The Unready

The London Defence Conference forces hard questions about conflict, alliances and capability. Britain is not ready.

In March 2026, Ukrainian military advisors began training Germany’s Bundeswehr.¹ An army still at war, still burying its dead, still struggling to hold ground against a predatory enemy while reinventing drone designs on weekly development cycles, turns out to be, perhaps surprisingly, best placed to train Western Europe’s largest military. No one is pretending this is normal but the truth is clear: combat is changing fast, and the doctrine needed to defeat enemies today can’t be learned in the classroom or through exercises. European procurement cycles which have been unreformable will lead to inevitable defeat. These lessons have to be learned from people doing the fighting. Germany at least is honest enough to recognise publicly something that others are hiding: we’re not ready and we won’t be if we don’t listen to the voices of those who know.

Berlin’s wake up is also financial. In the past year Chancellor Friedrich Merz has committed to an extra €100 billion spend on defence and spending more than NATO’s 2 percent target. While he’s finally catching up, others are steaming ahead. Poland confirmed defence spending of 4.5 percent of GDP.² Lithuania reached 4 percent. Latvia hit 3.7. Estonia announced it would push towards 5 percent. Even President Macron made the case for increased military expenditure while standing in front of the nuclear submarine Le Téméraire at the Île Longue naval base near Brest and delivered what many observers are calling the most consequential European security speech since the Cold War. France’s leader promised to restructure French nuclear doctrine for the first time in decades: forward-basing nuclear-capable aircraft on allied territory, increasing warhead numbers for the first time since 1992, and establishing bilateral nuclear cooperation frameworks with eight European partners including Britain.³

All this is happening against a backdrop of uncertainty. President Donald Trump’s questioning of NATO, his recent criticism of support from allies for the war in Iran, all while Russian aggression has not abated, have left the pillars of our security more exposed than for decades. That’s leading some to take decisions unthinkable only a few years ago. Finland, Denmark and even France⁴ have begun pulling back from dependence on American technology platforms.⁵ Across Northern and Eastern Europe, governments that five years ago would have thought preppers a strange American subculture, have now begun planning evacuations and preparations as a matter of routine civil defence.⁶

And what about Britain? Here, in the same period, our government published a Defence Industrial Strategy and a shift to a ten-year procurement plan, sensible principles.⁷ But without a single commitment to buy a specific capability in a named quantity on a certain date, so what? They’re just words. The document that promises the answers, the Defence Investment Plan, has not been published. It was expected late last year, then early this one but nothing has been produced. Without it, the Strategic Defence Review is a diagnosis without a prescription, the ten-year plan is a calendar without entries and the Defence Industrial Strategy is a shopfront without stock. Britain is not rearming; we’re not even planning to rearm. Britain today is planning to plan to rearm.

Today’s London Defence Conference could not be more timely. Under the theme of Readiness,⁸ speakers have presented analysis of where we are and what we need but none of this matters unless we meet the other side of the obligation. Readiness isn’t a soundbite, it’s a strategy demonstrated by the commitment of assets giving the ability to act: to fight, to sustain, to resupply, to endure. And right now, Britain does not have it. What Britain has, in abundance, is process, bureaucracy and inertia, all delayed by decisions untaken and promises unshifted tied around welfare pledges that have seen our debt and dependency rise, to pushing taxes to levels unseen in peacetime. The temptation at conferences like this is to litigate the past, to rehearse how we got here, there are many historians who could answer that, but the world outside the conference hall is not waiting for a retrospective. It is on fire.

On 28 February 2026, the United States and Israel launched airstrikes across Iran without consulting NATO allies or seeking coalition support. Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and a fifth of its liquefied natural gas stopped moving overnight. The International Energy Agency called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.⁹ Brent crude passed $120 a barrel at its peak. QatarEnergy declared force majeure on all LNG exports as their plant was hit while European gas storage, already depleted after a harsh winter, remains around 30 percent capacity. Dutch gas benchmarks nearly doubled. The European Central Bank postponed its planned rate cuts, raised its inflation forecast and cut growth projections. All before the last tanker that left the Strait before the war began reaches Europe around now. The damage extends well beyond energy and even if the ceasefire holds, which looks increasingly uncertain, over 30 percent of global urea, the fertiliser on which this spring’s Northern Hemisphere planting depends, is at risk. Urea prices have risen 50 percent since the war began and the impact on global crop production will be felt in smaller harvests and higher animal feed costs.¹⁰ The chain reaction that is now arriving in European fields, forecourts and household bills will only grow.

