The defence landscape across the UK and Europe is being reshaped, particularly by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine – which has seen intensive consumption of munitions, the innovative use of uncrewed platforms, and other software-enabled capabilities – and the prospect of further geopolitical volatility in Europe and further afield. In this section, PA examines the policy background
Recent geopolitical volatility means that the UK and European countries have a renewed focus on bolstering their military capabilities. These conflicts have shown new methods of combat, including exploiting advances in uncrewed platforms, utilisation of other novel technologies, and rapid effective data exploitation using AI. The UK and its allies in Europe and elsewhere need to be capable of projecting such military effect at sufficient scale, across all warfighting domains, namely on land, in the air, at sea, in cyber, and increasingly, in space, so they are prepared for high-intensity, multi-domain conflicts.
This shifting context has led to well-publicised increases in defence spending across Europe and beyond. All NATO member states are tasked with spending 3.5% of their GDP on core military capabilities by 2035, with some already exceeding the figure and others likely to do so in the next few years. Given that most European countries spend around 25–35% of their defence budgets on equipment, there will be a corresponding step change in defence industrial capacity across Europe. For the UK, depending on the intensity of economic growth, this would mean the MOD increasing spending from c.£21 billion to c.£34 billion per annum on suppliers of new equipment over the next decade, which will undoubtedly have real estate implications.
In the UK, the recently published Strategic Defence Review (SDR) has responded to this shifting strategic context, with a focus on intensifying production of key munitions and bringing online new, novel warfighting capabilities across domains. The SDR recognises the need to recommit to large-scale submarine and manned air combat programmes, along with mass production of unmanned platforms and munitions using modular and high-throughput techniques. It also calls for innovation at a ‘wartime pace’ to ensure the UK remains at the forefront of military technology, with an emphasis on areas such as AI, drones, cyber, and digital warfare, which have been a hallmark of recent and ongoing conflicts.
Realising this ambition, which is shared by several other major European nations, will involve significant transformation and investment in defence industries and their supply chains. Alongside a radical increase in production throughput, this transformation must also realise continued investment in research and development to ensure NATO militaries can sustain technological advantages over other nations.
Read the other articles within the report below:
