There’s a line tucked deep inside the Commons Library briefing on the 2025 Strategic Defence Review that captures everything without meaning to: the UK seeks to be a “credible NATO ally” with an “always-on” defence industrial base. Not a secure, peaceful, or just nation. A credible ally. A reliable junior partner in the military wing of global capitalism.
This isn’t just semantics. It reveals what this review is really about: sustaining the projection of force and managing the optics of deterrence for the benefit of capital, not the people. Strip away the acronyms and jargon, and what remains is a £1.5bn investment in six new weapons factories, and a pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027. This is not a peace strategy. It is a business plan with missiles.
Continuity Dressed as Strategy
The government insists this review will mark a “strategic reset,” but the documents show something else: continuity. The previous Integrated Review, its so-called “refresh,” and this latest iteration are variations on the same theme. Each claims to adapt to a changing world. Each clings to NATO as a political and ideological anchor. Each dresses up the expansion of military capability as a public good.
The arms industry, unsurprisingly, is central to this story. The House of Commons briefing on UK defence spending makes it plain: investment is being ramped up not to solve problems but to make Britain a more efficient weapons manufacturer. A sovereign pipeline for long-range missiles, drones, and munitions is the goal. The workers building them won’t see the profits. But they will be told it’s patriotic.
Security for Whom?
The nuclear deterrent, costing upwards of £31 billion, with a £10 billion contingency, is another dead giveaway. It exists not to protect the public but to maintain Britain’s seat at the imperial top table. The Dreadnought-class submarines are symbols of elite delusion: they will never be used, but their presence justifies endless funding cycles and secures the lobbying power of defence contractors.
Operationally, Britain’s Armed Forces remain stretched thin across the globe. According to the Commons Library briefing on operational commitments, deployments continue in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific. The justification is always the same: regional stability, deterrence, partnership. But follow the trade routes, the oil fields, the mineral corridors, and another story emerges—one of protecting markets, not people.
Public Consultation as Performance
Over 14,000 responses were submitted to the public consultation feeding into this defence review. The briefings make almost no mention of them. This is standard. The public are consulted as a box-ticking exercise, while decisions are made in concert with defence think tanks, retired generals, and private industry. A serious democratic reckoning with what defence should mean—and for whom—is structurally impossible in this framework.
Austerity for the People, Abundance for Arms
This strategic review is happening at a time when councils are collapsing, schools are crumbling, and hospitals are closing wards. Yet the defence budget is swelling, the arms factories are hiring, and the weapons pipelines are flowing. As ever, there is no fiscal constraint when it comes to militarism. The limits only exist for housing, welfare, and public health.
If this is strategy, it is strategy for the dominant class: a plan to sustain profit, deterrence theatre, and Britain’s sub-imperial status. It is not a strategy for peace. It is not a strategy for workers. It is not a strategy for survival.
And yet it will be sold to us in the language of duty and security. The real question is not whether Britain remains a credible ally, but whether this credibility comes at the cost of everything else.
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