3/16/21
Russia is Britain's top security challenge, the UK will build more nuclear weapons and London will expand its presence in the high-tech realms of space and cyberspace, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Tuesday in a sweeping review of British military and foreign policy. To accomplish its goals, the British government wants to increase defense spending by £24 billion ($33.3 billion) over the next four years, a large increase on the £42.2 billion it spent in 2019-2020. The government also pledged tens of billions of pounds in investment in other areas, including £15 billion for research and development for science and technology, more than £17 billion to fight climate change and promote biodiversity, and £13 billion in the fight against the coronavirus. The document reaffirms the UK's defense and economic partnerships with the US as its most important in the world, and it makes a strong commitment to the NATO alliance but pledges to expand Britain's role worldwide, recognizing a tilt toward the Indo-Pacifc in the coming decade. From that region, it calls out challenges posed by China. "China's increasing power and international assertiveness is likely to be the most significant geopolitical factor of the 2020s," the review says, describing Beijing as "the biggest state-based threat to the UK's economic security."
The 116-page report, titled "Global Britain in a Competitive Age," reserves its most significant criticisms for Russia. "Russia will remain the most acute direct threat to the UK," it says at one point. "Russia is the most acute threat in the region and we will work with NATO Allies to ensure a united Western response, combining military, intelligence and diplomatic efforts," it says in another, pledging to work within the alliance to "deter nuclear, conventional and hybrid threats to our security, particularly from Russia." As part of its deterrence strategy, the UK will increase its number of nuclear warheads to 260, a substantial increase from a previously announced goal of 180. The Royal Navy will keep four nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines from which to launch those warheads, ensuring that at least one submarine is on duty at all times, the report said. The submarine fleet will get new vessels beginning in the early 2030s, when the first of the Dreadnaught class is delivered, replacing Vanguard-class subs which have been in service since the early 1990s, the report says. The document also reaffirms Britain's nuclear commitment to NATO, saying the force could be committed to defending its European allies as well as the UK itself. The report also promises an expanded commitment to UK operations in outer space.
