Britain will build new attack submarines, invest billions on nuclear warheads and move towards “war-fighting readiness,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, as he braces for a landmark report into the state of the country’s military.
Starmer’s government said it would build “up to” 12 new attack submarines as part of its AUKUS partnership with the United States and Australia, replacing the country’s current class of seven subs from the late 2030s.
And he will launch a “historic renewal” of the UK’s nuclear deterrent backed by a £15 billion ($20.3 bn) investment, Starmer said in a speech in Scotland on Monday.
The announcements come as a long-awaited review into Britain’s armed services is published Monday. Experts have been calling for a modernization of Britain’s armed services for decades, cries that have grown in volume since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
“When we are being directly threatened by states with advanced military forces, the most effective way to deter them is to be ready, and frankly, to show them that we’re ready to deliver peace through strength,” Starmer said Monday.
But Starmer refused to set out the timeline for his pledge that Britain’s overall defense spending would hit 3% of the UK’s gross domestic product (GDP). The uplift, announced earlier this year, is set to be reached by the end of the next parliament in 2034, but is dependent on economic conditions.
And the prime minister did not set out where the money to pay for the new weaponry will come from; he previously announced cuts to the UK’s aid budget to fund the uplift in defense spending, and he declined to rule out similar moves on Monday.
The fiscal promise from the UK falls short of defense spending promises from some NATO countries, whose spending has been closely scrutinized by US President Donald Trump.
NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said last month he “assumed” NATO members will agree on a defense spending target of 5% at June’s NATO summit, a significant increase from the 2% benchmark, which was agreed to in 2014.
Per 2024 NATO data, only Poland’s defense expenditure was above 4% of GDP, although Latvia and Estonia had promised increases to 5%, with Italy promising a hike to between 3.5 and 5% of GDP. The US’ defense expenditure sat at 3.38% of GDP in 2024, making up some 64% of total NATO expenditure.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and the subsequent pressure from Trump’s administration on European nations to boost their own military capabilities – has sparked a race among Europe’s key military powers to boost their readiness and counter the Russian threat should the White House pull its support for Kyiv.
The UK “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses,” Starmer told the BBC on Monday. “Russia has shown in recent weeks that it’s not serious about peace, and we have to be ready.”
Starmer said Monday he intended to turn the UK into a “battle-ready, armour-clad nation with the strongest alliances, and the most advanced capabilities, equipped for the decades to come.”
Alongside the promised submarines, Starmer said that a “hybrid Royal Navy” will patrol the North Atlantic — a key transit route for Russian submarines to reach the eastern US seaboard — signalling a move to more drone-based naval capabilities.
The review, commissioned by his government and led by former NATO chief George Robertson, is expected to highlight a number of emerging threats, such as drone warfare, in which Britain is falling behind.
Given decades of shrinking investment in the British military, questions have been raised over the deterrence that Britain’s conventional and nuclear weapons offer, particularly given its reliance on a US supply chain.In the last eight years, the UK has publicly acknowledged two failed nuclear missile tests, one of them in the waters off Florida, when dummy missiles didn’t fire as intended.
