Defence takes centre stage as Britain faces volatile era
The Cable | No. 19.2025
Welcome to the 42nd Cable, our weekly roundup of British foreign and defence policy.
After weeks of escalating tensions and recent tit-for-tat military action between India and Pakistan, a ceasefire – coordinated by the United States (US) – appears to be holding. While flare-ups between the two nuclear power rivals is nothing new, it highlights growing instability across the world.
Meanwhile, on 9th May, Russia held its Victory Day Parade in Moscow, at which Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was hailed as the ‘main guest’. While in Moscow, Xi called for a further deepening of the relationship between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia, stating that they should be ‘friends of steel’ and pledged to raise cooperation between the two nations to a new level. The interconnectivity of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific is becoming ever clearer, and the United Kingdom (UK) should use all the tools in its arsenal to challenge the formation of an authoritarian revisionist bloc.
Welcome back to The Cable!
Economic security is national security
On 8th May, Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, gave the keynote speech at the London Defence Conference, in which he focused on four key messages.
Firstly, he highlighted that the UK is ‘deepening [its] partnerships with allies old and new’, from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and Ukraine to the US, which Sir Keir called Britain’s ‘indispensable ally for our economic and national security’.
Secondly, the Prime Minister acknowledged that the UK find itself in a ‘new, more dangerous era of history and global instability’ and that Britain has been impacted deeply by the actions of its adversaries, in particular the economic insecurity fuelled by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Thirdly, Sir Keir stated that ‘national security is economic security’. Highlighting the previously announced increases in defence spending, the Prime Minister acknowledged the end of the ‘peace dividend’ and noted that HM Government’s task is to ‘seize the defence dividend’. Sir Keir also stated that the increase in defence spending has two objectives: to keep the UK secure and to ‘create jobs, wealth and opportunity in every corner of our country’, and that the British defence industry ‘will be the engine of national renewal’.
Finally, the Prime Minister called for reforms within the British Armed Forces and the defence industry, highlighting the recently announced pay rise for military personnel (the largest in 20 years) and extra support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to help them ‘get their foot in the door of the defence supply chain’.
Key diplomacy
The UK and US have announced a trade agreement which will cut American tariffs across a number of different sectors. Car exports tariffs will be reduced from 27.5% to 10%, which will apply to a quota of 100,000 UK cars – almost the total number exported by Britain last year. Likewise, British-made steel will see tariff barriers completely removed from the current level of 25%. Finally, a reciprocal agreement for market access on beef has been agreed, while ensuring carve-outs to protect UK food standards. Following the announcement, the Prime Minister said in a statement that:
As VE Day reminds us, the UK has no greater ally than the United States, so I am delighted that eight decades on, under President Trump the special relationship remains a force for economic and national security.
On 9th May, Sir Keir travelled to Kyiv alongside other key leaders of Germany, France and Poland for discussions with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, and to show their continued support for Ukraine. While in Kyiv, the Prime Minister and his fellow world leaders called on Russia to agree to a 30-day ceasefire and to begin negotiations to end the war immediately afterwards.
David Lammy, Foreign Secretary, flew to Poland last week to attend a meeting with European Union (EU) Foreign Ministers. The talks focused on ensuring continued support for Ukraine as well as enhancing UK-EU security and defence ties in the lead up to the UK-EU summit taking place on 19th May. While in Poland, Lammy said: ‘As we mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day, this commitment reminds us that our collective defence of freedom and peace in Europe remains as vital today as it was eight decades ago.’
Defence
Royal Naval vessels shadowed Krasnodar, a Russian Kilo class submarine, through the English Channel last week as it returned to Russia from the Eastern Mediterranean. HMS Tyne and RFA Tideforce intercepted the Krasnodar near the French coast, and continued to track the submarine while it traversed UK waters.
On 9th May, Sir Keir travelled to Oslo for the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) leaders summit. While there, the Prime Minister stated the JEF’s top priorities were defending the values ‘hard-won’ during the Second World War and continuing to stand behind Kyiv. He also announced sanctions on up to 100 oil tankers, which form a core part of Russia’s shadow fleet operation. Estimates forecast that these vessels have transported more than US$24 billion (£18.1 billion) worth of cargo since the start of 2024.
