UK has significant capability gaps, Lockheed Martin warns

Lockheed Martin has warned of significant capability gaps facing UK forces in the High North, including risks to airborne early warning coverage following reductions in Wedgetail numbers, unreliable satellite communications above 70 degrees latitude, and degraded precision navigation at high latitudes, in written evidence to the Defence Committee’s Defence in the High North inquiry.

The company, which employs 2,000 people directly in the UK and supports a further 24,000 jobs across more than 800 British companies in its supply chain, placed almost £3 billion of orders in the UK last year and describes its connection with UK defence as stretching back more than 85 years. The submission describes the High North as “transitioning into a strategically contested region due to climate-driven accessibility, increasing military activity, and emerging economic routes” with UK interests including “securing North Atlantic lines of communication and reinforcing the northern flank of NATO” and “deterring and monitoring Russian military expansion, particularly in anti-access/area denial, undersea warfare, and long-range strike.”

Airborne early warning is identified as a particular concern, with the company warning that “airborne early warning capability remains important, ensuring there is not a coverage gap following the reduction in Wedgetail numbers” and suggesting that “carrier-enabled uncrewed AEW solutions should be considered, including radar technologies designed for such missions.”

Continued development of F-35 interoperability is also called for, with Lockheed Martin pointing to the potential for multinational F-35 operations across NATO and the North Sea to deliver “unparalleled interoperability capabilities for allied forces and their operational support crews, including Quick Reaction Alert deployments from Iceland and cross-national sustainment arrangements for deployed fleets.”

Space presents a separate set of acute challenges specific to Arctic geography. Lockheed Martin warns that “traditional geostationary SATCOM is unreliable above 70 degrees latitude”, that “existing polar and highly elliptical orbit systems offer limited bandwidth and high latency” and that “PNT accuracy degrades at high latitudes, affecting navigation and precision targeting.” To address this, the company calls for dedicated ISR constellations optimised for Arctic coverage, protected military satellite communications capable of reliable high-latitude operation, space-based early warning systems for missile detection, and resilient ground station networks.

In the maritime domain, the company suggests “exploration of uncrewed surface vessels equipped with modular payloads, potentially including vertical launch systems, to extend sensor and effector coverage within the Atlantic Bastion construct” and calls for extending maritime integrated air and missile defence northwards through integration of radar and effector systems including “SPY-7-class ballistic missile defence radars linked to Mk41/Mk70 vertical launch systems.”

Allied cooperation is described as “central to UK effectiveness in the High North, particularly given scale and environmental challenges”, with Lockheed Martin highlighting opportunities to strengthen UK-Norway cooperation in anti-submarine warfare leveraging Type 26 frigates and Merlin helicopters, and calling for “enhanced interoperability between maritime patrol aircraft and rotary assets, including shared concepts of operations to extend loiter times and improve targeting efficiency.” The company also calls for joint approaches to uncrewed systems deployed from crewed platforms to maintain persistent tracking, and says the UK should plan for “an array of scenarios that include various levels of European burden-sharing and autonomy.”

Capabilities developed for the High North are described as broadly transferable, with ASW, ISR and uncrewed systems “directly applicable to Indo-Pacific and North Atlantic operations”, space-based ISR and communications “globally relevant”, and cold-weather logistics experience enhancing resilience more broadly. Conversely, the company notes that “capabilities designed for other regions can be adapted for High North operations, provided environmental constraints are addressed.”

Lockheed Martin concludes that the High North will become “an increasingly contested and strategically significant region” and that “a coherent, multi-domain approach, underpinned by leveraging strong alliances, interoperable systems, and targeted investment will be essential to ensure the UK can deter and, if necessary, respond effectively to emerging threats in this challenging environment.”