The United Kingdom on Monday announced plans to spend nearly $270 billion on military modernization and procurement over the next five years, including expansion of its navy and air force with new ships and aircraft creation of new infantry units and a doubling of investment in its special forces.
Within the 98-page National Security Strategy and Strategic Security Review (SDSR) released Monday is the purchase of new maritime surveillance aircraft, speeding up participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and plans to build at least four nuclear submarines by 2025.
Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled the document–analogous to the U.S. Five Year Defense Plan–and announced its contents to Parliament on Monday. Highlights include an overall investment in military equipment and support of $269 billion–an increase of about $18 billion over previous outlooks, over the next decade, which brings the nation to the NATO-member goal of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
“At its [the strategy] heart is an understanding that we cannot choose between conventional defenses against state-based threats and the need to counter threats that do not recognize national borders,” said Cameron in his forward to the SDSR. “Today we face both and we must respond to both.”
Priorities laid out in the five-year plan include deterrence of threats from state and non-state actors, global terrorism and cyber threats, as well as an expeditionary capability to rapidly respond to crises.
The Royal Navy will receive nine new Boeing [BA] P-8 Poseidon submarine hunting aircraft that “will increase further the protection of our nuclear deterrent and our new aircraft carriers,” the strategy document released Monday by the U.K. Ministry of Defense, said.
U.K. requirements for a maritime patrol aircraft called for the ability to carry torpedoes and an array of sensors including radar and sub-sensing buoys. Aside from hunting submarines, the P-8s will serve as maritime search-and-rescue aircraft over land and sea, the SDSR said.
The United Kingdom will join India and Australia as export customers for the P-8, developed from the Boeing 737 commercial airliner.
While the United Kingdom reaffirmed its commitment to purchase 138 F-35 Lightning Aircraft, it also announced the creation of an additional squadron for the jet. It plans to increase its buy of F-35B short-takeoff and vertical landing variants in the 2020s to move up the operational deployment of two of its Queen Elisabeth aircraft carriers.
“The commitment to the 138 goal is a sentiment positive, but the stepped-up buy of F-35Bs doesn’t appear to us to be large enough to materially influence F-35 total production rate late this decade or early next,” according to a report released Monday by defense industry analysts Capital Alpha Partners.
Until the F-35B comes online, the United Kingdom has plans to upgrade its fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon fourth-generation fighters, including the introduction of an active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. The Royal Air Force also will increase its Typhoon squadrons from five to seven with 12 jets per squadron.
“We will be extending the life of our multirole Typhoon for 10 extra years through to 2040,” the SDSR said. “We will also invest in their ground-attack capability.”
The SDSR also makes vague reference to introduction of a new surveillance unmanned aerial system (UAS), though no specific platform is mentioned.
Citing a wide variety of potential threats in multiple regions of the globe, the SDSR calls for an increase in the U.K.’s strike brigades by two and mentions their use of the Ajax family of vehicles, which come in at least 6 variants. The SDSR also mentions “new mechanized infantry vehicles,” which Capital Alpha says is likely a reference to an 8-wheeled fighting vehicle the army is considering. Vehicles that could meet that requirement include the General Dynamics [GD] Stryker, Nexter’s VBCI, and Rheinmetall’s Boxer, Capital Alpha said. The contract could include 300 vehicles for each of the two new brigades.
A major $47 billion program to replace the Royal navy’s Vanguard-class nuclear-armed submarines will be a “national endeavor, and is one of the largest government investment programs,” the SDSR said. The 20-year procurement program should deliver an operational sub in the early 2030s. The SDSR includes a $15 billion fund to cover cost growth over the life of the program.
BAE Systems, Babcock International and Rolls-Royce hold contracts for the first new submarine, according to Capital Alpha. “Ballistic missile submarine replacement may contribute to a bow wave issue in U.K. procurement as well as in the U.S.,” Capital Alpha said.
Nearly 2.9 billion will be spent over the next five years on protecting the United Kingdom from cyber attacks and investing in the nation’s ability to operate in the digital realm. Plans are to publish its second five-year national cyber strategy in 2016.