Throughout May, NATO is carrying out the largest live-fire exercise in Europe. Exercise FORMIDABLE SHIELD 2025, taking place in Britain and Norway, will see nine NATO allies participate in the naval-led operation, while the UK, US and Norway are providing additional maritime patrol aircraft for the exercise. FORMIDABLE SHIELD – led by NATO’s Naval Striking and Support Forces (STRIKFORNATO) and the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet – is focused on improving interoperability between allies, and will include ballistic missile defence and air defence missions.
Environment and climate
In a blow to Britain’s clean energy plans, Orsted, a Danish energy company, has cancelled plans for one of the biggest offshore wind farms in the world off the coast of East Yorkshire. The Hornsea 4 project would have had 2.4 Gigawatts (GW) capacity, enough to power over a million homes in the UK.
On 8th May, HM Government signed a Green Industrial Partnership with Norway to advance both countries’ green economic policies. The partnership will focus on offshore wind and grid development, collaboration on the protection of British and Norwegian offshore infrastructure and reducing barriers to develop a North Sea hub for the cross-border storage of carbon dioxide.
How Britain is seen overseas
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute published a commentary article on the deployment of the UK-led Carrier Strike Group (CSG) to the Indo-Pacific. While the article recognises that the deployment showcases Britain’s capability to project power globally, it highlights a number of persistent challenges for the Royal Navy.
How competitors frame Britain
TASS interviewed Alexander Grushko, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, who stated that Britain, alongside France and Germany, do not want the conflict in Ukraine to end and are pursuing policies to make sure it continues. He went on to say: ‘If we strip down the double talk which they use to frame their political actions, the main thing they are seeking is Russia’s defeat on the battlefield, Russia’s international isolation, its economic smothering and regime change…On all four of these fronts, they have failed utterly.’
The usual bilge coming out of Kremlin mouthpieces. Moscow only has itself to blame for the continuation of the war it started.
Following the news that the UK is placing its largest ever sanctions on Russia’s shadow fleet, Russia Today released a piece of propaganda which dismissed these new measures as ‘futile gestures’ which will not harm the Russian economy, but rather hurt the British economy. With Russia facing lower oil prices and the recent announcement that the EU is planning to cut Russia entirely out from its energy mix, their assurances that only Britain’s economy will be hit by these new sanctions are hard to believe.
Assessing national power
Nuclear weapons give their owners immense defensive power. Today, even ‘lesser’ nuclear powers such as North Korea, Israel and Pakistan are treated with a greater degree of respect by the major powers than are their non-nuclear peers. It is often remarked that a nuclear power cannot be made desperate.
As nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent, they also provide their owners with geopolitical gravity. Non-nuclear powers may begin to look to them for security, particularly if the nuclear ally is prepared to extend its deterrent over its allies. Obviously, this provides a nuclear power with significant structural power, including the capacity to determine its allies’ own interests.
In NATO, Britain has played a secondary, but important, role as a nuclear custodian of the alliance. The UK’s deterrent is small but potent: not as large as Russia’s, but still capable of devastating all of Russia’s major population centres. As Kenneth Waltz, a strategic theorist, once remarked: ‘More is not better if less is enough.’
Britain’s weakness is not the size of its nuclear stockpile, but in its inability to move through phases of escalation. This is because His Majesty’s (HM) Government decided to reduce its nuclear delivery systems down to a single strategic system, known as Trident. While this system is being upgraded, it may be insufficient to reassure nervous allies or deter Russian aggression, particularly if the US focuses less on Europe.
Why? Because the Kremlin knows that the UK’s options would be limited to a strategic response in the event of a Russian attack on a NATO ally, reducing the deterrent effect of the British arsenal.
Under these circumstances, Poland, Germany and other non-nuclear NATO allies may look to France or seek their own weapons if they feel their territory is at risk, reducing the UK’s influence. To prevent proliferation and consolidate geopolitical influence, HM Government should redevelop a sub-strategic nuclear force to complement Trident. This would provide additional escalatory options to deter Russia more effectively and offer nervous NATO allies a higher degree of assurance.
In short, a sub-strategic nuclear system would reinforce the nation’s capacity to determine the future of the Euro-Atlantic order, with all its resulting benefits.
Additional reading: Why Britain must expand its nuclear arsenal.
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