarine sensors, and secure communications – through separate national processes.

NSPA exists to improve this. Such duplication misses opportunities to reduce unit costs, can produce incompatible standards, and leaves sustainment chains fragmented across borders, which ultimately undermines operational readiness. In a contested, complex environment, operating demands seamless integration, and these inefficiencies must be avoided.

The JEF is uniquely positioned to address this. Its ten member states (Britain, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden) share converging threat perceptions and a common strategic geography. The JEF’s very purpose emphasises pooling high-readiness shared resources in support of NATO, creating fertile ground for harmonised requirements.

By identifying shared needs early, say for long-range sensors, missile defence enablers, deployable logistics, or munitions stockpiles, the JEF can aggregate demand, standardise specifications, and leverage collective scale. This turns political cohesion into military effect.

NSPA: Ready-made, already-paid

NSPA provides the ideal mechanism for the JEF. As NATO’s primary acquisition and logistics mechanism, it manages everything from initial procurement and competitive tendering to life-cycle sustainment, fuel supply, airlift, and repair services for allies and partners. All alliance members have access to NSPA by virtue of their NATO fees. It would be wasteful not to maximise its utility.

His Majesty’s (HM) Government guidance explicitly endorses NSPA for multinational projects, noting its ability to balance industrial participation while delivering economies of scale. NSPA’s track record is strong: multinational contracts for Stinger missile extensions, Allied Ground Surveillance (AGS) radar maintenance, and high-ranked repair facilities demonstrate how NSPA aggregates demand into tangible outcomes.

One of NSPA’s recent munitions procurements shows it can operate at scale. US$11 billion (£8.2 billion) was spent on various munitions, including US$5.6 billion (£4.2 billion) for Patriot missiles, which involved building a factory for their production in Germany. This is an organisation able to do the business that NATO members require.

The UK-Finland-Netherlands statement could lead directly to this. It targets joint procurement of munitions and equipment by 2027 to accelerate delivery and boost production capacity. Imagine pooled demand for air defence spares, maritime surveillance networks, digital command systems, or prepositioned logistics modules. These enablers, rather than prestige platforms, are where aggregation can yield impressive returns, resulting in lower costs, faster fielding, and sustainment resilience. NSPA’s competitive processes ensure transparency and value, while its multinational model distributes industrial benefits fairly.

Fortifying NATO’s northern flank

By building within NATO, a JEF-NSPA procurement pipeline would strengthen the alliance. Deterrence rests on interoperable, sustainable forces, capable of rapid reinforcement across domains. However, NATO’s own assessments highlight persistent gaps in demand coordination and industrial surge capacity. With increased coherence on the alliance’s northern flank, the JEF would deliver a more coherent capability package that could activate even before a crisis, from Baltic reinforcement to High North patrols.

This approach aligns seamlessly with NATO’s Defence Production Action Plan and emerging lessons from partnerships with Ukraine, such as drone sustainment and undersea defence. The UK-Finland-Netherlands idea, with its focus on munitions and industrial scaling, fits perfectly as a JEF prototype: by expanding it multilaterally through NSPA, it would create a regional force multiplier that enhances alliance-wide readiness without waiting for 32-nation consensus.

British leadership made concrete and credible

For the UK, this subject is about more than capability; it is about leadership. As the JEF’s framework nation since its inception in 2014, Britain has shaped its strategic identity and hosted key exercises. However, rhetorical leadership alone no longer suffices. The UK-Finland-Netherlands statement exemplifies the concrete action required: by launching a financing tool explicitly open to like-minded partners, Britain has already begun convening procurement cooperation among core JEF members. Folding this into a broader JEF-NSPA framework would elevate that initiative, positioning the UK as the indispensable convener for northern European defence.

This matters politically. Nordic and Baltic partners value not just solidarity, but delivery as well: coherence, shared stockpiles, reliable sustainment, and systems that actually integrate under fire. By championing aggregation from within the JEF and NATO, Britain would deepen that trust, sidestep European Union (EU)-centric funding debates where it prioritises value over access, and reaffirm its role as the continent’s agile security anchor. In an era of American strategic rebalancing and European industrial strain, such leadership would resonate from Tallinn to Tromsø.

A disciplined path forward

Implementation demands focus, not ambition. The JEF should start small, convening a procurement working group to identify achievable priority areas where needs align unequivocally. Munitions, logistics packages, secure communications, air defence enablers, and undersea surveillance could all be areas to build on existing equipment programmes. The next step would be to harmonise requirements through existing JEF channels, then route consolidated demand through NSPA tenders.

Governance would be straightforward: a JEF procurement board for prioritisation and NSPA for execution, with transparency on industrial offsets. Early wins, for instance a shared spares pipeline, build momentum; risks such as bureaucratic inertia or parochial industry lobbying are real, but would be mitigated by the bilateral precedent and NSPA’s proven track record. Over time, this could evolve into a standing JEF capability fund, mirroring the new trilateral mechanism but scaled for the full coalition.

The strategic imperative

Demand aggregation via the NSPA would transform the JEF from a promising minilateral into a European procurement vanguard. It would yield operationally relevant forces, a fortified NATO, and British leadership that delivers enduring value. The JEF has both precedent and momentum. In a continent racing to convert euros into effects, this is how northern Europe leads and wins.

This strategic logic is further reinforced by Canada’s increasing engagement with the JEF. Ottawa has recently increased defence spending to 2% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, signalled plans at the JEF Leaders’ Summit in March 2026 to deepen collaboration with the group, including on capability development. Canada’s involvement is strategically significant, not only because of mutual interests in High North security, but because it expands the scale of potential demand aggregation.

Together, the JEF and Canada account for a total defence spend of US$226 billion (£168.5 billion), representing a higher average share of GDP than the rest of European NATO. While the absolute figure remains lower than the combined spending of the other 19 European allies – US$333.3 billion (£248.6 billion) – the proportionate investment reflects a coalition of states already demonstrating strong political willingness to prioritise defence.

Such alignment creates favourable conditions for deeper procurement cooperation through NSPA. Canada’s direction for defence procurement and industry is harmonious with the JEF. It can only strengthen the group by increasing the JEF’s economic clout and enhancing its ability to act as a coherent, market-shaping procurement bloc rather than a loose aggregation of national buyers.

You can go your own way

Two further advantages arise from such a framework. First, it would expand the JEF’s capacity to support Ukraine. Aggregated procurement through existing NSPA-Ukraine coordination mechanisms would enable larger and more predictable orders to the defence industry, accelerating production while ensuring sustained delivery at lower marginal cost. The political agility of the JEF as a minilateral framework has already been demonstrated: during the first year of Russia’s full-scale invasion, its ten members provided security assistance equivalent to Ukraine reaching 1.53% of GDP, exceeding the 0.29% provided by the rest of European NATO. This exemplifies how an NSPA JEF-Canada framework would be uniquely positioned to mobilise higher, faster, and more strategically aligned support for Ukraine.

Second, the framework would mitigate uncertainty surrounding the long-term trajectory of American engagement in European security. Although the US maintains an annual defence budget of US$980 billion (£730.8 billion), its commitments are global in scope. By contrast, the strategic focus of a JEF-Canada grouping is regional, centred on the security of the North Atlantic, Baltic Sea, and High North.

While the US accounts for roughly 60% of total NATO defence spending, research suggests that only a small proportion of this expenditure is directed specifically towards European defence. Estimates indicate that replacing American capabilities in Europe could cost approximately US$1 trillion (£745.7 billion) over a 25 year period, or US$40 billion (£29.8 billion) per year. This scale of potential exposure underscores the strategic logic of deeper regional cooperation.

In this context, a JEF-Canada procurement framework offers a practical mechanism for reducing vulnerability to fluctuations in American commitments. By pooling resources, synchronising procurement cycles, and focusing investment on NATO’s northern and transatlantic flanks, the coalition could assume a greater share of regional security responsibilities without attempting to replicate the global military power of the US. This was the JEF’s original raison d’être at its inception in 2014.

At a moment when the transatlantic security order faces renewed uncertainty, the strategic question for European nations is no longer whether to rearm, but how to do so effectively. The JEF provides a ready-made solution. By transforming a flexible coalition into a coordinated procurement bloc, northern European allies can convert collective resolve into industrial power, and ensure that UK-led defence ambitions are converted into credible military capability.

Benedict Baxendale-Smith is an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and PhD Student in Defence Studies at King’s College London. His research focuses on British and Australian maritime strategies in the Indo-Pacific amid American-Chinese strategic competition.

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‘Great power politics’ is a term that has been disconnected from much of daily life in free and open nations for the past eight decades. While great power competition has always been a part of the national psyche during this time – rearing its head repeatedly throughout the Cold War and more recently when discussing the relationship between the United States (US) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – the latest comments from Alexander Stubb, President of Finland, show that it is only now that politicians in free and open nations are publicly coming around to the idea that a certain degree of realism underpins relations between countries.

In Europe, this can be difficult to grasp given that American cultural influences and the European Union (EU) have now existed for multiple generations. However, of all 21st century theatres, Europe has probably one of the richest histories curated by realpolitik.

The EU’s 2026 ‘Made in Europe’ proposals are the latest in a line of diplomatic entanglements that make very clear the realpolitik forces shaping relations between the union and the United Kingdom (UK). Brussels is pushing for products within EU supply chains to have 70% of their components made within EU borders. As the British Chambers of Commerce has pointed out, this looks set to snub UK-based companies, upending possibly decades of supply chain relationships covering everything from missiles to microchips. It remains to be seen whether this requirement is simply designed to strengthen Brussels’ hand in any future negotiations, but as things stand, it would help Europeans to win commercial contracts over their British counterparts.

As Europe’s historic ‘offshore balancer’ – against continental hegemony by France or Germany – the UK has always found opportunity in this realpolitik world inhabited by free and open allied nations. The same window of opportunity is again open today.

Britain’s opportunity as ‘offshore balancer’

The security environment of 2026 has shifted the chessboard of European realpolitik to the high ground of nuclear posture, orbital infrastructure, and ease of doing business. As the EU pushes for strategic autonomy in the 21st century, the UK too has a hand to play in shaping continental politics.

Take the latest move from Paris. On 2nd March 2026, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, formally unveiled the ‘Dissuasion avancée’ (‘Advanced deterrence’) framework at the Île Longue nuclear submarine base. On the surface, this is a generous offer to shield European neighbours with French nuclear capability. In reality, while it supports pan-European security, it is a classic realpolitik manoeuvre, designed to cement France as the continent’s permanent security landlord.

This comes despite the Northwood Declaration of July 2025, which pitched British-French nuclear cooperation. It suggests that Macron’s plans for an ‘audacious’ era of European nuclear deterrence are more French than British-French in nature.

The UK’s opportunity here is in providing the deep-water intelligence and submarine surveillance that France cannot replicate, for example, in the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap. Britain’s power is not in the posturing of nuclear buttons, but in controlling the undersea intelligence architecture that keeps the continent’s security from buckling. The bottom line is that Britain is the only other nuclear power in Europe. France cannot ignore this.

Opportunities in orbit

This same logic applies to the frontier of space. While concerns over 2025’s EU Space Act regulatory framework risk blocking further progress on the continent, Britain has opted for agile commercialism. The £500 million investment, announced by His Majesty’s (HM) Government in March 2026 at this year’s Space-Comm Europe by the UK Space Agency, forms part of a budget of £2.8 billion committed to the sector through to 2030.

This ambition is not about state-led prestige; it is about infrastructure and unleashing entrepreneurial dynamism. Through SaxaVord in Shetland – one of only two vertical launch facilities in Europe – and heavy investment in in-orbit technology, Britain is positioning itself to be Europe’s first mover in a global market projected to be worth US$1.8 trillion (£1.4 trillion) by 2035.

British entrepreneur accelerators and venture capitalists should see the demand signals from HM Government here, recognising that space as a manufacturing, service-providing, and defensive sector is projected to play an increasingly central role in the daily lives of British citizens. Consideration should also be given to positive second-order effects laterally impacting other aspects of society that could stem from the sector’s maturity – for example, enhanced clean energy technology or life sciences discoveries which would further support HM Government’s ‘Invest 2035’ industrial strategy.

The European element

This brings us to ‘EU-Inc’; an attempt to create a single business entity to be used across the bloc. If executed well, this could create an economic model competitive to the Delaware Model.

Current developments suggest that the EU is not where it wants to be with EU-Inc. The latest proposals, originally leaked in March 2026, show that dispute resolution still defers to national courts. In short, rather than creating a ‘28th regime’, the EU risks creating 27 versions of EU-Inc. This falls far short of creating an attractive ‘one size fits all’ alternative to scaling in the US, which all too often many of Europe’s best and brightest end up doing.

By contrast, in the UK’s single national jurisdiction, a local founder can register a business from any county or devolved nation, and Britain comfortably looks like a more attractive place for startups. This avoids the ‘politics-first’ investment cycles that often quagmire capital flows across the continent.

Having ranked 91/100 for Business Entry in the World Bank’s Business Ready (B-READY) 2025 report; achieving second easiest place on the planet to start a business in 2025 by StartupBlink’s Global Startup Ecosystem Index Report 2025; and placing third in Europe in the Global Innovation Index 2025 (behind only Sweden and Switzerland), the UK is perfectly positioned to act as the ‘venture capitalist of Europe’.

Britain can allocate capital based on where the technology actually works, acting as a light-touch, offshore hub for the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and defence talent currently struggling under the weight of EU compliance. The UK can provide a faster, more agile ecosystem where innovative, high-tech talent can actually enjoy the fruits of their labours.

Conclusion

For now, Britain’s European future is not found in a seat at the table in Brussels, but in the leverage it holds outside of the EU. The UK’s blueprint for lasting cooperation with its European allies and partners is simple: be the indispensable offshore balancer. With strengths in entrepreneurship, orbital launch capability, and subsea infrastructure that powers continental security and economic sovereignty, Britain makes itself the partner that Europe cannot afford to ignore.

The final word is one of strategic realism. The future leaders of the UK yearn for closer alignment with its neighbours. However, like every nation, Britain still has to put its own national posture first. A stable and prosperous Europe is one where the UK leads from the front with other leading free and open European states, not behind, and provides the security, technology, and economic might that the continent at times struggles to provide for itself.

Dominic Selby is an exam-qualified chartered accountant, as well as an individual member of Chatham House and RUSI. He has a keen interest in international security, entrepreneurship and innovation, and holds a BSc in Economics and Political Science from the University of Birmingham.

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The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) faces an increasingly contentious security environment amid conventional, nuclear, and sub-threshold threats from Russia. The United Kingdom (UK), as the JEF’s framework nation, should pursue a multilateral Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) network as a Joint Integration Option (JIO) to maximise its Atlantic Bastion, Shield, and Strike operational concepts while complimenting Nordic partners’ planning in the High North.

A2/AD is a well-established operational concept, intended to prevent an adversary’s entrance into, and freedom of operation within, a specific geographical space. Despite its association with the United States’ (US) thinking on Chinese and Iranian strategy, A2/AD is a universal concept, which leverages geography to achieve localised sea denial.

A JEF A2/AD network would therefore draw upon member states’ geography to integrate layered sensors, long range precision strike, naval combatants – including Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) – air power, and Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD). This would cultivate a tighter threat perception, a cohesive deterrence package, mutual support, and improved minilateral preparedness for emerging maritime crises, thereby maintaining the partnership’s first responder role but with a renewed strategic focus.

With an explicit rationale, the JEF could better support North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) escalation management by addressing smaller-scale conventional and hybrid threats, enabling the alliance to maintain a focus on high-risk strategic objectives, such as supporting Ukraine and conducting Enhanced Vigilance Activity (EVA).

Expanding the joint integration framework

Although JEF Operating Models are bifurcated as Joint Response Options (JROs) and JIOs, only the former has been utilised to support reactive activity against Russian aggression across the Joint Operational Area (JOA) of the High North, North Atlantic, and Baltic Sea.

