European nations are rearming at a pace not seen since the Cold War. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has triggered a surge in defence spending, new procurement programmes, and renewed attention to deterrence. Yet, despite this mobilisation, European military power remains fragmented – and, in some respects, risks becoming even more so.

The central problem is not technical. European countries do not lack institutions, frameworks, or expertise. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) provides established interoperability standards and integrated planning, while the European Union (EU) has begun to mobilise significant financial instruments for defence. Rather, fragmentation persists because it reflects deeper political and strategic divisions among European states. These divisions limit the scope for meaningful capability specialisation – the shortest pathway to a more efficient and credible European defence posture.

This presents both a constraint and an opportunity for the United Kingdom (UK). As a leading military power outside the EU, but central to European security, Britain is a necessary partner in shaping a more flexible model of defence integration adapted to European realities.

Fragmentation as a political choice

European defence fragmentation is often described as the result of inefficient procurement or insufficient coordination. While these factors matter, they are symptoms rather than causes. At its core, fragmentation reflects the persistence of national sovereignty in defence policy. Simply put, European states do not fully agree on the purpose, scope, or future direction of defence integration.

Countries on NATO’s eastern flank – particularly Poland and the Baltic states – prioritise immediate readiness against Russian aggression and remain strongly committed to the alliance. For them, rapid capability acquisition and American security guarantees are paramount. By contrast, France continues to frame defence integration in terms of European strategic autonomy, focusing on strengthening continental capacity to act independently of the United States (US) when necessary.

Germany occupies a middle position, seeking to reconcile NATO commitments with industrial policy objectives and ambitions for technological sovereignty. Southern European states, meanwhile, often approach defence cooperation through the lens of burden sharing and industrial participation, shaped as much by domestic economic considerations as by strategic priorities.

Moreover, neutral or militarily non-aligned EU member states, including Austria and the Republic of Ireland, remain cautious regarding deeper defence integration. While this reflects constitutional constraints and political sensitivities surrounding military alignment, it also entails their factual continued reliance on the security provision of more actively engaged European partners, instead of a model of armed neutrality – like that of Switzerland – that would indirectly contribute to the continent’s collective defence.

These divergent perspectives extend beyond strategy into defence industrial policy. Governments continue to view defence procurement as a tool of economic policy, technological development, and employment protection. Control over critical supply chains and industrial capacity is increasingly associated with strategic resilience. As a result, states remain reluctant to accept cross-border consolidation when it threatens national industrial capabilities or political influence.

This helps to explain why European defence continues to be characterised by duplication – encompassing multiple tank programmes, competing combat aircraft projects, and fragmented naval procurement. These are not so much industrial inefficiencies as they are political choices.

Britain’s role in a divided Europe

Brexit has complicated the defence landscape, but it has not diminished the UK’s strategic importance. Britain remains one of Europe’s most capable military powers: a nuclear state, a leading defence industrial actor, and a central player within NATO. Any model of European defence that excludes the UK is therefore structurally incomplete.

The post-Brexit relationship between Britain and the EU has begun to stabilise, with the 2025 establishment of a Security and Defence Partnership providing a framework for dialogue and cooperation in areas such as cyber security, maritime operations, and defence research. However, this arrangement remains limited, and the UK continues to stand outside key EU defence industrial instruments.

In practice, Britain has adapted by deepening bilateral and minilateral defence cooperation. The Lancaster House Treaties and the Northwood Declaration with France continue to underpin close operational collaboration between Europe’s two nuclear powers. More recently, the Kensington Treaty with Germany has signalled renewed efforts to strengthen British-German defence ties across operational and industrial domains. At the same time, the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), linking ten Northern European countries, has emerged as a flexible framework for regional security cooperation and rapid response. Most recently, on 27th May, the British-Polish Northolt Treaty on a Security and Defence Partnership was signed.

The Northolt Treaty is particularly significant in this regard. Beyond reaffirming commitments to defence cooperation and strategic consultation, it highlights the growing importance of bilateral frameworks in addressing the political constraints on broader European defence integration. Crucially, the treaty is explicitly anchored in NATO obligations, reinforcing the Alliance as the primary framework for European security rather than generating alternative institutional pathways. Bringing together two countries with convergent threat perceptions and a strongly Atlanticist outlook, it reflects a wider shift towards cooperation among like-minded allies within NATO. Such agreements can therefore complement the Alliance by enabling more targeted forms of capability development and coordination, without requiring full strategic convergence across Europe.

These developments point towards a broader shift in European defence cooperation. Rather than converging towards a single institutional model, Europe is evolving into a more flexible ecosystem of overlapping arrangements: NATO, EU mechanisms, bilateral agreements, and minilateral coalitions. It aligns with the UK’s longstanding preference for flexible, coalition-based approaches to security cooperation and reinforces its role as a central connector within Europe’s evolving security architecture. However, Britain’s ability to sustain this role depends on the rapid strengthening of its own military capabilities after a prolonged period of underinvestment and force reductions.

Minilateralism and the future of specialisation

Full strategic convergence among European states remains unlikely in the near term. Divergent threat perceptions, political priorities, and industrial interests will continue to constrain large-scale integration. In this context, the most realistic pathway towards greater efficiency lies in selective capability specialisation within smaller, like-minded groups of states.

Minilateral frameworks, such as the JEF and emerging groupings on NATO’s eastern flank, are particularly well suited to this approach. They bring together countries with shared threat perceptions, stronger political trust, and greater willingness to coordinate force development. Unlike broader European frameworks, they can move more quickly and avoid many of the political disputes associated with EU-level initiatives.

Specialisation is most feasible in high-cost, high-complexity capability areas. Strategic airlift; missile defence; Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR); logistics; and cyber capabilities are natural candidates. These sectors require sustained investment and offer clear benefits from pooling resources and reducing duplication.

However, even in these areas, progress will depend on political incentives rather than institutional designs. Governments will not accept specialisation if it is perceived to undermine sovereignty or damage domestic industries. Instead, cooperation must be framed as enhancing national capabilities through burden sharing.

Standardisation is equally important. European countries’ proliferation of military platforms reduces interoperability and increases costs. Incremental convergence around existing systems, such as on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft or shared air defence solutions, offers a more realistic path forward than ambitious but contested new programmes. Convergence should also be pursued in emerging areas such as drone warfare, where political and bureaucratic barriers to international cooperation are less entrenched than in legacy systems.

Why NATO remains central

Despite the growing role of EU initiatives, NATO remains the only politically acceptable framework for large-scale capability coordination across Europe. It accommodates both EU and non-EU members, preserves the American strategic anchor, and provides established structures for planning and interoperability.

By contrast, EU defence integration remains politically contested. Instruments such as joint financing programmes represent an important step forward in industrial coordination, but they also highlight underlying tensions over governance, access, and strategic orientation. For countries such as the UK, participation in these mechanisms remains constrained.

In this context, a NATO-centric model of defence integration, supplemented by EU financial tools and regional initiatives, appears more politically viable than a fully integrated European defence system. The challenge is not the absence of institutional frameworks, but the lack of sufficiently strong incentives to encourage states to use them more effectively.