In Britain, petrol has breached 160 pence a litre for the first time in nearly two years. Diesel has risen 35 pence since late February. Shell’s chief executive has warned that the UK will begin to feel the full impact this month, as the last tankers loaded at Gulf ports before the war arrive at European terminals and existing reserves begin to deplete.¹¹ Ryanair’s chief executive has said that the UK is the most vulnerable major European economy to the jet fuel squeeze, predicting summer flight cancellations of five to ten per cent if the Strait stays closed.¹² Analysts at Panmure Liberum have warned that diesel shortages could begin hitting the UK by the end of April.¹³ The EU’s energy commissioner has admitted that fuel rationing across the continent is being considered as an option to manage demand.¹⁴

A ceasefire, brokered by Pakistan, was announced on 7 April. On 8 April, four ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz. Only four and only carrying dry cargo, none with oil or gas. That same day, Israel launched what it called Operation Eternal Darkness, its largest strikes on Lebanon since the war began, killing over 250 people. A drone struck the Saudi east-west pipeline, the main alternative route for Gulf oil exports. Iran announced it was suspending tanker transit in response to what it called violations. The President of the United States posted that if the terms of the deal were not met, “the ‘Shootin’ Starts, bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before.”¹⁵ Perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody agrees on what was agreed. Iran says Lebanon is part of the ceasefire. Israel says it is not. The United States agrees with Israel. Pakistan, which brokered the deal, agrees with Iran. Talks began in Islamabad but the beginning is hardly auspicious. This doesn’t feel like peace, more like an interval between acts.

And still Britain’s Defence Investment Plan has not been published.

The gap between British process and action is now wide enough to be visible from Artemis II. It is not that the government has done nothing; it’s that it’s all process, not production. The Strategic Defence Review was thorough and, in its analysis of the threat, largely correct. The creation of the National Armaments Director, consolidating eight procurement budgets into one, is an important structural reform. The shift to ten-year planning, if it proves real, would be a welcome break from the destructive annual shifts that have crippled defence procurement for decades, distorting investment towards whatever can be squeezed into this year’s allocation rather than what the country actually needs. These are not trivial steps. But they are, for now, just words. The test of reform is not the quality of the document. It is output: platforms delivered, munitions stockpiled, units trained, industries mobilised. By that measure, Britain is falling behind allies who started further back and had far more to overcome.

Germany’s finance minister has confirmed defence spending will reach 3.5 percent of GDP by 2029.¹⁶ Britain’s planned path to 2.6 percent by April 2027, with an ambition to reach 3 percent in the next Parliament, beyond the life of this Prime Minister’s tenable promises, is welcome but modest when set against a Hague summit target of 5 percent of GDP by 2035.¹⁷ The £800 billion funding gap to 2040, identified by EY analysis for the Financial Times, remains unfunded.¹⁸ The Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed that equipment budgets are largely pre-committed, leaving minimal room for the new capabilities that the Strategic Defence Review demands.¹⁹ The nuclear enterprise continues to consume the lion’s share of capital spending and if the demands of today’s programmes aren’t addressed, conventional forces which have seen almost no real-terms increase (once inflation and nuclear pressures are stripped out) will see defence cuts in ships, planes and troops. The IMF has even placed defence spending and conflict economics at the centre of its April World Economic Outlook, the first time the Fund has treated rearmament as a central macroeconomic question rather than a specialist sidebar.²⁰ When the IMF tells finance ministries that defence is now a core fiscal question, the old argument that rearmament can wait for better times has lost its last institutional shelter.

The munitions crisis described in The Reset in February has, if anything, got worse. RUSI analysis shows that Israel’s Arrow-3 interceptor stocks approached depletion within weeks of high-intensity operations. US THAAD reserves face similar pressure.²¹ These are not uniquely Israeli or American problems. They are structural, alliance-wide weaknesses that high-intensity conflict exposes with terrifying speed. The eight days of British ammunition stocks described earlier in this series have not improved and the threat has grown faster than the stockpile. Long-term production contracts with guaranteed volumes are the only serious route to rebuilding reserves at the scale required, and that demands political commitment beyond the electoral cycle, together with Treasury rules that treat ammunition as a strategic asset rather than a discretionary line item.

