America's Top NATO Ally Dusts Off Contingency for Russian Attack: Report

Newsweek

06-05-2025

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The U.K. is "secretly preparing" fresh plans for how to respond to a Russian military attack on the NATO country, according to a new report.
Why It Matters
Voices across NATO have increasingly sounded alarm bells, warning Russia could launch an armed attack on members of the alliance in as little as five years, particularly if Moscow believes NATO to be divided.
U.S. President Donald Trump, a notorious NATO skeptic, has shaken up decades of relationships between the U.S. and the continent while thawing relations with the Kremlin. Before returning for a second term in office, Trump suggested he would encourage Russia to attack NATO members who he said fell short of guidelines for defense spending across the alliance.
In this photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Friday, March 1, 2024, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired from the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia.
In this photo taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Friday, March 1, 2024, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is test-fired from the Plesetsk launch pad in northwestern Russia.
Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
NATO hinges on an ironclad commitment to what is known as Article 5, or the idea that one nation under armed attack will be backed up by the remaining members.
Russia has repeatedly threatened Ukraine's backers, including the U.K., over their support for Kyiv throughout Moscow's invasion of its neighbor. Talks are ongoing over whether British and other European troops could be sent to Ukraine to police a future ceasefire deal, a prospect rejected by the Kremlin as unacceptable.
What To Know
U.K. officials will update "contingency plans" drawn up two decades ago for how the British government would respond to a strike on the U.K. mainland, British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Monday.
The new "homeland defence plan" will factor in attacks on the country with conventional or nuclear warheads, as well as cyber operations, according to the report.
Continental Europe and the U.K. are contending with yawning gaps in air defenses, coupled with many years of low investment in defense and a deep reliance on the U.S. to provide expensive military capabilities and a formidable nuclear arsenal.
While the U.K. has its own nuclear deterrent, the U.S. is the only country with a nuclear stockpile rivaling Russia.
Last month, a senior official in the U.K.'s Royal Air Force (RAF) said the country had simulated how Russia's initial strikes on Ukraine as it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 would have played out on U.K. soil.
"It was not a pretty picture," said Air Commodore Blythe Crawford, who retired as the Commandant of the U.K.'s Air and Space Warfare Centre earlier in April.
It is understood some of the missiles in the simulation penetrated defenses the U.K. anticipated having, and the war-gaming did not take into account several of Russia's "next generation" weapons debuted later in the war, such as the Zircon and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Britain's chief of the defense staff, said in April 2024 defense chiefs were discussing whether a U.K. version of Israel's vaunted Iron Dome air defense system could shield the country from aerial attack.
Israel's short-range Iron Dome system, the most well-known of the world's air defense systems, is designed to intercept the kind of attacks common on Israel, but countries like the U.S. are using the Iron Dome as a springboard for figuring out how best to shield home soil. The Golden Dome system proposed by President Donald Trump would be designed with ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles attacks in mind.
Officials across the alliance have also warned of Russia's extensive cyber expertise and other types of hybrid warfare. Hybrid warfare refers to a range of activities stopping short of open fighting, like cyberattacks, information campaigns or the targeting of vulnerable infrastructure, such as undersea cables.
Re-examinations of the plan will also look at how a war-time government would make use of transport networks, the courts, phone lines and post, as well as how to protect senior British officials and the country's Royal Family after a declaration of war, The Telegraph reported.
The country's Labour government is expected to publish a comprehensive review of the country's armed forces in the coming weeks, known as the Strategic Defence Review.
NATO nations on the alliance's eastern flank have put in place fresh defenses close to their borders with Russia and key Kremlin ally Belarus, including anti-tank obstacles.
What People Are Saying
The White House said in January: "The threat of attack by ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic missiles remains a catastrophic threat facing the United States."
What Happens Next
The plans are not expected to be made public, according to the report.