Despite being bound by available resources, JROs have proven effective. NORDIC WARDEN, for instance, was activated just 13 days after the suspected Russian sabotage of the Estlink 2 undersea data cable in late December 2024. This eclipsed NATO’s BALTIC SENTRY response by a week, enabling the JEF to shape the operational environment to NATO’s benefit.

By tapping the unrealised potential of JIOs through an A2/AD network, the JEF could further codify capability procurement and integration, while simultaneously improving readiness and overall coordination. This would facilitate more regular and scalable joint military exercises, such as 2024’s Exercise JOINT PROTECTOR and 2025’s Exercise TARASSIS.

Implementing the A2/AD JIO

The JEF’s ability to maintain the conventional edge relies on the effective leveraging of land-based strike; Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR); and air combat systems, alongside surface and sub-surface combatants. As the key enabler, information sharing underscores all elements of an A2/AD network.

At the multilateral level, the group could create a ‘JEF Eyes’ intelligence agreement. In maintaining cohesive situational awareness, such an agreement would need to draw upon an expansive web of passive and active sensors, with additional intelligence sourced from the cyber and space domains. This would assist the JEF in hedging against US retrenchment from European security.

This intelligence would be integral to enabling precision strike through road-mobile anti-ship missile launchers, located within JEF nations’ territory to support the denial of adversarial operational freedom. Mobile launchers offer diverse flexibility for their deployment. However, a common denominator (one which the JEF should seize) is the ubiquity of the Naval Strike Missile (NSM).

The Naval Strike Missile

As the NSM is claimed to be ‘interchangeable between ships and trucks’, this provides the JEF with a common munition. Partnership-wide procurement would support interoperability, interchangeability, and supply chain cohesion. Doing so would also support diverse mission sets both on land and at sea – the latter enabled by the ongoing integration of NSM aboard British, Norwegian, and Danish vessels.

On land, NSM platforms can draw upon high operational mobility to conduct rapid deployments, even in remote environments. This was demonstrated in October 2025, when a Royal Air Force (RAF) A400M Atlas transport aircraft transported a two-seater tactical vehicle simulating the American Navy/Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), armed with two NSMs, to a remote Norwegian island. Alternatively, JEF members may seek to follow Denmark in procuring the NSM Coastal Defence System: a lorry-based system equipped with four launchers.

Regardless of its form, mobile land-based systems will play a critical role in deterring adversarial action, whether concentrated near maritime chokepoints like the Danish Straits, or when drawing upon operational mobility to be deployed at range to High North coastlines.

IAMD and the Nordic Airpower Concept

In supporting this and the survival of local Command and Control (C2) infrastructure and strike capabilities, IAMD sensors and interceptors are another key aspect of A2/AD. This includes Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD), which both NATO and the JEF lack when facing missile threats from the High North. Current BMD sees uneven coverage and significant capability gaps. Britain, for instance, will continue to lag behind until at least 2032, when the Sea Viper Evolution programme becomes operational. With no short term solution available, the JEF will have to depend on US-enabled NATO BMD capabilities, such as the Patriot PAC-2/3 and AEGIS Ashore.

To supplement ground-based IAMD focused on other aerial threats, the JEF should expand the Nordic Airpower Concept (NAPC) to drive further coordination and cohesion. Composed of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, the NAPC rests upon the ‘four pillars’ of ‘joint planning and command of air operations; coordinated development and use of Nordic air bases; enhanced joint situational awareness; and joint education, training, and exercises’. A JEF Airpower Concept (JAPC) would retain these pillars and Norway-based C2, while expanding the dispersed basing footprint to Iceland and Greenland for supporting air defence and policing further afield.

In expanding this pool of dispersed infrastructure, a JAPC could forward deploy a greater variety of aircraft to support an A2/AD network. At Keflavík in Iceland, for instance, the JEF should seek to station British and Danish P-8A multirole patrol aircraft permanently to supplement US European Command’s (EUCOM) deployment of two P-8As, and act as a replacement should America withdraw.

Building on the RAF’s experience of such a deployment, a move like this could encourage rotational deployments by Canada and Germany as NATO P-8A operators. This option could be supported further if the UK chooses to integrate P-8A-compatible boom probes on its Voyager aerial refuelling fleet for shared benefit.

Anti-Submarine Warfare

Comprehensive ASW is necessitated by increased Russian submarine activity in the High North, which has renewed focus on the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap and the North Sea. As ASW is predicated on detection, tracking, and potentially prosecution, an A2/AD network is bolstered by the deployment of a defending force’s own submarine capabilities.

Ranging from deep open ocean to shallower littorals, the GIUK gap and North Sea demand joint planning to accommodate the differences in endurance, range, and payloads of British nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs) and Norwegian, Dutch, and Swedish diesel-electric submarines (SSKs). For JEF planners, this could mean utilising SSNs in a hunter-killer capacity at range, while keeping SSKs closer to allied coastlines for patrol, alongside unique missions including minelaying or special forces insertion.

As a key enabler for ASW, the JEF should develop its own sensor network, which can both draw upon and feed into NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) ISR capabilities, centred around Uncrewed Undersea and Surface Vessels (UUVs/USVs) as eyes and ears within the A2/AD network. The UK can achieve this through utilising AUKUS Pillar 2’s alignment with NATO Standardisation Agreement (STANAG) 4817, which mandates UUV C2 interoperability between crewed platforms – such as Britain and Norway’s upcoming Type 26 frigates – and uncrewed systems.

With this, activity by JEF Maritime (JEF[M]) – the Royal Navy’s contribution to the JEF – could expand to form scalable task groups to supplement the High North-facing Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1). By continuing to act in a first responder capacity, JEF(M) could seek to capitalise on sea denial created by the A2/AD network to assert localised sea control, thereby facilitating wider SNMG1 operations, and mirroring 2023’s Operation FIREDRAKE. In addition to supporting NATO escalation management, this approach would deepen integration and interchangeability between subsurface and surface combatants, auxiliary vessels, and air wings.

Conclusion

The JEF’s growing strategic imperative in the High North necessitates the creation of a dense and scalable A2/AD network to deter diverse multi-domain threats from Russia. Although a considerable political undertaking, the UK should utilise its leadership position to give the minilateral grouping a strategic rationale to establish long-term interoperability and interchangeability through the JIO operational model.

By leveraging existing frameworks, such as AUKUS Pillar 2 and the NAPC, and pursuing novel arrangements like the suggested ‘JEF Eyes’, Britain should continue to capitalise on a shared threat perception to support collective deterrence at the NATO level.

Benedict Baxendale-Smith is an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and PhD Student in Defence Studies at King’s College London. His research focuses on British and Australian maritime strategies in the Indo-Pacific amid American-Chinese strategic competition.

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The nuclear debate across the Euro-Atlantic has accelerated rapidly. The expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on 5th February 2026 removed the final remaining United States (US)-Russian strategic arms control agreement. This ended not only the last formal numerical limits on deployed strategic systems, but also the vital verification and risk-reduction measures that accompanied them. Concurrently, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, gave a speech at Île Longue nuclear submarine base in March in which he signalled a more outward-facing French deterrent posture, unveiling a so-called ‘forward deterrence’ doctrine aimed at dispersing French strategic assets across the continent.

Together, these developments force a reckoning that many European governments had long preferred to avoid: as the strategic environment worsens and Washington is increasingly drawn towards the Western Hemisphere and Indo-Pacific, how should Europeans respond – especially in terms of nuclear deterrence?

Focusing on a novel supranational arsenal risks answering the wrong question. The answer lies not in a ‘Euro-nuke’ or new architectures designed to enable nuclear release. Rather, the real solution is to be found in the burgeoning British-German defence partnership. By building upon the Trinity House Agreement of October 2024 and the subsequent bilateral Kensington Treaty of June 2025, the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany are uniquely positioned to address the Euro-Atlantic’s most acute vulnerability: the lack of a sovereign, sub-strategic nuclear deterrent.

Washington’s pivot to the Indo-Pacific is no longer rhetorical. The reallocation of American naval assets to counter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is monopolising the availability of Virginia class submarines, leaving the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap increasingly reliant on British and European assets. Additionally, in an Indo-Pacific contingency, the US nuclear umbrella over Europe may be found wanting.

This is fundamentally a question of American availability rather than reliability. The US no longer prepares for even a two-front war, and Washington has been explicit that Europeans must assume primary responsibility for the defence of their own continent.

However, while conventional European rearmament is vital, it is fundamentally insufficient to deter a nuclear-armed adversary such as Russia. The unique destructive power of nuclear weapons compels a level of adversarial caution that conventional deep-strike or cyber forces simply cannot match. This necessitates a specifically European-led sub-strategic nuclear response capability.

In parallel, the UK and Germany have deepened defence cooperation through the Trinity House Agreement and Kensington Treaty. Meanwhile, Britain’s commitment to purchasing additional F-35A Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft and rejoining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) dual-capable aircraft nuclear mission marks a significant shift in posture, supplementing rather than replacing the Royal Navy’s Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD).

Beyond the ‘Euro-nuke’: Sovereignty and capability gaps

The challenge is no longer whether European NATO members should think seriously about nuclear deterrence: they already are. The true difficulty lies in designing an architecture that genuinely strengthens Euro-Atlantic security rather than merely duplicating existing structures. A fully fledged ‘European deterrent’ – a so-called ‘Euro-nuke’ – is often discussed as a single, obvious destination, yet it is fraught with distinct geopolitical, legal, and capability hurdles.

NATO’s nuclear architecture is deeply entrenched, with Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey collectively hosting roughly 100 American gravity bombs. Unsurprisingly, many allies question the utility of building a parallel European umbrella rather than adapting this existing framework.

The fundamental hurdle, however, is credibility. Extended deterrence is structurally fragile; the Kremlin may calculate that London or Paris would simply not risk domestic annihilation to defend NATO’s eastern flank. This anxiety is compounded by the US National Defence Strategy, published in January 2026, which prioritises the Western Hemisphere and the Indo-Pacific, and mandates European conventional self-reliance. To prevent a European deterrent from being dismissed as a declaratory bluff, it must be underpinned by integrated command structures and verifiable operational planning.

However, the constraints facing Berlin, Warsaw, and other European capitals through their adherence to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) rules out the simple multiplication of new national deterrents without severe political consequences. It is equally unrealistic to expect London or Paris to surrender launch authority to a novel supranational body, such as a multilateral European nuclear security council: such a structure would struggle to move quickly in a crisis scenario.

As the NPT prohibits transfer of control, the constant requirement for consensus would collide with the need for immediate strategic signalling. While a smaller group – for example, the European Three (E3) of the UK, France, and Germany – could offer greater operational agility, excluding other frontline states – not least Poland – risks intra-alliance fragmentation. Nuclear decision-making is the ultimate expression of sovereignty, and must remain during a crisis. Any emerging architecture should therefore be built primarily around existing British and/or French forces.

Yet, these existing forces are currently undermined by specific capability gaps. The UK’s strategic deterrent remains formidable, with CASD maintained since 1969 and currently undergoing renewal as more sophisticated Dreadnought class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) start to replace the ageing Vanguard fleet. France also wields a credible strategic force, increasing its stockpile of nuclear warheads for the first time since the Cold War to maintain ‘assured destructive power’. It also retains an air-delivered nuclear component.

But the two arsenals are not interchangeable, and neither can independently provide the layered, calibrated, flexible deterrence historically guaranteed by the US. Britain’s principal vulnerability is the absence of a sovereign sub-strategic capability, while the French deterrent, although more flexible, remains functionally decoupled from NATO’s integrated nuclear planning frameworks.

This distinction matters because the core nuclear problem in Europe is not simply a matter of warhead counts; it is about credibility across the escalatory ladder. European strategic nuclear arsenals deter the gravest threats, but they may lack utility in fast-moving crises below the threshold of national survival.

Russia, conversely, possesses a range of sub-strategic nuclear systems and a doctrine designed to exploit ambiguity. Indeed, without a European NATO nuclear power explicitly committed and able to wield sub-strategic nuclear capabilities, a gap exists which an emboldened Kremlin may seek to exploit in the event of a crisis wherein the US is unable to intervene. If European governments are serious about a self-reliant posture, they must focus on the rungs of the ladder where gaps are most pronounced.

The British-German engine: Establishing a sub-strategic arsenal

The most practical route towards a European deterrent lies in complementing British and French strategic forces, rather than replacing them. The UK is central to this effort, possessing a capability no other European ally can easily replicate: an operationally independent strategic nuclear force assigned to NATO.

However, His Majesty’s (HM) Government should take the next step by rebuilding a British sub-strategic nuclear arsenal. Regenerating a sovereign sub-strategic capability would provide flexibility, close the asymmetry gap with Russia – the possessor of a wide array of nuclear forces at both the sub-strategic and strategic levels – reduce dependence on future US administrations, and reassure exposed allies.

This capability cannot and should not be pursued in isolation. Here, Germany is the indispensable partner. Berlin has the industrial and financial weight required to close the European capability gap in complex weapons production, and bilateral cooperation is already well established. A realistic division of labour would see the UK leading on warhead development and stewardship, while Germany and other willing allies finance and develop a sovereign, dual-capable delivery system, potentially linked to advanced deep strike programmes.

As per Trinity House, the two allies have already agreed to cooperate on developing an advanced deep-strike weapon. If this weapon is air-launched, the F-35A Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft and the future Tempest airframe (which Germany may join) could then deploy the new missile. Such a missile could also be ‘dual-use’ – i.e., both nuclear and conventional – to save time and cost. This approach reduces duplication, operationalises existing bilateral frameworks, and creates a specifically European capability without breaching the non-proliferation regime.

Securing the architecture: Political coordination and air defence

If the military logic is to fill the escalatory ladder’s missing rungs, the political corollary must be to establish structured consultation among allies most exposed to Russian coercion. With Macron and Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, agreeing to establish a high-level French-German ‘nuclear steering group’ and include German conventional forces in French nuclear exercises, it is now over to the UK to reinforce European NATO’s emerging nuclear architecture.

A European caucus within NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group offers a viable forum. Rather than replacing NATO, it would allow Britain, Germany, France, Poland, the Nordic states, and others, to align deterrence messaging, exercises, and operational planning.

Additionally, deterrence requires robust defence. If the UK and Germany assume larger roles in this architecture, they must better protect the infrastructure upon which deterrence depends. Defending British nuclear bases, German air stations, and the wider Command and Control (C2) network through Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) complicates adversary calculations and strengthens both conventional and nuclear credibility. As defensive systems become more capable, they should be employed to protect key assets.

Greater bilateral coordination could enhance broader frameworks, such as the European Sky Shield Initiative, which relies heavily on seamless integration. HM Government’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review already places considerable emphasis on IAMD and on the Royal Air Force’s (RAF) role in this architecture. Now, it should be connected more explicitly to the emerging European nuclear debate.

This does not amount to a call for a wholly separate, supranational strategic deterrent, nor does it imply discarding NATO’s existing arrangements. The expiration of New START and the worsening geopolitical environment have fundamentally altered the Euro-Atlantic political landscape. If European governments are to harden the outer perimeter of NATO’s nuclear shelter, London and Berlin must take the lead in rebuilding the missing middle rungs of the escalatory ladder.

The most credible way forward is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It is driven by a British-German engine: preserve British and French strategic deterrents, complement them with jointly developed nuclear sub-strategic options, and embed these mechanisms firmly within NATO rather than outside it.

James Rogers is Co-founder (Research) at the Council on Geostrategy.

This article is the result of a half-day conference held on 10th February 2026 with the kind support of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) UK and Ireland. This was the first in a series of events in 2026 that the Council on Geostrategy is organising in partnership with KAS to encourage closer defence cooperation between Britain and Germany.