What Britain could do

If fragmentation is political, then overcoming it requires political leadership. The UK is well placed to provide it. Firstly, it should prioritise minilateral defence cooperation as the primary vehicle for capability integration. Strengthening the JEF and expanding partnerships on NATO’s eastern flank, as well as deepening cooperation with France and Germany, would allow Britain to shape patterns of specialisation among like-minded states.

Secondly, the UK should focus on leading in specific capability areas. It already possesses comparative advantages in intelligence, cyber operations, maritime power, air power, and advanced defence technologies. Concentrating investment in these sectors would enable Britain to act as a hub within broader European capability networks.

Thirdly, the UK should seek pragmatic engagement with EU defence initiatives. While full participation in EU mechanisms may not be feasible, selective cooperation – particularly in areas such as research, innovation, and supply chain resilience – could benefit both sides.

Finally, Britain should reinforce NATO as the central framework for European defence. This means not only maintaining strong commitments to the alliance, but also using NATO structures to promote standardisation, interoperability, and coordinated capability development.

Conclusion

European defence fragmentation is not the result of a lack of institutions or technical solutions. It reflects enduring political divisions over sovereignty, strategy, and industrial policy. These divisions will not disappear in the near term.

However, fragmentation is not inevitable. Through selective capability specialisation, minilateral cooperation, and incremental standardisation, Europe can build a more coherent and effective defence posture. This process should not be aimed so much at building a unified European army as reducing the costliest forms of duplication and strengthening collective deterrence.

In a period of geopolitical uncertainty amid renewed Russian aggression and American strategic repositioning, European countries – although they can never fully specialise – should work together to move the dial further towards specialisation to improve returns on investment. The balance struck by nations closer to the immediate threat should be emulated more widely across NATO.

Dr Przemyslaw Biskup, Senior Lecturer at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics and Senior Research Fellow in the EU Programme, The Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs (PISM).

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

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On 30th May 2026, AUKUS defence ministers gathered in Singapore to issue a pivotal joint statement on the progress of their trilateral security partnership. Marking a significant acceleration for Pillar II of the agreement, the ministers announced their first signature project: the collaborative development of advanced payloads for Uncrewed Undersea Vehicles (UUVs). Crucially, the meeting also reaffirmed that the Pillar I submarine programme remains firmly on track. For the United Kingdom (UK), this means progressing toward a projected class size of up to 12 new SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), while Australia remains poised to procure at least five.

The AUKUS partnership has matured significantly since its historic unveiling by Joe Biden, then President of the United States (US), Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister of the UK, and Scott Morrison, then Prime Minister of Australia, on 15th September 2021. Originally negotiated in unprecedented secrecy during mid-2021, AUKUS was designed to facilitate the transfer of top-tier British and American nuclear propulsion technology to Australia, alongside a suite of advanced joint capabilities spanning cyber, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.

What began as a disruptive capability-sharing agreement has now solidified into a generation-defining pillar of British, American, and Australian statecraft. But what originally drove these three nations to establish AUKUS? What are the enduring geopolitical implications of the agreement? And where is this trilateral partnership heading next?

Strategic drivers

Australia sought closer relations with Britain and America because it wanted SSNs. In 2015, the Royal Australian Navy agreed to procure 12 diesel-electric attack submarines (SSKs) from Naval Group, a French defence company, which would have provided it with a modest capability enhancement.

Since then, however, Australia grew increasingly perturbed by the geopolitical revisionism of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the imperious leadership of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The final straws were the CCP’s handling of Covid-19, its implementation of ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, and particularly the outlining of ‘14 Grievances’ in 2020. Allied with the rapid Chinese naval build-up, Australia saw the PRC’s trajectory as a threat to its sovereignty and right to self-determination.

Given the vast distances involved to travel between Fleet Base West in Perth – Australia’s main submarine base – and potential stalking grounds surrounding the South and East China seas, French-designed SSKs would have limited endurance: 0-14 days in comparison with at least 70 for SSNs. This melded with escalating costs for France’s more limited boats, leading Canberra to turn to its more traditional and well-armed allies – London and Washington – for strategic assistance.

When Australia approached the UK, Her Majesty’s (HM) Government responded positively. AUKUS animated ‘Global Britain’, the idea developed in the 2021 Integrated Review that the UK would ‘tilt’ towards the Indo-Pacific, becoming ‘the European partner with the broadest, most integrated presence in support of mutually beneficial trade, shared security, and values.’ Subsequently, AUKUS has become essential to the new Labour government’s Strategic Defence Review, which stressed a ‘NATO first, but not NATO only’ geostrategic posture.

For Britain, AUKUS is a practical demonstration of the linkages between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic areas. As Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for AUKUS, pointed out in April 2026, the partnership’s capacity to facilitate underwater naval expansion does not only empower Britain and Australia to project power into the Indo-Pacific; it also fundamentally strengthens Britain’s hand within the Euro-Atlantic theatre, giving the Royal Navy additional SSNs to deter Russian aggression.

Moreover, the UK also views the trilateral as an opportunity to energise the British defence industrial base – the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines are probably closer to Australian requirements than US Navy ones. This is a point that Johnson was keen to stress in September 2021 when the deal was announced. The subsequent Labour government has also nailed its colours to this mast through the concepts of ‘securonomics’ and the ‘defence dividend’.

For the US, AUKUS greatly empowers one of its two closest Indo-Pacific allies (the other being Japan), while drawing its closest Euro-Atlantic ally permanently into the Indo-Pacific, thereby creating a stronger counterweight to Chinese power in the region. The conception of the partnership showed that, after the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US was not turning inward or becoming isolationist. Instead, it indicated that America in 2021 was doubling down on pursuing its more immediate geostrategic interest: moderating the rise of the PRC. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that the Trump administration, deeply sceptical of the PRC’s geopolitical intent, and keen to draw in allies and partners to ease the burden, has continued to support AUKUS.

AUKUS generated such debate because it seemingly came out of nowhere. However, for those familiar with Australian strategic policy, and Australia-UK-US relations more generally, the agreement was not a ‘bolt from the blue’. The three countries already had a very close relationship, and their ability to interoperate and interchange forces with one another is perhaps the most extensive in the world – a consequence of little-known and informal terrestrial, naval, and air spin-off agreements connected to the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence grouping. At least for Britain, AUKUS built on the 2013 defence agreement between the UK and Australia, which allowed for the transfer of military technology between the two partners.

Geopolitical implications

As early as January 2022, AUKUS had already begun to have geopolitical implications. After Brexit and the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it served as a timely reminder to those doubting British and American strength and determination that both nations still wielded considerable power and great creativity in realising their geostrategic goals. As Sir Stephen, then National Security Adviser, told the Council on Geostrategy the day after the AUKUS announcement in September 2021, the agreement represented ‘perhaps the most significant capability collaboration anywhere in the world in the past six decades.’

Australia, too, showed how important AUKUS was: having moved from ‘down under’ to ‘top centre’ in only a handful of years, the country centralised its role in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. AUKUS will enable Australia to operate advanced SSNs – the SSN-AUKUS class – greatly empowering the Royal Australian Navy during a time when other countries in the Indo-Pacific (the PRC in particular) are engaging in a rapid naval build-up.

