The UK’s newly published Strategic Defence Review (SDR) recommends that Britain deepen its integration of nuclear and conventional deterrence within NATO, enhance long-range strike capabilities, and improve the industrial foundations of its nuclear enterprise.
In a clear signal of a policy shift, the review proposes that the UK “commence discussions with the United States and NATO on the potential benefits and feasibility of enhanced UK participation in NATO’s nuclear mission.”
This marks the most direct recommendation yet for the UK to explore a closer role in NATO’s tactical nuclear sharing arrangements, a policy area previously dominated by U.S. dual-capable aircraft and continental European host nations.
The SDR stresses the need to ensure coherence across the full spectrum of deterrence, from conventional forces to strategic nuclear weapons, highlighting that “the UK must facilitate greater coherence between conventional and nuclear components of NATO’s deterrence and defence posture.” It suggests that strengthening the UK’s long-range precision strike options and integrated air and missile defences will offer more flexible and credible deterrent responses, particularly in potential conflicts involving nuclear-armed adversaries.
The review further recommends enhancing NATO and UK-led training and exercises that “address potential escalation and conflict scenarios with nuclear-armed states,” underlining a greater urgency in planning for high-intensity warfare.
In parallel to these strategic-level recommendations, the SDR outlines an ambitious agenda for industrial reform to ensure the resilience and delivery of the UK’s nuclear deterrent. It calls for a whole-of-government effort to improve productivity and streamline infrastructure investment—particularly through initiatives such as the Barrow Transformation Fund and the National Nuclear Strategic Plan for Skills.
Importantly, the SDR urges the Government to “explore opportunities for legislative reform that could, in extreme circumstances, direct industry to prioritise defence nuclear requirements in the sovereign supply chain or enable compulsory acquisition of assets where necessary to protect national security.” This reflects growing concerns about delays in nuclear programme delivery and supply chain fragility.
To ensure continued ministerial oversight, the review recommends that the National Security Council (Nuclear) convene biannually to review progress on what it calls the “National Endeavour” to maintain and deliver the UK’s nuclear deterrent.
Given that the UK was already investing in new war heads prior to SDR as well as production facilities and has been doing this for some time one wonders what the announced £15 billion on new warheads and facilities will be buying.
The report goes to lengths to say the UK doesn’t not and will not comment on the number of war heads it has, with even a fraction of £15 billion the UK could renew all its existing warheads and doubles the number it has in service.
Moving up to 500 warheads seems the easiest cheapest way to offer a massive deterrent to mad Vlad and shore up any missing American support.
500 warheads is a nice number. However Russia knows we’d be able to launch 40 warheads realistically, 144 max load which I doubt we’ll ever go with. It should be enough against a sensible nation, but who knows how Russian maths works out.
After that 40-144 we would cease to exist in a meaningful way. No reloading, no getting a second boat out.
Multiple delivery methods need looked at just as much if not more than warhead count, not being able to know what’s heading their way, when or how is a big problem for their planners.
Build 400 announce 1000 across multiple delivery methods, assuming we can manage to not leak like a sieve.
Not sure where you are getting your max load (144) of warheads from. Each Trident missile is capable of carrying 8 warheads, so, UK is 128 warheads, while max US load is 192 warheads.
We are currently led to believe that each Vanguard boat sails with 8 missiles with a max of 5 warheads on each missile, but, that can be altered at short notice by the deploying boat. HMG are really unlikely to provide details of any changes to said load out are they!
Using MK4RV and W76 (Holbrook allegedly based upon). If Holbrook and Astraea are maxed out at 8 per missile then I’ll stand corrected at a max of 96 (I’m using Dreadnoughts 12 tubes as it’s SDR season and future talk).
Again, even 96 should be enough to keep any sensible nations finger off their own buttons.
The UK government can set legal maximus and/or be ambiguous, either way if Russia or somebody else can work out one is out it can plan for a max effort of 96 using our current single delivery system. We can all hope the cards fall right for us and we can get another boat out in time or the US will allow us to reload of course.
Having multiple delivery methods and larger warhead stockpiles may keep other nations sensible, that seems to be a part of current thinking with the talk of F35A and either B61/a sovereign effort.
Reloading the D5’s in the US would be pointless as you then need to back to the UK to get the bits that go bang. And I doubt Faslane would exist !
The theory is we should get some inkling of heightened risk then a 2nd boat would surge out.
Put the other 300-odd warheads in some trucks and drive them to Russian airbases. Worked once, will work again.
Under the canon in a travelling circus? 😉
Hi Jim. This is the one bit of the whole lot that makes zero sense unless it’s either a massive Typo, written by someone who fundamentally doesn’t understand the subject or a last minute Politically inspired insertion when someone realised that other £1.5 billion on New Factories and housing there’s no figures on money ! I’m truly stumped for any logical explanation and then I reread it blinked and realised that it says they commit to spending £15 Billion in this Parliament ! Which would mean zero money for anything else even with 2.5% GDP
So it just cannot be new money, so I think someone just totalled up the entire amount of money spent and being spent on the materials, delivery systems and all the massive amount already allocated to the entire DNE. It’s literally end to end spending including the maintenance and de commissioning !
Which after all would make some sense as it all has one purpose to build a warhead and brighten up someone’s Skyline. I don’t think I’d be far off !
One thing for sure you just cannot spend that amount on Warheads alone when you only have 12 D5 per boat. So 48 4 or 5 is a max of 240 warheads add on maybe 60 new ones for a Tactical weapon system and you get to 300 which is doable and it’s not far off our Cold War totals.
