Philip Hicks
[A new voice to Defence Alternatives, Phil Hicks is a veteran communicator, consultant and pundit with an enviable 30+ year background in strategic issues. This is the first of a series of posts on the broader subject of Britain’s defence policy planned for the next several weeks as an important contribution to one of our underlying aims: to raise the level of consciousness and debate around defence and security. A longer read than our normal filings, it is worth serious consideration. Editor]
Part I: Britain Between Ambition and Affordability
Britain is rearming.
A decade ago, such a statement would have sounded faintly improbable. Europe appeared largely at peace, the Armed Forces were primarily engaged in expeditionary operations rather than preparing for industrial-scale conflict, and successive governments had become accustomed to balancing defence ambitions against the assumption that major state-on-state warfare on the continent was, if not impossible, then at least unlikely. Today, those assumptions look increasingly fragile.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered many of the certainties that underpinned post-Cold War defence planning. Across the Middle East, missile and drone attacks have demonstrated how relatively inexpensive technologies can impose significant costs on even the most capable militaries. The Arctic is becoming an increasingly contested strategic space, while the Indo-Pacific has emerged as the principal arena of long-term geopolitical competition. Collectively, these developments have forced governments throughout NATO to confront an uncomfortable truth: military power is not measured solely by the sophistication of the equipment a nation possesses, but also by its ability to sustain, replenish and replace that equipment over time. Ammunition stockpiles matter. Manufacturing capacity matters. Secure supply chains matter. Above all, industrial resilience matters. As NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has repeatedly observed, increased spending is merely the starting point; the true test lies in converting financial commitments into deployable capability and credible deterrence.
Britain’s response has been both ambitious and wide-ranging. The publication of the Strategic Defence Review 2025, followed by the Defence Investment Plan and the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025, represents perhaps the most significant attempt to reshape British defence policy in a generation. The tone is noticeably different from that of previous reviews. Warfighting readiness has replaced assumptions of perpetual crisis management. Defence is increasingly presented not simply as a security necessity but as a contributor to economic growth, technological innovation and industrial renewal. Ministers speak openly about preparing the country for a more contested and uncertain future, while defence expenditure is set on a path towards 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2027, with an aspiration to reach 3 per cent thereafter when economic conditions permit.
For all the activity emanating from Whitehall, however, a more fundamental question remains unresolved.
Is Britain genuinely rearming, or are we becoming increasingly sophisticated in discussing rearmament?
The question may appear provocative, but it lies at the heart of the challenge facing not only Britain but many of its allies. Rearmament is frequently discussed in terms of spending commitments, headline figures and percentages of GDP, all of which are useful indicators of political intent. Military power, however, is not created by intent alone. It emerges from the interaction of strategic clarity, political will, industrial capacity, technological innovation and procurement effectiveness. The measure of success is not what governments announce but what armed forces can deploy, sustain and replace when circumstances demand.
The debate becomes even more interesting when technology enters the discussion. One of the more seductive ideas to emerge from recent conflicts is the proposition that disruptive technologies offer a route around some of the traditional constraints of defence spending. The experience of Ukraine, together with the growing prominence of autonomous systems and precision-strike capabilities across a number of theatres, has encouraged the belief that the economics of warfare are being fundamentally rewritten. Relatively inexpensive drones can threaten equipment and infrastructure worth many times their own cost. For governments facing mounting fiscal pressures, the attraction is obvious.
If a drone costing thousands can destroy a platform costing millions, then surely military capability has become cheaper?
The reality is rather more complicated.
The lesson from Ukraine, and indeed from recent developments in the Middle East, is not that conventional military capability has become redundant. Rather, it is that long-established assumptions about force structure, survivability and cost are being challenged by technologies that are adaptable, scalable and comparatively inexpensive. Military history is replete with examples of supposedly revolutionary technologies transforming warfare without eliminating what came before. Air power did not replace sea power. Precision-guided weapons did not eliminate the requirement for mass. Cyber operations have not rendered conventional military force obsolete. More frequently, new technologies reshape existing capabilities and alter the way they are employed.
There is therefore a danger, particularly for cash-constrained governments, in viewing drones, autonomy and artificial intelligence as affordable substitutes for more expensive conventional capabilities. The more convincing lesson is that disruptive technologies are most effective when integrated into a broader force structure rather than treated as replacements for it. The future battlefield is unlikely to belong exclusively to autonomous systems any more than it will belong exclusively to exquisite high-end platforms. Success is more likely to favour those nations capable of combining innovation with resilience, industrial depth and the capacity to sustain military operations over time.