Moreover, the announcement of AUKUS also reverberated in Europe. The extraordinary and sharp French reaction to the agreement quickly became apparent, even though France was unlikely to (and did not) mount a lasting challenge. Although Paris used AUKUS to argue for the acceleration of European ‘strategic autonomy’, the sheer cost and politics of that endeavour was – and still is, even after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – a politically insurmountable challenge. Later, France brandished its nuclear status across the continent, but frontline states in Northern and Eastern Europe viewed AUKUS as a boon to British – and by extension, European – security. This calculation was later validated by the vital UK support for Ukraine from 2022, as well as British moves to reinforce deterrence across NATO’s northern flank.

Indeed, these nations continue to look to the UK and the US, as well as those who provide the mainstay of troops, aircraft, and warships to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Enhanced and Tailored Forward Presences they need for protection. Many even praised AUKUS, insofar as Britain’s participation indirectly binds Australia and America closer to Euro-Atlantic security, providing fresh animation to the emergence of an integrated Atlantic-Pacific region.

Despite the initial outcomes, the real geopolitical impact of AUKUS is to be felt over the longer term. Although it may never be central to a free and open Indo-Pacific in the same way that NATO is to the Euro-Atlantic, particularly given the geostrategic importance of India and Japan as well as the emergence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the three maritime democracies have confirmed with AUKUS that they are dissatisfied with existing multilateral arrangements, and that they are not prepared to wait indefinitely for regional stakeholders to take the necessary action in light of a worsening situation.

As a minilateral group, AUKUS – agile and nimble – swiftly created a new centre of geopolitical gravity and, despite British, Australian, and American attempts to dampen regional fears, it throws down the gauntlet to other countries and actors in the Indo-Pacific. The partnership reminds them that they cannot sit on the fence, or else the three nations will ultimately take measures into their own hands.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, AUKUS makes regional geopolitics more complicated for systemic competitors, namely the PRC, but also Russia. As Map 1 shows, AUKUS ‘triangulates’ power between three geostrategic nodes: the British Isles, North America, and Australia. It extends to the Australians technology and resources that they would not otherwise have, while strengthening Britain’s position in the Euro-Atlantic. It should be no surprise that Russia and the PRC have framed AUKUS so negatively.

Map 1: The geopolitics of AUKUS

Through AUKUS, the UK and the US are showing that they can deter revisionists not only by sending their own strategic assets into the Indo-Pacific, but also by empowering a vital regional partner. At the same time, by simultaneously focusing on next-generation technologies, the three countries have combined forces to create a more potent ‘technology accelerator’ to compete with the PRC.

A centre of geopolitical gravity

Given the strategic drivers behind AUKUS, the future of the trilateral partnership looked bright in late 2021 and early 2022, and continues to do so in 2026 with the three defence secretaries’ announcement. Looking ahead, perhaps the biggest question is whether the arrangement will remain exclusive, or whether it serves as the beginning of a more systemic rearrangement of geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific, and even, the Euro-Atlantic.

Despite not being a formal alliance, AUKUS generates a centre of geopolitical gravity based on shared interests and deep trust to convene – even align – other UK, US and Australian allies and partners. Indeed, as early as October 2021, Gen. Sir Nicholas Carter, former Chief of the Defence Staff, indicated that AUKUS will not necessarily remain exclusive, even if future members decide not to partake in nuclear submarine cooperation – which, in any case, may turn out to be of secondary importance compared to future Pillar II collaboration.

Canada and New Zealand – the other Five Eyes partners – could almost certainly get involved in AUKUS, particularly in terms of Pillar II’s advanced scientific research, even if the New Zealanders are averse to the military application of nuclear technology. Other countries, particularly Japan, could also potentially align with AUKUS, not least because of the closeness between the US and Japan, as well as between Australia and Japan, but also due to the emergence of the ‘quasi-alliance’ between London and Tokyo.

Given how AUKUS will support Britain’s posture in the North Atlantic, it is conceivable that it will become central to the Joint Expeditionary Force and NATO, particularly as Gen. Gwyn Jenkins, First Sea Lord, develops the New Hybrid Navy, the Atlantic Bastion, Shield, and Strike concepts, and the Northern Navies Initiative, with key Northern European allies. Indeed, the technologies generated through Pillar II may become indispensable to deterrence in the North Atlantic.

Conclusion

AUKUS has successfully bridged the traditional divides between regional theatres, establishing a sophisticated regulatory and technological ecosystem that links the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. By connecting the industrial bases of the UK, the US, and Australia, the partnership does more than simply project naval power into the Indo-Pacific; it establishes an enduring bulwark designed to ensure that autocratic rivals do not dictate the rules of the 21st-century international order.

James Rogers is Co-President (Research) of the Council on Geostrategy.

A previous version of this article was published in January 2022. This is an updated version.

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The 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) had within it a clear message: defence can no longer be ‘contracted out only to our Armed Forces, good and brave as they are.’ With multiple current and future threats and challenges facing the United Kingdom (UK), ‘a whole-of-society approach is essential. Everyone has a role to play and a national conversation on how we do it is required.’

A year on from the SDR’s publication, and with threats mounting from all directions, this conversation is starting. Polling in support of increased defence spending is trending in the right direction – that is, unless you are part of the sizeable percentage who abhor defence and think it is a waste of money.

A sensible communications campaign is not going to spend much time on that group. Those already in favour should not need extensive targeting either, but are often targeted anyway, because doing so is easier and less risky. Everyone likes talking to their own echo chamber, and nobody enjoys being called a warmonger.

Yet, it is the middle of the normal distribution – the majority of the British population – where most effort should lie. This audience is often described in polls as ‘disengaged’, and those who think defence is either someone else’s problem or that the military has it covered. Indeed, the inability to deploy a single Royal Navy warship to protect the UK’s air stations on Cyprus seemed to be the first time that many within this middle group realised how thinly spread the British Armed Forces have now become.

Defence language

Reaching this group requires a clarity of language that defence does not naturally possess. Armed forces language has always been slightly exclusionary. This is no different from other professional groups, from finance to medicine to law – ‘this is our gang and you’re not in it’. Each service having its own lexicon also does not help. This is controversial, but perhaps the whole business of defence does not attract the best communicators. It certainly does not always attract good writers, and the technical, clipped style demanded in written communication throughout a career does not improve matters.

Add to this the extreme brevity required on many radio circuits, and the result is a mash-up of jargon abbreviations and codewords, often incomprehensible to the person sitting next to you, let alone an interested outsider. Without care, you can leave the service and before you know it, you are using the 24-hour clock at work and saying ‘roger’ at the end of sentences and everyone else in the office thinks you are weird.

