This Memorandum consists of two parts. Part 1 provides the maritime and policy context; Part 2 describes the challenges, goals and implementation.
Seapower is, and will continue to be, a critical tool in the delivery of national security, economic resilience and global influence, from the defence of Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) to the protection of undersea cables and the projection of power.
2025 saw His Majesty’s (HM) Government publish three strategic defence documents: the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), the National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS). As part of HM Government’s wider defence review, these documents confirmed the maritime domain as a key strategic defence priority in the provision of British national security, aligning doctrine, strategic forecasting and threat assessment with capability targets and future order of effects.
However, these documents and the vision they offer need defence to move from aspiration to capability, working collaboratively with industry and academia to establish an integrated maritime delivery programme.
Strategic framework: Maritime security in the National Security Strategy
The NSS makes it clear that the security and prosperity of the United Kingdom (UK) depend on global maritime supply chains, undersea infrastructure and freedom of navigation. Trade flows, internet traffic and power projection are vulnerable to disruptions, whether from state sponsored sabotage, extreme weather events, malign sub-threshold activities or for-profit driven maritime crime. This reliance on free, unconstrained access to, and use of, the maritime domain shapes how Britain views and plans to address great power competition, sub-threshold threats at sea and climate-related challenges, including emerging opportunities and threats in polar regions.
The NSS casts the Royal Navy – and more widely, the success and unhindered operation of the UK’s commercial national maritime enterprise – as a critical part of Britain’s frontline defence…
The NSS commits to defending territorial waters, protecting undersea critical infrastructures (such as data cables, pipelines and energy connectors), and ensuring freedom of navigation through contested chokepoints and seas. It also emphasises sovereign capabilities and the necessity of investing in domestic shipbuilding, undersea sensors and naval capabilities to reduce dependence on external suppliers.
Consequently, the NSS casts the Royal Navy – and more widely, the success and unhindered operation of the UK’s commercial national maritime enterprise – as a critical part of Britain’s frontline defence of economic prosperity and territorial integrity, and in its providing of support to partners and allies.
However, it is less clear in identifying complementary strategic goals and actions which can deliver on this critical need.
Capability vision: Maritime force design in the Strategic Defence Review
Although it predates the NSS, the SDR translates those high-level aims into a series of recommendations related to force design, capability requirements and operational readiness. It stresses the need for a balanced fleet of destroyers, frigates, aircraft carriers, amphibious ships, submarines and auxiliaries, including capacities for Continuous At-Sea Deterrence (CASD). The SDR also calls for the development of integrated undersea sensors, quantum-secure communications and agile mine-countermeasure craft.
The SDR is also strong on ambition. It has identified clear operational needs, some high-potential technology areas, and provided recommendations for enhanced spending, organisation and operational approaches.
New classes of autonomous platforms for both peer-competitive warfare and constabulary tasks are required. The SDR paints a Royal Navy designed not only for high-end warfighting, but also for continuous forward presence, humanitarian assistance and cyber maritime defence.
The SDR is also strong on ambition. It has identified clear operational needs, some high-potential technology areas, and provided recommendations for enhanced spending, organisation and operational approaches. Yet, it also does not tackle the creation of the appropriate environment for developing, delivering and employing solutions capable of meeting the identified needs, vision and recommendations.
Industrial focus: The maritime supply chain in the Defence Industrial Strategy
Finally, building on the strategic vision of the NSS and the force requirements of the SDR, the DIS seeks to ensure that the design, production and sustainment of these capabilities happen within sovereign British supply chains. It pledges ring-fenced innovation funding, and emphasises sovereign shipbuilding capacity and stockpiling munitions.
The DIS proposes the establishment of regional Defence Growth Deals to anchor skills in Plymouth, Barrow-in-Furness, South Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as centres of excellence and university partnerships to underpin long-term industrial resilience and cultivate a skilled workforce. Key international partnerships, from AUKUS to the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, are recognised as critical to sustained (maritime) defence innovation. Yet, despite clear vision and recommendations, it does not address the issues which need to be resolved in order to bring together the budgets, skills, capacity and capabilities across the UK’s industrial, academic and operational supply chains.
Summary
Despite extensive consultation and collaboration behind the preparation of these three strategies, they remain clearly distinct and separate documents. To deliver a new generation of maritime capability, these three strategies must be read not simply as discrete policy statements, but as chapters in a broader seapower narrative which bridges strategy, policy and industry:
The NSS sets outcome-focused maritime security objectives and sovereign capability imperatives: protecting and defending SLOCs, undersea cables and the global maritime order.
The SDR specifies the force structure and readiness posture needed; in particular a fleet which integrates carriers, frigates and submarines with agile, forward-looking platforms and systems, such as autonomous and uncrewed vessels, and a distributed network of sensors.
The DIS commits resources – for supporting shipyards, innovation hubs, apprenticeships and regional skills – to design, build and sustain platforms and systems at scale and speed to fulfil the strategic maritime objectives laid out in the two other strategies.
However, the reality is that as chapters in a book, the three documents lack a central, unifying narrative, and only partially align aims, visions and recommendations. Britain’s maritime moment depends on more than a vision. To turn ambitions into reality, the UK must align strategy, force design and industrial delivery; mobilise investment; and shore up talent and supply chains to foster a government-led societal-industrial ecosystem which can both innovate and endure.
Prof. Basil Germond is the Co-Director of Lancaster University’s Security Research Institute and a Professor of International Security in the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion.
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