For Britain, this distinction matters enormously. Rearmament cannot become a search for shortcuts. A nation that convinces itself that disruptive technologies can compensate entirely for weaknesses in industrial capacity, stockpiles or conventional capability risks creating new vulnerabilities whilst leaving older ones unresolved. Innovation is essential, but innovation alone is not a strategy.
The same observation might equally be applied to procurement reform, a subject that has featured in almost every major defence review of recent decades. As Defence Secretary, John Healey spoke candidly about acquisition processes that can take years to move from requirement to contract award, arguing that such timescales are increasingly incompatible with the pace of technological change and geopolitical events. His remarks reflected frustrations long expressed by industry, Parliament and the Armed Forces themselves. Britain’s difficulty has rarely been a failure to identify problems. Indeed, few countries analyse their defence shortcomings with greater enthusiasm. The challenge has been translating diagnosis into delivery and doing so with sufficient urgency to keep pace with a rapidly changing world.
Ukraine has reinforced this point with uncomfortable clarity. For much of the post-Cold War era, many Western nations operated on the assumption that industrial capacity could be regenerated if circumstances required it. What the conflict has demonstrated is the difference between designing a capability and sustaining one. The critical question is no longer whether a nation can produce advanced missiles, autonomous systems or armoured vehicles. It is whether it can produce enough, replace losses at speed and maintain production during an extended period of crisis. Industrial resilience has, in effect, become an element of deterrence in its own right.
This recognition sits at the heart of the Defence Industrial Strategy 2025, which seeks to align defence, industry and economic growth more closely than has traditionally been the case. Whether the strategy proves transformative remains to be seen. What is clear is that policymakers increasingly recognise that armed forces and industrial capacity are no longer separate conversations. A nation that cannot sustain production during a crisis may discover that even the most sophisticated equipment provides only a temporary advantage.
Complicating matters further is Britain’s continuing determination to play a global role. The Strategic Defence Review 2025 is firmly anchored in NATO and the Euro-Atlantic theatre, yet Britain remains deeply invested in AUKUS, increasingly engaged in the Indo-Pacific and committed to a network of security relationships extending far beyond Europe. In many respects this is unsurprising. Economic interests, alliance obligations and geopolitical realities all point towards continued engagement east of Suez.
At the same time, the question that has surfaced repeatedly since the late 1960s refuses to disappear. Can Britain sustain the level of global ambition implied by its strategy whilst simultaneously meeting its obligations as one of NATO’s principal military powers?
The answer will depend upon far more than defence budgets alone. It will require difficult choices about procurement, industrial investment, alliance priorities and the balance between global influence and regional responsibility. The United States can sustain genuinely global commitments because it possesses resources on a scale few can match. France has pursued a distinctive model based upon strategic autonomy, sovereign capability and long-term industrial planning. Britain occupies a more complicated middle ground, seeking simultaneously to strengthen NATO, modernise its Armed Forces, embrace technological innovation and maintain a meaningful global presence.
None of those ambitions is unreasonable. The outstanding question is whether they remain achievable together.
There is broad agreement that the strategic environment has deteriorated. There is growing consensus that defence spending must increase and increasing recognition that stockpiles, industrial resilience, sovereign capability and technological innovation are once again matters of national security. What remains less certain is whether political ambition, alliance commitments, public finances and industrial reality can be brought into alignment quickly enough to generate the outcomes policymakers seek.
Ultimately, the success of Britain’s rearmament effort will not be judged by the number of reviews commissioned, speeches delivered or strategies published. It will be judged by whether production lines expand, stockpiles increase, capabilities enter service on schedule and the Armed Forces possess the readiness required to deter conflict rather than fight it.
The central challenge facing Britain is therefore not whether it understands the threats it confronts. The Strategic Defence Review, Defence Investment Plan and Defence Industrial Strategy leave little room for doubt on that score. The more difficult question is whether the nation can translate strategic ambition into military power with sufficient speed and consistency to matter.
The test of Britain’s rearmament will not be what it promises to spend. It will be what it can put into service, sustain and replace.
Headline image HMS Glasgow under construction on the Clyde. Rearmament is ultimately measured not by policy announcements but by industrial capacity and delivery. (Wikimedia Commons)
