The Review will transform UK defence for war in the digital age

What the review ultimately delivers is a transformation of UK defence for war in the digital age, rendering the old obsession with troop numbers increasingly obsolete.

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Mass remains vital, but now presents itself in different ways. The first major change is structural.

Our armed forces are evolving into a blend of crewed, uncrewed and autonomous systems, sometimes described only half-jokingly as a "thousand-ship navy".

This does not mean thousands of destroyers and frigates, but a distributed network of platforms...drones that fly, sail and submerge. Some are remotely operated. Others are autonomous, performing tasks independently within limits set by advancing technologies.

This shift applies across all domains. The Royal Navy’s Project Ark Royal is already examining how to augment our carrierborne F-35 jets with long-range drones.

It is also set to receive a significant uplift in unmanned vehicles and First Person View drones, with an entire squadron expected to deploy on board at least one carrier. Together, these moves reflect a hybrid model of force high-end platforms at one end, including the planned addition of 12 new hunter-killer submarines, and proliferated autonomous systems at the other.

Attacks

And the Global Combat Air Programme, or Tempest, will deliver a sixth-generation fighter jet capable of acting as a command hub for swarms of accompanying drones when it enters service in the next decade.

In the digital domain, a new Cyber Command Force is being established as part of a £1billion "Digital Targeting Web" investment, to spearhead future battlefield engagements.

Falling under General Sir James Hockenhull's Strategic Command, it follows more than 90,000 "sub-threshold" cyber attacks on the UK over the past two years. It will unite electromagnetic warfare expertise to jam drones, degrade enemy command systems and intercept battlefield communications.