Latest news with #LordGeorgeRobertson
The Independent
7 hours ago
- Business
- The Independent
Starmer promises to make Britain ‘a battle-ready, armour-clad nation'
The UK's strategic defence review (SDR) warns of the 'pressing and immediate' threat from Russia, suggesting the need for quicker action to bolster defence capabilities. Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled the SDR, promising to make Britain a 'battle-ready, armour-clad nation' with an army of 100,000, new submarines, drones, and AI integration. Defence Secretary John Healey stressed the urgency for Britain 's army to become '10 times more lethal' due to threats from Russia and China, advocating for a 'new era for UK defence'. The SDR recommends increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP, but concerns have been raised about funding, with warnings of potential tax hikes to meet the ambitious goals. The review, led by Lord George Robertson, includes 62 recommendations and highlights that the armed forces are currently ill-prepared for conflicts with adversaries like Russia or China, citing inadequate resources and personnel.
CBC
11 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
U.K.'s defence review has lessons for Canada, says former NATO chief
Social Sharing Britain intends to expand its submarine fleet and refresh its nuclear deterrent capability as part of a wide-ranging defence review that one of its authors says Canada should read and take to heart. U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who ordered the review, unveiled the plan, saying it is meant to prepare the country to fight a modern war and counter the threat from Russia. "We face war in Europe, new nuclear risks, daily cyberattacks, growing Russian aggression in our waters, menacing our skies," Starmer said during a media availability at the Govan Shipbuilders Ltd. yard in Scotland. He praised Lord George Robertson, the former secretary general of NATO who led the defence review. Robertson also spoke last week at CANSEC, the Ottawa defence arms exposition. On Monday, Starmer said Robertson's review team delivered "a blueprint to make Britain safer and stronger: A battle-ready, armour-clad nation, with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities." At the centre of the review is a plan to replace the U.K.'s existing Vanguard-class nuclear submarines and to expand the fleet to 12 boats, including both nuclear and conventional attack variants. Significantly, the review pledges to update the U.K.'s nuclear weapons deterrent, known as the sovereign warhead programme, a £15-billion ($27.8-billion Cdn) investment. There are growing questions in Europe about whether it can rely on the nuclear umbrella of the United States. Unlike other nuclear military powers, the U.K.'s deterrent is deployed exclusively on ballistic missile submarines, not on land, nor in the air. Britain has at least one ballistic missile boat at sea at all times. The defence plan also calls for the construction of six munitions factories in the U.K. and for closer co-operation between government and the defence industry in order to accelerate innovation to a "wartime pace." In total, the review makes 62 recommendations, which the U.K. government is expected to accept in full. Starmer, as part of his statement Monday, pledged a hefty increase to U.K. defence spending, bringing it to 2.5 per cent of the gross domestic product by 2027, with "the ambition to hit three per cent in the next Parliament." He added, however, the goals are subject to economic and fiscal conditions. Robertson, speaking at CANSEC last week, said there's a lot in the U.K. review for Canadians to consider — a message he conveyed privately to Canadian ministers, including Mélanie Joly, the newly appointed industry minister. In a later interview with CBC News on the margins of CANSEC, Robertson said in order to meet ambitious defence plans, bottlenecks in procurement are going to have to be removed. "We are actually seeing on the battlefield in Ukraine that we can duplicate that. How can we speed up decision-making?" he said. He said there needs to be "a much closer and more intimate relationship between the defence industry and the politicians in charge of defence" so that the decision-makers understand what's needed and what's possible from a company perspective. Robertson met with several defence contractors at the conference. "I get from a lot of the companies here, the Canadian companies here, a degree of frustration about the procurement process," he said. "I think [the ministers] are beginning to see, that if they are going to spend more money on defence, they can only spend it if there is a a more streamlined form of procurement." He said both the U.K. and Canada need to "much more to protect themselves, rather relying endlessly on the Americans, for ammunition and for equipment." Canada updated its own policy in the spring of 2024, under the government of former prime minister Justin Trudeau. The re-elected Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney is promising to increase defence spending, as well as buy a fleet of new conventionally powered submarines. Carney has promised Canada will reach the NATO benchmark of two per cent of GDP defence spending by 2030 — or sooner. Robertson, in his interview with CBC News, said it's been frustrating to watch a nation for which he has so much affection "not living up to the obligations" originally set out by the Western military alliance in 2014 following the Russian annexation of Crimea. He said he's encouraged by Carney's pledge.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
The UK seeks to send a message to Moscow as it outlines higher defense spending
