Why Britain must rearm

What Decisive Measures can the UK take now in Concert with Europe, to help deliver Peace and Maintain the International Rules-based Order?

Within Europe, the UK's importance as the last-ditch bastion of defence against tyranny within the continent has decreased. In 1815 it was paramount, in 1915 it was fundamental, in 1945 decisive; in 2025 it has declined, but could yet be hugely significant in leading by example.

UK's 200 years at the forefront of World history, of democratic leadership and of freedom under the law have not yet been entirely eroded. Nations still look up to us and global superpowers may yet heed us if we can but find a coherent and resolute voice. To be heard properly, this voice should be one of modest but confident thought-leadership, within a rattled. thus receptive Europe. It should also be well-placed to offer an Anglophone bridge to the US and a vital regional link into the FVEY intelligence agreement.

A British decision now to rearm properly sends a powerful twofold message to Washington and to the World. It would benefit the UK/US (and aligned nations') Defence firms that deliver the majority of our current inventory. It will also reassure close industrial partners in Europe, who anyway are inextricably linked (BAE Systems, Leonardo, Thales, QinetiQ, Rheinmetall, KMW, Saab, emerging SMEs etc.). Government has to act right away, to have any chance of desired second-order effects being felt in time. The budget must be found to replenish and recapitalise spent/gifted first-line and reserve stocks. UK must put its industrial production on a war footing. Mission-critical natures are advanced offensive support (OS) munitions for land and air domains, portable/mobile overhead top attack (OHTA) anti-tank missiles; and counter-mobility assets. There is an urgent need to double immediately our medium artillery and combat engineer system holdings – maybe simply by direct purchase off the US (lend lease, of artillery in particular). Wider force protection (FP) across all domains must be addressed. Air defence (both ground, sea and air-based) for all three Services, including counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS) and all aspects of Cyber/EW, are crucial. This last is linked to the need to build or to acquire and to integrate immediately defensive aids suites (DAS), to shield all of our manned assets, across all domains. Directed energy weapon (DEW) programmes must be fielded now and robotic, autonomous unmanned systems developments accelerated.

All this will reassure POTUS and his influential advisers that we really are prepared to pay for our shared destiny – inter-alia, helping in US' pivot to the Pacific. Lean acquisition (e.g. urgent operational requirements (UOR) pace, but with balanced long term sustainment), should be led by uniformed capability branches, with much less interference from a scaled-down DE&S, which should act now as an enabler rather than, as has so often been the case, a blocker. Industrial re-tooling and new production-lines should 'reflate' a moribund economy; whatever painful near/short term commitments and cuts the Chancellor must make to find headroom. Lenders should be assured that defence of the free World is indeed an 'ethical' investment. Business/finance leaders may need to be co-opted to help oversee this. The Defence GDP slice must meet a 5% near-horizon, while ruthlessly cutting current, profligate waste across Government. Major effort - punitive if needed - must ensure major contractors' contract via ecosystems and share business with SMEs fairly, to mutual benefit. Powers must be vested in empowered, knowledgeable authorities, with military and commercial experience. Lessons from Covid come to mind, however, anti-corruption foremost. Yes, taxes must rise; but then so will Exchequer receipts, boosted by the economic change to a war footing. After an initial tremor, markets will be reassured and should stabilise as confidence in outcomes compounds.

This new certainty should re-energise the physical component of fighting power. It will send a message to adversaries and non-state actors that we are not sitting idly by, as Russia exploits a 'phony war' to rearm. We have known how to fight the Russian way of war for 80 years; in all truth, they are now very much weakened; and less effective anyway. Our kit and people, if we can acquire and mobilise/train/sustain enough, are largely superior in comparison. So, the conceptual component, including NATO/EU standardization, is already a given (but this could co-opt existing commercial know-how e.g. Fintech). Communications information systems interoperability must, however, build on the time NATO coalition's CIS were last effective e.g. ISAF. We need to contract commercial terrestrial broadband and satellite providers to backfill systems where needed; and we must urgently harden our national infrastructure. With France, we possess strategic and tactical deterrents. This vital realpolitik ought now to be quietly, severally and unequivocally emphasised and empowered by appropriate agreements.

Government now must, in concert with all this decisive leadership, immediately resource proper Joint collective training and sustainment and also civil defence. UK must place under warning for remobilisation the very great quantity of trained and skilled manpower that has been haemorrhaged in recent years and offer refresher training in local garrisons and drill halls. This nettle must be grasped by the National Command Authority. The Services' 'teeth' currently lack adequate combat support and service support in depth to support a combined-Arms division, in an alliance war-fight at scale; but, the NATO EU bloc, less USA but UK included) would be defending upon its own lines of communication, not on an expeditionary basis. Commercial-off-the-shelf assets must be identified, taken up/warned off from trade (logistics, lift, air, plant etc), to be mobilised at scale, as and if required. Kit does not have to be 'painted green'. Innovation must now be encouraged at pace and regulation eased, with an accent on enabling rather than the habitual current strangling initiative. Tax breaks, not restriction, might help greatly. The media might be invited to play a part in active, positive information operations, without censorship, as it once saw as its patriotic duty. This includes novel mainstream platforms, in whose development the West has led the way. Undermining everything for which the UK stands, in our allies' eyes, cannot continue. We need to motivate our media to dominate an information war, not to be a catalyst for subversive disinformation.

There is a need for sustained political leadership to help the UK realise it stands now at the Rubicon. This nation's Government could play a pivotal role in motivating, inspiring, reassuring and supporting Europe and NATO in the ongoing/coming fight. To do so, the PM will have to acknowledge 'capability without funding is delusion' and to reinforce today's highly positive measures. Americans cannot be expected to continue to underwrite such a large proportion of the Atlantic Alliance's costs and even more of its risks. Messrs Trump and Vance are partly, if not largely, right. The moral component of fighting power – indeed all morale, including that of Europe – is the single most important factor of all. Mr Starmer is now in real danger of looking statesmanlike; he must be further encouraged to realise that, what many feel to be a current acceptance of hostile 'lawfare' is pernicious and responsible for decimating our fighting power. It severely constrains the military capability of our fighting Services and supporting agencies. Perceived pandering to frequently venal lawyers and the undermining of majority goodwill by an often wrong-headed judiciary, should be halted by statute. The ongoing undermining of UKSF, in particular, must be strenuously countered. The PM has the power to do all this, sparingly enacting legislation, excising cant and reinforcing commonsense, a role for which he is well qualified. The moderate, decent mass of the UK voting public, beset on all sides by a deficit in effective policing and perceived excess of pettifogging regulation, will support him.

The effect, on friend and foe alike, of such a declaration of non-partisan intent and commensurate, substantive, brave action by the UK Government, should be immediate. We have a unique opportunity, again, to take responsibility and also to be a welcome player in the European team. If this all seems melodramatic, it really isn't. Existential threats have menaced us before, as described in the initial paragraph. With notable exceptions, we had the moral courage, credibility and the physical sinews to act then; we could still have today - just..

Author Monitus (a pseudonym) is a retired senior officer in U K Armed Forces