Keir Starmer has now been shamed into increasing the defence budget to 2.5 percent by 2027, a welcome move but one that will barely touch the sides of the problem. With the Strategic Defence Review being released in a few months (maybe), hard choices will still have to be made on which capabilities to fund. They can’t all be supported, and reconstituting a depleted army and boosting munitions stockpiles will probably be the priority. But there’s another area that has been badly neglected for decades: air and missile defences at home.
Being the first nation to be subjected to bombardment by ballistic and cruise missiles some 80 years ago, one might believe that Britain would be prepared for a similar attack in the current day. Sadly, the missile defence picture has changed little. As reported ad nauseum over the past weeks, the ‘peace dividend’, declared some 30 years ago, led to chronic underinvestment in defence and the hollowing-out of British forces across the board. But our air defences are particularly weak at a time when the threat is arguably more dangerous than ever. If the country were to be hit by a combined cruise and ballistic missile barrage such as those witnessed in Ukraine and Israel, the armed forces would be hard-pressed to respond effectively – or even at all.
On 21 November, 2024, the Ukrainian town of Dnipro was struck by a Russian hypersonic, multi-warhead ballistic missile. As a display of naked military power, it was a chilling scene to behold. The experimental ‘Oreshnik’ missile struck like a bolt from the blue. Caught on camera at the moment of impact, the incoming streaks of fire were lightning-quick, looking like the wrath of an angry sky god as they struck their targets.
Currently, the British army possesses just six batteries of the Sky Sabre air-defence missile, a fairly new and capable weapon system but limited in both range and detection of targets such as aircraft, drones, and supersonic cruise missiles. At sea, the Royal Navy uses a variant – Sea Viper – on its Type 45 destroyers. It has already shot down Houthi drones in the Red Sea but until the Navy receives a longer-range upgraded missile, its effectiveness against ballistic threats is limited. And last year, only three of the six Type 45 vessels were deployable. The Type 23 frigates are equipped with the Sea Ceptor missile, but this is limited to defending against aircraft, drones, cruise missiles, and surface vessels. In 2024, less than half of the eleven Type 23 frigates were deployable.
It is a thin line indeed. The RAF can scramble Eurofighter Typhoons to engage aircraft, drones, and slow-flying cruise missiles but not ballistic missiles. As for early warning, we don’t yet have airborne radar surveillance, the key to providing the ‘big picture’ for cuing an integrated air defence network. The RAF’s previous airborne early warning aircraft, the E-3 Sentry, was retired in 2021 without a replacement ready to fill the gap. That replacement, the E-7 Wedgetail, has yet to enter service and the risk of it not being delivered at all – as judged by the relevant government agency – was raised from amber status to red. Only three aircraft are on order after the original contract for five was cut to save money.
The problem is that current UK anti-missile and drone capabilities are primarily expeditionary in nature: they are meant to protect defined assets in a particular locale, not you and me sitting at home. Sky Sabre batteries have already been deployed to Poland and the Falklands. A Type 45 destroyer has patrolled the Red Sea. But homeland defence has dropped off the radar.
Britain’s Trident nuclear missile force is a last-stand deterrent against a massive nuclear attack, but what can the country do to defend against an assault on infrastructure that falls short of Armageddon? Cruise missiles and medium-range ballistic missiles fired against power stations, airports, ports, communications, storage facilities and so on could quickly cripple the country. We’ve seen the never-ending barrage of Russian drones and missiles against Ukraine’s towns and cities. Earlier this month, the Chernobyl nuclear plant was hit by an Iranian-made drone. In the event of a serious conflict, Russian submarines or even terrorist vessels disguised as freighters, launching missiles from the Channel or Irish Sea, would be difficult to detect and intercept.
But there has been some evidence of a glimmer of hope. In a written response on 17 February to a question posed by Baroness Goldie in the House of Lords concerning air defence capabilities, the Minister of State for Defence, Lord Coaker, outlined key projects that were progressing: three more Sky Sabre units to be acquired, development of the Sea Viper Evolution missile to improve longer-range ballistic missile engagement with service entry in 2028, and at least one Wedgetail early warning aircraft to enter service later this year.
Germany, for one, isn’t waiting on its missile defence. It is in the process of deploying Israel’s Arrow 3 system – a fully-fledged anti-ballistic missile system. The first battery will be positioned south of Berlin and operational within two years, with two additional batteries to be deployed by 2030. Already in operation are two US/Nato sites in Poland and Romania fielding the American-made Aegis SM3 anti-ballistic missile system to protect against incoming long-range ‘rogue’ missile threats. Maybe it’s time the UK raised its game too.
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