Britain doubles down on defense with new nuclear submarines

The U.K. will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines and create an army ready to fight a war in Europe as part of a boost to military spending.

The United Kingdom will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines and create an army ready to fight a war in Europe as part of a boost to military spending designed to send a message to Moscow — and Washington.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Britain “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses” as he pledged to undertake the most sweeping changes to Britain’s defenses since the end of the Cold War more than three decades ago.

“We have to recognize the world has changed,” Starmer told the BBC. “With greater instability than there has been for many, many years, and greater threats.”

The government is to respond to a strategic defense review commissioned by Starmer and led by George Robertson, a former U.K. defense secretary and NATO secretary general. It’s the first such review since 2021, and lands in a world shaken and transformed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and by the re-election of President Donald Trump last year.

Months after Britain’s last major defense review was published in 2021, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said with confidence that the era of “fighting big tank battles on European landmass” are over. Three months later, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.