LONDON (AP) — The U.K. is about to see the biggest increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War as it seeks to send "a message to Moscow," the British defense secretary said Sunday. John Healey said the Labour government's current plans for defense spending will be enough to transform the country's military following decades of retrenchment, though he does not expect the number of soldiers — currently at a historic low — to rise until the early 2030s. He said plans for defense spending to hit 2.5% of national income by 2027, which amounts to an extra 13 billion pounds ($17 billion) or so a year, were 'on track' and that there was 'no doubt' it would hit 3% in the next parliament in the early 2030s. The government will on Monday respond to a strategic defense review, overseen by Healey and led by Lord George Robertson, a former NATO secretary general and defense secretary in a previous Labour government. It is expected to be the most consequential review since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and make a series of recommendations for the U.K. to deal with the new threat environment, both on the military front and in cyberspace. Like other NATO members, the U.K. has been compelled to take a closer look at its defense spending since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 'This is a message to Moscow,' Healey told the BBC. 'This is Britain standing behind, making our armed forces stronger but making our industrial base stronger, and this is part of our readiness to fight, if required.' U.S. President Donald Trump has also piled pressure on NATO members to bolster their defense spending. And in recent months, European countries, led by the U.K. and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defense 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 U.S. provides security to European countries that don't pull their weight. Healey also said Russia is 'attacking the U.K. daily' as part of some 90,000 cyber attacks from state-linked sources that were directed at the U.K,'s defense over the last two years. A cyber command to counter such threats is expected to be set up as part of the review. 'The tensions are greater but we prepare for war in order to secure the peace,' he said. 'If you're strong enough to defeat an enemy, you deter them from attacking in the first place.' While on a visit to a factory on Saturday where Storm Shadow missiles are assembled, Healey said the government would support the procurement of up to 7,000 U.K.-built long-range weapons and that new funding will see U.K. munitions spending hitting 6 billion pounds in the coming years. 'Six billion over the next five years in factories like this which allow us not just to produce the munitions that equip our forces for the future but to create the jobs in every part of the U.K.,' he said. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary for the main opposition Conservative Party, welcomed the government's pledge to increase defense spending but said he was 'skeptical' as to whether the Treasury would deliver. He called on the government to be more ambitious and raise spending to 3% of national income within this parliament, which can run until 2029. 'We think that 2034 is a long time to wait, given the gravity of the situation,' he told Sky News.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Warfare is changing by the day, but Britain is still decades behind
When Lord George Robertson led the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) in 1997, the GDP of the UK was greater than those of China and India combined. America reigned supreme, the only other superpower, the Soviet Union, having slowly dissolved after losing the Cold War eight years previously. Lord George is back as one of three leads of the latest SDR, widely expected to be published on Monday. But the geostrategic landscape is very different now. No longer can we afford to luxuriate in that uni-polar moment of Western and Nato supremacy. China, Iran and North Korea are functioning surprisingly well as a de facto alliance in supporting Russia in its war on Ukraine. And that is a real war of national survival, not the politically caveated, limited military interventions of the global war on terrorism. This is war at speed and scale, a war mixing the timeless requirements of industrial production with the cutting-edge technologies of the digital age: smart sensors, big-data, cloud connectivity, artificial intelligence, robotics. The new ways of warfare are evolving at dizzying speed. Technical evolution, the obsolescence cycle, is now measured in weeks. Dual-use technology – that with civil and military utility – is blended with more conventional munitions; decades-old assumptions are upended overnight; the ways and means of warfare are being comprehensively disrupted. Historically, this is a change that happens every century or so: Napoleon's Levée en Masse, sail to steam, the aeroplane. That a superpower's navy has, in the Black Sea, been defeated by a country without a navy is a wake up call to all. And here lies the big risk – the victor's paradox. 'Top Dogs' are loath to shed that which put them on top, that in which they have made big investments and of which they are masters. Paradigm shifts are the opportunity for smart challengers to abandon the previous, flagging chase and master the emerging world quicker than the current champions can adapt. China, especially, has had a plan to do exactly this for the last few decades, with massive investments in, inter alia, cyber, AI and hypersonic missiles to add a technological edge to the military mass it has built in parallel: its navy now has more ships than America's. It is using Ukraine, and Kashmir, as a proving ground. Russia has learned (slowly, as it is a corrupt kleptocracy) with grim determination the lessons of modern warfare – exemplified by its recent invention of fibre-optically steered drones. It also knows how to mobilise a war economy. In contrast, and despite much pumped-up rhetoric, most of Nato, including the UK, has demonstrated a reluctance to abandon the old paradigm. Yes, we have bought some drones, but we have bought them as if we were buying sophisticated manned warplanes. We may be buying them slightly quicker now, but these are percentage changes on a system that still takes years, and millions of pounds, to buy tens. Ukraine is on schedule to make four million drones this year. Allied to that is that Western militaries have mirrored a society that has become ever more regulated and risk averse. The British Army is down to 14 artillery pieces, which were bought as stop-gaps. There is still no certification and so no clearance to fire them on a UK range. Similar restrictions apply to innovative drone training – but what if one crashes? The paradox here is that by trying to eradicate every small risk we make the big one – war – more likely. Ultimately we aim to deter, and deterrence depends on credibility. Credibility hinges on the proven military capability to win and the political will to engage with force and see it through. Small forces, a limited production capacity and supply chain to rapidly expand and evolve them, and a risk averse culture that trains and employs them will not impress allies or deter enemies. The SDR's other authors alongside Lord George are Fiona Hill, a proven free-thinker, and General Richard Barrons who was one of the first to write about this changing paradigm ten years ago. Their SDR should not be read as recent