The Ministry of Defence has declined to confirm whether the UK intends to procure a land-based cruise missile, citing the classified nature of the capability mix being developed under the Strategic Defence Review.
In response to a parliamentary question tabled by James Cartlidge MP on 20 June, Minister of State for Defence Maria Eagle said that while cruise missiles are considered a key component of future capability, specifics about their potential procurement remain confidential.
“The Strategic Defence Review signifies a landmark shift in our deterrence and defence: moving to warfighting readiness to deter threats and strengthen security in the Euro-Atlantic,” said Eagle.
She pointed to a major boost in missile production as part of the UK’s new strategy, highlighting “7,000 UK-built long-range weapons and a new £1.5 billion Government investment in munitions and energetics factories.”
While this includes a wide spectrum of complex weapons—cruise missiles among them—Eagle stressed that further details are not being made public at this time. “Complex weapons, of which cruise missiles are one option, are a necessary part of our warfighting and deterrence,” she said. “The exact laydown of our complex weapons capability mix is confidential, and it would be inappropriate to comment outside of information that will be included in the Defence Investment Plan.”
The Defence Investment Plan is expected to be published in the autumn and will provide a more detailed breakdown of the Ministry’s equipment priorities following the Strategic Defence Review’s announcement earlier this year.
Cruise missile capability has been under renewed scrutiny in recent months amid efforts to expand long-range strike options for the British Armed Forces. The government previously confirmed development of a new 2,000km-range precision strike missile in cooperation with Germany, but has yet to formally declare whether this includes a land-based launch option.
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All very well describing it as a ‘landmark shift’, but if the govt won’t describe what the shift actually IS, it’s a bit harder to believe them.
And the problem is that nobody actually believes these ‘increases’ as nothing significant is being ordered.
Boris and Big Ben for all their faults did actually make some concrete orders and reverse the declines in spending. Not fast enough, for sure.
Part of deterrence is signposting what you are doing…..
A lot of the problem is the Borris and Ben made a lot of plans on what to buy but no plans on how to pay for any of it.
Then Rishi thought he would cut NI by 2% and pay for it by putting NI back up by 2% as soon as he was re- elected.
Now labour need to fund the money to pay for Borris and Ben’s spending and Rishis fake tax cut.
But yeah other than that they did a great job.
2% NI cut was lunacy and was loaded onto employers in spades by Reeves.
Most of the last governments plans had budget lines to be perfectly fair.
This ideas that Reeves goes on about is mostly hot air to cover her own manifest shortcomings.
Agree 2% NI cut was lunacy. It was a trap that labour had little choice but to walk in to.
Never believe politicians but Labour has to be the worst of the bigger parties. What they have done to WASPI women, poor pensioners, job losses in industry and high street etc on 1 hand but also say they stand for the working class on the other is just bad.
I’m sorry who did what to waspi women? All labour did was NOT to reverse what the Tories had already done.
Who raised the pension age for both men and women?
The equipment plan will be reviled in the Autumn. This has always been the case. Equipment orders will be clear then.
I hope so – I really hope so.
The lack of an honest conversation around what levels of growth rate are desired and then from that the taxation allow an economy to grow at those rates and then from what what is available to spend by any of the major parties is pure la-la land stuff.
Even Fromage who could have said anything sensible to break this conversation up but has shown spectacularly poor judgment with an attempt to buy votes with both the Robin Hood retread of Non Dom taxes and the idea of raising income tax thresholds to as high as £20k. At some point there has to be a buy into the pay into to get out welfare state – actually part of redrawing the social contract back as was intended and not a sweet shop for the idle.
The result of that is that I am unconvinced as to whether there is actually any new money at all. I think there may actually be less money to spend on new kit as the overall envelope contains intelligence services but as far as I can see if you add all that together true defence get a cut.
You say always..yes until 2022..since then it’s been radio silence.
I hope it will be revealed not reviled. 😂
As SB and SB say, I’m amongst the many with no faith at all.
All words. No real orders beyond industry.
I think most of any 7,000 will be Drones, lumped in with the UK German missile, PRSM, and FCASW to boost the number.
On the UK German missile, I cannot get away from the image of a modern day GLCM carrier.
From what I have read the UK has now signed onto the 5% ( 3.5% +1.5%) gdp as has the rest of NATO..so one will assume we will see some proper meat on the defence investment plan.. I know the public accounts committee is getting very very vocal about the fact the MOD has not produced an annual equipment plan since 2022..and the defence investment plan has been promised as a replacement.. essentially parliament has not been able to scrutinise the executive on defence of the nation since 2022…apparently the MOD is only half way through deciding how it’s going to spend it budget and is refusing to tell anyone.. I think the MOD is going to take a real pounding if it does not come up with what it’s doing soon.
