UK Geopolitics

Luke McKenna 🇬🇧 | Foreign Affairs, War & Diplomacy | Beware of Satire | Sheffield, UK ⚙️

[Think Defence @thinkdefence]

If it meant an army of 50,000 to pay for a navy and air force that was as hard as woodpeckers lips, it would be a price worth paying, sadly

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

That’s because it’s official policy to limit gas to standby as much as possible — which is VERY expensive. The price is not set by the market. It’s set by government policy decisions.

[Gabriele Molinelli @Gabriel64869839]

After repeated delays, the first Vertical space launch from UK soil is drawing nearer. There are better chances this time that the launch does go through within the summer.

[Navy Lookout @NavyLookout]

.@HMSDauntless outbound from Portsmouth today.

Positive by recent standards - RN has 3 destroyers and 4 frigates at sea today!

Via @PortsmouthProud

[UK Forces Tracker @UKForcesTracker]

HMS Portland returned to sea today after months of defect rectification.

Portland is one of the Naval Strike Missile-equipped frigates along with Somerset.

(Src: @Rockhoppas)

[Francis Tusa @FTusa284]

I know @RoyalNavy and @DefenceHQ will never own up, but isn't it time to 'fess up to the fact that UK Plc now is relying on @MarineNationale, @USNavy and @kon_marine to do deterrence sanitisation? This ought to be a matter of alarm and shame...

[Britsky @TBrit90]

What if we took all these missile, radar and command ships, and just combined them in to one hull, with easier integration, connectivity and a small crew for maintenance. Maybe even call it a destroyer or something.

[JamesFennell MBE @FennellJW]

The DIP says Type 31 will get Mk 41 VLS (CAMM, CAMM-ER, STRATUS and ASW rockets) and NSM cannisters. Bofors 3P programmable C-UAS ammunition will be aquired for their 57mm guns too, and proximity fused 40mm ammo. New weapons may follow.

[Admiral Hindsight @Adm_Hindsight]

@John_ForemanCBE @blagden_david And from a naval aspect
- To detect those threats you need a large powerful radar mounted up high for good horizon coverage
-you need large interceptors capable of neutralising them
- you need magazine depth to deal with saturation attacks
That leads to a large surface vessel

[Britsky @TBrit90]

I can do cuts, but what I can't stomach is plans based on imaginary money,.

Not only is the new funding short of whats needed by a large number, but the funding that is actually supposed to be there is accountancy tricks, another bigger black hole and an even worse situation than before the DIP.

[Ancient Mariner @pegge49]

Confirming long suspected news...
As they note the status of Portland also is concerning (139 days since last underway) and it remains to be seen if Kent will complete it's 800 days and counting life extension refit...

[Rt. Hon Ben Wallace @BenWallace70]

if you ignore the Treasury tricks (including other people’s budgets being counted) and focus instead on the actual defence budget planned for the MoD you get the following breakdown as GDP:
FY 26/27 £68.3bn 2.12% GDP
FY 27/28 £73.8bn. 2.21% GDP
FY 28/29 £76.5bn.2.22% GDP
@afneil @bbcnickrobinson @haynesdeborah @larisamlbrown @FrankRGardner @jeromestarkey

[Gabriele Molinelli @Gabriel64869839]

Even in Space, bad news come thick:

- SKYNET 6A's launch is confirmed delayed to 2027, with 50 million to "extend SKYNET 5 use" sounding very much like an inevitable consequence rather than a boon.

- SKYNET 6's Narrowband dedicate satellite is CANCELLED.

"offset by extending SKYNET 5 and utilising modern technology through different procurement routes, including by investing in ‘space as a service’ options, alongside allies",

whatever that is supposed to mean in practice.

9 billion are supposed to be spent after 2030, but like everything else predicated on an entirely different Parliament, that is always a shot in the dark.