Online, where character limits matter as much as airtime on a radio circuit, the problem is equally acute. Acronyms such as SDR, JEF, NAS, NATO MARCOM, and PJHQ are sprayed about on the assumption that everyone knows what they mean.* A recent Royal Navy post on X about Exercise TAMBER SHIELD illustrates this nicely:

Personnel from @815NAS conducted rescue and firefighting training with the @Sjoforsvaret during Ex #TamberShield. The exercise runs under JEF, the UK-led coalition of Northern Europe nations which works in support of @NATO_MARCOM ops. @JEFnations

The only people who understand this language are in the wrong target audience, and even they find it grating. They then lead the ridicule, which in turn discourages wider engagement. And while many social channels encourage tagging users and employing hashtags, they should not be used at the expense of clarity.

Clunky language, mangled syntax, and the occasional made-up word is not the root cause of defence’s problems, but it is a highly visible symptom. The real problem runs deeper than language alone. It is a fundamental communication problem. The national conversation does need to happen, and it must be conducted in plain English. However, it also needs to be honest, both internally and externally, or the ‘say-do’ gap will continue to widen and undermine trust.

Centralised control

Speaking to those who handled communications for the individual services during the Cold War and 1990s, it is clear that they had a level of freedom unrecognisable today, despite having far fewer channels. Over-centralisation of messaging has become entrenched. It was already well established in the Ministry of Defence by 2011 when David Cameron, then Prime Minister, issued his famous ‘you do the fighting, and I’ll do the talking’ reprimand to Sir Mark Stanhope, then First Sea Lord, who had merely suggested that providing an extra ship off Libya might stretch the Royal Navy.

Sir Mark did, of course, deploy an extra ship on top of all the other standing tasks of the day, and the issue was quickly forgotten. But this papering over of the cracks is part of the problem. The British Armed Forces have a built-in desire to say ‘yes minister’. This is part of being in a democracy. Not doing so is also the fastest way to guarantee being passed over for promotion.

The follow-on problem is the military’s ability to deliver, while hiding the ‘duct tape’ required to make it happen. The result is a damaging lack of honesty: politicians not being entirely frank with the public about the state of defence, and the military not being entirely frank with politicians in return – a communications issue, in other words.

This obsession with centralisation shows no sign of abating, and is certainly not confined solely to the Ministry of Defence (MOD), nor to either side of the political aisle. Not long ago, there was a discussion floating around Whitehall about removing all ministries’ communications departments and doing the whole thing centrally. If this overreach feels as though it verges on parody, consider that Brexit and Covid-19 communications were the examples used to justify it.

Computer says ‘no’

In such an environment, it is easy to see why individual services struggle to get their messages to the right audiences. For HMS Dragon – which was deployed to the Gulf of Oman in early May – to communicate anything beyond routine matters, approval is required from the UK commander in Bahrain, the Joint Headquarters in Northwood, the Operations Directorate in the MOD, and ultimately the Directorate of Defence Communications. A single ‘no’ anywhere in the chain kills the opportunity.

This ponderousness causes defence to miss literally thousands of good outreach opportunities every year. The iconic image of HMS Diamond firing her Aster missile at an incoming drone was released in error – just as well, since the system would otherwise have blocked it. All told, this has produced an all-time high in risk aversion towards unit-level communications, with no sign of improvement.

Threats

The urgency of fixing these problems is clear. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, daily sub-threshold activities against Europe, questions over American commitment to allies, and an impending energy shock should be warning enough. This is not just a Royal Navy issue; it is pan-defence. One hopes the visit by Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, to a Vanguard class submarine that had been at sea so long it changed colour might be a trigger. If the ‘pointy stuff’ is being exposed as this thin, the underpinnings raise a whole new level of concern.

Yet even now, the official language speaks of sticking plasters and ‘increases in due course’. The latest proposed plaster is smaller than the black hole it needs to fill. This is what used to be called ‘more cuts’, and it helps explain why the Defence Investment Plan has still not appeared a year after the SDR upon which it is based. Meanwhile, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) which could help to plug gaps at relatively low cost struggle with communications barriers, often by design. The system continues to claim it is ‘meeting all operational tasking’ when it is demonstrably not.

This was effective as a ‘line to take’ when Britain still had enough mass to paper over the cracks. Now, though, it does not.

Conclusion

The SDR was right: a national conversation on defence is essential if the UK is to understand the gap and therefore vote to improve national resilience.

This is a whole-ship sport, and clear, honest communications – using plain English, delivered through a spread of channels and voices and based on ambition, not fear – sit at the heart of it. Each service has the capability, but their shackles must be loosened. This does not mean a free-for-all, but an environment in which communications risk is properly tolerated and managed, just like any other operational risk.

All that is required is the courage from the top to delegate authority effectively and to accept the associated risk. The alternative is that change will be forced upon Britain, when it will be too late and much, much more expensive.

*Strategic Defence Review, Joint Expeditionary Force, Naval Air Squadron, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Maritime Command, and Permanent Joint Headquarters for those who do not know.

Tom Sharpe OBE is a communications consultant who specialises in enhancing and protecting reputations in complex and contested environments. Prior to this, he served for over 25 years in the Royal Navy, the last five of which were spent in military plans and communications.

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

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In April 2026, Lord Robertson, former Secretary of State for Defence and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Secretary General, stated that the United Kingdom (UK) is ‘under-prepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack.’ Britain, he argued, is fundamentally unready to meet global threats.

Preparedness is not simply a nation’s ability to respond and recover from an emergency crisis. It is also a test of a nation’s resilience – its preparedness for emergencies including pandemics, extreme weather, terror attacks, and war.

Risks can be acute or chronic. Chronic risks pose challenges that erode the economy and societal cohesion, and manifest over a longer timeframe. To withstand concurrent or consecutive crises, a nation must have readiness through the building of systemic endurance across society.

Britain understands this. So, why is it so difficult to start a national conversation on threats, risks, and national resilience?

Security and national resilience: Mutually interdependent

The British public appears to have a tendency to view national security threats as singular events. While attacks such as the 2018 Novichok poisonings, the 2006 polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, or routine cyber attacks attributable to adversaries are taken seriously at national, political, and military and security service levels, they do not generate a national conversation on British security, or how resilient the UK is to sustained attacks on its soil; even though adversaries are clearly systematically testing national resilience.

The view seems to be that British security is reserved for uniformed personnel and security services. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) prioritised ‘warfighting readiness’. Furthermore, an entire section was devoted to the rebuilding of Defence Medical Services readiness for high-intensity peer conflict: since most defence medical personnel work in the National Health Service (NHS), the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) needs to be able to address the handling of mass casualties and the clinical challenges of a reduction in workforce capacity in the event of a major military deployment.

It is also a given that the British Armed Forces will be mobilised to assist civil society in dealing with natural disasters and pandemics through Military Assistance to Civilian Authorities (MACA) tasking. However, if it comes to war, their priority is warfighting. In this instance, civil society will likely need to fend for itself and even assist the military – as experienced in Ukraine.

This is not scaremongering. Clarity and realism are needed. Being better prepared comes from starting a national conversation on resilience, because crisis is becoming the norm. Taking action only when under pressure is not always going to be enough; building national resilience is a more cost-effective endeavour.