So it’s all summed up as Warheads !
Oh and forget 500 warheads as I’m damn sure the US will not just agree to supplying the extra Tritium needed. Simple reason is they have a Treaty with the Russians and they would see a massive U.K. increase as a reason to break the it, which the US would have to respond to !
Hi mate, I seem to recall that when Bozza was PM, he announced more spending to increase our warhead totals to over 260 (cant recall what the total was to be), so not sure where this extra wedge is going?
I seem to remember they reported warhead numbers of 160 before the Bozza decisions in 2021/22.
Hi M8, As I’ve said elsewhere I think this is a massive Blooper, the clue is HMG has committed to spending £15 billion to be spent in this Parliament on Warheads. Which is just plain nuts !
I don’t think this is extra wedge, as that would pretty well be the entire uplift to 2.5% spent in one go. I think it’s the total being spent on the entire DNE modernisation / expansion right across the board from SFM, RR, Barrow, Rosyth, Plymouth, Faslane, AWE etc etc etc all rolled into one and some muppet surmises it as the end product which is a warhead.
I agree, £15 billion seems like a crazy number. When I first saw it I thought we were going for a UK developed SLBM because you could get that plus the warheads for £15 billion.
If tritium is an issue maybe we are just going back or Orange Herald with a massive plutonium bomb disguised as a Fusion bomb. This would save some money on disposing if the plutonium stockpile. 😀
We could even launch then off the deck of the Queen Elizabeth class at a push 😂
Don’t be silly Jim. Although the U.K has the largest stockpile of Plutonium on Earth (100 tonnes +), Ed Miliband is having it all buried somewhere ! I don’t think he got the memo 🤭
Good evening,
Am i correct that the SDR mentions immediate and pressing threats? If so why are we not immediately increasing our Defence spend to 3.5-5% GDP. Everybody knows our Forces have been hollowed out over the years! We need rapid Investment now and not in 5 years.
Nick
I suspect much of this talk is to appease Trump in the hopes the next POTUS has different ideas regarding spending share within NATO (they won’t it’s been an issue since Obama its just the delivery of the message was dealt with very differently).
Money is being made available and may just be enough to stop the rot and rebuild industry with it.
Actually rebuilding the Armed Forces is a secondary or tertiary concern. There were some very low hanging fruit regarding personnel and equipment numbers* they could have used as headlines on the SDR or the two-pager yet they didn’t. That doesn’t scream rebuilding as being a primary concern.
*25% increase in planned CR3 numbers would have been a cheap and easy one even if they drove them straight into storage.
I would love to be 100% wrong, we’ll know in a few months.
I have a theory and it’s all down Politics and what’s presently happening in the Labour Cabinet. I’m not a fan but Starmer has made some painful but necessary decisions and those have cost him a lot of internal Political Capital. He has Reform on one side and the Traditional liberal minded social elite Labour members & Treasury on the other and he just hasn’t got the Kryptonite to force through what we and Healey want to do.
If on Monday he had announced we were going to raise Defence spending to 3 or 3.5% then he’d be out on his ear within a week.
Or he just plays the smart card and issues this SDR with 2.5% and an ambition to get to 3% when the situation allows, that one he can survive in power and not get hammered by his own majority. Apart from some oddities the SDR is actually a really good blueprint to put the bones on if it’s funded.
The best bit is he knows full well he doesn’t have to risk his career in a brave but futile Kamikaze mission to get what he knows is needed. Later this month the full force of Trump and will land at the NATO summit and there will be blood on the carpet for those who haven’t met the last target or getting there PDQ. We have ducked that one but when Trump demands 5% and NATO SecGen wants a revised target of 3.5% + 1.5% we have to negotiate a deal (we will not be alone) but whatever NATO agrees to we have no choice but to comply as we just cannot afford not too.
Personally I think the 3.5% + 1.5% is BS as that’s more than the US spends (3.2%), I think we may just settle to match the US at 3.2%.
And hey presto Starmer is off the hook and we set the target for end of this Parliament !
I agree. We need to have a plan to be war ready in 5 years(if we even have that long!), not just back to minimum peacetime levels that should never have been crossed.
As far as I am aware and would be glad to be corrected on this our CASD carries at present eight Trident D5 with 40 warheads. In the event that we go to war with Russia I do not imagine the submarine returning to Faslane to rearm. I think we need to deploy sixteen D5 with 80 warheads ASAP.
My answer to that one is I haven’t seen any updates on D5 numbers embarked or warhead load-out for several years now. Have you ? And if not how do you know ? Right now we’d be bonkers not to have upped the ante or tell anyone if we hadn’t.🤔
I just hope we have increased our delivery stock
The 2023 10 year equipment plan lurched back into deficit largely because of a £38b increase in the nuclear budget- boats and warheads. This reflected both the AUKUS agreement and the already agreed increase in and modernisation of warheads. The £15b mentioned in the SDR isn’t new money though it isn’t clear over what period it will be spent..
The only new idea in the review is to consider joining other NATO members in having dual key US bombs delivered, presumably, by newly acquired F35As.
Strange idea with no obvious prior discussion.
Bad idea to spend large sums on another non British aircraft type
Bad idea to limit our second nuclear deterrent to a tactical aircraft with 600 mile combat radius.
Far better to enhance the nuclear deterrent by raising the warhead ceiling again from 260 and using all missile tubes.
We already have the flexibility to dial down warhead yield to 10 kts.
If the US nuclear umbrella is felt to be less reliable, there is no logic in joining an arrangement controlled by the US.