That’s where lessons from Ukraine’s drone ecosystem are so important. They continue to demonstrate what necessity can achieve. Development cycles measured in weeks, even days in some cases, as over 200 companies, focused solely on drone production, compete to build up to five million units in 2025. In this system a First Person View drone costs around $500, subsidised in part by volunteer labour that cannot be replicated.²² The Iran war is providing a second proof of concept. Iran’s use of cheap drones against expensive American platforms (at least sixteen MQ-9 Reapers lost) confirms that mass, speed and disposability now routinely defeat high-end platforms fielded in small numbers. McKinsey’s European Defence Dashboard confirms that equipment stocks across European NATO remain below their 2021 levels despite surging budgets, with platform fragmentation up 10 percent since 2014.²³ We are building the exquisite while the everyday dominates the battlefield. The MOD’s new segmented procurement approach promises that commercial buys can move from initiation to contract in as little as three months but the test will be whether it survives contact with the bureaucracy that has defeated every procurement reform of the last quarter-century.

Two wars have now exposed both European strength and dependence. Germany’s Ramstein Airforce Base has been instrumental to the US campaign in Iran.²⁴ But European leaders who have chosen to distance themselves politically from the war have provoked the current US response to NATO that has concerned so many. Some have allowed US access to their bases, even while refusing to participate and criticising the US publicly. Is that prudence? Is it just domestic politics? What it actually represents, for the moment, is power: the power to condition the terms on which the transatlantic alliance operates but also a recognition that that power is inherently temporary. It exists while the war is ongoing and the US remains committed. If Europe does not convert this moment into a durable rebalancing of its relationship with America, one that preserves the alliance while ending the assumption of unconditional dependence, the opportunity will evaporate the moment the last American sortie lands. Macron’s nuclear initiative, Merz’s rearmament, and all the Eastern European defence budget increases, are part of the answer, but Carnegie Europe’s assessment is right that the new nuclear doctrine remains vulnerable to the 2027 French presidential election. It also excludes the Baltic states and Finland, and nuclear reassurance cannot compensate for conventional weakness.²⁵ A nuclear deterrent without the conventional forces to back it up is a bluff; and bluffs get called.

What, then, does readiness actually require? Not another review or strategy. We need three things, all concrete, all urgent:

First, publish the Defence Investment Plan. The armed forces, the defence industry and Britain’s allies all need to know what this country intends to buy, in what quantities, on what timescale, and with what money, and the debt markets need to know what we’re going to cut to pay for it. Every month it remains unpublished is a month in which industry cannot invest with confidence, allies can’t plan for interoperability, and the gap between the Strategic Defence Review’s ambitions and Britain’s actual capability continues to widen.

Second, fund the munitions gap. Eight days is not a rounding error, it is a catastrophic vulnerability that would, in any serious conflict, determine the outcome before the first shot was fired.

Third, compress procurement to a wartime pace. That’s what explains why the whole army has fewer artillery pieces today than a single brigade did a few years ago. The mismatch between the threat and the tempo of the response is now an emergency and we must recognise that.

The London Defence Conference has heard thoughtful speeches about the gravity of the moment with informed panels on deterrence, industrial capacity, and the lessons of Ukraine. But the people in the room who matter will be those who convert words into action. Germany, Poland, the Baltic states and others are spending and planning and training. Ukraine is innovating under fire and even France is extending its military mandate. Britain, for now, is talking about producing plans about plans. Meanwhile, Russia is threatening our seas and our allies. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed and the ceasefire is fragile. The structural weaknesses these wars have exposed, in energy dependence, in munitions depth, in the yawning gap between spending commitments and actual military capability, will outlast this crisis and be waiting for the next one. The question our government must answer now is not what we think, but what we are going to do, and when.