Starting a national conversation on risks and threats

In April 2026, Dr Fiona Hill, one of the chief writers of the SDR, asserted that during focus groups, many understood the threats to British security – primarily cyber attacks, but also risks to Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and undersea cables. It seems that the public is ready for a clear narrative on public roles and responsibilities for risks, threats, preparedness, response and recovery. Furthermore, the National Security Strategy (NSS) recognised that ‘without security and resilience at home, we cannot deliver economic growth or any of the other government missions to improve the lives of the British people’.

A perennial problem is that defence and welfare are viewed as a zero-sum ‘guns versus butter’ trade-off between national security and societal needs. However, recent conversations about food and energy security are in fact both matters for national security and societal needs. Food, health, energy, and environment security are good indicators of national resilience. Germany and the Nordic countries treat national infrastructure, such as roads, rail, education, and health services – all institutions the UK tends to view as societal needs – as part of national defence, because robust infrastructure is needed in an emergency.

NATO’s baseline requirements for national resilience, as required under Article 3 of the NATO Charter, would be a good starting point for a national conversation. Article 3 acts as the foundational requirement for NATO’s ability to defend itself, ensuring members do not just depend on collective protection, but are actively building domestic capacity. It focuses on resilience, especially in energy, transport, communications, and emergency services.

Undergirding civil preparedness is societal resilience. NATO member states are expected to measure their level of preparedness against seven baseline requirements for national resilience: continuity of government, resilient energy supplies, ability to deal with the uncontrolled movement of people, resilient food and water supplies, ability to deal with mass casualties and disruptive health crises, resilient civil communication systems, and resilient transport systems.

Here, Britain has a lot of work to do. Years of austerity across public services and an overreliance on ‘just-in-time’ supply chains heighten the UK’s vulnerabilities. The FM Global Resilience Index for 2026 ranked Britain as the 14th most resilient country, but revealed challenges and areas of vulnerability, particularly regarding inflation, climate exposure, and climate risk awareness.

The National Preparedness Commission’s 2025 industrial resilience report highlighted a key vulnerability in the UK’s heavy reliance on imported materials to make most of its critical items – such as defence equipment, electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy, and food. In response to His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s 2025 National Resilience Action Plan, the Commission’s August 2025 report found notable deficits in resilience awareness, in levels of preparedness among British households, and divergent willingness of said households to engage in enhancing their resilience.

Existing risk frameworks: Emergencies and resilience

The 2004 Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) is the main source of legislation on civil emergencies. Building upon this, the 2022 UK Government Resilience Framework was an important step to approaching national resilience by creating a shared understanding of risks, a focus on prevention and preparation, and communicating that resilience requires a whole-of-society approach.

While developments are occurring, there are concerns over the lack of a coherent joint-up effort and an overly ‘top-down’ approach. The key issue is that preparedness and resilience are often sidelined by immediate, short-term priorities and the political necessity of dealing with current problems. In other words, emergencies are easier to manage than longer-term resilience-building. Compounding this, there is no single minister dedicated to national resilience.

The extent of resilience fragmentation requires testing and regular review. Taiwan takes a whole-of-society approach, with its Whole-of-Society Defence Resilience Committee focusing on six elements of resilience (broadly aligning with NATO’s Article 3 requirements). The Committee has run annual tabletop and small-scale exercises (an urban resilience exercise) for the past two years, and is looking to expand. Through these, the Taiwanese government has been able to stress-test and fix national resilience issues.

There is also the matter of funding. At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, Britain committed to spending an additional 1.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to ‘protect critical infrastructure, defend networks, ensure civil preparedness and resilience, innovate, and strengthen the defence industrial base’ by 2035. However, these commitments are not yet reflected in HM Government expenditure plans, nor is it clear how they will be funded due to the delaying of the Defence Readiness Bill and Defence Investment Plan.

Public information campaigns: Being realistic

The Swedish approach is to promote self-help and responsibility. Through Sweden’s Total Defence model, everyone over 18 has a legally defined role in civil resilience. Individuals are mandated to contribute to national resilience through three main areas: military, civil, or public service. If the highest threat state is declared, everyone understands their role and is prepared to act.

In 2018, the Government of Sweden issued a leaflet entitled ‘If crisis or war comes’, and in 2022 it set up the Psychological Defence Agency to tackle misinformation campaigns from foreign entities. There are also 18 voluntary defence organisations training local volunteers in specialist areas such as radio communication, transport, and logistics.

The Netherlands also promotes a whole-of-society approach, recognising that preparedness takes preparation. Its public ‘Think Ahead’ information campaigns emphasise being realistic regarding risks. The Dutch government promotes self-help in the first 72 hours of any crisis, and regularly communicates that it will probably take three days to organise assistance.

Switzerland and Germany provide websites to calculate lists of family needs for a week’s supply of food. Latvia and Lithuania distribute booklets on how to survive for 72 hours in a crisis. By contrast, Britain’s Prepare information website provides only basic information. For instance, the Prepare message on food supplies reads: ‘As with water, how much you need will vary based on your own circumstances. Don’t forget food for pets.’ Evidently, there is much to learn from other countries.

Conclusion

The UK has a long way to go, and time is not on its side. There is government recognition that resilience building and preparedness is a whole-of-society effort. Without a national conversation on threats and risks, and their agency and scale, HM Government reduces its ability to enable the British public to be prepared for the contemporary and future threat landscape. Starting a national conversation on risk is now an urgent necessity.

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.

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Ahead of the visit of Donald Trump, President of the United States (US) visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Beijing signalled its intent to push him to ‘oppose’ Taiwan independence explicitly. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, maintained that Washington would stick with its longstanding position – which has traditionally been: ‘we do not support Taiwan independence’ (although the Trump administration removed this particular wording from its website).

Given Trump’s highly personalistic and unpredictable approach to diplomacy and dealmaking, there was no guarantee that he would not go off script. As ever, the President chose his own words when speaking to Fox News: ‘I’m not looking to have somebody go independent…I want them [Taiwan] to cool down’ (and adding ‘I want China to cool down’, alongside other loose language on arm sales to Taipei).

The distinction is a fine one, and a change of wording would not have altered anything on the ground: Taiwan would have remained independent. But had Trump opted to utter ‘we oppose Taiwan independence’, Beijing’s efforts to shift the blame for cross-strait instability onto Taipei would have been bolstered, and unwarranted legitimacy would have been lent to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) expansionist territorial claims.

Indeed, many countries in Africa and Asia have put on record their opposition to Taiwanese independence (and given a green light for a Chinese war to annex the island). Yet, the US to one side, Taiwan’s other partners – including the United Kingdom (UK) – are not publicly pressed to alter their wording and ‘oppose’ Taiwanese independence. His Majesty’s (HM) Government standard line is:

We consider the Taiwan issue one to be settled peacefully by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait through constructive dialogue, without the threat or use of force or coercion. We do not support any unilateral attempts to change the status quo.

Without reading too deeply between the lines, it can be inferred that HM Government does ‘not support’ Taiwan independence – that is an act, such as revising the Republic of China’s constitution, that would make Taiwan de jure independent – because such action would have to be unilateral in practice. Beijing would never acquiesce to it.

