This review differs significantly from previous strategic defence (and security) reviews, and its output will be followed closely by allied capitals. It has the potential to be a transformational blueprint for facing the ‘new era of threat’, with offensive cyber, AI, technology and autonomy at its centre.

The SDR was led by the respected former Labour Secretary of State for Defence and past NATO chief Lord Robertson, with an extended external team including Dr Fiona Hill and General Sir Richard Barrons. Commissioned soon after Labour returned to government last July, it is the UK’s first externally led defence review. It aims to make a forward-looking assessment of the UK’s strategic defence interests and outline the corresponding military requirements. This is no easy task in such a fast-changing world, which is in part why we also see the early confirmation of big-ticket commitments, including new hunter-killer submarines, a £15 billion nuclear warhead programme to equip the bomber boats, and new long-range weapons.

But modernisation is central, including the growing role the digital world will play in the global defence and security landscape. The review is the first of its type to put a significant focus on cyber capabilities.

In the details, we see focus on digital integration across the Armed Forces, recommending that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) should protect digital spend as a no-fail priority and embed a culture of constant innovation with a target of a minimum annual shift of ten per cent expenditure to next-generation capabilities on its enterprise digital platforms and services.

The MOD will prioritise and allocate ten per cent of the equipment budget to novel technologies. A new UK Defence Innovation body, with a £400m annual budget, will focus on harnessing commercial and dual-use innovation and a new Defence Exports Office will support growth in international markets, with defence seen as a key contributor to UK economic output. The review recommends that a new Digital Warfighter group should be established, with appropriate recruitment and pay freedoms, by July 2026. This new group should allow the Armed Forces to deploy digital and conventional warfighters on operations side-by-side.

But the balance here is between resource and the review’s four lenses: NATO-first; global responsibilities; homeland defence; and hybrid grey-zone activity such as cyber-attacks. Artificial intelligence and drones are transforming modern warfare, so the government has committed to set up a new cyber command with a £1 billion package of investment. There is also good news for MBDA and BAE who will be in line for the new ‘defence factories’ as the UK gets serious about munition supplies, with a £1.5 billion commitment to establish at least six munitions’ facilities.

This review comes at an important time, almost a year into the Labour government and in the same month of the Spending Review (confirmation of departmental spending envelopes for the next three-years). The Chancellor of the Exchequer confirmed that defence and security are prioritised by the government amid tightened constraint over wider public spending. But questions will remain over defence spending in the mid/long-term, with the government only retaining an ‘ambition’ to raise it to three per cent of GDP by the end of the next parliament. This uncertainly will likely be scrutinised further, not least with NATO focused on defence spending as the alliance meets in The Netherlands on 24-25 June 2025. The leaders meeting is focused on making NATO ‘a stronger, fairer and more lethal Alliance’ and come as US President Trump continues to pressure allies in Europe to spend significantly more on defence.

Friends and adversaries alike will keep a close eye on whether this latest SDR will deliver for UK defence. In the near term, all of us involved in defence and security await the publication of the government’s industrial strategy, expected soon, and the many opportunities it will bring to engage with the UK government and our allies in the weeks and months ahead.