The Telegraph
£80bn boost for military to arm it with new tanks, warships and ‘kamikaze drones’
Britain’s military is to get an £80 billion upgrade as the Government announces a modernisation drive this month to get the Armed Forces ready for the wars of the future. The Telegraph understands that is roughly what will be invested in improving military equipment over the next four years. The total over the next decade could amount to close to £200 billion. More than a hundred ageing Challenger 2 tanks will get new turrets, guns, sensors and engines, becoming more deadly in the battlefield, while new frigates are being acquired. The cap on the number of nuclear warheads Britain can stockpile will increase from around 180, The Telegraph has learned, ending a decades-long drive to cut stocks. There is also a new push under way to acquire what are called loitering munitions, sometimes dubbed “kamikaze drones”, which can hover around a target before donating. There has been alarm that hostile nations such as Russia and Iran have been using such munitions, which are a cross between cruise missiles and armed drones. One senior government source said: “Technology has proliferated, that’s what we should worry about. Everyone from terrorists to other nations have modern equipment and killer drones.” The moves form part of a major rethink of Britain’s defence, foreign policy and security outlook, with results to be revealed in two government documents over the coming fortnight. The first, the UK Integrated Review, will be published on Tuesday. It will map out what the Prime Minister’s ‘Global Britain’ vision means in practice, including a tilt to the Indo-Pacific. The second, the Defence Command Paper, will come out March 22. It will reveal a major modernisation plan for the Armed Forces, seen as long overdue by defence chiefs. The proposals will include cuts to troop numbers and the scaling back of so-called “legacy platforms”, which are parts of the military that have been prominent since the 20th century. Government figures have stressed that such changes should be seen as “retirements” rather than “cuts”, given the overall Ministry of Defence budget is increasing. “To modernise, some things have to be retired. Otherwise the musket would still be on the field,” a senior government source said. The changes will affect all branches of the Armed Forces, the Army, Royal Navy, RAF, and Strategic Command, which oversees cyber attacks. The focus on so-called kamikaze drones reflects how rapidly combat is changing in the battlefield, with nations (including adversaries) increasingly investing in them. A senior defence source said: “We’re seeing them used all over the place. How to counter the capability and how to use it are two things there is a lot of interest in.” How Government is preparing for wars of the future Boris Johnson has billed the integrated review into Britain’s foreign, defence and security policy as the most radical overhaul of the nation’s posture since the end of the Cold War. The review will be published on Tuesday, while on March 22 a Defence Command Paper will set out the Government’s plan for a generational modernisation of the Armed Forces. The Prime Minister unveiled a £16.5 billion funding uplift for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) over the next four years at the spending review last November to fund the strategy. The challenge for Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, and the service chiefs, has been to balance pouring cash into upgrading legacy platforms with investment in cutting-edge military technologies.