Yet, at the same time, HM Government does not appear, in principle, to be opposed. Rather, with the emphasis on a final settlement being arrived at ‘peacefully’ the point does not seem to be the outcome, whether independence or unification, but on the process.

In 2022, Ben Wallace, then Defence Secretary, muddied the waters when he told the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee that ‘it is in China’s plan to reunify Taiwan to mainland China...[and] Britain wants a peaceful process towards that.’

Wallace quickly rowed back these words, in a letter to the committee’s Chair, and repeated HM Government’s familiar formulation that ‘the contested status of Taiwan must be resolved peacefully’. He wrote ‘My position is most emphatically not, as you believe my remarks suggested, that “Taiwan must expect to be absorbed into the PRC and, inter alia, has no independent legitimacy”.’ Yet, a few paragraphs further down, Wallace also spoke of the UK’s longstanding and unchanging policy on Taiwan being ‘reflected in the Cairo Declaration’…

This declaration – that, in 1943, pledged to restore Taiwan to China from Japanese rule – has, however, been noticeably absent from modern HM Government statements. In neither its 2000 submission nor its 2024 response to the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee did the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) mention this wartime commitment in exposition on Britain’s Taiwan policy.

Long may this remain so. The UK should not be in the business of carving up territory with little to no regard for the people living there. The signing over of Poland at Yalta, another Second World War deal of this kind, is rightly regarded as a highly embarrassing and regrettable episode in British diplomatic history. Moreover, any invocation of the Cairo Declaration today stands at odds with HM Government’s belief that cross-strait differences ‘be settled peacefully…without the threat or use of force or coercion.’

If the stipulation is that neither force nor coercion should be used, then is it not the position of HM Government that any fundamental change to the cross-strait status quo must be one that has the consent of the Taiwanese people? Indeed, they may (as polls consistently suggest) never opt for unification, but instead stick with maintaining Taiwan’s de facto independence indefinitely.

Going forward, the UK – definitively ditching the Cairo Declaration (lest Beijing seize on any regurgitated reference to this pledge) – should make this point clear: that it is ultimately up to the people of Taiwan, living as they do in a democracy, to decide their future.

While often unsaid, the will of the Taiwanese populace has long been a concern of British governments. On 11th May 1951, when pushed on how a settlement across the Taiwan Strait might be brought about, Herbert Morrison, then Foreign Secretary, told Parliament: ‘I think it is clearly desirable that the wishes of the inhabitants of Formosa [Taiwan] should be taken into account’.

Articulating such a view now would help to counter Beijing’s intensifying efforts to dictate the global narrative in which Taiwan is presented as an ‘internal matter’, the rights of the people there erased, and unification established as a historical inevitability. Such lines, if unchallenged, will only breed fatalism in Taiwan, aiding the CCP’s efforts to break the psychological will of the Taiwanese people and secure victory without a fight. Meanwhile, if this narrative takes hold, the costs of a conflict for Beijing will have been lowered – with an act of annexation unlikely to invoke the same global disdain as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Fully articulating this point, about the wishes of the Taiwanese, is also a good reminder to the world that Taiwan is not a mere ‘problem’ or ‘issue’ (or, indeed, a bargaining chip) but a country of 24 million people.

At a time when the leader of the free world cannot be relied upon to articulate the rights and wrongs of an international dispute, it falls upon Britain and like-minded nations to step up and do so. The UK can continue not to support any unilateral alterations to the status quo. However, going forward, HM Government should assert that cross-strait differences must be settled peacefully, without the threat or use of force or coercion – and with the explicit democratic consent of the people of Taiwan.

Gray Sergeant is Research Fellow in Indo-Pacific Geopolitics at the Council on Geostrategy.

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Since the commencement of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the High North has become a primary theatre of strategic competition. This is a shift that the United Kingdom (UK) has responded to by declaring its intention to expand its regional presence, among other moves. However, Britain’s dependence on intelligence infrastructure provided by the United States (US) for its most sensitive maritime surveillance functions is a significant vulnerability that any serious Arctic strategy from His Majesty’s (HM) Government will need to address.

With the Trump administration no longer considering Russia an existential threat, and demonstrating a willingness to instrumentalise alliance relationships more specifically, continued reliance by the UK on US infrastructure means accepting a degree of American strategic discretion over British security decisions that may no longer be deemed desirable or tolerable.

It follows then that a key missing element of the UK’s Arctic strategy is the absence of an independent intelligent autonomous underwater surveillance capability capable of operating throughout the water column across the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap and the wider High North maritime space. A trilateral co-production partnership with Sweden and Ukraine centred on the joint development of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled autonomous underwater surveillance systems for the High North and its undersea infrastructures could begin to address that deficit while also serving broader strategic objectives beyond capability alone.

The capability case for this specific combination rests on three complementary and documented strengths. Sweden’s Saab Autonomous Ocean Drone (AOD) is a seven-metre long uncrewed undersea vehicle optimised for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) in the demanding, ice-affected maritime environment that the Arctic and the GIUK gap represent. Saab has designed the platform around an explicitly open autonomy stack, treating capability development ‘like applications in an app store’ with standardised interfaces that allow allied navies to develop and integrate their own classified mission software without disclosing it back to industry. This architecture makes the AOD a natural platform for multinational co-development.

Ukraine’s involvement is grounded in combat-validated expertise that most North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies currently do not possess in comparable form. The six-metre seabed-loitering Marichka exemplifies an autonomous underwater capability developed and refined under live operational conditions. The doctrinal and engineering knowledge embedded in the programme, including how autonomous underwater systems locate, position, and persist in hostile environments, fits neatly into the Arctic surveillance requirements that the proposed trilateral partnership is designed to address.

Britain’s own contribution centres on AI-enabled acoustic intelligence. Helsing’s SG-1 Fathom, manufactured in Plymouth, pairs an endurance submarine-hunter drone with the Lura maritime AI platform; a large model designed to interpret acoustic signals from sea vessels and submarines, and differentiate between individual vessels within the same class. This addresses one of NATO’s core surveillance problems in the High North, enabling the alliance not just merely to detect submarine presence, but also to attribute and track specific Russian vessels across transit routes from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic.

The proposed co-production arrangement is therefore one of integrated systems development rather than simply joint manufacturing. The Saab AOD would serve as the host platform, Ukraine’s contribution would operate at the level of mission logic and seabed deployment protocols, and Helsing’s Lura acoustic AI would supply the cognitive layer. Saab’s design philosophy – standardised interfaces allowing partners to integrate classified mission software independently – makes this division of labour technically feasible without requiring full disclosure of each partner country’s most sensitive Intellectual Property (IP).

The Ukraine dimension, moreover, adds another crucial layer of strategic logic at a time when formal NATO accession remains politically frozen. The good news, however, is that alliance integration has never been reducible to a single joining event. Sweden and Finland’s accession processes demonstrate that membership is built through accumulated industrial interdependence, shared doctrine, and interoperable systems developed well ahead of formal entry.