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The contemporary operating environment is, without a doubt, the most complex facing European states in recent decades. His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) of June 2025 places warfighting readiness as the core goal for the United Kingdom’s (UK) defence. With a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO)-first approach, warfighting in the Euro-Atlantic is prioritised, placing lower-intensity operations further from home into a subordinate position.

There are strategic trade-offs in prioritising Britain’s near-abroad threat environment rather than maintaining a broader global posture which aims to prevent or limit the impact of other crises. Scaling back global engagement might limit early-warning and crisis-management partnerships that enhance domestic resilience, for example.

The return of major conflict in Europe fundamentally alters the UK’s threat calculus. The reality is balancing other commitments with the significant risk of overstretch like never before. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has broken previous assertions that conventional mass capability was a thing of the past. Rebuilding mass and readiness for high‑intensity warfare is expensive, and effort-intensive at a level not seen since the Cold War.

What is readiness?

In its basic military form, ‘readiness’ refers to capacity, capability, interoperability, and sustainability. It occurs on three levels: operational, warfighting, and strategic readiness. ‘Warfighting readiness’ is how the system as a whole spins into action at scale.

A January 2024 House of Commons Defence Committee report, entitled ‘Ready for War?’, summarised the mixed picture of British military readiness as the following:

• Operational readiness: proven but with issues of overstretch;

• Warfighting readiness (the ability to deploy and sustain a force fighting at high intensity in multiple domains for a long period of time): in doubt; and

• Strategic readiness (the ability of the state to identify and use tools available to support a warfighting effort): ‘more of a concept under debate.’

In giving evidence to the House of Commons Defence Committee in June 2023, Gen. Lord Houghton, former Chief of the Defence Staff, asserted that the British Armed Forces have maintained high levels of readiness for standing commitments (to domestic security and overseas non-discretionary tasks) and to contingent commitments (to allies and alliances, such as the commitment to deploy forces to NATO at varying levels of readiness). At the end of 2023, over 7,000 British Armed Forces personnel were deployed on more than 40 operations.

Modern warfighting, as experienced in the conflict in Ukraine, demands a different skillset across strategic, operational, and tactical levels, potentially to be sustained for years. It covers conventional; asymmetric; cyber; and Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) capabilities across physical and non-physical domains in order to achieve tactical and strategic advantage.

The challenge is that high-intensity warfare requires depth of specialised expertise rather than breadth, which is what most analysts suggest the UK has previously attempted to do. Difficult choices need to be made regarding the British Armed Forces: are they expeditionary in outlook and activity, or should they invest in warfighting in Europe?

Political will and military readiness

In recent years, numerous voices have pointed to capacity and capability constraints affecting the UK’s ability to upgrade its warfighting readiness. Fiscal challenges continue to constrain the meeting of strategic objectives. Despite the recent uplifts in defence spending as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), decades of neglect and contraction will take years to rebalance, not to mention the impacts of a flatlining economy and higher inflation.

In 2025, HM Government announced an increase in defence spending to 2.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2027 and 3% during the next Parliament. However, there is an estimated £17 billion deficit between the funding promised in the government’s broader Spending Review and the cost of delivering the defence programme and implementing the 62 recommendations of the SDR.

Media coverage of Britain’s latent response to the growing crisis in the Middle East and the time taken to deploy HMS Dragon have brought these issues into the spotlight – HMS Dragon being the only Type 45 destroyer out of six that could be made operationally ready to deploy to the Mediterranean at short notice. HM Government’s resolve, and the readiness of the Royal Navy to defend sovereign territory in Cyprus, have garnered attention. The herculean efforts to ready HMS Dragon, which was undergoing scheduled maintenance in dry dock six days prior to deployment, underscores the commitment and ‘readiness’ of Royal Navy crews.

Defence Planning Assumptions (DPA) set out the size (and numbers) of operations the military might be required to undertake; the types of operation; where they may occur (including distance from permanent bases); and which allies or partners with whom they may be conducted. DPAs are based on the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) assessment of the strategic environment and threat, while trying to ‘optimise the force we have to respond to those threats in the best possible way’. There is wide acknowledgement that this process has become more difficult as the world has become increasingly volatile.

Operating versus warfighting

For 20 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it was thought that direct military intervention was required to stabilise, rather than exclusively war fight. As recently as 2021, the Integrated Operating Concept sought to move the military beyond traditional warfighting into a continuous cycle of persistent engagement. It sought to differentiate military activity between ‘operate’ and ‘warfight’, indicating that warfighting would be ‘a tool of last resort.’ While the Integrated Operating Concept was published prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was only officially withdrawn in June 2025.

The conflict in Ukraine has fundamentally altered all assumptions and presented a significant challenge for the prioritisation of activities, in addition to the need for an agile force structure to undertake such a wide range of deployments. To this end, Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, then Chief of the General Staff, admitted that delivery against a wide range of DPAs, while simultaneously preparing for peer-on-peer warfighting, is a mammoth task. Gen. Sir Roly Walker, current Chief of the General Staff, has set a date of 2027 for the reorganisation of ground forces.

Challenges of transitioning to warfighting readiness

Preparing for warfighting readiness is a long-term commitment. The UK’s forces have increasingly become a small, high-end force. The alternative is to resource the British Army sufficiently with the capacity to train later reserves, backed up by a system of rapid mobilisation, large stockpiles of weapons and equipment, and the mobilisation of dual-use technologies.

There remains, however, the niggling question concerning ambitions aligning with available resources (not just financial) and the pace required. 2030 is only four years away. For years now, academics, experts, and former military personnel have been publicising the numerous long-term investment issues in recruitment and retention of service personnel, equipment, and contracts and procurement. The UK also requires sustained investment in its homeland industrial base to achieve warfighting readiness. This includes making use of existing manufacturing capability in other industries.

Despite the perfect storm of challenges, none of them are unfixable with time and proper investment. Programmes such as the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) and AUKUS – both already underway – will go a long way to future-proofing technological requirements.

Warfighting: A whole-of-society approach

A further challenge is readying British society for the compromises and difficult decisions outlined in the SDR and National Security Strategy (NSS) in preparation for readiness against war and crises more broadly. It has become difficult, for Western Europeans in particular, to envision war in Europe, let alone war for Europe. It will be difficult to break the mentality that war happens elsewhere, involvement is optional, and consequences at home are limited.

In 2017, Gen. Mark Milley, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, popularised the sentiment that ‘nations fight wars, not just armies.’ War requires total societal commitment, a state’s resources, and the people’s will – not solely military effort. Transitioning to warfighting readiness requires political, economic, societal, and military transformation. The British public is a long way from ready.

Iran’s blocking of the Straits of Hormuz underscores the UK’s vulnerability to strategic shocks, and is indicative of the general lack of resilience and civil preparedness for what lies ahead. Crises are becoming more frequent, and are no longer exceptional. Conflict in the Middle East should reinforce the idea that readiness is not only the responsibility of the British Armed Forces.

Conclusion

The UK stands at a crossroads. The SDR and NSS heralded a major strategic change by prioritising warfighting readiness and a NATO-first approach as a means to deliver a force ready to fight peer adversaries in Europe. Significant challenges lie ahead in the realisation of British warfighting readiness, not only in overcoming or working within fiscal constraints, but in the depth and speed of the transformation needed to be ready to meet the key dates of 2027 and 2030.

What does this mean for existing long standing commitments and the UK’s response to crises? A deeper question therefore involves the balancing of current commitments with the prioritisation of warfighting readiness. Prioritising warfighting readiness by 2030 will inevitably require the scaling back of other international commitments. From the current standpoint, existing longstanding commitments will continue to be supported, but cut back to involve as few assets as possible. An uneven balance of sorts will likely be maintained.

In the realities of the contemporary security environment, the choice may not be an either/or. It may become increasingly difficult to prioritise against mounting and more frequent crises. This becomes, in effect, a continuation of the less than ideal status quo: falling back on the ‘can-do’, pragmatic approach that epitomises British service personnel – doing what they can with whatever resources they have.

In Defeat Into Victory, Field Marshal William Slim observed the challenge faced by Gen. Harold Alexander in the early stages of the Second World War: that he ‘found himself in the normal position of a British general at the start of a war – called upon to carry out a task impossible with the means provided.’ There is no reason not to break this unproductive habit in the 21st century.

Dr Anisa Heritage is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Her research focuses on changes in the international order and international security, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.

This article was written by the author in a personal capacity. The opinions expressed are her own, and do not reflect the views of HM Government or the Ministry of Defence.

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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Since its inception in December 2022, the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) has existed as a trilateral initiative between the United Kingdom (UK), Italy, and Japan, aiming to develop a sixth-generation combat aircraft. Other countries, including Germany, Saudi Arabia, and India, have also expressed interest in becoming involved in the programme, with Poland becoming the most recent to do so at the tail end of last week.

John Healey, Secretary of State for Defence, has expressed Britain’s openness to expanding the GCAP partnership in response to Polish interest. At the same time, however, Japan has signalled concern over what it perceives to be budgetary stalling by the UK. Building upon these developments, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked eight experts: What is the future of GCAP?

Dr Przemysław Biskup

Senior Research Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs, and Senior Lecturer, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)

Poland’s interest in GCAP reflects the need to expand its air power in the longer-term perspective in response to requirements for deterrence on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) eastern flank. However, official communications concerning Polish participation in the programme emphasise rebuilding national aerospace industrial capabilities in the 2030s.

A comparison with Poland’s negotiations with Saab regarding the A26 Blekinge class submarine programme is instructive. The Swedish offer is structured around technology transfer, co-production, and the development of domestic industrial capacity, including Polish shipyards’ involvement in construction and lifecycle support.

By contrast, GCAP appears to require pre-existing advanced capabilities. Poland’s contribution could focus on component manufacturing, software integration, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and uncrewed systems, rather than the core platform design. For Britain and Italy especially, Polish participation would strengthen already intensifying defence-industrial cooperation, including programmes concerning frigates, rotary aviation, and air and missile defence. Moreover, it would reinforce GCAP’s position relative to the rival French-German Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme.

However, Poland is testing parallel pathways. Cooperation with South Korea on the KF-21 Boramae fighter aircraft programme offers a credible route to industrial participation, on top of existing programmes in land warfare systems and FA-50 light combat aircraft, with proven potential for technology transfers. Engagement with Sweden on a successor to the JAS 39 Gripen multirole fighter aircraft presents yet another option.

The trajectory that could secure GCAP’s future growth would be a tiered expansion model, in which partners such as Poland are integrated into high-value industrial chains. This would enable the programme to shift the balance among non-American combat air initiatives in its favour.

Arun Dawson

PhD Candidate, Freeman Air and Space Institute, King’s College London, and Advisory Associate, Oxford Analytica

First flight in 2027 and entry into service in 2035 – at least, that is the plan. In practice, the scale and complexity of GCAP’s ambition make that challenging.

Beyond the technical risks – of which there are many – a central question is whether partner nations can reconcile immediate readiness requirements with long-term capability. The UK’s repeated delays in publishing a Defence Investment Plan, critical to funding GCAP, raise doubts on both counts. The frustration of its partners is palpable, as is the resulting erosion in deterrence.

GCAP nevertheless remains attractive relative to other sixth-generation fighter efforts. It promises the survivability, range, and connectivity required to operate in highly contested airspace while reinforcing industrial and operational sovereignty. Growing external interest is therefore unsurprising, but should be treated cautiously.

However appealing they may make the economics, additional partners risk diluting the programme’s current strengths: alignment of strategic intent and a pragmatic approach to collaboration. A lower-risk pathway for prospective collaborators may instead lie within the wider Future Combat Air System initiative, particularly in uncrewed elements designed to operate alongside the core platform.

These tensions show that GCAP is as much a test of statecraft as it is of metalwork and digital architectures. Can participating nations conceive and execute long-term strategies that combine military, economic, and diplomatic considerations – despite external shocks – to secure their national interests? If so, the future of GCAP is the future of Britain.

Wg. Cdr. Ben Goodwin MBE*

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Whether a pocket of the air littoral over trenches or a suppressed corridor deep into enemy territory, combat air power is needed. GCAP will be part of the mix of systems to achieve this, and the programme is focused rightly on range and payload, the sine qua non of air power.

Autonomy is in an avalanche of development. It strikes me that we are at something like a Jackie Fisher moment, particularly for air power: an inundation of autonomous, cheap weapons, with very long range.

Range and payload still matter. These roles should be the boundaries of GCAP’s design. The bleeding edge of technology should sit in the supporting systems with which GCAP will integrate, be they weapons, decoys, or jammers: software-defined, autonomous systems.

Alongside range and payload, industrial impact and service entry date drive the programme. The design and manufacturing investment made by the UK – currently budgeted at over £12 billion – should advance British manufacturing capabilities sustainably and significantly, all the way along the supply chain. This is closely linked to when GCAP will be fielded. When the threat changes, so does the mission – the UK must be able to design and manufacture rapidly.

GCAP cannot do everything. However, the flexibility of its great range and payload, and its timely delivery, will make it a potent air platform for the constantly developing technology that Britain and its allies will need to deploy.

*This response was written by the author in a personal capacity. The opinions expressed are his own, and do not reflect the views of His Majesty’s (HM) Government or the Ministry of Defence.

Air Marshal (rtd.) Sir Christopher Harper KBE FRAeS

Member of the Air and Space Power Group, Royal Aeronautical Society

Having worked on international combat air programmes in the past, I can see both the promise and potential pitfalls associated with GCAP. As a relatively young officer in the Royal Air Force (RAF), I was involved in the design and development phases of the Eurofighter Typhoon; I later had some responsibility for bringing the aircraft into operational service. Those experiences left me in no doubt as to the challenges inherent in multinational collaboration.

GCAP is central to the future credibility of the UK’s air power. It offers a pathway into the sixth-generation era – something that cannot be taken for granted. Through the involvement of BAE Systems and numerous other British companies, the programme also carries significant economic weight, supporting highly skilled jobs and the growth of the wider defence-industrial base. It may also represent the UK’s last realistic opportunity to play a leading role in the development and manufacture of a crewed combat aircraft.

Against that background, I would welcome Poland joining GCAP. There is a clear geostrategic case; Poland is a committed NATO ally that invests heavily in defence. Furthermore, an additional partner could bring greater resilience and a more capable end product, while reinforcing the programme’s relevance to European security and enhancing interoperability.

However, expansion of GCAP would not be without risk. Multinational programmes struggle with bureaucracy and competing priorities, which can lead to sclerotic decision-making. Adding another partner could also complicate consensus on requirements, workshare, and export policy.

That said, such challenges are manageable. With lessons learned from past programmes, clear governance structures, proper and timely exploitation of technologies – such as digital safety assurance and certification – and well-defined roles within both the GCAP International Government Organisation (GIGO) and Edgewing, the risks of increased complexity could be contained.

A broadened partnership would enhance resilience and legitimacy. Poland’s inclusion in GCAP should thus be supported.

Dr David Jordan FRAeS FRHistS FRSA

Co-Director of the Freeman Air and Space Institute, and Senior Lecturer in Defence Studies, King’s College London

GCAP has enormous potential, although the planned 2027 maiden flight of the demonstrator aircraft will mark the first point at which a proper analysis of potential can begin to be made. With increasing mistrust over American supply of advanced combat aircraft and the trouble facing the FCAS project, the programme may become a huge export success.

All three GCAP nations need an aircraft with Tempest’s proposed capabilities of ‘stealth’, long range, heavy weapons load, and a sophisticated sensor suite. The three partners all have advanced aerospace industries, and GCAP’s potential to drive technological advances in industry and gain export success is considerable.

GCAP’s capabilities make it an attractive proposition to other countries with similar needs for advanced combat aircraft. In recent months, India and Poland have been mooted as possible new partners. It has even been suggested that the serious difficulties over FCAS might lead to Germany joining GCAP.

The reaction from the current partners has been polite at best. Japan has concerns about introducing new partners, and it is not hard to see why.

