Growing threats, new weapons, more troops: the review's key points

A vision of what war between the UK and another state such as Russia would look like is sketched out briefly but starkly on a page of the strategic defence review (SDR).

- Ben Quinn

Such a conflict could involve attacks on the armed forces in the UK and overseas, air and missile attacks on critical infrastructure, sabotage and efforts to manipulate information and undermine social cohesion.

However, Britain is "already under daily attack" in cyberspace with 89 "nationally significant" attacks in the year up to last September, according to the review, which calls for a response to "a new era of threat", underlined by, but not limited to, increasing Russian aggression.

After years in which UK defence was shaped by the post-cold war era, when opponents were mainly non-state actors, the SDR says Britain must be ready to once again "fight and win" a full-scale war.