Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has urged Britain and the US to accelerate weapons production and military innovation as emerging technologies reshape modern warfare….reports Asian Lite News Desk
Britain and the United States must accelerate defence innovation, increase weapons production and strengthen military cooperation to respond to growing security threats, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting has said.
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC on 15 October, Streeting argued that modern warfare required countries to develop and manufacture military technology faster, while improving their ability to sustain production during prolonged conflicts.
He said Russia’s war in Ukraine and advances in drones, artificial intelligence, cyber capabilities and electronic warfare had transformed the battlefield, making speed and adaptability increasingly important.
“The gravest dangers of the 20th century are returning, armed with the technologies of the 21st,” Streeting said.
He described Ukraine as a frontline in the defence of freedom and argued that supporting the country was in the national interests of both Britain and the United States.
Streeting said the conflict had demonstrated how relatively inexpensive weapons could destroy much more costly military equipment. He cited a $650 drone capable of destroying a $4 million tank and uncrewed boats costing $250,000 sinking warships worth $65 million.
He said military strength was no longer measured simply by the size or cost of equipment, but by the ability to innovate, manufacture at scale and deploy effective technology quickly.
Streeting said the UK was seeking to overhaul its defence procurement processes to reduce the time required to develop and acquire military equipment.
The government has set a target of reducing the time from concept to contract for new platforms from six years to two years. The target for adapting existing platforms is three years to one, while other requirements should be completed in less than three months.
He cited the development of the RAVEN ground-launched missile system as an example of a faster approach. According to Streeting, the system was designed, developed and delivered in four months after industry received a brief operational requirement to address Ukraine’s urgent air defence needs. The first eight systems cost less than $25 million.
He also highlighted the work of smaller businesses that developed one-way attack drone designs from paper to flight in three months, with systems reaching the Ukrainian frontline within a year.
Streeting said the UK was learning directly from Ukraine’s battlefield experience, including through Avengers Lab, a military artificial intelligence platform that processes frontline combat data to improve situational awareness and target identification.
He said British universities, researchers and technology companies were using the data to develop new military AI capabilities.
Streeting called for closer defence industry cooperation between Britain and America, arguing that both countries needed to increase production as well as develop new technology.
He said the UK’s active foreign military sales portfolio with the US exceeded $11 billion. British companies also produce around 15 per cent of each F-35 fighter jet through more than 100 UK Tier-1 suppliers, supporting more than 20,000 jobs, according to the speech.
He pointed to the AUKUS security partnership, through which US investment in its submarine industrial base is matched by British investment in the Defence Nuclear Enterprise.
Streeting argued that national industrial priorities should not prevent allies from working together to strengthen collective security. He called for technology and expertise to move more easily across the Atlantic and for defence systems to be designed to operate together.
He also acknowledged concerns in Washington about Europe’s reliance on American military power, saying the continent needed to take greater responsibility for its own defence.
The UK, he said, would meet its NATO target of spending 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence by 2035.
Streeting concluded that higher spending needed to be matched by modernisation, warning that investment without reform would not deliver the capabilities required to address future threats.