Although Ukraine’s situation is categorically different from both the Finnish and Swedish experiences, co-production would institutionalise its role as a security producer within the European order, with direct consequences for its longer-term trajectory within the continental security architecture. For the UK, anchoring Ukraine’s defence industrial base within a NATO architecture is both a strategic investment and a statement about what kind of European security order it intends to help build.

Notwithstanding the coherence of the strategic case, the frictions involved in pursuing such an initiative are significant. First and foremost is the potential American reaction, which may simply not welcome a British-led effort aimed at reducing Washington’s privileged position in the Arctic’s surveillance architecture. Technology transfer and classification constraints constitute another major hurdle that requires careful deliberation. Navigating the protocols governing acoustic intelligence and submarine-tracking data with Ukraine as a non-NATO partner will require a dedicated legal framework that currently does not exist. Last but not least, Ukraine’s battlefield agility sits in tension with the certification, standardisation, and long procurement cycles prevalent in the UK, Sweden, and indeed NATO. Closing this gap will require institutional investment, which needs to be planned for.

Ultimately, should the challenges outlined above be mitigated, a British-Swedish-Ukrainian co-production partnership constitutes a practical response to a documented strategic capability gap in the High North. An arrangement built around the Saab AOD as host platform, Helsing’s Lura acoustic AI as the cognitive layer, and Ukrainian seabed deployment expertise could begin to address this deficit in concrete and deployable terms, while simultaneously anchoring Ukraine’s defence industrial base within both wider European and NATO defence security architecture.

Nima Khorrami is a Research Associate at The Arctic Institute – Centre for Circumpolar Security Studies. His main area of interest and research lies at the intersection of geopolitics, critical infrastructure, and emerging technologies.

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On 13th October 2025, the container vessel Istanbul Bridge pulled into Felixstowe, the United Kingdom’s (UK) principal container hub, loaded with nearly 5,000 containers of Chinese goods. On the face of it, the arrival would appear unremarkable; just one among thousands of ships arriving in British ports each year from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Yet, the voyage marked a meaningful shift: rather than following traditional trade lanes, Istanbul Bridge had traversed the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Skirting the Arctic coast of Russia, this is an emerging corridor that promises to change global shipping and trade.

With global economic pressures and shipping frequently restricted in the Red Sea, the temptations of the NSR as a shortcut to Europe will only become stronger. It is generally 30-40% quicker than sailing from East Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal, and even more so than sailing south around the Cape. To illustrate this, the voyage of Istanbul Bridge took just 20 days, compared to the traditional Suez route of approximately 40-50 days.

Sailing towards Britain and Europe, the NSR starts at the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, and travels across the top of Siberia via several natural chokepoints before arriving at the narrow waters of the Kara Strait to enter the Barents Sea. From there, Europe is just around the tip of Norway.

The potential similarities between what Iran can do to the Strait of Hormuz and what Russia can do to these chokepoints, particularly the Kara Strait, cannot be understated. The UK, and its allies and partners in Europe, cannot afford to normalise the transit of merchant ships to and from its ports sailing via the NSR. Doing so poses a strategic risk which could play out against Britain in future.

Geography of the NSR

The NSR is typically navigable from July to November, with the best ‘open water’ conditions (when there is essentially no ice on the route) in September and October. While climate change is making the route more viable, yearly variance remains.

The entirety of the NSR can be viewed as restricted due to the requirement for icebreaking and its several natural chokepoints as it passes between islands and the mainland. However, the Kara Strait at its western end poses a particular problem. This narrow channel is formed by the gap between the large and barely populated island of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygach Island – which lies mere kilometres (km) from the Russian mainland across the Yugorsky Strait – and connects the Kara Sea in the east to the Barents Sea in the west. It is just 56km wide and only about 100 metres deep in most places.

The Yugorsky Strait, parallel to the Kara Strait but further south, is an even narrower passage. It is only 3km wide in places, and even shallower – between 13 and 36 metres deep. It is ice-covered most of the year and, to the extent that it can be used as an alternative to the Kara Strait for smaller vessels, it has all the same downsides.

During the height of summer, some vessels may attempt to bypass the Kara Strait by rounding the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya. This offers only limited strategic advantages, however, as the route extends far deeper into the Arctic, exposes shipping to substantially harsher ice conditions – and remains no less vulnerable to Russian surveillance and interdiction.

Last year, just over 100 vessels transited the NSR, with 52 passages from east to west, and 51 going the other way. Virtually all the traffic was between Russian ports (including Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg) and the PRC and South Korea, with the voyage of Istanbul Bridge being an anomaly.

Vulnerability of the NSR

As the strangulation of the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthi disruption of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait show, international shipping is particularly vulnerable to bad actors if it must sail through constricted waters. As the world sails away from global norms, the idea of a rules-based order, and freedom of navigation, shipping lanes which pass close to regional powers can be placed at their mercy. These chokepoints are devilishly easy to shut with the mere threat of military force, and fiendishly difficult to reopen.

Russia could, under circumstances of its choosing, throttle or block the NSR if European nations become addicted to cheap imports via this route, and the cost savings are quickly priced into their economies. Subsequent moves to constrict the flow of goods would have an immediate economic impact that would be felt by consumers.

More concerning still, any ships which were at that moment sailing across the top of Siberia would become hostages, trapped in the inhospitable and sparsely populated north where they could not realistically be rescued. The sense of urgency would grow as winter approached, forcing sailors to seek shelter in the handful of Russian ports on the Siberian coast.

Russia’s options in the NSR

Like the Strait of Hormuz, the Kara Strait is naturally vulnerable to naval mines and, as seen with Hormuz, very few mines would need to be sown. Additionally, any ship in the Kara Strait is within easy reach of Russian missiles and aircraft. While North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) assets could operate in the Barents Sea, geography would not be on the alliance’s side in trying to keep the Kara Strait open; it is over 1,000km from the nearest Norwegian port.

Russia could exert pressure via the Kara Strait even in peacetime. The legal arguments for Russian sovereignty over the NSR are already in place. There have been several declarations by the Kremlin regarding the route, including 2020’s ‘The Rules of Navigation’ which insist, among other things, that ships request a permit to be allowed to use the NSR. In Russia’s mind, the route is its private waterway, technically regarded as an ‘inland waterway’ in the same way as the network of rivers and canals which criss-cross the western side of the country.

The UK and other free and open nations should – and do – dispute this on legal grounds. However, it does present Russia with justifications which can be used to exert leverage over east-west trade using the NSR, regardless of whether they have any legal merit.

With the NSR, Russia could, in the near future, be given an easy point of leverage over British and European foreign policy – for example, in a scenario in which it was placing pressure on the Baltic states, Moldova, or elsewhere. A calibrated disruption, such as a partial closure of the Kara Strait or the detention of select vessels, could serve as a coercive signal, diverting attention and imposing economic friction while constraining operational freedom at a critical moment.

Risks for Britain

Speaking at the Defence Committee inquiring to defence in the High North, Dr Marc De Vore of the University of St. Andrews’ School of International Relations noted that ‘under those situations, Russia’s interest in the High North and North Atlantic is putting us in a position where we cannot react, and where we cannot support our Eastern European allies.’ As the UK looks to an uncertain future – but one where Russia is likely to remain a threat or potential threat for some time – handing the Kremlin such an advantage would be a grave error.

