THE United Kingdom’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published on 2 June 2025, offers an ambitious vision for the British Armed Forces. It reiterates a focus on a ‘NATO First’ policy, amid what Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer calls in the document a ‘new era for defence and security’.
The latest war preparedness, to fight any future war in Europe or elsewhere, as proposed in the SDR envisages building as many as a dozen new nuclear-powered attack submarines, getting the British Army ready to fight a war in Europe and becoming “a battle-ready, armour-clad nation,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Monday (June 2).
Starmer said Britain “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses” as he pledged to undertake the most sweeping changes to Britain’s defences since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.
“The threat we face is more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” Starmer told workers and journalists at a navy shipyard in Scotland, last week.
The government announced its plans for the military in response to a strategic defence review commissioned by Starmer and led by George Robertson, a former UK defence secretary and NATO secretary general. It was the first such review since 2021, and it landed in a world shaken and transformed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and by the re-election of Donald Trump last year.
Starmer’s centre-left Labour Party government has said it will accept all 62 recommendations made in the review, aiming to help the UK confront growing threats on land, air, sea, and cyberspace.
Land, Air and Naval Assets Get a Boost
Starmer used the launch of the review to commit to building “up to” 12 new conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to replace Britain’s seven-strong Astute class from the end of the next decade onwards.
However, the review says the Royal Navy “must continue to move towards a more powerful but cheaper and simpler fleet”. It envisages the navy playing a new role in securing the UK’s critical undersea infrastructure and maritime traffic.
Its transformation should include use of unmanned technology across the board, including a “hybrid” aircraft carrier air-wing with both crewed aircraft and drones.
The army must deliver “a tenfold increase in lethality” at the same time as re-equipping and modernising after much of its kit, including Challenger 2 tanks and ammunition, has been given to Ukraine.
A new “digital war fighter group” – using AI and drones – should be established by July 2026. While the UK is “already under daily attack” in cyberspace, the review warns that cyber-threats will become harder to mitigate as AI and other technologies evolve.
The formation of a new “cyber and electromagnetic command” to oversee cyber operations was announced last week by the British Ministry of Defence (MoD). That new command must be filled by civilians and reserves, given that greater expertise exists in the civilian sector, according to the review.
While the review says the UK has access to world-class intelligence capabilities, they are “underpowered and fragmented” within defence intelligence, part of the MoD, and there should be a new unit to protect the military from hostile spy services.
Why the SDR?
Essentially, the SDR is designed to send a message to both Moscow and to President Trump in Washington that Europe is heeding his demand for NATO members to spend more on their defence. European countries, led by the UK and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defence posture as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the US provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.
Reaffirming the UK’s stand towards NATO, Starmer said, his government would make “Britain’s biggest contribution to NATO since its creation.”
“We will never fight alone,” he said. “Our defence policy will always be NATO-first.”
SDR’s Criticism
Expectedly, SDR’s announcements have once again raised the question whether Starmer is a Blairite or not. Though so far, he has been able to maintain his distance from the Blair faction of the Labour Party, his latest move reeks of Blair’s policies towards the US.
Simon Tisdall, writing for The Guardian, opines that plans by Keir Starmer’s government to modernise and potentially expand Britain’s nuclear weapons arsenal, unveiled in the SDR 2025, seriously undermine international non-proliferation efforts. They will fuel a global nuclear arms race led by the US, China, and Russia. And it increases the chances that lower-yield, so-called tactical nukes will be deployed and detonated in conflict zones. This dangerous path leads in one direction only: towards the normalisation of nuclear warfare.
Symon Hill, writing for the website Christianity, says that in reality, the UK government already has one of the world’s highest military budgets and owns enough nuclear weapons to destroy much of the world. Although NATO’s military spending is several times higher than Russia’s, this failed to deter Putin’s vile invasion of Ukraine. If we want to be realistic about opposing Putin, we must note that multi-billion-dollar military expenditure has not deterred him so far. Why should more of the same be likely to succeed?
The only thing that military spending defends is the profits of arms companies. Meanwhile, neither Tory nor Labour ministers have done anything to support the peace movement within Russia or to offer asylum to Russians who refuse to fight, he said.
Paul Rogers, in his article on the website OpenDemocracy, says that what makes this thoroughly odd is the way that the review avoids two fundamental issues: Britain’s actual recent experience of wars and the real game-changer facing us, global climate breakdown.
On the first of these, the uncomfortable reality is that the UK is currently involved in its fourth disastrous war of the past 24 years. It, along with the US, is supporting Israel’s catastrophic assault on the Palestinian population in Gaza.
Keir Starmer may describe the violent Israeli actions as “appalling and intolerable”, but his government will not take even the preliminary actions of recognising a State of Palestine and appointing an ambassador, nor ceasing all British arms sales to and military links with Israel, including stopping the Israeli Defence Force from using the RAF’s Akrotiri base in Cyprus, Rogers said.
In the aftermath of last July’s general election, the new Labour government repeated its pre-election promise of a green industrial revolution, with the UK pioneering the way to radical decarbonisation and a more sustainable world. That pledge was quietly dropped earlier this year and replaced by the mantra of increased military spending at the forefront of a singularly off-green revolution. In the process, it is fair to say that the corporate capture of the Labour government had been completed.
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Asad Mirza is a New Delhi-based senior journalist and a media consultant. The views expressed here are the author’s personal and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at asad.mirza.nd@gmail.com