While diversification may increase funding for research and development, there are risks. Questions of workshare apportionment would be inevitable with more partners, although this might be ameliorated by a model not dissimilar to that of the F-35 Lightning II, in which partners can participate at ‘tiered’ levels.

The danger of work apportioned on the basis of project politics rather than ability to deliver has occurred in previous collaborations, and would need to be avoided, along with parochialism that seeks design leadership or greater control over the programme. If such pitfalls can be evaded, the admittedly limited evidence so far suggests GCAP could be a major success, even as a larger project than first envisaged.

Perhaps the biggest challenge so far lies in the growing concerns over the UK’s failure to produce a coherent defence investment plan. Japan, wishing to avoid delay, is particularly concerned, and there is a sneaking suspicion that HM Treasury might wish to delay investment decisions to make in-year savings, even if past experiences shows this increases programme cost overall. Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, has sought to reassure Tokyo, but, it seems, not entirely successfully.

While GCAP’s future should be assured, it will need to rely on partners taking a long-term view and advancing together – whether as a trio or a larger collective.

Dr Alexander Lanoszka

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Waterloo (Canada)

On the surface, Poland’s expression of interest in joining GCAP signals a promising future for the planned sixth-generation fighter aircraft. With an additional partner involved in the project, the costs involved with the design, production, and eventual operation of the aircraft could be diffused more broadly, so as to allow participants to achieve economies of scale.

Moreover, the more allies of the United States (US) that collaborate with one another without America, the less reliant they should become on Washington. Even the US might welcome this development – whatever the implications for its own aerospace and defence contractors – if it is as serious about burden-sharing as it says it is.

Yet, such optimism should be tempered. News of Poland’s stated interest should be balanced against news of Japan’s growing scepticism over the programme itself. London and Tokyo appear to have different perspectives on the timelines involved for the GCAP, as well as the scope of technological ambition that it should achieve. Funding gaps on Britain’s part also draw concern from Japan.

The result may be that Tokyo could resist any new entrants to the programme in order to restrain the complexity of an already very complicated and technically demanding endeavour. Whatever the long-term success of GCAP, uncertainty over cost, timetables, and project management will persist for the foreseeable future.

Rena Sasaki

PhD Student, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

The most plausible future for GCAP is not unlimited enlargement, but a stable core of the current partners combined with carefully staged forms of external participation. From Tokyo’s perspective, GCAP is not simply an international industrial project. It is the successor to the F-2 multirole fighter, and a strategic effort to preserve Japan’s freedom of modification, high readiness, and a domestic defence-industrial and maintenance base, while still meeting the service entry target of 2035.

This is why expansion is a double-edged sword. Additional partners could ease cost pressures, widen the production run, strengthen export prospects, and deepen the supply chain. These incentives are real. However, bringing in new core members too early could reopen disputes over requirements, workshare, technology protection, and governance, and in turn threaten the programme’s schedule.

For Japan, then, the preferred model is core stability first, selective widening second. Countries such as Poland may still be valuable as future customers, industrial participants, or partners in specific areas, but not necessarily as immediate co-equal members of the governing core. Tokyo’s priority order is clear: protect the timeline and sovereign operational flexibility, and only then broaden participation in ways that reinforce – rather than dilute – the strategic purpose of GCAP.

Gesine Weber

Senior Researcher, Centre for Security Studies, ETH Zürich

If a Polish participation in GCAP materialises – although at the moment, this is still a big ‘if’ – this step would further deepen trends that are already observed in the European security order. It is also very telling about the future of the European Union (EU) as a security actor, and about EU-only cooperation in security and defence.

First, Poland joining the GCAP would highlight the importance of minilateral initiatives in European security and defence for key players. Second, it would also imply that Poland, the EU member state with the most significant defence spending as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is not looking towards EU partners for defence cooperation.

When more partners join GCAP – itself a project that unites European nations and Japan – these decisions also clearly demonstrate that European security and defence is increasingly being built across theatres. Despite the EU’s considerable funding initiatives, cooperation with partners outside the union remains an attractive option.

Lastly, Poland joining GCAP after previously expressing interest in FCAS is yet another blunder for the French-German project, as it shows that other EU members would prefer to look elsewhere rather than hedge their bets on a project that even the leading nations seem to have lost faith in.

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In November 2025, the United States (US) published its National Security Strategy (NSS), which stated that the Trump administration ‘will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere’. This includes protecting the homeland and access to key geographies. The US would ‘deny non-hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities’ and prevent its adversaries from owning or controlling ‘strategically vital assets’.

This was referred to as the ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine. The Department of War reaffirmed this approach with the National Defence Strategy (NDS), released in January 2026. The NDS asserted that ‘American interests are under threat in the Western Hemisphere’, and that the corollary is a ‘common-sense and potent restoration of American power and prerogatives in this hemisphere, consistent with Americans’ interests.’

Most discussion about the Trump corollary focused first on what it meant for the Western Hemisphere. This, however, misses critical context – the linkage of security and stability in the Western Hemisphere to potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific. For this administration, the two theatres are inextricably linked. Understanding this is vitally important for evaluating what – if anything – the United Kingdom (UK) could or should do in response to the new strategic posture of Donald Trump, President of the US.

Washington’s hemispheric focus

America has long assumed that it held primacy over the Western Hemisphere, but, in practice, it has maintained inconsistent and uneven attention on regional affairs. Instead of sustained engagement and commitment, Washington’s focus was fleeting, and almost exclusively linked to periods of crisis and instability. Domestic political issues, such as immigration and the war on drugs, have driven most engagement in recent years, rather than a concerted policy prioritisation.

In this diplomatic and economic vacuum, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was able to take advantage, expanding its own reach in and across Latin and South America. The US’ distraction throughout the two decades of the so-called ‘Global War on Terror’ proved to be a boon for Beijing. Through financial largesse accompanied by few (if any) expectations or requirements, the PRC secured access to critical minerals, rich fishing waters, and infrastructure projects which increasingly caused the Western Hemisphere to fall within Beijing’s practical sphere of influence in lieu of the US’ rhetorical remit.

By (re)asserting American interests in the region, the Trump administration hopes to ensure defence and security in its own backyard. By effectively closing the southern border and deploying law and immigration enforcement authorities, the President has succeeded in largely halting illegal immigration. The US has also taken the fight against drug traffickers to waters off the coast of South America, striking suspected narco-vessels. This is only part of the administration’s calculus.

If the Trump administration can increase its access to regional energy assets, such as in Venezuela – offsetting the depletion in the US’ strategic oil reserves – and critical minerals and rare earth elements (which are overwhelmingly controlled by the PRC), Washington will in turn reduce its exposure to hydrocarbon market instability from the Persian Gulf and on supply chains controlled by Beijing. Done successfully, this could decrease the need for future American interventions in the Middle East, and ensure that the US can better weather the potential impact of a conflict in the Indo-Pacific over Taiwan on the American economy, thereby allowing it to intervene with less strategic risk. This is now, of course, complicated by the secondary effects of Operation EPIC FURY against Iran.

The US also aims to secure strategic geographic territory in the region by denying it to the PRC and, to a lesser degree, Russia. The Panama Canal is the central transportation linkage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The possibility that Beijing could directly or indirectly control the canal or its operation is an unacceptable risk for Washington.

The Euro-Atlantic theatre

The diplomatic furore that resulted from Trump’s attempt to secure Greenland masked its strategic relevance. Greenland is vitally important for controlling access from the Arctic into the North Atlantic – the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap. Control of these waters allows the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to monitor and track Russian submarines, as well as containing the Kremlin’s strategic assets from departing their Arctic bastion. Greenland is also vital real estate for the missile defence architecture of the US homeland, hence Trump’s firm stance on his desire for sovereign control of the island to hedge against losing access in the future.

Given these considerations, the first policy priority for the UK is to ‘keep calm and carry on’. The doctrine, such as it is, does not target Britain or its immediate interests. If anything, the Trump administration has worked to ensure His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s seat at the table. The UK’s presence at the convening of the Western Hemisphere’s defence chiefs reflected a recognition by America of Britain’s interests in the region.

This is unlikely to change. The UK has personnel embedded in the Joint Inter-Agency Task Force South, working daily with the US on counter-narcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere, and this continues as business as usual.

The likelihood that significant friction or policy conflict will result between Washington and London in the region is limited. There is certainly room for conflict over specific elements of the policy as it is applied, as evidenced by the temporary suspension of intelligence from British sources in the targeting of narco-traffickers in the Caribbean. Indeed, HM Government’s focus on the rule of international law could set up further conflicts of a similar vein (such as was the case over Iran). This is, of course, an issue for Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, and not Trump, who has demonstrated little (if any) interest in international law – a position that is unlikely to change.

The military buildup of naval and military assets ahead of the operation in Venezuela notwithstanding, the impact of American force deployment in the Western Hemisphere on broader global engagements is likely limited, at least in the near term. The issue is not so much power projection against Latin and South American countries, but rather the assertion of the US’ interests through measured presence and deployment, and periodic joint exercises and training with partner militaries.

In terms of force deployments, the Trump administration’s likely calculus is based on a greater assumption of responsibility for the NATO defence and deterrence mission by the European members of the alliance, which necessitates reduced American presence in the Euro-Atlantic. This enables the belated rebalance to the Indo-Pacific. Given the threat picture in Latin and South America, the requirements for presence there are well below what would be comparably necessary in the Euro-Atlantic, or indeed the Gulf region.

The frictions resulting from the Prime Minister’s initial decision to deny the use of British bases in support of the American offensive operations against Iran reinforces the importance of the second key consideration – finding ways of aligning with Washington’s objectives that are politically palatable for 10 Downing Street. This is fundamentally about determining the art of the possible given competing priorities, while also reaffirming the UK’s credibility in Trump’s eyes (the only figure whose perspectives ultimately matter in the administration). Such credibility has suffered markedly owing to the dissonance at the start of Operation EPIC FURY.

Options for collaboration

Increased cooperation on some of the underlying challenges the Trump corollary seeks to correct would strengthen the bilateral relationship and benefit Britain. The diversification of critical mineral and rare earth element sources and the development of non-Chinese controlled supply chains through investment (both diplomatic and financial) in Latin and South America would address a key concern of the White House, while also providing economic benefits to the UK.

A practical effort from HM Government, and one that would be welcomed by Washington, would be the pursuit of defence and security in Britain’s own primary theatre of operations – the Euro-Atlantic, as identified in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) – thereby enabling the US to pursue its own activities closer to home. This is effectively what the White House is pursuing: as the NDS notes, America is ‘sensibly and prudently pressing and enabling US allies and partners to take primary responsibility’.

Here, there is an area of overlap that will benefit both countries – Greenland and the North Atlantic. HM Government’s deployment of assets as part of ARCTIC SENTRY is a prudent move, illustrative of this concept in practice, and something already baked into the SDR. Additionally, this has the added benefit of addressing security in key strategic terrain also identified in the NDS.

There is also natural overlap on space-based cooperation between the two nations, as well as the Trump administration’s ambitions for ‘Golden Dome’: the continental missile defence system which the President seeks to field. The US$185 billion (£138.3 billion) programme will offer opportunities for UK-based defence companies, and bilateral cooperation could aid British national interest in enhancing its meagre Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD) capabilities.

While the US has prioritised the Western Hemisphere in its policy documents and through preliminary actions, it remains to be seen how much policy effort and energy Washington will dedicate to implementing the Trump corollary further. Operation EPIC FURY and its regional expansion, to say nothing of other emergent geostrategic issues (precipitated by Trump or otherwise) could well consume greater American focus, making the corollary somewhat moot for the remainder of the President’s term in office.

Joshua C. Huminski is an International Fellow and the Council on Geostrategy, Senior Vice President for National Security and Intelligence Programmes, and Director of the Mike Rogers Centre for Intelligence and Global Affairs at the Centre for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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Five years ago, on 16th March 2021, the Integrated Review was published. Entitled ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age: The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy’, the strategy appraised and redefined the United Kingdom’s (UK) position in the world. When announced in February 2020, Her Majesty’s Government ‘committed to hold the largest review of the UK’s foreign, defence, security and development policy since the end of the Cold War.’

But what impact has the Integrated Review had on British foreign and defence policy? Was it really as ambitious and extensive as promised? To mark the fifth anniversary of the strategy’s publication, for this week’s Big Ask we asked five experts: What has the Integrated Review achieved five years after publication?

Dr Robert Johnson

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Director, Oxford Strategy, Statecraft, and Technology (Changing Character of War) Centre

Since the publication of the Integrated Review, the international security situation has deteriorated rapidly. While deterred from a direct attack on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Russia still harboured the ambitions it articulated in its ultimatum of December 2021: to divide the alliance and to ‘de-militarise’ Eastern Europe, rendering these sovereign states into no more than clients of the Russian Federation.

The Kremlin chose to invade Ukraine with overwhelming force, but also to continue its attacks on the UK using ‘hybrid’ measures. Let us not forget that Russia used both a chemical weapon and a radiological weapon on British soil, killing people in the UK.

The objective of the Integrated Review was to bring together the various levers of government – in defence, security, finance, aid, and the economy– to serve agreed national interests and counter such sub-threshold action. But the unity of purpose has not been sustained.

Energy policy today is at odds with the objectives of energy security. Legal instruments appear to protect the rights of individuals who are a security risk, while legislation seeks to prosecute soldiers who served in Northern Ireland. Separating the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and National Security Strategy (NSS) has created different priorities.

In sum, since the Integrated Review was published, Britain has taken a retrograde step, does not exhibit foresight, and does not have a coherent national strategy.

Charles Parton OBE

Honorary Fellow and Chief Adviser, China Observatory, Council on Geostrategy

No British political party would disagree with the objectives that the Integrated Review set for the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Shorn of repetition, it promised to:

• Invest in enhanced PRC-facing capabilities;

• Pursue a positive trade and investment relationship;

• Protect national and economic security (e.g., critical national infrastructure, sensitive technology, critical supply chains) and values (calling the PRC out where it threatened values, interests, or existing agreements);

• Introduce legislation to give the security agencies and police necessary powers; and

• Cooperate in tackling transnational challenges.

The PRC was labelled ‘the biggest state-based threat to the UK’s economic security’. However, the review did not add ‘and also to national security’ (by contrast, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] is clear that economic and national security are the same thing).

The scorecard is wan. Both the Conservative and Labour governments have been strong on slogans (‘protect, align, engage’; and ‘cooperate, compete, challenge’), but weak on strategy and clear guidance.

Investment in educating civil servants on the PRC (sadly not at the senior levels) has risen, as has consultation of China experts, although claims of having set up a ‘China Experts’ Advisory Group’ suggest a more structured approach than the reality of ad hoc meetings. Unlike its predecessor, the current government has pursued a more positive trade and investment relationship, although its belief that British growth is dependent on the PRC shows a lamentable understanding of how the CCP thinks and operates.

On security and protection, there have been advances in legislation (e.g., the National Security and Investment Act, National Security Act, and Procurement Act), but laws are only as good as their implementation. The new National Protective Security Authority is a renaming of MI5’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure. It provides businesses and other organisations with expert security advice, and the Research Collaboration Advisory Team aims to raise awareness in science and technology research institutions as to when working with the PRC is acceptable or not.

Those who hoped that HM Government’s ‘China Audit’ would be a cracker saw only a damp squib.

James Rogers

Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy

The Integrated Review was a revolutionary document. Rather than acting as a conventional ‘national security strategy’, its aim was to initiate the intellectual reset of British foreign, security, and defence policy. It challenged the post-Cold War complacency and flawed assumptions of successive governments. It dismantled the idea that the world was improving and that integration was a desirable end goal, and acknowledged the stark reality of geopolitical competition, state-based threats (such as those from Russia), the blurring lines between peace and war, and the centrality of the sovereign national powerbase. It served, in many ways, as a genuine grand strategy for the 2020s.

