The government’s new defence review will be announced on Monday by Keir Starmer on low expectation – but it is likely to be the most far reaching reform of the way Britain manages its defences for half a century.
It will be the biggest shakeup in the running of the ministry of defence and the armed forces since 1957 – when the ministry began in its present form with Lord Mountbatten the king’s great-uncle as the first Chief of the UK Defence Staff.
Under the review Chief of the Defence Staff, currently Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, becomes the senior operational commander at the head of the Integrated Force of all three armed services. Radakin is due to be succeeded next month by Air Chief Marshal Sir Rich Knighton. Working with him at the same level are the Permanent Secretary, head of the MoD administration, currently David Williams, the new post of National Armaments Director, currently Andy Start on an acting basis, and the Head of Defence Nuclear, currently Madeleine McTiernan.
The Integrated Force is one of two key driving concepts in the review, according to sources. The second is the Digital Targeting Web, part of a billion pound package of developments in cyber and electro-magnetic warfare announced by the defence secretary John Healey this week. “The web is the backbone of the way our forces will deploy and fight now,” a senior commander explained.
The Strategic Defence Review, SDR, draws on lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, where the revolution in tactics and fighting – especially in the dominance of drone warfare – are now being adopted across the world, from Kashmir to Gaza, Yemen and Sudan. In Ukraine weapons systems and pieces of kit can be rendered outdated and useless in a fortnight. “We have to adapt within weeks, and we have to be ready for action, we no longer have weeks to prepare our forces,” a commander told me.
Another major driver to the thinking behind the SDR is the persistent sense of threat and risk from Putin’s Russia, which is ongoing and now becoming chronic. At the MoD’s Global Operations Security Control Centre, GOSCC, at Corsham Wiltshire, where John Healey announced the new cyber warfare initiative this week, we were told of at least 90,000 hostile cyber attacks on UK interests in the past year or so.
One successful offensive cyber operation took down a cyber network of the Islamic State in Iraq
Most were ransomware attacks on businesses, from organised crime groups which sometimes draw interest from Russian and Chinese state agencies. Some 129 were potentially lethal. The UK’s cyber force, up and running for five years now but getting a boost through the SDR, has worked on its own disruptive cyber counter attacks – though these are limited by scope and convention. One successful offensive cyber operation took down a cyber network of the Islamic State in Iraq.
More recently the Cyber Centre at Corsham, mounted Operation Damascene Peacock to take down Russian generated malware using Rom Com and RUST computer language. Such malware has been used in the recent attacks on the Marks and Spencer, Harrods and Co-Op networks. “They attack by the hour,” a Cyber Force director said, “most comes from Serious Organised Crime; but we also have known terrorist groups very active, and behind them state actors like Russia, especially, China and Iran.”
In one part of the Corsham centre banks of operators showed something of the Digital Targeting Web at work. They were tracking potential cyber and electronic warfare threats to the Highmast aircraft carrier group led by HMS Prince of Wales as it passed through the Red Sea. They were grabbing information from layers of sensors on ships, aircraft and satellites to pass on to ‘effectors’, the shooters on ships and aircraft that might have to strike back.
“Ways of warfare are rapidly changing – with the UK facing daily cyber attacks on the new this new frontline,” John Healey told journalists. “The keyboard is now an offensive weapon.” He said that a new headquarters and school for the Cyber Force will sit alongside the new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command HQ – which will be at the MoD site and Samlesbury.
The Cyber Force recruits separately from the armed services, with less stringent medical standards – and does not require the wearing of uniform. Salaries start at £40,000 with specialist bonuses of up to £25,000. “You can have a zig zag career,” says General Sir Jim Hockenhull, of Strategic Command and overall commander of the cyber services, “you can serve for a few years, go away, come back, or rejoin part-time.
Mark Rutte has suggested privately that the UK should spend 3.5 % of GDP defence – as a minimum
“What’s not to like ?” said the genial general with a grin. “You can come and get trained how to computer hack – all entirely legally.”
The Integrated Force and the Cyber and Electronic domain will be the main themes in the SDR, according to Whitehall sources, and there will be additional chapters on procurement, nuclear forces, industrial investment and development in defence, and the social offer for defence in terms of recruiting, welfare and cadet forces.
The new plan for defence is based on the new budget terms announced by Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, of spending 2.5% on defence by 2027 – possibly rising to a Nato target of 3% of GDP by the end of this parliament. Rachel Reeves will give more detail in her Comprehensive Spending Review due on June 11th.
The unstated element in the Defence Review is the second presidential term of Donald Trump, and the new threshold of uncertainty it has introduced in European and global affairs, especially over the war in Ukraine. This will come to the fore at the crucial Nato summit in The Hague at the end of June. Mark Rutte, the secretary general, has hinted that a new ‘European Pillar’ may have to be formed, led by UK, France, Germany and Italy.
This is where the UK’s plans for defence and security in the SDR, and the new National Security strategy due mid-June, will be critical to winning the confidence of its European allies, including Ukraine itself. Mark Rutte has suggested privately that the UK should spend 3.5 % of GDP on resilience and defence – and that’s a minimum requirement.
Robert Fox is defence editor
