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This month, the United Kingdom took one step closer to battle readiness with the launch of its Strategic Defence Review.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The is a \u201clandmark\u201d shift in how the country deters and defends itself from threats, shifting towards a \u201cwarfighting readiness\u201d in the Euro-Atlantic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK commits in the review to up defence spending to 2.5 per cent by 2027, taking the UK past the NATO benchmark, and to a further 3 per cent \u201cwhen fiscal and political conditions allow\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What this will do is allow the UK to create a military that combines \u201cconventional and digital warfighters, the power of drones, AI in tanks and artillery with procurement measured in months, not years,\u201d the plan says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These are some of the new military technologies that the UK is committing to in this new plan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The \u2018next generation\u2019 of the UK\u2019s Air Force<\/p>\n
One of the first commitments in the UK\u2019s new plan is to create a \u201cnext generation\u201d Royal Air Force (RAF) with F-35 jets, upgraded Typhoons and next-generation fast jets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The UK military already relies on the F-35 Lightning, a short take-off and vertical landing variant of the craft that operates from short-field bases and air-capable ships in the UK\u2019s Navy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The ones currently employed<\/strong><\/a> by the Navy are just under 16 metres long, can get up to 1.6 Machs (1,914 kilometres an hour) and have a lifting capacity of 18,000 tonnes.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35 Lightning, said in 2024 the UK reconfirmed its commitment to receiving<\/strong><\/a> 138 F-35s and that the aircraft would be jointly managed by the Royal Navy and the Air Force.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts have previously voiced concerns to Euronews Next<\/strong><\/a> of a possible \u201ckill switch\u201d that might exist on board that would let the American company Lockheed Martin control how and when programme updates happen. However, the firm has denied that such a \u201ckill switch\u201d exists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Euronews Next asked the British Parliament to confirm whether the F-35 deals would still go ahead despite these concerns but did not get an immediate reply.\u00a0<\/p>\n Matthew Savill, the director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said that while the F-35 is a good aircraft, the UK military is still missing a long-range standoff weapon to use with it because of the \u201cpathetically slow\u201d implementation of Spear 3.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0The technology should be used to boost what the UK armed forces already have, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to improve essentially our combat capability and our firepower,\u201d he told a press conference shortly after the UK report was released.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phasing out the Eurofighter Typhoon<\/p>\n The UK also said it will be working on the next generation of \u201cfast jets\u201d. The plan says this will come through the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), a joint venture between the UK\u2019s BAE Systems, Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement and Italy\u2019s Leonardo S.P.A. to create a sixth-generation combat aircraft by 2035.\u00a0<\/p>\n A November 2024report<\/strong><\/a> from the parliament states that \u00a32 billion (\u20ac2.37 billion) had already been invested and an additional \u00a312 billion (\u20ac14.22 billion) had been earmarked by the British government over the next ten years for the programme.\u00a0<\/p>\n The new crafts will replace the current Eurofighter Typhoon, which according to the UK parliament<\/strong><\/a>,<\/strong> is scheduled to be phased out of service in the 2030s.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sixth-generation crafts like the ones the UK, Japanese and Italian militaries want to develop are more advanced than the current fifth-generation fighters, according to David Bacci, a senior research fellow with the University of Oxford wrote in a piece for The Conversation<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the likely innovations in sixth-generation fighters, according to Bacci, is the complete removal of vertical tails at the back of the aircraft in favour of thrust vectoring, which will make the aircrafts more stealthy in the air.\u00a0<\/p>\n The crafts could also have enhanced engines for better performance, the deployment of drones from the aircraft and an \u201cadvanced digital cockpit\u201d supported by virtual reality (VR) that \u201cwill allow the pilot to effectively become a battle manager,\u201d he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n The plans for these airfighters would be folded into a broader plan for an army that is \u201c10 times more lethal\u201d and combines air defence, artificial intelligence, long-range weapons and land drone swarms.\u00a0<\/p>\n GCAP is \u201cpretty important\u201d for the UK aerospace industry in the short term, Savill said, but it\u2019s a \u201cvast project with a lot of commitment in the near term,\u201d while it likely won\u2019t be operational for the next 15 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTaking a punt on GCAP is one of the areas where I guess [the UK] is de-facto making a significant resources choice,\u201d Savill said. \u201cIn combat air terms, we are betting big\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n A \u2018hybrid\u2019 Royal Navy with new submarines every \u201818 months\u2019<\/p>\n Air fighters would also be integrated into a \u201chybrid\u201d Royal Navy, and used in conjunction with drones, warships, and submarines to patrol the North Atlantic \u201cand beyond,\u201d Savill added.\u00a0<\/p>\n The plan also promises up to 12 \u201cconventionally armed, nuclear-powered attack submarines through the AUKUS programme, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The goal is to have a new submarine delivered \u201cevery 18 months,\u201d the plan read, which would provide the region<\/strong><\/a> with 30,000 apprenticeships and 14,000 graduate roles over the next ten years.<\/p>\n Savill said to meet this goal, you need \u201csignificant\u201d investment into Barrow and Raynesway, Derby, the site where the submarines will be manufactured, but the plan does not lay out how it will achieve that.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think that feels like setting a hard target,\u201d Savill said, noting that there will have to be a \u201cmajor culture change\u201d within the UK\u2019s armed forces to reach these targets.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cWhat [the review] sets is these targets that say you should have even the big stuff on contract within two years.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I would be fascinated to know how they\u2019re going to do that because the record is not great up until now”.\u00a0<\/p>\n The UK currently operates<\/strong><\/a> seven Astute Class attack submarines, which will be phased out by the new submarines in the late 2030s.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lessons learned by Ukraine<\/p>\n The UK says it will be adopting some of the lessons learned from the battlefield in Ukraine, such as harnessing the power of drones, data and digital warfare into its new strategy and war readiness strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe fundamental lesson for today is that with technology developing faster than at any time in human history, our own forces, and the whole of defence, must innovate at wartime pace,\u201d the report reads.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the standout technologies<\/strong><\/a> in Ukraine, according to experts, is the drone industry, which accounts for roughly 25 per cent of the country\u2019s weapons supply.\u00a0<\/p>\n The military revved up the industry from about 5,000 drones at the start of the 2022 invasion to upwards of 4 million in 2024, according to the Kyiv School of Economics<\/strong><\/a>. The military now has a national portfolio of specialised drones, like carrier drones, target drones, electronic warfare drones, and AI-powered swarm drones.\u00a0<\/p>\n While no specific investments are planned for a drone fleet in the UK\u2019s defence plan, several types of drones are identified as priorities, like long-range, single-use, underwater, surface, surveillance, and \u2018one-way effector\u2019 drones.\u00a0<\/p>\n The report mentions that the UK would be \u201cdoubling investment in autonomous systems\u201d to boost the country\u2019s export potential and would create a new \u201cdrone centre.\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like in Ukraine, the UK military is planning a shift towards greater use of autonomy and AI in its forces. The plan says it will do this by establishing an operating capability for a new Defence Uncrewed Systems Centre by next February.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the major lessons from Ukraine is also how to drive the entire military \u201cby the logic of the innovation cycle\u201d by finding, buying and using innovation to bring it from \u201cideas to frontline at speed.\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n