The Integrated Review’s impact has been extensive. It inspired a new strategic vocabulary within the institutions charged with crafting and delivering British foreign, security, and defence policy. Today, they focus less on international development and multilateralism, and more on ‘strategic advantage’, establishing new minilateral frameworks to counter rivals, rebuilding and extending Britain’s nuclear deterrent, and forging partnerships that link the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific. Indeed, the UK’s participation in AUKUS in late 2021, and its robust response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, are difficult to imagine outside of the Integrated Review’s intellectual framework.

Ultimately, the Integrated Review began to sweep away the harmful assumptions of previous eras. It established a robust intellectual foundation for the future, upon which the Integrated Review Refresh (IRR), the SDR, and the NSS, have all subsequently built. There is still work to be done to strengthen Britain further, but the Integrated Review marks the moment where the ‘ship-of-state’ began to turn.

Gray Sergeant

Research Fellow (Indo-Pacific Geopolitics), Council on Geostrategy, and PhD Student, Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science

There is ample evidence to say that HM Government has delivered on the Integrated Review’s promise to ‘tilt’ to the Indo-Pacific. Over the past five years, the UK has joined the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), established AUKUS, and has become an Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Dialogue Partner. Meanwhile, Britain has deepened ties with key partners including Australia, India, and Japan.

With support across the House of Commons for these developments, the region is a permanent pillar of British policy (to use the lingo of 2023’s IRR).

But where does this pillar stand in comparison to other interests and regions of the world, and what is next for the UK’s engagement? These questions are most pertinent when it comes to promoting national security.

Geography is destiny, and when it comes to defence there was never any question that, beyond Britain’s shores, HM Government’s priority is the defence of Europe. Government ministers are also quite correct to say that ‘NATO-first’ does not mean ‘NATO only’. Yet, the SDR fudges what comes next, recommending ‘the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific as the next priority regions’.

Is this not a disguised way of saying ‘third’? Indeed, this is saying something given the UK’s seeming inability (unwillingness aside) to defend its interests in the Gulf over the past few weeks. Moving forward, if the Indo-Pacific is to remain a genuine pillar rather than an afterthought, Britain should prove that last year’s Carrier Strike Group deployment was a stepping stone to sustained operational engagement, not just a curtain call.

Dr Marc De Vore

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews

The Integrated Review stands out for its systematic and rigorous assessment of the international environment. Rather than a mere cost-cutting exercise, it began from first principles and then defined the UK’s strategic priorities. It diagnosed the Indo-Pacific region as the epicentre of future international relations, featuring both the fastest-growing economies and the world’s greatest systemic challenge in the PRC. The Integrated Review’s recommendation logically followed from this – an Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’ – wherein increased military and diplomatic engagement with the region would yield economic and geopolitical gains.

No modern British strategy document was as well thought-out as the Integrated Review. Equally, no modern British strategy document has become so rapidly obsolete.

While the Integrated Review defined Russia as an ‘acute threat’, it received second billing to the PRC. The Kremlin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however, changed this equation. Although Russia may be a power in decline, today it stands out as the greatest threat to the UK and European nations due to the following factors:

1. Its willingness to suffer over one million casualties in a war of aggression;

2. Its penchant for engaging in nuclear brinksmanship; and

3. Its systematic engagement in sub-threshold warfare.

The other thing that has changed is the United States (US). Part of the grand bargain implicit in the Integrated Review is that Britain would support America in the Indo-Pacific, while the US would continue to underwrite European security. Donald Trump’s re-election as President of the US fundamentally shifted this equation. Disdainful of NATO, covetous of allies’ territory, and incapable of making long-term commitments, the US is today a weak rod for the UK to lean upon in formulating its foreign policy.

Ultimately, the Integrated Review was a masterful document for its time, which turned out to be very short.

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In early March, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, announced a major shift in France’s nuclear doctrine. Speaking at Île Longue nuclear submarine base in Brittany, Macron stated that the French nuclear arsenal will increase from 290 warheads – a number unchanged since 1992 – to an undisclosed amount, and that France will begin to collaborate with its non-nuclear allies across Europe to develop ‘forward deterrence’ against adversaries.

Unlike the British nuclear deterrent, which is thoroughly strategic, the ‘force de dissuasion’ is a broader deterrent, but one which has, until now, only protected France. While the change in French nuclear posture reflects the increasingly volatile state of international relations, it will also have an impact on the United Kingdom’s (UK) nuclear calculations. This forms the basis of this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked nine experts: How will France’s shift in nuclear doctrine affect Britain?

Dr Henning Hoff

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Executive Editor, Internationale Politik Quarterly and Internationale Politik

Macron’s proposals – essentially, to take the first steps towards ‘Europeanising’ the French nuclear deterrent – should be a moment for the UK to rethink its own approach to nuclear deterrence, including the question of its dependence on the United States (US). Although it would mean a quicker and more extensive increase in British defence spending than currently envisaged, the UK considering this and joining the effort would be advantageous – certainly when viewed from Berlin.

Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, has always been clear that he would want to see both European nuclear powers – Britain and France – engaged with Germany in this effort. While closer French-German cooperation on nuclear deterrence is now underway, many questions, some of huge consequence, are far from being resolved. It is true that the UK, which already works closely with France on nuclear issues, playing its own new role in the context of European nuclear deterrence would make the effort more complex.

However, it would also make European nuclear deterrence more stable and balanced in the longer term. Germany remains highly unlikely to build its own nuclear deterrent, but hosting British as well as French weapons would lead to a stronger posture in case of an American withdrawal, and to Berlin’s decision-makers sleeping more soundly.

There are also further, greater benefits. As Macron (rightly) argued at the Munich Security Conference in February 2026, nuclear deterrence is the ‘cornerstone’ of European defence integration; cooperation in this field will ‘trickle down’ into other domains. It could pave the way for a shared strategic culture soundly underpinning European security – including a strong British element.

Linas Kojala

Chief Executive Officer, Geopolitics and Security Studies Centre

From a Baltic and Northern European perspective, France’s shift is very welcome – and it should be understood correctly. It does not displace the US’ strategic deterrent, which remains the supreme guarantee of European North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) security. The UK’s deterrent continues to play an important complementary role, while France is adding a more explicitly European dimension to the overall deterrence debate.

Thus, the British role only increases. The UK has assigned its nuclear forces to NATO since 1962, and in June 2025 decided to buy at least 12 F-35A Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft and join NATO’s Dual-Capable Aircraft (DCA) mission. This was certainly noticed in the Baltic states.

That is not symbolic. It reinforces Britain’s role as the key European connector between the American nuclear umbrella and European nations’ own deterrent contribution, and also shows that the transatlantic bond continues to evolve in practical ways despite political turbulence.

So, the broader significance of France’s move is strategic. Paris itself has said that its new cooperation with Germany will ‘add to, not substitute for’ NATO’s nuclear deterrence and NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements. This signals that Europeans are thinking more seriously, and more long-term, about continental security at the strategic level. That is good news for the UK, and for the Baltic region.

Philippe Lefevre

Doctoral Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of Surrey

Standing before the nuclear-armed Le Téméraire submarine, Macron’s speech highlighted the extent to which French nuclear and military posture has adapted more successfully to the realities of the security crisis facing European nations than Britain’s has. Demonstrated further in recent days with the deployment of the French Navy to Cyprus in lieu of the Royal Navy’s own deployment due to delays, France’s shift in nuclear doctrine is a wake-up call to the UK to start taking its own nuclear arsenal more seriously, and could encourage many similar moves for Britain’s own nuclear posture.

The European countries interested in participating in this new forward posture should also convince the UK that it is in its interests to be more multilateral and engaged. By creating a unified joint European nuclear umbrella with France, covering further nations beyond just those with forward presence, Britain and its allies can hedge against the worst possibility of a complete reduction of American deterrence.

France’s shift also draws attention to the UK’s lack of a tactical nuclear arsenal, highlighting a key gap in the British nuclear posture. While debate still rages over cost, and conventional versus nuclear munition benefits, the UK should at least respond to France’s shift with its own understanding of the role of its nuclear arsenal, where its gaps lie and how it intends to fill them, lest others answer this question with aggressive posturing of their own.

Etienne Marcuz

Senior Analyst, Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS)

Macron’s speech announced a major shift in France’s nuclear deterrence policy: for the first time in its history, Paris invited eight of its closest allies to participate directly in its nuclear operations through the new concept of forward deterrence.

Britain holds a privileged position in this French initiative, both due to its status as a nuclear power and the deep strategic ties that have bound the two countries for decades. The Northwood Declaration of July 2025 already broke new ground by mentioning the possibility of political, technological and – most importantly – operational coordination between the two nations’ nuclear deterrents.

The forward deterrence concept will significantly enhance the resilience of the UK and France’s strategic forces, opening the door to the deployment of nuclear assets on each other’s territory – potentially including strategic submarines. Furthermore, Royal Air Force (RAF) participation in French air-based nuclear operations could enable it to regain expertise lost with the withdrawal of the WE.177 gravity bomb from service in 1998, potentially paving the way for a future national programme.

Above all, this doctrinal evolution and the coordination of British and French deterrents will provide a solid foundation for a European security and defence architecture in the face of adversaries, particularly Russia.

James Rogers

Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy

In some ways, France’s decision to establish forward deterrence – by deploying nuclear-capable aircraft to a plethora of European partners, albeit on a temporary basis – means very little. It will play a relatively small role in boosting the defence of Europe, as the Kremlin knows that these aircraft could soon be withdrawn if they apply serious pressure.

Without extended deterrence (an explicit and durable entanglement whereby a nuclear-armed nation stations forces on the territory of a non-nuclear-armed ally), a nuclear opponent may think it can force concessions. In some ways, France’s forward deterrence may even undermine the defence of Europe for the simple reason that it is so ambiguous.

In other ways, the French decision may attract desperate allies who believe the established order in Europe is coming apart. This would provide France with greater influence over the future direction of continental security, alongside all the economic and industrial benefits that come with it. France – not the UK – would become strategically indispensable.

What Britain should do now is straightforward: establish its own sub-strategic nuclear weapons and delivery programme. For one, this would provide the UK and its allies with the means to match Russia’s potential escalatory steps – the Kremlin possesses nuclear forces at all levels, and has demonstrated a propensity to leverage its nuclear status for geopolitical effect. For another, if this could form part of a British-led sub-strategic nuclear sharing system – perhaps based on the F-35A Lightning II and Tempest airframes – with a select group of European nations (such as the Nordic states, Poland, Germany, Italy, Romania and Turkey), the UK could re-centralise itself at the heart of European geopolitics.

This would also provide European allies with greater incentives to buy into the British defence-industrial base, yielding positive trade-offs for future economic growth and technological innovation.

Dr Jan Ruzicka

Lecturer in Security Studies and Director of David Davies Institute of International Studies, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University

From the UK’s perspective, there are two ways to read Macron’s speech.

Firstly, several of the announced changes carry distinct benefits to Britain. At the rather modest, though symbolically significant, end of the spectrum, France now joins the UK in embracing ambiguity about its number of nuclear warheads, which it will no longer make public. Much more profound is Paris’ signalled willingness to loosen its notorious nuclear independence, and to ‘conceive our deterrence strategy within the depth of the European continent’.

While this falls short of the British nuclear commitment to European allies within NATO, France’s move may bolster the UK’s existing efforts and even provide some relief. Pointedly, the brief statement from His Majesty’s (HM) Government statement following Macron’s announcement concluded with the following sentence: ‘We welcome the proposals set out by President Macron to cooperate more closely with allies on nuclear issues.’

The other reading of how France’s shift will affect Britain is less optimistic. It reveals that France possesses independent nuclear capabilities that are simply not at the UK’s disposal currently. Sceptics will certainly raise doubts about the depth of France’s commitment to other European countries, as well as the reliability and credibility of forward deterrence. And they may well have a point, insofar as any form of extended deterrence is, at best, iffy.

The fact remains, however, that France can engage in a political-strategic initiative of a kind that Britain currently cannot.

Julien Lalanne de Saint-Quentin

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The commitments announced at Île Longue can be read less as a rupture than as an extension of the 1998 Saint-Malo Declaration: that Europe must be able to act while remaining anchored in sovereign capabilities and Atlantic realities. That the UK was explicitly named in Macron’s speech is significant in itself. It suggests that, despite the rhetorical habits of the post-Brexit period, Paris still sees London as a central strategic partner when the most serious questions are at stake. It places Britain right inside the intellectual architecture of European deterrence, even as France insists – rightly – that nuclear decision-making remains wholly national.

For all the old doctrinal reserve, the reality has long been one of interdependence, even in the North Atlantic and on the approaches to the Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD) bastion. The underwater battlespace allowed a measure of ambiguity: interdependencies could exist without being too visibly acknowledged by those who prefer the more reassuring language of complete autonomy.

The air component is different. By its very nature, it is less able to conceal the practical ecosystem on which it depends. In that sense, Macron’s forward deterrence concept does not so much create interdependence as makes it harder to continue pretending that it does not exist.

Geography matters enormously. Faslane and Île Longue are very close to one another, and the maritime approaches to one bear directly on the security of the other. Although the UK and France each defend their own goal, the same opposing forward can threaten both at once, and the midfielder screening the defence is therefore protecting both goals simultaneously. Capabilities designed to secure the approaches, clarify the tactical picture and complicate hostile action against the bastion are not peripheral enablers; they form part of the credibility of the posture itself.

France’s contribution will therefore remain absolutely central to the protection of CASD, while a more explicit recognition of allied interdependence gives fuller credit to the wider ecosystem within which that protection is achieved.

Prof. Sir Hew Strachan FBA FRSE

Bishop Wardlaw Professor, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews

First, Macron’s speech is the most significant from any head of state in a generation. It challenges Britain to be as forthright and strategic. With major conflict in Europe, and Middle Eastern strikes whose justification rests on countering nuclear proliferation, it is no longer possible not to discuss nuclear weapons.

Yet, the UK insists on treating them as ‘political’, and therefore somehow separate from national strategy. The procurement of the next generation of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) dominates the defence budget without a public rationale like that of France.

Second – and related – Macron was clear about France’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if need be: ‘You have to be feared if you want to be free’. France will possess a triad of nuclear weapons: SSBNs, nuclear cruise missiles and air-launched capabilities. Its target is resilience, including a second-strike capability. Britain is currently vulnerable; dependent at any one time on a single, tired SSBN on (an increasingly lengthy) patrol.

Third is the biggest change of all: Macron abandoned France’s long-cherished autonomy in nuclear doctrine. He did not mention NATO, to which the UK’s SSBNs are allocated, even if their implications for Europe’s defence are opaque. Nor did Macron name the US. The defence strategy of Donald Trump, President of the US, stresses deterrence by denial, which failed to prevent Russia’s threats to escalate in Ukraine. Instead, France has embraced forward defence, and is pursuing a series of bilateral relationships, beginning with Germany.

Air Marshal (rtd.) Edward Stringer CB CBE

Director, iJ7 Ltd., and Senior Fellow, Policy Exchange

France’s refreshed nuclear posture is clever signalling. It sends the message that France is reinvesting in serious hard power. In reality, there is little in Macron’s speech at Île Longue that promises significant increased capacity. However, the conceptual component of deterrence has been altered for the better – and I would say better for the UK too.

There will be a lot of devil in the details to be sorted before Macron can deploy French nuclear weapons forward to allied countries, and thus engage other European powers in a putative ‘Euro-deterrent’. Such weapons will, in any case, as Macron admits, always be triggered by the President of France alone.

But that sense of tying European powers together is real. Furthermore, via the Northwood Declaration, Britain is tied more closely to the French nuclear effort. As well as this, France is tied closer to the US via the UK (acting as an intermediary), whose nuclear deterrent is intimately entwined with the American enterprise.

