Defence: behind the curve

By Richard North - December 18, 2025

No sooner has the legacy media raised a hue and cry over the looming state of war with Russia then it has dropped the subject like a hot cake, leaving the social media to grumble over the entrails.

But, if there is to be any substance to the talk of needing to re-arm to meet the coming challenges, then the conventional wisdom has it that the Starmer Regime will have to find the money, whence the prime minister will have to agree personally with the defence chiefs on spending priorities on the different programmes.

That was supposed to have happened by the end of this year at the latest, in the form of the formal Defence Investment Plan (DIP) which effectively implements the Strategic Defence Review published earlier this year.

This plan has to be laid before parliament but, since yesterday was the last full day in the Commons before the Christmas recess and MPs won’t be returning before the New Year, the deadline set by defence secretary John Healey will have expired without the promise having been met.

The silence on the part of the government, therefore, was something of an event (or non-event, if you prefer), yet the strange absence of the DIP has passed almost without comment from the legacy media, with only the Financial Times bothering to publish a report.

According to this paper, though, there is something of a crisis emerging as we learn that Starmer has asked his military chiefs to rework aspects of the plan at the eleventh hour and it is now unlikely that the final plan will see the light of day until well into January (if not later).

All we are told of the process to date is that the chiefs briefed Starmer a few days ago – nothing more precise – when the prime minister raised concerns about “affordability”. Evidently, he was unsatisfied with the answers and, at that point asked for aspects of the plan to be reviewed, the FT remarking that there were “tensions” between No 10 and the MoD.

The writing was on the wall as late as Monday when Lib-Dem MP Ian Roome asked Healey directly during defence questions when the plan would be announced, only to be told: “We are working flat out between now and the end of the year” to finalise the plan. Tory MPs got no more.

John Glen, Conservative MP for Salisbury, tackled the hapless procurement minister, Luke Pollard, claiming to have seen reports that service chiefs were drafting letters to the defence secretary warning of their concerns about whether enough money was going into defence.

When he asked whether the plan would give clarity on when the government would reach the critical 3 percent of GDP threshold, he was told he would “have to wait a wee bit longer” as the work continued to deliver that plan.

It is in fact an open secret that the defence chiefs have been angling for more money, and there have been rumours of a confrontation with the prime minister. Some believe that the bellicose warnings from the CDS and head of MI6 were addressed more to Starmer than they were the general public, in a bid to loosen the Treasury purse strings.

MoD officials, however, have said that the Monday meeting with Starmer was a progress briefing rather than a full presentation designed to get final approval from the prime minister.

There was thus no confrontation, with the FT telling us of a government spokesperson saying it was “categorically untrue” that Starmer had declined to sign off on the plan. All we got was that the parties involved were “working intensively” to finalise the work on the plan.

Searching for further clues as to what is happening, the paper referred to Rupert Pearce, the government’s new national armaments director, appointed in October to try and reform procurement of multibillion-pound projects for the MoD.

At an appearance before the Commons defence select committee on Tuesday, Pearce was asked whether he would “concede the MoD had failed to deliver the defence investment plan”.

Labour chair, Tan Dhesi, asserted that the government did not seem able to agree on the money involved. This, he felt, was the reason why the DIP was not being delivered on time — it means things are moving very slowly rather than moving at pace given the threats from adversaries,”

Pearce, however, insisted that the plan was in its “final stages” and that it was still close to being delivered. “We’re talking about days now, not weeks or months”, he said.

And yet, there is an acknowledgement in Whitehall that it is difficult to finalise the DIP while there are outstanding issues with some of the UK’s procurement projects, including the £6.3bn Ajax programme, which is subject to three separate reviews, upon which the decision will be made as to whether to scrap the project.

While the bun-fight seems to be over the money, though, less attention is being given to the practicalities of planning a defence strategy in a period of intense volatility where fundamental changes to the technology and art of warfare are being reported almost daily.

Although the DIP is set to implement the Strategic Defence Review that document was published in early June, making it six months old – and the thinking which went into it is much older.

Yet, we learn from Ukraine the remarks from the deputy commander of one the country’s elite, special forces reconnaissance battalions that the war is evolving roughly every six months. At the moment, he says, it is entering a new era – the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence.

Half a year ago, the dominant trend involved FPV drones, heavy bombers, “vampires,” and the broad use of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs), combat modules, and kamikaze systems. In parallel, electronic warfare and signals intelligence capabilities had been expanding rapidly.

It now appears that the next stage will be AI systems capable of carrying out combat tasks autonomously: you upload the programme, and then — much like in Terminator – the system performs the mission: perimeter defence: 360-degree surveillance; robots fighting robots.

While the infantry are still essential, there will be fewer of them on the battlefield, and they will operate from protected positions, tunnels, and bunkers. Traditional trenches are becoming obsolete. The battlefield will feature extensive “grey zones” and designated “kill zones”. Notably, the 3rd Assault Brigade began using the concept of a “kill zone” about a year and a half to two years ago. Innovation is constant.

This ties in with an assessment by General Hennadiy Shapovalov, commander of the ground forces of Ukraine.

He says that modern warfare is defined by constant adaptation. The most difficult challenge has been the need for continuous adjustment to changes in both enemy and friendly tactics, as success now depends on the ability to evolve faster than the opponent.

While experience gained since 2014 remained relevant in the early stages of the full-scale invasion in 2022, today’s combat operations, command-and-control methods, and the employment of forces and assets have undergone a profound transformation.

The modern battlefield, he says, imposes continuously changing requirements, to which forces must adapt without interruption. One of the most significant shifts has been the move away from large, cohesive formations operating at the platoon, company, battalion, or brigade level.

Instead, small-unit tactics now dominate, with 2 and 3 person teams operating at high speed and using light motorized vehicles such as quad bikes, motorcycles – including electric models – and scooters.

The use of armoured vehicles has become far more constrained due to the widespread employment of unmanned systems. Drones have made it increasingly difficult to protect armoured platforms, both for Ukrainian forces and for the adversary.

As a result, approaches to conducting combat operations have changed substantially and continue to evolve. In several sectors of the front, the introduction of new approaches and technologies has made it possible to alter the operational situation and regain the initiative.

This is largely due to the extensive and integrated use of various unmanned systems, including fiber-optic drones, which are particularly difficult to counter. The rapid development of EW and electronic intelligence capabilities has further enhanced their effectiveness.

The combined use of these technologies has repeatedly forced the adversary to lose momentum and adjust plans and objectives during ongoing operations. In turn, this has enabled more effective mission execution, improved the ability to hold or enhance positions, reduced losses, and increased the overall effectiveness of strikes against enemy forces.

But the British Army is still talking of “three manoeuvre brigades with armoured and mechanised capabilities, support brigade, and associated enablers”, centred on its “recce-strike” concept, based on the Ajax – a concept which is 20 years old.

In terms of drones, current plans have developed from buying up to 5,400 drones in 2024, moving up to 8,000 in 2026. None of these use the latest technology in fibre-optic controls.

While the minister proudly proclaims that “we are working exceptionally hard to ensure we speed up our procurement”, it should be recalled that Ukraine aims to produce 4.5 million drones by the end of this year, with a budget of $3.5 billion.

In other words, UK defence capabilities are way behind the curve. In the circumstances, though, it is hard to see how that can be otherwise, with procurement cycles which extend to over 10 years and a planning cycle which relies on the cumbersome process of sporadic strategic defence reviews, published over extended periods of many years.

Rather than obsessing over the money for treasured projects, therefore, we should be rethinking from scratch how we do defence, living in a world where adaptation cycles can be as short as six months. The DIP is the last of our worries.