British army chiefs have told Prime Minister Keir Starmer that he must give the Armed Forces a ‘national arsenal’ of ‘futuristic’ weapons or risk war with Russia, The Telegraph reported.
Senior army sources confirmed that the military chiefs, in face-to-face meetings with the Prime Minister on Friday, justified what their forces needed for the next war and said the investment would support the government’s growth agenda.
The commanders, who met with Starmer as part of a series of briefings ahead of the Strategic Defence Review, did so against the backdrop of debate over whether defense spending should be increased by 2.5 percent or more.
Donald Trump has been calling on European countries to significantly increase their defense spending, even suggesting that NATO allies reach 5% of their GDP.
Senior US administration figures reiterated this message at the Munich Security Conference this weekend, reigniting speculation that Starmer might change his approach.
But there appears to be no appetite in Downing Street to go beyond 2.5 percent, or to change long-standing plans to reach it this spring.
An ally of the Prime Minister told The Telegraph, “The policy we stood on at the election was 2.5 percent for defense spending. Our policy is still 2.5 percent. We are not going to make any further changes,” he said.
However, The Telegraph writes that during Friday’s briefings the prime minister was told that the military needed a major upgrade of its weapons to deter Russia and China.
This overhaul will involve working more closely with the private sector to replace traditional weapons such as aircraft and tanks with more lethal, crewless systems.
A senior army source close to the briefings said that while conventional weapons will still be needed in the future, the UK should invest in technology companies producing ‘first-person view’ drones (where a remote pilot has a video perspective from the drone), cheap mobile munitions (suicide drones), and crewless ground vehicles and surface ships.
“A national arsenal in the form of contracts for goods and services is needed to realize the goals of doubling combat power. In simple terms, while today the bulk of our lethality comes from crewed and high-complexity platforms such as tanks or attack helicopters, in the future we want to shift a greater proportion of our lethality to low-complexity and crewless systems,” he said.
The source argued that expanding production lines in this new sector will put the United Kingdom ahead of its enemies and keep the nation safe.
The army source argued that increasing British combat power as well as mobilizing market power was ‘the way to deal with authoritarian states’.
“Markets will do more than missiles can to make them think twice about starting a war with us. If we invest, we will be the first to act,” he said.
The source said the weapons shift was as much about the military becoming ‘more lethal’ as it was about supporting the government’s mission of economic growth by creating a more ‘active and engaged industrial sector’.
Last month, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Roly Walker, gave a speech in which he warned that society considered investment in defense to be ‘morally wrong’.
Last week, The Telegraph reported that senior Ministry of Defence sources were concerned about the ‘psychology of public opinion’, as British citizens did not see the country at risk, despite the war in Ukraine and Trump’s insistence that Europe should bear more of the costs within NATO.