Glad you mentioned all that.
I was critiqued on here recently for pointing out MoDs lack of transparency. And this government promised better there.
At this time, they’re worse thsn the last lot, who were also appalling.
It will be a test, essentially the lack of transparency was to try and hid weakness.. it did not work because anyone with any strategic sense would assume weakness from the lack of transparency… because they knew the weakness of the budgets which are transparent..If the money goes up and they start repairing the damage we will see greater transparency as they communicate the increased capabilities as a deterrent.. if next year we are still seeing the same transparency then I would suggest nothing is being done.
Same lack of transparency..
“communicate the increased capabilities as a deterrent” that would be something, the problem is they communicate the slightest “perceived increases” for brownie points.. i think we would get an increase in opacity rather than transparency
The only way the UK will get to 5% GDP defence spending, is with a lot of smoke & mirrors. All sorts of non defence spending will be counted as defence spending. Real defence spending will not go beyond 2.7%.
Papers are reporting the UK led the charge to delay from 2032 to 2035, a great look….
Also Spain claim they’ve managed to secure an exemption and will only have to meet the 2% target, I wonder how many others will.
This commitment is looking flaky already.
Yeah, Radakin said they wanted a long range, heavy weight drone with capabilities similar to a cruise missile when he was talking to the defence select committee. I’m a supporter of sovereign capability but this government seem to be using the defence budget as a form of state subsidy for ailing industries. Personally I think they will be out of office in 2029. So all of this will change again.
Very much so.
Agree on both. Their interest is industry, not defence, and they’ll be gone as people see Labour, Con, all the same, just different cheeks.
A week is a long time in politics, but I will put my neck out & say the next government will probably be a coalition. Either Labour/LibDem/Green coalition or Reform/Conservative coalition.
The annual equipment plan in the Autumn will provide actual orders mate. But at the end of the day, Going to 2. 5% isn’t going to produce a radical change over the next two years. But it’s all going in the right direction.
The NATO summit will be the interesting one as that will move the dial on 3% then 3.5%
That’s so much hairy BS, the point of our armed forces is a a deterrent to war, deterrence only works if:
1) you have the capability to do unacceptable harm to your potential enemy
2) you show credibility of intent, essentially that you have the political and societal will to use the capability to inflict massive harm and take harm in return
3) communication, the communication of that capability and intent..
Therefore you build it up and spend money on it.. then you tell everyone about it, show them the pictures say how good it is ans how many you have and can make…take it out and about and to put it crudely shove the barrel of the gun up your enemies noise and say “ go for it”…
There are only two reasons for a nation not to do this..
1) they actually lack the capability and are hiding behind bluster
2) they are planning to attack using strategic surprises they don’t want you to know how ready they are..
Since our enemies know we are not planning a launch a surprise attack on Russia or china.they will assume it’s a lack of capability which would make out deterrent useless.
The point is to deter war but also to cause adversary actions to fail. The reason for classifying capabilities is that it makes it difficult for an adversary to counter them. Obviously for sub-threshold conflicts deniability is also a requirement.
First, second and third you deter.. because to fight a peer war you did not wish to fight is to loss you only hide strategic strength when you are beyond deterrence.. what you hide is a level of the tactical capabilities… so you always say..we have 60 SSNs and they are good.. and armed each with 12 tomahawk siloes and you prove they are good by sneaking them about and taking pictures that you then show your enemy..that does not mean you tell them all about the technical capabilities of your SSN.. you just show how many you have, how good it is and how many cruise missiles it will hold…
There is not point being able to shatter your enemies nation if you did not tell him you could and he attacks and you both end up with shattered nations..
As i said elsewhere, Defence should be a mandatory cross government thing with the plan decided, implemented and carried forward(what we need, when, how funded) iregardless of what party is in power.
That statement tells you all you need to know.
If we are not that serious about fielding some adequate missile defence system for the UK – and allocating a mere £1Bn to the issue in the SDSR suggests that we are not – then I suppose deterring a enemy with our own cruise missiles is about all we have left, short of going nuclear that is.
I put this notion forward without thinking that is a very good idea .
When politicians make grand announcements but then insist on being vague, it is because the reality doesn’t match the hype.
Spot on.