1. Defense News, “Ukrainian advisors to teach German army how to win a modern war by 2029,” 12 March 2026. https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2026/03/12/ukrainian-advisors-to-teach-german-army-how-to-win-a-modern-war-by-2029/

2. PBS News, “All NATO members projected to hit old spending target, with just three set to meet new goal,” March 2026. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/all-nato-members-projected-to-hit-old-spending-target-with-just-three-set-to-meet-new-goal

3. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists / Ifri, “France has a new nuclear doctrine of ‘forward deterrence’ for Europe. What does it mean?” 5 March 2026. https://thebulletin.org/2026/03/france-has-a-new-nuclear-doctrine-of-forward-deterrence-for-europe-what-does-it-mean/

4. French Government, “Souveraineté numérique : l’État accélère la réduction de ses dépendances extra-européennes,” April 2026. https://www.numerique.gouv.fr/sinformer/espace-presse/souverainete-numerique-reduction-dependances-extra-europeennes/

5. Bloomberg, “Finland, Denmark start to pull plug on US tech giants,” 27 March 2026. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-03-27/finland-denmark-start-to-pull-plug-on-us-tech-giants

6. CEPA, “Mass evacuations across Europe: work is underway,” March 2026. https://cepa.org/article/mass-evacuations-across-europe-work-is-underway/

7. UK Defence Journal, “Defence shifts to 10-year plan and new procurement model,” March 2026. https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/defence-shifts-to-10-year-plan-and-new-procurement-model/

8. London Defence Conference, “LDC 2026: Readiness,” April 2026. https://londondefenceconference.com/

9. International Energy Agency, “Sheltering From Oil Shocks,” March 2026. https://www.iea.org/reports/sheltering-from-oil-shocks

10. Associated Press, “The war in Iran sparks a global fertilizer shortage and threatens food prices,” March 2026. https://apnews.com/article/iran-war-fertilizer-exports-farming-3b7c92d58dba0817c3aa8f1db47464b7

11. European Business Magazine, “Shell Warns Britain Faces Crisis as Last Tankers Arrive,” April 2026. https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/britains-last-pre-war-fuel-tankers-arrive-next-week-then-the-real-problem-begins/

12. Time, “The Strait of Hormuz Crisis Is Driving a Wave of Global Energy Rationing,” 5 April 2026. https://time.com/article/2026/04/05/strait-of-hormuz-fuel-rationing-oil/

13. ^. European Business Magazine, ibid.

14. OilPrice.com, citing Financial Times interview with EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen, 5 April 2026. https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Global-Fuel-Shortage-Pushes-Governments-Toward-Demand-Controls.html

15. CBS News, “Iran accuses U.S. of violating ceasefire as Israeli attacks on Lebanon continue,” 9 April 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/iran-trump-ceasefire-strait-hormuz-israel-war-hezbollah-continues/

16. FlightGlobal, “NATO spending tops $1.4 trillion,” March 2026. https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/2026/03/nato-spending-tops-1-4-trillion-with-non-us-contributions-soaring-by-20/

17. NATO, The Hague Summit Declaration, June 2025. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_236705.htm

18. Financial Times, “UK needs £800bn of new funding by 2040 to meet defence pledge,” December 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/77380765-7212-45fd-b4ef-4ea7cb4baee2

19. Institute for Fiscal Studies, UK Defence Spending, IFS Green Budget 2025. https://ifs.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-09/UK_Defence_Spending_IFS_Green-Budget_2025_Chapter_0.pdf

20. Defence Matters, “IMF puts defence spending and conflict economics at centre of April outlook release,” 8 April 2026. https://defencematters.eu/imf-puts-defence-spending-and-conflict-economics-at-centre-of-april-outlook-release/

21. Defence Security Asia, “Interceptor Crisis: RUSI warns years needed to rebuild,” March 2026. https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/israel-arrow3-thaad-shortage-iran-war-rusi-interceptor-crisis-2026/

22. Matlack, Schwartz and Gill, Ukraine’s Drone Ecosystem and the Defence of Europe: Lessons Lost Can’t Be Learned, LSE IDEAS, April 2025. https://www.lse.ac.uk/ideas/Assets/Documents/2025-04-05-DRONES-MatlackSchwartzGill-FINAL-WEB-03.pdf

23. McKinsey, “NATO defense spending: Tracking the numbers,” February 2026. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/aerospace-and-defense/our-insights/european-defense-by-the-numbers

24. Christian Science Monitor, “Despite White House rhetoric, Iran campaign reveals US dependency on Europe,” 6 April 2026. https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2026/0406/iran-europe-nato-trump-allies

25. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Taking the Pulse: Is France’s New Nuclear Doctrine Ambitious Enough?” March 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2026/03/taking-the-pulse-is-frances-new-nuclear-doctrine-ambitious-enough