{"id":152172,"date":"2025-06-02T13:16:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/152172\/"},"modified":"2025-06-02T13:16:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:16:10","slug":"britain-is-getting-a-defense-boost-aimed-at-sending-a-message-to-moscow-and-to-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/152172\/","title":{"rendered":"Britain is getting a defense boost aimed at sending a message to Moscow, and to Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LONDON (AP) \u2014 The United Kingdom will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines, get its army ready to fight a war in Europe and become \u201ca battle-ready, armor-clad nation,\u201d Prime Minister Keir Starmer<\/a> said Monday, part of a boost to military spending<\/a> designed to send a message to Moscow \u2014 and Washington.<\/p>\n

Starmer said Britain \u201ccannot ignore the threat that Russia poses\u201d as he pledged to undertake the most sweeping changes to Britain’s defenses since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n

A new era of threats<\/p>\n

Like other NATO members, the U.K. has been reassessing its defense spending since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in February 2022.<\/p>\n

The government announced military plans in response to a strategic defense review commissioned by Starmer and led by George Robertson, a former U.K. defense secretary and NATO secretary general. It’s the first such review since 2021, and lands in a world shaken and transformed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine<\/a> in 2022, and by the re-election of President Donald Trump<\/a> last year.<\/p>\n

Months after Britain’s last major defense review was published in 2021, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said with confidence that the era of \u201cfighting big tank battles on European landmass\u201d are over. Three months later, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Starmer’s center-left Labour Party government says it will accept all 62 recommendations made in the review, aiming to help the U.K. confront growing threats on land, air sea and in cyberspace.<\/p>\n

Submarines and weapons<\/p>\n

The measures include increasing production of submarines and weapons and \u201clearning the lessons of Ukraine,” which has rapidly developed its drone technology to counter Moscow’s forces and even hit targets deep inside Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The government said the U.K, will also establish a cyber command to counter \u201cdaily\u201d Russia-linked attacks on Britain’s defenses.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s announcements include building \u201cup to 12\u201d nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines under the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the United States. The government also says it will invest 15 billion pounds in Britain\u2019s nuclear arsenal, which consists of missiles carried on a handful of submarines. Details of those plans are likely to be kept secret.<\/p>\n

The government will also increase conventional Britain\u2019s weapons stockpiles with up to 7,000 U.K.-built long-range weapons.<\/p>\n

Story Continues <\/p>\n

Starmer said rearming would create a \u201cdefense dividend\u201d of thousands of well-paid manufacturing jobs \u2014 a contrast to the post-Cold War \u201cpeace dividend\u201d that saw Western nations channel money away from defense into other areas.<\/p>\n

Deterring Russia comes at a cost<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary John Healey said the changes would send \u201ca message to Moscow,\u201d and transform the country\u2019s military following decades of retrenchment, though he said he does not expect the number of soldiers \u2014 currently at a two-century low \u2014 to rise until the early 2030s.<\/p>\n

Healey said plans for defense spending to hit 2.5%<\/a> of national income by 2027 a year are \u201con track\u201d and that there\u2019s \u201cno doubt\u201d it will hit 3% before 2034.<\/p>\n

Starmer said the 3% goal is an \u201cambition,\u201d rather than a firm promise, and it\u2019s unclear where the cash-strapped Treasury will find the money. The government has already, contentiously, cut international aid spending to reach the 2.5% target.<\/p>\n

Starmer said he wouldn\u2019t make a firm pledge until he knew \u201cprecisely where the money is coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even 3% falls short of what some leaders in NATO think is needed to deter Russia from future attacks on its neighbors. NATO chief<\/a> Mark Rutte says leaders of the 32 member countries will debate a commitment to spend at least 3.5% of GDP on defense when they meet in the Netherlands this month.<\/p>\n

Bolstering Europe’s defenses<\/p>\n

It’s also a message to Trump that Europe is heeding his demand for NATO members to spend more on their own defense.<\/p>\n

European countries, led by the U.K. and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defense posture as Trump transforms American foreign policy<\/a>, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has long questioned the value<\/a> of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don\u2019t pull their weight.<\/p>\n

Starmer said his government would make \u201cBritain’s biggest contribution to NATO since its creation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never fight alone,\u201d he said. \u201cOur defense policy will always be NATO-first.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Cartlidge, defense spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party, welcomed more money for defense but was skeptical of the government’s 3% pledge,<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of Labour\u2019s strategic defence review promises will be taken with a pinch of salt unless they can show there will actually be enough money to pay for them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jill Lawless And Pan Pylas, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 The United Kingdom will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines, get its army ready to fight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[161,748,473,64886,9057,393,4884,807,2821,23353,1144,6202,332,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-152172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-arsenal","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-defense","12":"tag-defense-review","13":"tag-defense-spending","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-keir-starmer","17":"tag-nato","18":"tag-nato-members","19":"tag-northern-ireland","20":"tag-president-donald-trump","21":"tag-russia","22":"tag-scotland","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom","25":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114613962858552660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}