Whatever the robustness of the extended deterrence of the US, a more concrete European defence and nuclear posture is a bonus – all the better to deter foes and keep America onside. Gen. Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay would have understood this…

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In this special episode, Viktorija Starych-Samuolienė, our Co-founder (Strategy), and Paul Mason, journalist, author and our Adjunct Fellow, are joined by Baroness Dr Sophy Antrobus MBE, Co-director of the Freeman Air and Space Institute and Member of the House of Lords, and Shashank Joshi, Defence Editor, The Economist.

What lessons does the US-Israel-Iran conflict hold for the UK? The panel examines the strategic environment Britain faces and the interests shaping its response. They discuss key military lessons, including missile production depth, air and naval superiority, and force mix, as well as the geoeconomic impact of rising energy prices. The conversation also explores the wider implications for Russia’s war in Ukraine and Britain’s ability to protect its assets and personnel in the Middle East while safeguarding its interests in the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific.

Find ‘Defence Talks: Securing UK Advantage’ on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Castbox, Radio Public, Soundcloud, Pocketcast and Overcast.

You can find out more about Defence Talks here.

The June 2025 speech by Gen. Sir Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) laid out an ambitious vision: ‘double then triple the fighting power of our land forces, by 2027 and 2030 respectively’, to be achieved through increased lethality, digital integration and ‘growth through transformation’. It is intellectually compelling, operationally sound and strategically necessary.

The question is whether it is funded, whether it forces the hard choices it implies, and whether the British Army can close the gap between its stated ambitions and its actual resources. Within this, the key question is whether the Army can construct a credible force able to fight and deter threats effectively, or if it will continue with an unsustainable narrative that yields minimal results.

The current state of the British Army

At present, the Army consists of around 73,000 regular soldiers and about 30,000 reservists, all funded by a defence budget of approximately £57 billion. This budget not only supports the Army, but also covers the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force (RAF), nuclear deterrence and personnel costs, leaving little room for extensive military expansion. Thus, the expectation that the Army can maintain multiple divisions is questionable.

Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine emphasises the importance of scale and preparedness in modern warfare, as well as the advances in modern technology. Success requires not just military strength, but also societal commitment, resilience to losses and the ability to sustain production over time. However, the United Kingdom (UK) is unlikely to mobilise at that level unless faced with a significant threat to national security. The British Army must therefore operate within the limits of what it can realistically sustain.

Vision for the future

Sir Roly proposes a transformative approach to how the Army operates, emphasising capabilities that can deliver effective results without requiring massive troop numbers. His plan focuses on enhancing military efficiency through innovative technologies and integration rather than relying solely on traditional methods of deployment.

Sir Roly also talked about the ‘20/40/40’ concept outlined in 2025’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR). The concept is a more tech-driven approach, where 20% of combat capability will be traditional platforms such as tanks, artillery and attack helicopters; 40% will rely on expendable, autonomous systems such as loitering munitions and kamikaze drones; and the remaining 40% will consist of reusable, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled assets such as surveillance drones that can operate with or without human input.

This model aims to reduce costs associated with traditional military assets while still delivering impactful results. Even so, the feasibility of this transition currently hinges on allocating sufficient financial resources and personnel. The current budget – and the much-delayed Defence Investment Plan – simply does not provide enough leeway to implement this ambitious vision without making sacrifices.

The 20/40/40 concept also raises the question of what happens when the survivable 20% is damaged, destroyed or killed? After all, the enemy gets a vote, and will also employ large numbers of autonomous and attritable weapons. Alongside enhanced lethality, the need for Counter-Uncrewed Aerial System (C-UAS) capabilities which can keep up with evolving threats is increasingly urgent.

Addressing the challenges

The current structure of the British Army is constrained by financial realities, which do not appear to be improving at the moment. While Sir Roly has set ambitious goals, the available resources do not align with these aspirations. A practical assessment suggests that maintaining two operational divisions is becoming increasingly challenging, and there is no second echelon, let alone a third. A more feasible approach may involve focusing on a single, well-resourced division which can balance operational needs with budget constraints while the other division provides a second echelon.

The Army should also strengthen essential support roles, such as logistics (including medical capacity) and intelligence functions, which are critical to successful operations. Across European North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies, there is a widely acknowledged gap in the depth and breadth of the enablers required to conduct modern, high-intensity fighting, especially as the United States (US) – the traditional provider of such capabilities – reviews its posture in Europe.

Strengthening these functions – outside of the elements discussed in the 20/40/40 approach – will be key to unlocking the fighting potential of allied armies as they grow in size. Poland alone will soon field 24 combat brigades plus hundreds of thousands of reserves. The ability to provide meaningful enablers or support functions would greatly bolster the UK’s influence within the alliance.

Specialist forces, including units designed for training and partnerships with allied nations, play a vital role in ongoing strategic competition, although they should be carefully prioritised against pressing threats. Additionally, maintaining minimal expeditionary capabilities allows Britain to respond to crises affecting its interests, even if on a smaller scale. Such capabilities should not aim for global power projection, but enabling effective deterrence against immediate threats.

Legacy platforms without a transformation path consume budget that should fund autonomous systems. A 50/50 split between crewed and autonomous systems is the correct strategic direction. However, it requires explicitly naming which traditional programmes will need to accept reduced procurement numbers. Ajax, Boxer and recapitalised Multiple Rocket Launch Systems (MLRS) may all be necessary, but the quantities should be determined by what the transformation model actually requires; not by what was originally planned before autonomous systems changed the calculus.

Finally, as recently reported by the Parliamentary Defence Committee, the UK also needs to consider its commitment to its NATO Article Three duty of maintaining a comprehensive plan to resist armed attack. The committee’s report argues that both homeland defence and the protection of British Overseas Territories have fallen behind the threat environment, and need to be resourced properly.

Optimising reserves

Reconfiguring the Army Reserve to focus on specialist surge capabilities rather than broad mobilisation is crucial. Instead of attempting to maintain infantry battalions that cannot operate effectively, reserves should be centred around areas where civilian skills can significantly expand military capacities during crises. This includes sectors such as medical services, logistics, cyber operations, engineering and civil-military cooperation.

However, this will require His Majesty’s (HM) Government to commit more resources. The SDR only promised to grow the number of active reservists ‘by 20% when funding allows, most likely in the 2030s’ – which is not soon enough.

The industrial base gamble

‘Growth through transformation’ is compelling, but operationally uncertain. Creating thousands of jobs in AI, robotics and software could genuinely transform both fighting power and the UK’s defence-industrial base.

However, this assumes that industry delivers viable attritable platforms at promised cost and scale; that perpetual prototyping accelerates, rather than fragments, capability development; that risk capital invests beyond the initial £400 million earmarked in the SDR despite inevitable programme failures; and that export markets materialise for British autonomous systems in a competitive global market. Project ASGARD demonstrates proof of concept with 20 industry partners. Scaling this to corps level and building a sustainable industrial base is a different challenge entirely – and one without precedent in recent British defence procurement.

The gamble is worth taking. But, it requires honest acknowledgement of risk, fallback plans if industrial transformation underperforms and sustained investment beyond initial allocations when perpetual prototyping encounters inevitable setbacks. Transformation cannot be an excuse to avoid the hard choices about legacy programmes. It must happen alongside them, not instead of them.

A strategic approach to the future

The future path for the British Army requires aligning its ambitions with practical realities. Sir Roly’s vision represents a forward-thinking initiative that could enhance military readiness through innovation and strategic improvements. However, turning this vision into a reality calls for significant commitment and a willingness to make difficult decisions about funding and resource distribution.

For the vision to become a reality, HM Government should show political courage and make tough decisions. It is essential that military leaders provide an honest assessment of their capabilities and make choices that align with realistic assessments of risks and resources – as Sir Richard Knighton, Chief of the Defence Staff, has openly stated, there is a £28 billion shortfall. This may mean curtailing certain commitments and capabilities that are less effective in serving the UK’s strategic interests.

The focus could be on developing a single, robust division capable of taking on critical operations, while simultaneously improving key support capabilities. The second division could be considered as a second echelon force at a reduced readiness level. Additionally, there is a need to consider homeland defence seriously, along with the other services, and develop a meaningful plan to meet Article Three requirements.

This strategy reflects a genuine commitment to fulfilling Britain’s responsibilities within NATO while maintaining flexibility for crisis management. Ultimately, the British Army should assess its abilities candidly, and be willing to prioritise what is essential to ensure long-term effectiveness.

At this crucial juncture, the Army must balance its aspirations with the realities of its funding and capabilities. Of course, should the level of defence investment HM Government is willing to provide grow, and timelines be brought forward, then plans could look beyond the approach outlined here. The proposed vision from Sir Roly presents an opportunity to rethink the future of military readiness through innovative approaches and better resource management. However, achieving these goals requires political will, clarity in decision-making and a commitment to recognising the true landscape of military needs.

By making focused investments in a streamlined structure, the British Army can fulfil its commitments more effectively. This requires accepting that not all existing roles or capabilities can be maintained as they are if the Army is to enhance its overall effectiveness. The way forward should be centred on realistic expectations and a cohesive strategy to ensure the British Army remains a relevant and capable force in a complex global environment.

Rory Copinger-Symes CBE retired from the Royal Marines as a Brigadier, having served with US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) in Hawaii from 2016 to 2020. He is a Senior Adviser to Bondi Partners and SecureCloud+, a Non-Executive Director at Halo International Group and an associate with Quirk Solutions. He serves as a Trustee of the Royal Marines Charity and runs the Commando Spirit alcohol brand.​​​​​​​​​

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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Following weeks of preparation and military build-up in the Middle East, the United States (US) and Israel launched an offensive against Iran on 28th February. Strikes on Tehran eliminated many senior Iranian figures, most notably Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran, who was confirmed dead early on 1st March.

Iran retaliated by launching missile strikes against countries throughout the Middle East, while an Iranian drone targeted a Royal Air Force (RAF) air station at Akrotiri on Cyprus on 1st March. Although Britain initially appeared reluctant to show overt support for ‘Operation EPIC FURY’, Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, announced on Monday that the United Kingdom (UK) will allow the US to use British air stations to strike Iran. This development forms the foundation for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked eight experts: Should Britain embrace a tougher approach towards Iran?

Dr Hillary Briffa

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer in National Security Studies, King’s College London

The UK should take a tougher line with Iran, but this does not equate to escalating. ‘Tough’ should mean making it crystal clear that attacks on British people and territory will bring consequences, and showing that the UK can protect what it uses to operate overseas.

Last weekend’s events, particularly RAF Akrotiri being targeted and Britain allowing America to use its air stations, mean that the UK is now closer to the sharp end, whether it intended to be or not. That makes clear red lines (and committing to them!), stronger air and missile defence, and tightly defined basing permissions essential – while avoiding broad, open-ended escalation.

A ‘small states’ lens helps to explain why Iran puts pressure on places like Cyprus and Gulf ‘hosts’ such as Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait. Iran often targets the ‘hosts and hubs’ that keep free and open nations’ operations running. These sites are militarily vital, but politically sensitive.

When Iran strikes or threatens such sites in smaller countries, it is not just trying to punish the UK or US. It is also trying to split coalitions by forcing smaller partners to carry the immediate risk: public fear, domestic backlash, economic disruption, political upset and so on.

So, a tougher British approach should prioritise protecting forward hubs (via integrated air defence, drone defence and maritime security); signalling that attacks on the UK’s bases will trigger proportionate, legally grounded responses against launch infrastructure; tightening financial and shipping enforcement against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-linked networks in coordination with Gulf states considering tougher measures; and keeping de-escalation channels open to avoid turning small partners into permanent battlegrounds. It should also be matched by parliamentary scrutiny at home.

By taking these steps, Britain can get tougher on deterrence and resilience, while saying no to maximalist mission creep.

Dr Matthew Ford

Associate Professor in War Studies, Swedish Defence University

Sir Keir’s response to Operation EPIC FURY has been appropriate and entirely understandable. The British Armed Forces are already stretched, and it makes little strategic sense to extend them further. At present, the services face serious recruitment and retention problems, compounded by the persistent lack of habitable service accommodation.

If the UK struggles with both recruiting personnel and looking after those already serving, it should come as no surprise that it cannot put more ships to sea or generate additional formations for operations. Britain’s defence commentators know all of this, yet the clamour to do more with less continues to dominate the discussion.

If the UK’s commentators want the country to defend its global interests, then defence spending must increase. Without sustained economic growth, however, such ambitions remain little more than rhetorical devices designed to attract political attention.

The prospects for meaningful growth amid current geopolitical upheaval appear slim. Banking on growth therefore amounts to kicking difficult strategic choices down the road in the hope that events will allow Britain to continue avoiding them. Yet, hoping to do more globally while ignoring the immediate security challenges in Europe – challenges that the US has repeatedly told its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies to prioritise – is the epitome of bad strategy.

William Freer

Research Fellow (National Security), Council on Geostrategy

Before answering whether a tougher stance on Iran is needed, the UK’s interests must first be established. These can be summarised broadly as:

1. Avoid being dragged into a conflict which (so far) has no clear endgame;

2. Protect British people and allies;

3. Mitigate wider economic spillover effects;

4. Minimise fallout for the relationship with the US; and

5. Maintain the credibility of British political will and military capability.

On count one, His Majesty’s (HM) Government was wise to stay out of the initial strikes. On count two, although left underprotected – a Type 45 is only now being prepared to aid in the defence of Akrotiri – the limited British forces in the region are performing well.

However, on counts three, four and five, the UK is not doing great. Here, a tougher stance on Iran would make a lot of difference, and do so without putting the first two interests at risk.

America is frustrated at Britain, Iran lashing out has spooked markets – most importantly shipping insurance – and the decision to downplay the drone strike on Akrotiri risks emboldening other potential foes in the future – particularly pertinent as Coalition of the Willing plans are being worked on.

If another strike occurs and the UK is unwilling to launch a token retaliation strike against a non-nuclear and defanged Iran or its proxies, it should give up the pretence that it would be willing to defend its deterrence force in Ukraine. A tougher stance (although still well short of participation in Operation EPIC FURY) would be a good idea.

The details of what this would entail cannot be outlined in such a short format as this, but proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist group and preparing a limited retaliatory strike in the event of another attack on Akrotiri would be a good start.

Joshua C. Huminski

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Vice President of National Security and Intelligence Programmes, Centre for the Study of the Presidency and Congress

Regrettably, it appears that the Prime Minister managed to choose the worst possible option as it relates to American military operations against Iran. While there was likely no good option, there was indeed a less bad option that could well have satisfied – if only partially – the critical audiences in Washington and London.

By initially refusing to allow the US to use British bases for its operations against Iran on legal grounds (necessary for domestic political considerations), Sir Keir set himself up for direct conflict with Donald Trump, President of the US, for very little gain. Trump is decidedly less interested – if at all – in international law, and focuses instead on what allies and partners can do for his country.

The Prime Minister said no, and received nothing in return except Trump’s predictable ire and a regrettable demonstration of the toothlessness of his objections. By contrast, Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, and Emmanuel Macron, President of France, have been much more supportive; actions recognised favourably by Trump.

From the start, Sir Keir could have said that while the UK could not support offensive military operations on legal grounds, it could instead deploy alongside American forces or Gulf allies in a purely ‘defensive’ counter-missile and counter-drone role. This would have seemingly satisfied the Prime Minister’s legal concerns and domestic political considerations, while reaffirming British reliability and credibility and softening the rejection for Trump.

Indeed, deciding after the fact to deploy British forces to defend Cyprus and sail HMS Dragon to the region (which should have been done in the first place) only reinforces that Sir Keir’s original decision was ill-considered and politically costly.

Dr Louise Kettle

Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

British political parties are divided over entering the conflict with Iran; the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party remain firm in their stance of non-intervention, while the Conservatives have called for more offensive action to defend British interests. For now, the Prime Minister appears keen to avoid some of the mistakes made by the Blair government over Iraq.