The Kara Strait is not the only lever available, but it represents a novel one, enabled by shifting trade patterns and the gradual normalisation of Arctic transit. Free and open nations could thus find themselves outmanoeuvred in new ways only possible by circumstances of their own making. Britain has a choice, but it must find ways to avoid becoming dependent on purely short-term economic interests arising from a situation that will be hard to retreat from.

H I Sutton is a writer, illustrator and analyst who specialises in submarines and sub-surface systems. He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy.

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

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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 three 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.

Ben Short

Head, Secretary of State’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenge, Ministry of Defence

From my lens, leading defence’s challenge function, the greatest impact that the Council on Geostrategy has had has been in bringing a fresh set of officials and external thinkers and doers together, with a real focus on policy relevance.

Products like the Big Ask have tackled key policy questions from a range of angles in a digestible format. Whitehall Briefings do a great job of exposing the reality of government roles and thinking to external stakeholders. Key papers, such as ‘What allies want: Appraising Britain’s defence relationships’ and ‘Ten flaws in British strategic thinking’, tackle live departmental issues.

These are critical to delivering the ‘thriving intellectual base’ demanded in the Strategic Defence Review. Surveys suggest that there is a still a significant gap between external expertise and government in culture, approaches, and understanding of key issues. The Council on Geostrategy’s greatest impact thus far is in helping to close that gap.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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World leaders have recently concluded the latest Munich Security Conference, Russia continues its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the policies of the current United States (US) administration are increasingly perceived to threaten international peace and stability. In this context, critical maritime security threats loom larger than ever.

Such threats are increasingly interconnected and sophisticated, with the conflict in Ukraine in particular increasing pressures on global energy supplies. This has resulted in Russia deploying a ‘shadow fleet’ of vessels to evade economic sanctions, and leading directly to attacks on undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

As two of the most exposed island nations sitting at the western fringes of Europe, and with large maritime territories spilling out into the northeast Atlantic, the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland appear particularly vulnerable in the face of such threats – not least because a significant proportion of the world’s undersea cables and pipelines either pass through or close to their waters. Given mutual dependencies, as well as evident capacity constraints on Ireland’s side, deeper bilateral cooperation between both countries to counter existing and emerging maritime security threats is ever more essential.

Such cooperation is well-established, and strongly valued from both sides. It builds on shared geography, history and practical necessity. Nevertheless, at the start of 2026, Britain and Ireland are at a turning point. With an updated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on bilateral defence cooperation expected imminently, and with Ireland also currently finalising its first National Maritime Security Strategy (NMSS), there are clear indications of new approaches and investments from both nations in mutual and cooperative efforts to counter maritime threats.

British and Irish maritime developments

Following a report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy from September 2025, His Majesty’s (HM) Government subsequently announced that it intends to establish a new Undersea Infrastructure Security (UIS) Oversight Board, chaired by the Cabinet Office, to set strategic direction across diverse government departments responsible for the operation, security and resilience of undersea infrastructure, among other aspects.

Such commitments came after HM Government had announced details of its ‘Atlantic Bastion’ programme, designed to strengthen protection of undersea cables in the North Atlantic. This programme seeks to combine the use of autonomous vessels, deployed with Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology alongside more traditional warships and patrol aircraft, creating an ‘advanced hybrid force’.

On the Irish side, in anticipation of the publication of the NMSS, there have already been announcements on investments in new technology, including towed sonar arrays to monitor threats to undersea infrastructure. Given obvious capacity constraints, however, much of Ireland’s focus has been increasingly multilateral in orientation – for instance, the Irish Naval Service’s Offshore Patrol Vessel (OPV) LÉ William Butler Yeats participated in a Passing Exercise (PASSEX) with North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) warships off the Irish coast in an effort to improve interoperability between available assets.

These efforts have been much more noticeable in intelligence sharing and data gathering. For example, Ireland decided to join NATO’s Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP) in 2024. For similar reasons, in April 2025, the Irish Defence Forces also joined the European Union’s (EU) Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE). This seeks to improve information sharing across maritime authorities between Ireland and other EU partners in order to detect threats to critical undersea infrastructure.

Of course, this kind of defence collaboration is a sensitive subject within Ireland, with many perceiving it as a threat to the nation’s policy of military neutrality. As Ireland increasingly adopts a ‘collective security’ approach, cooperating in European and NATO-led initiatives, Irish leaders have been careful to point to cooperation with other militarily neutral states, such as Switzerland, to highlight how important multilateral defence collaboration can still go hand-in-hand with an ostensibly neutral geopolitical standpoint.

The future of British-Irish maritime cooperation

It is clear that collaborative efforts between the UK and Ireland will be increasingly essential to ensuring maritime security in the North Atlantic, particularly as both countries cooperate further in infrastructure development and investments in future technology, and increase their energy interconnectedness. This is especially reflected in the outcome of a joint summit from March 2025, where Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin sought to strengthen cooperation in maritime security, with a particular focus on the protection of critical undersea infrastructure.

The subsequent joint statement closed with a commitment to the establishment of a UK-Ireland 2030 Steering Group, led by the Cabinet Office and Department of the Taoiseach. The Steering Group also complements existing cross-border institutions established under the auspices of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. This makes clear that the kind of joint investment and regulatory alignment anticipated – in particular to further the offshore energy sector – will depend upon joint cooperation in data gathering and intelligence sharing to counter the security threats to such infrastructure.

These commitments will find expression in the imminently anticipated bilateral defence MOU, which is expected to highlight an increased focus on, inter alia, joint military training and education, as well as within Ireland’s forthcoming NMSS. The NMSS itself will likely place the greatest emphasis on enhanced commitments to multilateral cooperation in this area.

The expectation is that the commitments will soon bear fruit. Indeed, proposals from the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly have suggested the necessity of establishing a joint statutory Cables Protection Commission, with the aim of monitoring and securing critical subsea infrastructure. It was recommended that this body include representatives from government and defence, as well as owners of undersea assets. Alongside comprehensive mapping of such infrastructure, the Commission would oversee monitoring patrols and efforts to enhance resilience of undersea infrastructure through the intermeshing of communications networks.

Moves like this also signal the importance of a final plank to efforts to shore up maritime security regarding undersea cables and pipelines. To monitor and protect such infrastructure adequately, progress should be made on engaging properly with other government departments and processes, such as in relation to maritime planning authorities. Private sector actors should also get involved due to ownership of undersea assets as well as in terms of efforts to enhance monitoring and surveillance more broadly across the maritime sector.

None of these priorities will be delivered easily. However, it is clear that there has never been as much political impetus and institutional momentum for the UK and Ireland to work together to meet these challenges.

Dr Richard Collins is Professor of International Law and Dean of Internationalisation and Engagement in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests coalesce around the law of the sea, global governance and international institutions, with a particular focus on maritime borders and dispute settlement.

This article is published in association with Queen’s University Belfast as part of the International Sea Power Conference 2025.

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