A new report from the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Advantage Cell argues that Britain must revitalise its defence industry to strengthen national security and drive economic growth.
Authored by William Freer and Paul Mason, the report highlights the need for a coherent Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) that aligns with broader geopolitical realities, particularly in the face of Russian aggression and China’s expanding military footprint.
The full report, titled Securonomics: The Contribution of a Defence Industrial Strategy, can be accessed here.
The study underscores the potential of ‘securonomics’, an approach that integrates national security considerations into economic and industrial policy. According to the authors, the UK’s defence industry has been underutilised, despite growing demand for military equipment among Britain’s allies.
“Britain’s defence industry has atrophied for too long. The challenge of rebuilding this crucial component of deterrence will not be easy: three decades of cashing in on the ‘peace dividend’ has weakened capacity. Yet the current situation represents an opportunity as much as a challenge,” said William Freer and Paul Mason.
Key Recommendations
The report outlines several policy recommendations for His Majesty’s Government (HMG) to incorporate into a 2025 Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS2025), which is currently being developed alongside the Strategic Defence Review. These include:
- Expanding industrial capacity: A ten-year strategy to grow the UK’s defence sector and develop next-generation military technologies.
- Strengthening allied partnerships: Supporting British defence firms in international markets and ensuring UK components are embedded in allied supply chains.
- Ensuring production continuity: Maintaining low-rate, continuous production lines to preserve supply chains and workforce skills.
- Creating a Defence Technology Institute: A jointly funded initiative to consolidate Research and Development (R&D) and drive innovation.
- Investing in skills and education: Expanding STEM initiatives and providing funding for further education to support the next generation of defence workers.
- Establishing a Long-Term Investment for Defence Fund: A financial mechanism to ensure sustained funding for the defence industry.
The report also calls for quarterly meetings of the Defence Industrial Joint Council, ensuring greater coordination between government and industry.
A Case for Long-Term Commitment
The authors note that while the DIS-Statement of Intent (DIS-SOI) has laid the groundwork, significant barriers remain, including Treasury hesitancy to commit long-term funding, workforce constraints, and global financial risk aversion. However, they argue that increasing defence spending among allies—many of whom lack domestic production capabilities—presents an opportunity for UK defence exports to fill these gaps.
Freer and Mason assert that past moments of British rearmament—before the First and Second World Wars and during the Cold War—demonstrate the necessity of timely industrial mobilisation.
“Victories in the First World War, the Second World War, and the Cold War are testament to the fact that decisions made at those times to rearm were the right ones, and the same is true of the 2020s,” they wrote.
In a foreword to the report, Lord Mountevans JP, former Lord Mayor of London, expressed his support for the findings, stating:
“As Britain rearms, the economy will grow. But critical to the rearmament process is the design of the future DIS, which must overcome current barriers facing the sector and begin to reshape the structure of an industry which has, for many years, been geared to a peacetime environment.”
The recommendations outlined in the report are likely to be closely examined as policymakers prepare DIS2025, with broader implications for the UK’s ability to maintain defence readiness while capitalising on global demand for military equipment.
For those interested in the full analysis and recommendations, the complete report can be accessed here.
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The Council receives funding from defence industry companies BAE Systems, Boeing, Leonardo UK, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Thales. It receives funding from the UK government through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, UK Ministry of Defence and Royal Navy.[Wiki]
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All well and good – however, if the MoD uses British manufacturers everything will depend on quality assurance and quality control testing during and after production. The ECBA armour issue detailed elsewhere on the site show how critical this is
During WW1 there were major problems with the effectiveness of British heavy shells. During the build-up to the first day of the Battle of the Somme up to 50% of the heavy shells fired were duds due to manufacturing errors in the fuzes. At Jutland, up to 30% of the 10inch and above shells that hit German ships either broke up on the German armour, or if they did penetrate they failed to detonate
The RN quality acceptance criteria at the time was to pool shells into batches of 1000, select two at random and fire them at the range in Scotland. If both of them went off, the batch was accepted. The Navy failed to test shells coming down at an acute angle (plunging fire) as would be the case during long range engagements
Many naval observers (including German) have noted that had the Britsh Dreadnaughts at Jutland been issued with effective shell, the result of the battle would have been very different
QA testing was, in my experience, an obsession. To the extent that with the tiny batches manufactured the QA costs start to be a very large part of the costs.
Part of the problem is that everyone wants perfect as failure reflects badly and there is a sense that you can Six Sigma a problem to death and you will have perfection.
So there is a balance to be struck with sensibly and proportionately using modern manufacturing and testing methods to achieve well specified output. This gets easier if MOD is ordering larger batches and continuous production. Small batch stop/start is the enemy of quality and skills and knowledge fade.
So yes, you do have a very valid point but industry also has a valid point that there is a sensible point to sit on the cost/value curve where costs minimise and quality rises in concert.
You need good quality procedures in the first place, that supervision/management understand. Simple, straghtforward but effective systems are best. Next, everybody needs to understand the specification(s) which must include training in what can go wrong and what the effect would be (failure mode and effect analysis). Final inspection and approval needs a resonable/cost effective sampling regime, especially if the testing is destructive. You can’t afford to launch too many new Spearfish torpedoes to prove they work for example
Lastly everyone – manufacturer, customer and the relevant standards authority – needs to recognise that the taxpayer needs to get value for money. MoD people tend to forget that when they are only in post for two years before they move on to a higher grade in the treasury etc
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