As a result, there has been a considerable emphasis on the legalities of supporting the American-Israeli operation and the perceived lack of a ‘phase four’ post-combat plan. If lessons from the past are to be heeded, these elements should be resolved before the UK becomes involved in any offensive action.

Consequently, the question becomes less about being tough towards Iran, and more about the challenge to remain firm in policy as the requirement for defensive (and offensive) activity mounts. The pressure to inch further into the conflict will increase exponentially as it becomes more protracted, and if Iran continues its response across the region. Britain has already emphasised its responsibility to protect its citizens, interests and allies, while Trump has made his displeasure at the UK’s initial response well known.

Nonetheless, Sir Keir would do well to remember one of the other most significant lessons, identified by the ‘Chilcot Report’ – the independent Iraq Inquiry report – in 2016: ‘The UK’s relationship with the US has proved strong enough over time to bear the weight of honest disagreement. It does not require unconditional support where our interests or judgements differ.’

This approach is more challenging when the US Government is under a Trump administration, but will remain true in the longer term.

Dr Timothy Less

Senior Adviser for Geopolitics, Centre for Risk Studies, and Convenor, Geopolitical Risk Analysis Study Group, University of Cambridge

Yes, Britain should adopt a tougher approach towards Iran.

The UK has a clear strategic interest in confronting a regime which is openly hostile and threatens its allies across the Middle East. Iran has just attacked British sovereign territory in Cyprus – a further reminder of the regime’s willingness to target the UK.

Britain has a strategic interest in aligning with America; its closest and most important ally on which it depends for external security. London shares Washington’s interest in breaking up the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) international relationships – first Venezuela, now Iran – to ensure it does not attain superpower status.

There is also a strong moral imperative for challenging a regime which has caused so much suffering since 1979, from its repression and impoverishment of the Iranian people, to its sponsorship of terrorism in other parts of the Middle East. Furthermore, against the backdrop of protests at home, the uniting of Arab countries in opposition to Iran, and ongoing attacks by the US and Israel, there is a reasonable chance that, if the UK were to join the anti-Iranian coalition, the regime in Tehran would be seriously weakened and could potentially fall.

At a point when some – including Trump – are expressing doubts about whether Britain is a serious country, HM Government would do well to align itself with an initiative that not only advances the UK’s interests and ends the rule of a murderous tyranny, but might actually work.

Dr Marina Miron

Postdoctoral Researcher, King’s College London

This question emerges at a politically sensitive juncture. The Prime Minister faces sustained criticism for privileging foreign policy engagement over urgent domestic priorities, while transatlantic relations are undergoing visible strain. In this context, any shift in Britain’s posture towards Iran carries both strategic and political implications.

A more neutral or restrained approach would represent a departure from earlier patterns of the UK’s foreign policy, particularly the interventionist tendencies associated with the Blair era. Yet, a tougher stance would not be without cost.

Britain is currently seeking to strengthen its defence capabilities and reduce reliance on America. Escalating tensions with Iran could expose the UK’s military assets abroad to retaliation and increase the risk of entanglement in a wider Middle Eastern conflict. The vulnerability of British bases, such as those in Cyprus, underscores the potential political, financial and military consequences of miscalculation.

None of this suggests that inaction is a viable strategy. Rather, it highlights the need for conceptual clarity. Before adopting a more confrontational approach, the UK should define its foreign policy priorities and determine whether such a move genuinely serves its national interest. If so, policymakers should carefully calibrate the diplomatic, economic and military instruments employed to avoid overstretch.

A sustainable Iran policy requires strategic discipline grounded in long-term objectives, rather than solely reactive responses to shifting geopolitical pressures.

Prof. Richard Whitman

Professor of International Relations, University of Kent

With the US and Israel launching a war of choice against Iran, Britain’s interests are to protect its own bases, secure the safety of UK nationals and offer protection to allies in the region. The immediate task is defensive: to reinforce force protection, counter-drone and air and missile defences; and share threat intelligence with allies and partners.

There is also the need to craft a more agile public diplomacy. Britain’s public messaging on its response to reasonable requests made by America has been obfuscatory at best.

Crucially, this is a moment for the UK to reset its strategy towards Iran. Over two decades of nuclear diplomacy, as part of efforts alongside Britain’s European Three (E3) partners France and Germany – together with the European Union (EU) – has not yielded a substantive change in moves by Iran’s theocratic regime to acquire the capacity to build a nuclear weapon and necessary delivery systems. American and Israeli military actions have upended the prolonged attempt to create safeguards and restrictions on Iran’s nuclear programme, and have made enforced nuclear disarmament a credible proposition.

The Iranian regime has acted as a key ally of the Kremlin, as demonstrated by Tehran’s diplomatic and material support for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Reducing Iran’s capacity to support Russia can only benefit the UK in its pursuit of its primary European security concern – namely, ensuring that Ukraine attains peace through military capabilities and meaningful security guarantees.

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This article forms the second part of a two-part series on rethinking rearmament. The first part, focusing on industrial requirements, can be read here.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies have declared a collective target of spending 5% Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence and security by 2035. By then, if the alliance attains its goal, the nations combined will spend US$4.2 trillion (£3.1 trillion) each year.

Private finance of all kinds is lining up, from venture capital to pension funds. They hold differing risk and tenor appetites, and as such appear to offer great opportunity for nations willing and able to manage such capital injection. Financing options that have not existed for decades are appearing, as are genuinely novel initiatives.

However, the single customer – the state – is challenged by finance, process and accounting. These are difficulties distinct from those faced by private companies, but they weigh heavily on how business can be done.

Some big numbers, although they can be bigger

European NATO deploying 3.5% of GDP solely on defence amounts to an additional US$350 billion (£258 billion) annually. If all NATO nations reach 5%, the combined additional annual defence and security spend will be US$2.7 trillion (£1.9 trillion).

5% of GDP is undoubtedly considerable. However, Ukraine currently spends nearly 35% of its GDP on defence, similar to the Allies’ expenditure throughout the Second World War. In wartime, such effort is not a matter of reallocating public spending within a fixed budget, but of mobilising the economy for national survival. Against that benchmark, a 5% peacetime commitment can be understood as a form of insurance: not to ‘compete’ with civilian activity, but to prevent a far costlier mobilisation from ever becoming necessary.

Such enormous investments in a single industry bring serious risks in terms of inflation, waste and corruption. These must be managed alongside the pressure to rearm at speed. The United States (US) is working to a 2027 deadline, based upon its assessment of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) intentions towards Taiwan.

NATO has no stated dates, but much reporting indicates a similar – if not shorter – threat horizon from Russia. Although the alliance is beginning to address the deficit, the Kremlin’s mobilised industry is producing ammunition at least twice – and up to four times – as fast as NATO nations combined, and around double the rate in more complex machinery, such as tanks, Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs) and drones.

Spend, baby, spend

There is money available, and there is pressure to rearm — so where is the bottleneck? Several structural factors militate against rapid capital deployment and a sustained increase in defence production. The most fundamental is the state’s difficulty, as a near-monopoly buyer, in committing quickly and credibly to higher levels of spending.

Episodic demand and political reluctance to spend on defence have, over time, hollowed out industrial capacity. Production lines have closed and skills have atrophied. Layered on top of this are persistent cultural inhibitions towards defence spending, which manifest as punitive financing conditions and bureaucratic constraints ill-suited to long-term industrial investment.

Many free and open nations’ governments, notably those of the United Kingdom (UK) and France, have extremely constrained budgets. However, in 2025, Britain announced an expectation to spend 5% of GDP on defence and security against NATO’s agreed target date of 2035 (should financial conditions allow for this), with the projected split being 3.5% of GDP earmarked for core defence spending. France will increase spending at a similar rate, though from a base of 2% compared to the UK’s 2.3%. These two countries, and several others in NATO, are simultaneously grappling with decades of underinvestment, years of inflation and a need to modernise and expand their armed forces.

Debt levels vary across NATO, as do the levels of repayment. Britain spends around 7.7% of its GDP on interest payments; France around 3.4%; and Turkey around 11%. With such variation, some nations are showing less reluctance to spend and more imagination in how to service the payments. The Netherlands has proposed a ‘freedom tax’ on both citizens and businesses, which it anticipates will contribute an extra 25% to its defence budget. Germany has exempted defence spending above 1% from its debt brake calculations, and by 2030 will almost double its spend to €160 billion (£139.5 billion).

As repeatedly learned, the bond market has a vote in what it regards as responsible and necessary borrowing and spending. It will also price military competence and credibility, because this secures the stability for a flourishing economy. Resilience, stability and security require investment, but equally they attract it.

Failure to demonstrate these characteristics will cause capital to flee. In an increasingly unstable world, genuine military strength and resilience should bring investor confidence, and thus economic power.

This virtuous circle can be challenging to start. Genuinely new concepts for financing government spending include sovereign-owned international defence financing banks, akin to the World Bank. This idea hinges on being backed by many states and attaining a AAA rating. Such an institution would lend weight to the credibility of increased borrowing for defence spending.

This is not a temporary fix, and will not solve all the challenges facing free and open nations, but it is a long-term initiative that can deliver serious change to their defence industries.

Build it and they will come

Free and open nations’ defence industrial capacity can also benefit from such an international bank. Coupled with the proposed institution’s AAA rating, its defence focus and expertise will allow it to provide debt or guarantees to allied defence industry at reasonable rates, acting as a backstop lender to banks and institutions traditionally unwilling to take greater risk. This missing link in the flow of capital to companies has been documented extensively. Properly financing the companies doing the work is critical to energising industry.

In addition, industries with no historical links to defence could be encouraged to find one. As previously elaborated in the author’s previous article on military requirements and manufacturing, many industries have the skills and capacity for military equipment. To unlock this, requirements must become less bespoke, and be constructed with knowledge of existing machinery. Automotive manufacturers, for example, are expanding into defence manufacturing, as they did in the Second World War.

The valley of death and historic hangovers

Any investment fund follows its own guidance for returns and the types of investments desirable and permitted. Venture capital and private equity have different risk and return profiles to each other, which in turn differ from those of pension funds and private credit. Ultimately, all defence turns on a single buyer and its issuance of contracts.

The Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) procurement processes (like those of many other countries) not infrequently stifle – sometimes to the point of failure – defence companies possessing great technology and people for want of a contract. These contractual deserts must be addressed, and the responsibility for changing buyer behaviour and risk tolerance lies in the National Armaments Director (NAD) Group.

In the private sphere, many institutions, including British banks, have explicitly excluded defence from their permitted investments. The Financial Conduct Authority frequently receives criticism that its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) guidelines proscribe defence – so much so that it issued a statement in early 2025 to explain that it saw no such constraint.

As such, adding ‘Security’ to ESG has been suggested. However, ‘ESSG’ is at least as likely to devalue the entire classification as it is to attract more capital, as the kinds of investors who prize high ESG scores are often those who wish to exclude defence industry. More pragmatic approaches have expanded ‘Social’ to include national resilience – possibly a middle path.

More worryingly, accounting rules have changed after a series of private finance initiatives and public-private partnerships which were seen as poor value for money. These now effectively rule out meaningful long-term financing ambitions for infrastructure and equipment. Modern accounting rules – including International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 16 lease standards – frontload the recognition of long-term commitments on the public balance sheet. While cash payments may be spread over decades, the associated liabilities are recognised upfront, immediately worsening reported debt and fiscal ratios.

As infrastructure or fighter jets, for example, endure a long time and have very small residual value, huge sums must be spent in very constrained periods. The accounting treatment creates a powerful disincentive for governments to enter into long-term defence contracts or innovative financing structures, even when doing so would be economically rational.

Without wading further into accounting and cash flow rules, it is enough to understand that rules which seem sensible for private companies that could default are not perfectly suited to the construction of national public infrastructure. The sovereign is the ultimate risk-taker and financial backer, and should be able to manage its long-term financing obligations differently. Furthermore, state-owned bodies, such as the National Wealth Fund and British Business Bank, could also offer new capital and management strategies. It is not impossible to generate revenue from nuclear shipyards, but the state will need to think and act differently.

A battle of wills

To paraphrase the Great Prussian Carl von Clausewitz, much will come down to a question of will. The levers are held, but using them effectively will require government, civil service and private capital to act differently. Often, free and open nations find themselves respecting accounting practice or procurement processes as if they were atomic weights. To incorporate this vastly expanded capital requirement, and indeed availability, much will need to change – but only the rules of defence finance, not the laws of physics.

Wg. Cdr. Ben Goodwin MBE is an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and a fighter pilot with experience in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and Central Africa. He has been posted to the Ministry of Defence and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Brussels. Previously, he worked at the trading arm of a large bank, focused on foreign exchange and government bonds.

This article was written by the author in a personal capacity. The opinions expressed are his own, and do not reflect the views of HM Government or the Ministry of Defence.

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Tuesday marked four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. The ‘special military operation’, which Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, expected to last only a handful of days, has degenerated into a grinding war of attrition reminiscent of the Western Front during the First World War – and has cost the lives of over one million people fighting for the Kremlin.

Russia has also made itself an international pariah. Its economy suffers difficulties, and free and open nations continue to uphold sanctions regimes against the Kremlin while providing political, financial and military aid to Ukraine. Ensuring Kyiv emerges triumphant is a top strategic priority for the United Kingdom (UK), as continental security hinges on preventing further Russian aggression against sovereign European nations. As such, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked eight experts: Four years on, what should Britain do to expedite a Ukrainian victory?

Dr Przemysław Biskup

Senior Research Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs, and Senior Lecturer, Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)

Over the past four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the UK has played a disproportionately significant role in sustaining Ukraine. Britain moved early in providing lethal aid; trained Ukrainian personnel; supplied advanced defence systems, financial assistance and shared intelligence; and coordinated sanctions and diplomatic support across North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Group of Seven (G7). This engagement was institutionalised through the 2024 UK-Ukraine Agreement on Security Cooperation, and deepened by the 2025 100 Year Partnership Declaration, signalling a long-term British commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty, reconstruction and defence integration.

Nevertheless, expediting a Ukrainian victory into the conflict’s fifth year now requires translating this activism into durable strategic leadership. As the United States (US) reduces its conventional presence and political bandwidth in Europe, the UK should assume greater responsibility within NATO, particularly as a pivotal northern flank power securing the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches.

However, such leadership must rest on capability. Britain should accelerate modernisation and expansion of its armed forces in line with NATO’s funding thresholds from the 2025 summit in The Hague, rebuilding deployable mass, replenishing munitions stockpiles and scaling defence-industrial output through sustained procurement. Meeting these requirements will need a much more open and comprehensive domestic debate on defence prioritisation within fiscal and budgetary constraints.

If the UK is to anchor European deterrence and help bring the invasion to a favourable conclusion, defence requires a structurally higher priority in public expenditure.

Ian Bond

Deputy Director, Centre for European Reform

The first thing Britain needs is to be honest with itself about three things:

1. Peace is not around the corner. Putin has no interest in peace, except on terms that amount to Ukraine’s surrender;

2. Ukraine’s resilience is not infinite. European nations cannot rely indefinitely on the Ukrainians’ ability to withstand the terrible conditions the Kremlin is inflicting on them without breaking;

3. Donald Trump, President of the US, is not on Ukraine’s side, nor that of European countries. Trump has sought to bully Kyiv into making concessions that would fatally undermine it militarily and politically, almost guaranteeing renewed conflict in Europe.

Against that background, the UK and its allies and partners must treat Ukraine’s security as their own: if Ukraine loses, Putin will target another state, perhaps a NATO ally. They should step up sanctions, including by seizing ‘shadow fleet’ tankers transporting Russian oil. They should invest in rapidly increasing defence production, for themselves and Ukraine, even if that means an increase in budget deficits. And they should put aircraft in the skies over Ukraine to blunt the Kremlin’s efforts to destroy Ukraine’s economy and society – all without waiting for a peace deal or an American ‘backstop’ that will not come.