reviews have been – a relative tally of platform numbers and the size of the residual, 'bonsai' military. That paradigm was already broken several defence reviews ago – tweaking it is but to fiddle with the increasingly irrelevant. The reader should ask instead: to what extent is this a root and branch reform of our now sclerotic system, and to what extent is it going to re-orientate our whole Defence Enterprise – MOD Head Office processes and accountabilities, agile adaptation and procurement, secure supply chains, rapid adoption of technological advances, expansion of reserve forces? If it charts a clear path to a revised 'theory of winning' that can credibly generate a wartime force with the mass and lethality to defeat our foes then it will be a good review. If it continues the usual horse-trading between the individual services over their peacetime structure then it will have been a missed opportunity. With the US making it clear that Europe must look after its own defence we have no safety net if we get it wrong. But America's position gives us an opportunity as well: the chance, the obligation, to show genuine leadership in Europe. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. 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Telegraph
3 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Warfare is changing by the day, but Britain is still decades behind
When Lord George Robertson led the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) in 1997, the GDP of the UK was greater than those of China and India combined. America reigned supreme, the only other superpower, the Soviet Union, having slowly dissolved after losing the Cold War eight years previously. Lord George is back as one of three leads of the latest SDR, widely expected to be published on Monday. But the geostrategic landscape is very different now. No longer can we afford to luxuriate in that uni-polar moment of Western and Nato supremacy. China, Iran and North Korea are functioning surprisingly well as a de facto alliance in supporting Russia in its war on Ukraine. And that is a real war of national survival, not the politically caveated, limited military interventions of the global war on terrorism. This is war at speed and scale, a war mixing the timeless requirements of industrial production with the cutting-edge technologies of the digital age: smart sensors, big-data, cloud connectivity, artificial intelligence, robotics. The new ways of warfare are evolving at dizzying speed. Technical evolution, the obsolescence cycle, is now measured in weeks. Dual-use technology – that with civil and military utility – is blended with more conventional munitions; decades-old assumptions are upended overnight; the ways and means of warfare are being comprehensively disrupted. Historically, this is a change that happens every century or so: Napoleon's Levée en Masse, sail to steam, the aeroplane. That a superpower's navy has, in the Black Sea, been defeated by a country without a navy is a wake up call to all. And here lies the big risk – the victor's paradox. 'Top Dogs' are loath to shed that which put them on top, that in which they have made big investments and of which they are masters. Paradigm shifts are the opportunity for smart challengers to abandon the previous, flagging chase and master the emerging world quicker than the current champions can adapt. China, especially, has had a plan to do exactly this for the last few decades, with massive investments in, inter alia, cyber, AI and hypersonic missiles to add a technological edge to the military mass it has built in parallel: its navy now has more ships than America's. It is using Ukraine, and Kashmir, as a proving ground. Russia has learned (slowly, as it is a corrupt kleptocracy) with grim determination the lessons of modern warfare – exemplified by its recent invention of fibre-optically steered drones. It also knows how to mobilise a war economy. In contrast, and despite much pumped-up rhetoric, most of Nato, including the UK, has demonstrated a reluctance to abandon the old paradigm. Yes, we have bought some drones, but we have bought them as if we were buying sophisticated manned warplanes. We may be buying them slightly quicker now, but these are percentage changes on a system that still takes years, and millions of pounds, to buy tens. Ukraine is on schedule to make four million drones this year. Allied to that is that Western militaries have mirrored a society that has become ever more regulated and risk averse. The British Army is down to 14 artillery pieces, which were bought as stop-gaps. There is still no certification and so no clearance to fire them on a UK range. Similar restrictions apply to innovative drone training – but what if one crashes? The paradox here is that by trying to eradicate every small risk we make the big one – war – more likely. Ultimately we aim to deter, and deterrence depends on credibility. Credibility hinges on the proven military capability to win and the political will to engage with force and see it through. Small forces, a limited production capacity and supply chain to rapidly expand and evolve them, and a risk averse culture that trains and employs them will not impress allies or deter enemies. The SDR's other authors alongside Lord George are Fiona Hill, a proven free-thinker, and General Richard Barrons who was one of the first to write about this changing paradigm ten years ago. Their SDR should not be read as recent reviews have been – a relative tally of platform numbers and the size of the residual, 'bonsai' military. That paradigm was already broken several defence reviews ago – tweaking it is but to fiddle with the increasingly irrelevant. The reader should ask instead: to what extent is this a root and branch reform of our now sclerotic system, and to what extent is it going to re-orientate our whole Defence Enterprise – MOD Head Office processes and accountabilities, agile adaptation and procurement, secure supply chains, rapid adoption of technological advances, expansion of reserve forces? If it charts a clear path to a revised 'theory of winning' that can credibly generate a wartime force with the mass and lethality to defeat our foes then it will be a good review. If it continues the usual horse-trading between the individual services over their peacetime structure then it will have been a missed opportunity. With the US making it clear that Europe must look after its own defence we have no safety net if we get it wrong. But America's position gives us an opportunity as well: the chance, the obligation, to show genuine leadership in Europe.