[Deborah Haynes @haynesdeborah]

🚨The UK will scrap some older weapons and kit, including Storm Shadow cruise missiles and a range of military helicopters, under a major investment plan which falls billions of pounds short of what military chiefs say they need.
But it could have been worse.
The Treasury agreed to give the Ministry of Defence an extra £1.5bn in the wake of John Healey resigning as defence secretary earlier in the month in protest at a lack of cash.
This has pushed the total amount of extra money for the defence investment plan to £15bn in “spending power” over four years, but only £11.6 bn of that amount is new money, with the rest comprising a reallocation of existing resources.
In a further sign that Sir Keir Starmer belatedly believes even more money is needed to rearm, his investment blueprint does say “funding and plans” behind a goal to push defence spending to 3% of GDP in the next parliament from around 2.3% now would be revealed in the next spending review, expected in 2027, where defence will be the “number one priority”.
However, this commitment will only carry weight if endorsed by the next prime minister.
The government finally unveiled its defence investment plan on Tuesday following months of delays because of wrangling over money.
Dan Jarvis, the new defence secretary, warned in the document that “tough choices” have had to be made “to stop doing things which were designed for another age”.
This includes phasing out Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which have been a vital weapon for RAF fighter jets as well as Ukrainian forces in their war with Russia.
“We are now pivoting to the next generation of low-cost cruise missiles,” the plan said.
More than 30 Wildcat helicopters and Chinook helicopters will also be axed along with plans to upgrade a satellite communications system.
In another bid to save money, an ambition to increase the size of the military cadet force by 30% by 2030 - key for rebuilding national resilience – has been slowed to 2035.
The timeline had been set out in a sweeping review of defence, published a year ago, which the investment plan is meant to fund.
Mr Jarvis stressed the need to focus more on autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence to ensure the army, navy and air force is “fit for the next war, not the last one”.
Across 80 pages, the investment plan set out how a total of £298 billion in funding – which includes the £15bn uplift – would be invested across the whole of defence over the next four years. It included:
•More than £20bn as part of a programme to renew a fleet of four nuclear-armed submarines, the cornerstone of the UK’s ability to deter threats
•£11.1bn on munitions and weapons to boost stockpiles to enable the army, navy and air force sustain a fight beyond a few short days. This includes low-cost cruise missiles as well as six new weapons factories
•£790m to bolster air defences to protect the UK and its overseas bases from enemy missiles and drones – a fraction of the sums of money that experts say would be required for a credible air defence system, like Israel’s “Iron Dome”
•£330m over an unspecified timespan to improve security around critical underwater oil and gas pipelines and communication cables that are crucial for the economy but are vulnerable to hostile attack from Russia
•£1.6bn earmarked for investment in innovative technology, which is changing the way that militaries fight with artificial intelligence significantly accelerating how decisions by the chain of command are made in planning operations and conducting strikes
The plan claimed the additional funding would push up total defence spending to 2.7% of GDP by 2030, a rise of 0.1 percentage points from a previous level.
Yet this figure also includes expenditure on the intelligence agencies, as opposed to only hard military power, and it is well short of the target of 3% that John Healey, the previous defence secretary, had been pushing for.
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[Ancient Mariner @pegge49]

Indeed.
Plus when folks talk of an 'increase' to 19 'escorts', don't forget that the T32's were talked about as a future means to increase the escort force beyond the already overworked 19 (these days down to a depleted force of 11, due the glacial pace of the T26 program).

[John Foreman CBE @John_ForemanCBE]

And what type of warship escorted them past Yemen and through the Bab el Mandeb?

Was it a ‘destroyer’?

[Alessio Patalano @alessionaval]

Again. From a parallel world. A fleet needs warships. And they build them. This is no 10. That’s right. Not 5. Not 6 uncrewed. 10.

[John Foreman CBE @John_ForemanCBE]

Some errors in this piece which misses one key point: without a proven, deployable air defence capability vs emerging hyper fast and ballistic missiles the RN won't meet its commitments to the UK and oversea territories, be able to escort a UK task group, nor meet its NATO or OOA responsibilities.

There's no operational analysis for any of this.

[David Blagden @blagden_david]

It’s well known that advanced air defence radars are dirt cheap, provided they sit on uncrewed platforms. Such tech also never breaks, never catches fire, never suffers disruption to - or gets located by - its external comms links, and certainly wouldn’t be stolen/rammed by foes.