The Daily Populous Sunday June 1st, 2025 morning edition
Authored by united24media.com and submitted by SendStoreJader

The United Kingdom is entering a “new era of threat,” where drones, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are fundamentally reshaping the nature of warfare.

This is the central message of the UK government’s strategic defense review, set to be unveiled on June 2, according to an article by The Guardian published on May 31.

The 130-page document, authored by three advisers to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, describes Russia as an “immediate and pressing” danger. While China is not labeled an enemy, it is defined as a “sophisticated and persistent challenge” that, at times, cooperates with Moscow.

Iran and North Korea are also cited as “regional disruptors.” The UK recently imposed sanctions on Iran following its October 1 missile strike on Israel.

The review presents the most serious military and security outlook since the Cold War, but stops short of declaring that Russia’s cyber and sabotage operations amount to open war with the UK.

Led by former NATO Secretary General George Robertson, the review reportedly does not introduce new spending commitments but reaffirms the government’s pledge to raise defense spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and 3% in the next parliamentary term. It is expected to provide the rationale for a significant defense budget increase, potentially over £50 billion, set to be discussed at the NATO summit in June.

The document is also expected to address the size of the British army, which stood at just 70,860 as of April 1—the lowest since the Napoleonic era. A planned increase of 5,000 troops would require around £2.5 billion annually but would help meet expanding military commitments.

On May 29, it was reported that Russia-linked hackers, masquerading as journalists, attempted to target staff at the UK Ministry of Defense in a cyber espionage campaign that has since been detected and blocked.

project_me on May 31st, 2025 at 19:56 UTC »

I believe this is being done, not to say Russians are bad, but because it changes available responses by UK Government

It will allow us to take very different types of actions, e.g. Cyber Warfare, etc

FollowingFeisty5321 on May 31st, 2025 at 19:18 UTC »

Urgent might be understating it considering Trump and his administration have been very open about wanting to disengage from Europe.

normaal_volk on May 31st, 2025 at 19:01 UTC »

God damn it, water really is wet…