None of those steps will guarantee that Ukraine defeats Russia and regains territory, but without them, a Russian victory will become more likely.

John Foreman CBE

British Defence Attaché to Ukraine (2008-2011) and Russia (2019-2022)

Ukraine will not prevail militarily, nor restore its 2022 borders, let alone those of 1991, by force.

Ukrainian fighting spirit and ingenuity, together with support from free and open nations, have slowed but not stemmed Russia’s grinding military advance. Ukraine remains at a disadvantage in terms of personnel, materiel and money, and is under significant battlefield and societal pressure. Russia can mobilise more of its national strength, even if it has to date proven unable to leverage its numerical advantage decisively.

Locked in a trial of endurance to exhaust each other’s will and capacity to fight on, it will be resources, not warfare, that will prove decisive, assuming equal commitment to the cause by both sides. For his part, being unserious about peace, Putin is determined to subjugate Ukraine. For theirs, Ukrainians do not support a peace deal on the Kremlin’s punitive terms.

In this war of attrition, it is the party being attrited that will lose first. With the US havering, Britain and other free and open European countries must act to ensure this is not Ukraine, instead making the war too costly for Russia to continue. The reactive incrementalism of the past four years, providing just enough aid for Ukraine’s survival but not to allow it to regain the initiative, should be replaced by doing the following:

1. Instituting concerted proactive policies to provide Ukraine with durable financial and economic support;

2. Removing battlefield, support and logistic bottlenecks;

3. Assisting Ukrainian domestic defence production, in particular for deep strike; and

4. Enhancing and actually enforcing economic sanctions against Russia.

Dr Alexander Lanoszka

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Waterloo (Canada)

Carl von Clausewitz once observed that ‘everything in war is very simple but the simplest thing is difficult.’ Indeed, identifying what Ukraine needs for achieving victory is straightforward: in the absence of direct military intervention on the part of others, Ukraine must receive robust and persistent defence industrial support so that it can not only withstand attacks on the ground and in the air, but can also undermine Russia’s ability to occupy its territory for good.

Unfortunately, European countries have been slow in stepping up military production to backstop Ukraine’s defence needs. They are yet to produce a coherent, well-resourced vision for how Ukraine could inflict strategic defeat on Russia. These failures illuminate why Washington exerts as much influence on Ukraine’s future as it does under Trump.

Thankfully, the UK has been one of the most clear-eyed and forward-thinking supporters of Kyiv, assuming key leadership roles in coordinating military aid while vouching for its interests in international discussions. Yet, much more remains to be done.

The new Ukrspecsystems factory in Britain offers a model for further defence industrial cooperation between the two countries. Such investments reinforce the fighting ability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and ensure that no agreement on European security can be struck at the expense of Ukraine or, for that matter, the UK and other NATO allies.

Philippe Lefevre

Doctoral Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of Surrey

While Ukraine’s victory mostly hinges on Ukraine, with outside European actors increasingly becoming irrelevant amid their reticence to perform real conflict-changing actions, Britain at least has the strongest set of available tools to help attain a Ukrainian victory. These revolve around three core pillars: troops, trade and ties.

For troops, it has been suggested that British forces – as many as 5,000-15,000 personnel – could be deployed to Ukraine to perform non-combat roles. This does not go far enough. For the UK to make a real impact, a wider-ranging operation should be considered to secure and protect key cities, such as Kyiv, Lviv and Uzhhorod. This would allow Ukrainian troops to be remobilised towards the frontline and facilitate the reopening of civilian and permanent military logistics, as well as providing British troops real learning in warfare if positioned closer to the front.

In trade, the UK has been entrepreneurial, but this should be deepened. Alongside pushing for loan relief, Britain should use trade mechanisms to keep the Ukrainian economy strong, encouraging its opening into the UK and other European nations. This supports Ukraine’s ability to last economically until victory, and its attempt to mitigate the exploitative practice of operating and taking capital away from Ukraine itself.

Lastly is ties, referring to the need to keep Ukraine in the diplomatic picture. At the United Nations UN) and NATO, in discussions with the European Union (EU), and especially in bilateral relationships in Asia and Africa, Ukraine should be highlighted hand-in-hand with Britain. The more the UK can support in tackling misinformation and pushing back Russian influence, the more pressure can be kept away from Ukraine to capitulate to false negotiations.

While pride can be taken in the UK’s role in Ukraine, it pales in comparison to what individual Ukrainians are doing to reach victory. It is within Britain’s grasp to help Ukraine win if it really wanted it to. Let us at least meet them halfway.

Matthew Palmer

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Beyond the current level of support, the UK should hasten its activity in three key areas. The first is to work with allies proactively to counter and defeat Russian activity abroad, including neutering the Kremlin’s ability to fuel its invasion. Continued dismantling of the ‘shadow fleet’ and severing the supply of key European components that are still found in Russian weaponry are priorities, as are combatting Russian influence operations, both in European nations and in key middle-ground powers.

The second is to build up its military and industrial capacity significantly, both to rearm its own forces and to supply Ukraine. A strong British military is required to constrain Russian strategic options, while uninterrupted flows of UK equipment – especially critical enablers – can contribute decisively to a Ukrainian victory.

Finally, Britain should continue to argue successfully for the necessity of a comprehensive Russian defeat for global security to both domestic and foreign audiences. War fatigue, budgetary pressures and hostile narratives – especially from populist parties – will all contribute to declining support for Ukraine if left to fester. British politicians should continue to explain clearly to both the British public and audiences abroad why the benefits of a Ukrainian victory far exceed the potential costs.

James Rogers

Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy

From autumn 2021 to summer 2022, the UK led the European response to Ukraine. Not only did it provide vital political support for the Ukrainians, but it also led the way in issuing lethal weaponry, advice and intelligence, as well as support from other European allies.

More than that, it reinforced deterrence along NATO’s central front, not least by providing Sweden and Finland with security assurances once they decided to join the alliance. Britain saw Russia’s imperialist assault on Ukraine as a threat to national and European security, but it was also keen to re-establish its position as Europe’s leading power after the tumult of Brexit. Other Europeans took note: the UK did much to re-establish its strategic indispensability.

Britain needs to return to the confidence and boldness of that era. It is fine to plan for after a potential settlement, but first the Kremlin must be brought to heel. Waiting for the US to act or lead is no longer tenable; the UK’s interests in Ukraine are greater than those of the Americans.

Along with Germany, Britain should convene a vanguard of like-minded European countries alongside Ukraine, and establish a clear plan for Ukrainian victory within two to three years. It should then provide the political cover and resources, alongside its European allies, to fund the Ukrainian war effort.

With clear and decisive British and European backing, Russia may lose the will to continue, enhancing the prospect that its grisly war will come to an end.

Dr Marc De Vore

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer, School of International Relations, University of St. Andrews

So many changes have overtaken the world in the past four years that the UK must force itself to remember the destabilising nature of Putin’s aggression. Knowing what is at stake in Ukraine should buttress Britain’s commitment to it.

What the UK should immediately do is board and seize shadow fleet tankers transiting the North Sea and English Channel to export Russia’s oil and gas overseas. It is a national disgrace that Britain has not stopped and boarded a single shadow fleet vessel while France has boarded two, Sweden and Finland have boarded one each, and Germany has forced one to turn around. Russia’s warmaking depends on its oil and gas exports, which Britain has tolerated due to its lack of imagination.

The UK should also work alongside its European allies and partners to extend anti-drone and anti-missile defences over western Ukraine. American and British fighter jets shot down Iranian drones and missiles bound for Israel, proving that manned aircraft can protect civilians from drone and cruise missile attacks efficiently.

Are Ukrainians less deserving of protection than Israelis? Does the UK have less of a commitment to Ukraine’s security than Israel’s? If the answer to either of these questions is no, then Britain should league together with close European allies, deploy fighter jets to Polish and Romanian airfields, and from there declare an air protection zone extending over western Ukraine.

The fate of Russia’s full-scale invasion is still up for grabs, and Ukraine’s security is indissociable from the UK’s own.

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The growing security concerns across Europe have intensified the debate over how states organise defence cooperation. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the persistence of sub-threshold threats and growing demands on military readiness have highlighted both the strengths and weaknesses of existing multilateral frameworks, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the European Union (EU).

The potential of minilateral collaboration has been highlighted further amid speculation about a possible decrease in the United States’ (US) presence in Europe and shifting security arrangements around Greenland. In this regard, like-minded minilaterals have gained more prominence in addressing regional security concerns, their strength lying especially in their greater flexibility and speed of decision-making.

What the JEF gets right

In the Northern Hemisphere, and particularly in the Baltic Sea, the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) has undoubtedly presented its strategic and operational importance in addressing security challenges for over a decade. Starting as one of three ‘Framework Nations Concept’ arrangements at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales, it represents a high-readiness, flexible framework where a pool of military capabilities can be used for conducting different operations.

Comprising ten Northern European nations, the JEF was designed to be capable of responding quickly to crises across the High North, North Atlantic and Baltic Sea. Its ability to conduct rapid consultations and deploy forces at short notice provides deterrence against adversaries – namely Russia – and reassurance for allies. According to Hanno Pevkur, Minister of Defence of Estonia, the JEF’s importance lies in its ability to respond rapidly. Beyond existing capabilities, a similar understanding of threats provides a solid foundation for fast decision-making.

Over the past few years, the JEF has been adapting to evolving security concerns with the aim of clarifying its unique contribution to regional security, especially in areas where large multinational formats have failed to respond with the speed and relevance. Lately, the focus has been on sub-threshold actions, especially amid intensified activities by Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ in the Baltic Sea.

The challenge with sub-threshold threats is that NATO, while possessing a comprehensive military toolbox for countering military threats, does not have all the means needed to counter sub-threshold activities, which combine both military and civilian aspects. On their own, minilateral formats such as the JEF have the potential to become very effective and responsive in dealing with such threats.

In November 2023, the JEF activated its Joint Response Option – which focuses on sub-threshold threats – for the first time, following damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking Finland and Estonia. The patrolling of JEF warships in the Baltic Sea clearly contributed both to deterrence and reassurance. There is still significant potential to leverage minilateral efforts in the ‘grey zone’, especially in connection with protecting critical undersea infrastructure.

Furthermore, there seems to be potential for combining efforts in other areas as well. In November 2025, JEF defence ministers signed an agreement to enhance the minilateral’s partnership with Ukraine. This aims to provide training for the Armed Forces of Ukraine and to foster closer collaboration on protecting critical underwater infrastructure, drones, battlefield medicine and methods to counter disinformation.

What can limit the effectiveness of minilaterals?

It is necessary to acknowledge that smaller cooperation formats also have their limitations. One of the key challenges lies in the limits of operational capacity. While smaller frameworks can improve coordination and responsiveness, they remain dependent on national force readiness and availability.

For most European allies, long-term underinvestment has resulted in a hollow force structure, scattered military readiness, a strong focus on lighter forces and innovative capabilities. Most armed forces in Europe struggle with personnel shortages, insufficient stockpiles and delayed procurement programmes. Even with a significant increase in defence budgets, readiness levels would still take years to match needs and expectations.

Another underlying constraint is the lack of sovereign enablers, including strategic lift, intelligence, and advanced Command and Control (C2) capabilities. In practice, this makes many minilateral groupings dependent on either a particularly capable leading nation within the format, or on the implicit support of a larger external power.

The decisions to increase defence spending, such as the joint commitment by alliance members at June 2025’s NATO summit in The Hague to raise spending to 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), largely remain as political slogans in many countries. While all the Baltic states have already committed to meeting this spending, the United Kingdom (UK) – the JEF’s leading nation – has committed to reaching 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2027, with an expectation to reach 3.5% by 2035; the agreed deadline for the investment commitment from The Hague.

The Netherlands has accepted the commitment but has not provided any timelines. Defence capacity building is a persistent, long-term effort, and assessments indicate that even with sufficient military investments, providing the necessary capabilities to replace American contributions would take years.

Nevertheless, there is ongoing strong trust in NATO as a cornerstone of collective defence in Europe, but it is evident that implementing its new generation of regional defence plans, adopted at the NATO summit in Vilnius in 2023, requires coherent integration of national, multinational and minilateral efforts. While minilaterals can increase overall readiness through joint exercises, and are seen as a tool for rapid response, there is a risk of fragmentation if military activities are not synchronised properly with NATO planning.

Importance of minilaterals in supporting Ukraine

The enhanced partnership initiative portrays another area where minilateral cooperation has demonstrated potential during the past several years. Since 2022, smaller coalitions of willing states have played a decisive role in coordinating military assistance, training and capability development for Ukraine. These groupings have often been more agile in accelerating equipment delivery, as well as in more focused capacity-building initiatives.

Another example of a well-functioning minilateral formation is the IT Coalition. Launched in 2023, this coalition coordinates and delivers practical support to Ukraine across Information Technology (IT), cyber and digital resilience. Its primary focus is enhancing Ukraine’s capacity to maintain secure communications, digital C2 and cyber defence during wartime.

Estonia plays a pivotal role as a co-leader of this coalition, alongside Luxembourg. It facilitates support for Ukraine in funding, procurement and expertise-sharing, prioritising rapid delivery and operational relevance. Assistance provided encompasses secure IT infrastructure, communications-related digital solutions, cyber-military engagement and tools to improve situational awareness.

Estonia’s decision to pledge 0.25% of its GDP to military assistance for Ukraine has high strategic importance but, as a small nation, even with this extended effort, the promised military assistance will only amount to about €100 million (£87.3 million) per year over the next four years.

Minilateral initiatives can be beneficial to amplify the impact of such efforts, and the IT Coalition has thus far met the expectations: in just two years, €1.1 billion (£960.4 million) was raised. Furthermore, this pledge not only supports Ukraine, but also strengthens the overall security architecture in Europe by fortifying the continent’s defence innovation ecosystem and enhancing long-term technological competitiveness through lessons learned on the battlefield.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the potential of minilateral cooperation in bolstering NATO and EU efforts towards strengthening regional security have been valuable. Worth mentioning are the following positive benefits:

• Targeted responses to sub-threshold threats: The JEF’s capability to activate responses to sub-threshold threats quickly positions it as a vital asset in the Baltic security landscape, complementing NATO’s broader military capabilities;

• Enhanced flexibility and rapid decision-making: Smooth decision-making and rapid responses are crucial for addressing the multitude of security threats, especially sub-threshold ones, and safeguarding critical infrastructure; and

• Agility in supporting allies and partners: The success of smaller coalitions in supporting Ukraine has been very valuable to Estonia, which has been devoted to supporting Ukraine as long as it takes to achieve victory, and whose contribution has been amplified through minilateral engagements.

However, there are also still some limitations to keep in mind with such formats:

• Operational capacity limitations: While minilateral arrangements such as the JEF offer promising frameworks, they often face limitations in operational capacity stemming from each nation’s existing military capacity;

• Risk of fragmentation and overlapping: This is especially relevant in relation to direct military engagements, which must be synchronised with NATO to prevent overlap and confusion in the operational practices; and

• Long-term commitment requirements: Building effective defence capabilities through minilateral cooperation is a persistent, long-term effort that may not yield immediate results.

Minilaterals have become indispensable components of Northern Europe’s security architecture. Their flexibility, speed and political cohesion make them well-suited to addressing the demands of a rapidly changing threat environment. The success of initiatives such as the JEF demonstrates how smaller frameworks can complement NATO by enhancing readiness, interoperability and regional deterrence.

However, their effectiveness ultimately depends on the availability of national forces, sustained investment in capabilities, and careful alignment with alliance planning and command structures. When aligned with NATO’s collective defence efforts and embedded within a coherent strategic framework, minilaterals have the potential for significantly strengthening collective defence, crisis response and resilience – against both conventional and sub-threshold threats.

Nele Loorents is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS). Her areas of expertise include NATO and US security and defence policy, transatlantic relations, and deterrence and defence posture in the Baltic region.

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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