When Hitler came to power in 1933, he moved fast to rearm Germany, dismantling the Versailles treaty, withdrawing from the Geneva Disarmament Conference (GDS), supercharging rearmament, forcing the Reichsbank to provide unlimited credit, and using subterfuge to hide debt from the international community. Despite this, Germany’s rearmament was unsustainable without war and the riches of conquest.
Britain was the driving force behind the GDS, and the government’s response to its collapse was predictable — a committee was established to discuss the implications. Yet despite its bureaucratic core and an unpromising name, The Defence Requirements Sub-Committee of the Committee for Imperial Defence (DRS) of 1933 was to map a course which ultimately ensured the defeat of Germany and Japan.
In many ways, the UK’s Strategic Defence Review of 2025 can be compared to the DRS. It marks a significant pivot away from the nebulous objective of global stabilization, which underpinned previous reviews, towards a tighter focus on NATO, the North Atlantic, national resilience, and rearmament. The SDR maps a course to rebuild Britain’s capacity to hold up and sustain its NATO commitments through a long war.
So there is good news — the military staff work is underway. On December 8, First Sea Lord Gen. Gwyn Jenkins, the Royal Marine officer leading the Royal Navy, revealed a radical tech-led strategy to defend the North Atlantic from Norway to Iceland, and transform the Royal Navy to confront Russia’s Northern Fleet.
This strategy, and those to be set out by the Royal Air Force for air and missile defense, and the British Army to provide a NATO Strategic Reserve Corps, are backed up by significant wargaming and diplomatic and staff work to integrate the UK’s capability with allies.
These initiatives show serious intent to take the NATO burden from the US, by sharing production of frigates and support ships and potentially AW149 helicopters with Norway, refocusing the Royal Marines on the Arctic, building nuclear-powered submarines, frigates and hypersonic missiles with Australia and the US, producing sixth generation jets with Italy and Japan (and maybe Germany?) and artillery, missiles and drones with Poland, Germany and France. Yet if these plans are to move from paper to factory production, then substantial additional resources are needed.
And that’s the problem. It has become increasingly obvious that the resources needed for full implementation are not being made available in the right quantities or fast enough. By now, it must be obvious that rapid European rearmament is inevitable and not optional — Germany, Sweden, Finland, Poland, and the Baltic states have got the message and significantly increased defense spending. The UK has meanwhile refused to follow a similar policy despite the clear risk that delays exponentially increase the risk of war and instability, and damage to the country’s leading role in NATO.
The new US National Security Strategy, published on December 5, brings these home truths into sharp focus. The de-prioritization of Europe, the administration’s efforts to reach an accommodation with Russia over Ukraine, and reporting that America wants Europe to pick up the bulk of NATO’s conventional force structure by 2027 add a dose of urgency. The UK’s plans to raise spending “by the next parliament” or 2035 begin to seem detached from reality.
Yet the Starmer government seems wedded to a leisurely pace, hoping to befuddle Trump and NATO into delays while it attempts to get stubbornly low growth rates to increase before splashing the cash.
Despite the progress noted above, and in other areas like procurement reform and nuclear weapons, the resources needed to rebuild the armed forces are still not available, and won’t begin to flow in a meaningful way until 2027, and even then in a dribble rather than a torrent. Very clearly, this risks providing Putin with leverage in Ukraine and the wherewithal to intimidate Britain and Europe before 2035.
Acceleration of rearmament is no longer an option if Britain is to ensure its security, and that Ukraine and democratic Europe are protected. This means moving defense spending to 3.5% of GDP much sooner than planned, to 3% by 2027 and 3.5% by 2030. This will be painful but possible — Germany will reach NATO’s new 3.5% core spending target by 2029.
Such programs can also drive growth. There are less costly means than increasing borrowing, for example, the reallocation of net zero levies to offshore energy security, cutting the aid budget further, expanding incentives for volunteer reserve forces via tax breaks, and even raising a security levy on certain non-essential luxury goods. Welfare reform — and especially pensions — is, of course, an obvious route, but that can be done more gradually if other measures are implemented now.
Whatever the mechanism, the threat is rising. When the sky darkens, it’s time to invest in a winter coat. You will not survive naked in a blizzard.. Without a big hike in defense spending to buy enough hard power to deter our adversaries, Britain’s security, the NATO alliance, and liberal democracy on the continent of Europe are endangered, as they have not been for almost 100 years.
If we fail to provide the right signals and build an effective collective deterrent to buttress NATO’s defenses and ensure Britain’s resilience to aggression, then the next five years could see our democracies cowed and crushed under the heel of an invigorated Putin-led totalitarianism in Europe.
James Fennell MBE, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, is an international peace and security expert and was Director of the UK FCDO’s flagship stabilization program in Ukraine from 2022-24. Since leaving the Royal Navy, he has spent 30 years as a senior executive and government adviser on conflict and security policy in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East for FCDO and international organizations. In 2012, he was awarded an honorary research fellowship by the University of Birmingham in peace and security.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
War Without End
Russia’s Shadow Warfare
CEPA Forum 2025
Explore CEPA’s flagship event.
