Britain is facing a reassessment of its national security posture as experts warn that the country is already in a de facto war with Russia and can no longer count on the United States for strategic protection.
This message comes from Dr Fiona Hill, one of the lead authors of the UK’s recent Strategic Defence Review (SDR), who argues that British defence assumptions are dangerously outdated.
Dr Hill, who formerly served as the White House’s top Russia adviser during Donald Trump’s first term, sounded the alarm, stating that the UK is stuck between “the rock” of Russian aggression and “the hard place” of an increasingly unreliable United States. She warned that Britain is in “pretty big trouble” as global power structures continue to shift.
The newly unveiled Strategic Defence Review, presented last week by Defence Secretary John Healey, paints a troubling picture. The report, co-authored by Dr Hill, former NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, and General Sir Richard Barrons, concludes that the British military is unprepared to face adversaries like Russia or China. Healey told Parliament: “We are in a new era of threat, which demands a new era for UK defence.”
The report highlights critical shortages in weapons stockpiles, insufficient medical support for large-scale conflicts, and a personnel crisis that leaves only a small number of troops ready for rapid deployment. General Sir Richard Barrons underscored the urgency by noting that a cruise missile could be “only 90 minutes away from the UK.”
UK Military Not Ready For Conflict
Dr Hill believes the Kremlin has been steadily escalating its hybrid warfare tactics against the UK, referencing a pattern of actions that includes “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber-attacks and influence operations.” She added that Russian efforts include “the sensors that we see that they’re putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables.”
The report’s warnings have prompted Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to unveil an ambitious military overhaul during a visit to the Govan shipbuilding yard in Scotland. Starmer pledged to increase the army’s size to 100,000 personnel, commission 12 new submarines, and invest heavily in drone warfare and artificial intelligence technologies to keep pace with evolving threats. He vowed to make Britain “a battle-ready, armour-clad nation.”
But doubts about the plan’s viability have already emerged. Notably, Starmer has declined to commit to spending 3% of Britain’s gross domestic product on defence by 2034. Critics warn that without this level of financial commitment, the vision of a stronger, safer Britain may prove difficult to realise.
Dr Hill’s warnings extend beyond Russian threats. She voiced concerns about the reliability of the United States under another Trump presidency. “Not in the way that we did before,” she said of the traditional UK-US defence alliance, explaining that Washington under Trump seeks to engage Russia independently, particularly in arms control and business dealings that benefit both leaders’ inner circles.
Commenting on the style of governance in a potential second Trump term, Hill was blunt: “It is not an administration, it is a court.” She argued that the former president operates based on “his own desires and interests, and who listens often to the last person he talks to.”
Hill also drew parallels between political dynamics in the US and those developing in the UK, particularly the rise of populist forces like Reform UK. She warned that if Britain’s political environment begins to mimic the “culture wars” of the US, it could lead to social and economic consequences on a similar scale.
Referring to Nigel Farage’s support for the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a cost-cutting initiative proposed in the US, Hill issued a cautionary note: “He should come over here and see what kind of impact that has.”
As tensions rise across global fault lines, the message from Britain’s defence strategists is clear: the threats are immediate, and the response must be equally urgent.
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