Defence and Northern Renewal

The Problem: We Are Still Buying Yesterday's War

British defence policy is being overtaken by events. Ukraine is producing two to four million drones per year. The UK produces a tiny fraction of that. Ukraine's DELTA battle management system integrates satellite imagery, radar, drone reconnaissance, frontline reports, and electronic warfare feeds into a single AI-assisted picture accessible across all military branches on laptops, tablets, and smartphones. NATO tested DELTA at Coalition Warrior Interoperability eXercise 2024 and rated it more effective than any equivalent Western system. The UK has no equivalent in service.

The £6.2 billion HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were ordered in 1998. They entered service after costs doubled. They are vulnerable to anti-ship ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles, and saturation drone attacks that did not exist when they were specified. The Red Sea since 2023 has demonstrated that a £20,000 Iranian drone can threaten a frigate worth £700 million, and that even the most capable Western navies cannot sustain anti-air missile expenditure at the rates required against drone swarms. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review acknowledged this implicitly by reorienting carrier doctrine toward a "hybrid air wing" with drones and long-range missiles. That is a correct direction, but it is not enough on its own.

Forge proposes a more fundamental reorientation. Defence spending rises to 3% of GDP, funded partly through Defence Bonds, but how the money is spent matters as much as how much is spent. The priorities are: mass drone production capacity, an integrated AI battle management system that all British forces share, a Royal Navy reoriented around smaller surface combatants that launch large numbers of autonomous systems rather than a small number of high-value platforms, and accelerated AUKUS Pillar 2 integration so British forces are interoperable with American and Australian autonomous capability by design.

A. The Strategic Argument: Why Drones and AI Change Everything

Three years of large-scale combat between roughly equal powers has produced more battlefield data than the previous thirty years combined. The findings are not contested by serious analysts:

• Cost-exchange ratios have inverted. A loitering munition that costs $400 to $5,000 can disable a tank worth $4 million. A sea drone that costs $250,000 can sink a frigate worth $500 million. The defender currently pays 10 to 100 times more to intercept than the attacker pays to attack. Whoever solves this cost-exchange problem wins. The solution is not bigger missiles. It is more drones, cheaper drones, drones produced at industrial scale, and AI-enabled detection that lets a single operator manage many systems.
• Mass matters more than mass production. Ukraine produces drones at industrial scale because dozens of small manufacturers were given simple specifications and allowed to compete. Most of those drones are imperfect by Western procurement standards. They work because there are millions of them. The traditional British defence procurement model produces small numbers of perfect platforms over long timelines. That model has been overtaken by what works in actual combat.
• Integration beats individual capability. A drone that detects a target is useful. A drone that shares the target instantly with every artillery battery, every other drone, every fast jet, and every commander on the battlefield is transformative. Ukraine's DELTA system identifies up to 12,000 Russian targets per week from 50,000 video streams using its Vezha AI sub-system. The British army's equivalent capability is a fraction of that.
• Survivability has shifted from armour to dispersion. A single £6 billion aircraft carrier cannot be made invulnerable. Ten £600 million frigates can disperse, present multiple targets, and continue functioning if one is hit. The fleet that survives is the one that is dispersed and networked, not the one that is concentrated and heavily protected.

B. The British Drone Industrial Base: 1 Million Drones Per Year by 2030

The current UK target of 100,000 tactical drones annually by Year 3 is genuinely insufficient. Ukraine produces 2 to 4 million per year under wartime pressure. NATO planning assumes Russia will continue to scale drone production rapidly. The UK needs a credible industrial base, not a token capability. Forge commits to:

• 1 million tactical drones per year by 2030. Loitering munitions, ISR drones, sea drones (surface and underwater), counter-drone interceptors, and one-way attack drones. Multiple suppliers compete on price and performance. The MoD specifies broad performance requirements and certification standards. Detailed design is left to industry.
• 10 to 15 approved British drone manufacturers with framework contracts, not the current handful of preferred suppliers. The Ukrainian model: small firms compete, the best designs are scaled, failed designs are dropped within months not decades. UK companies positioned to scale include BAE Systems, Malloy Aeronautics, MSubs, Marshall ADG, Cranfield Aerospace Solutions, MBDA UK, Thales UK, and a growing number of smaller specialists. Procurement reform makes it possible for a firm of 50 people to compete with a firm of 50,000 for the same contract.
• Drone Production Zones in the North and Midlands with planning fast-track, direct rail to testing ranges, and security infrastructure. Realistic candidate locations: the M62 corridor, the North East, and the Aerospace Cluster in the North West. Skilled manufacturing jobs in communities that lost defence manufacturing two generations ago.
• Defence Bonds fund the industrial base, not running costs. The £10 to 15 billion raised through Defence Bonds is ring-fenced specifically for capital expenditure on factories, machine tools, testing facilities, and the certification infrastructure that lets new entrants reach production scale. Salary costs, fuel, and maintenance come from core defence spending.
• Counter-drone capability scaled in parallel. DragonFire (the UK directed energy weapon) is fitted to all Type 26 and Type 31 frigates from initial delivery. Layered counter-drone systems (interceptor drones, electronic warfare, kinetic close-in defence) deployed at every fixed military site and critical national infrastructure location.

C. UK Integrated Battle Management System: Beyond DELTA

The single largest capability gap in British defence is integration. Information collected by an Army drone in Estonia does not flow automatically to a Royal Navy frigate in the North Atlantic, an RAF Typhoon over the North Sea, or a commander at PJHQ Northwood. This is not a software problem. It is a procurement and policy problem: every system has been bought separately on different standards by different services to different specifications.

Forge commits to building a sovereign British battle management system, called provisionally the National Defence Cloud, drawing on Ukraine's DELTA architecture but engineered for British and allied use. Specifically:

• Cloud-based architecture with UK sovereign hosting (sensitive elements) and allied-interoperable layers (NATO-shared elements). Resilient against physical strikes on any single location. Operable on laptops, tablets, and ruggedised smartphones at every level of command. The system Ukraine has proven works in actual combat under sustained attack.
• AI-enabled target detection trained on real combat data. Ukraine has just opened battlefield AI training data to allies under a March 2026 framework. Forge accepts that offer and signs the data-sharing agreement in Month 3, accelerating UK capability by years compared to training models from scratch.
• NATO interoperability by design, not retrofit. The system uses Link 16 communications standards from launch so RAF F-35s, Type 26 frigates, and Army assets share the same operational picture without translation layers. DELTA already does this. Forge replicates the standard.
• Allied integration through AUKUS Pillar 2. The May 2026 announcement of joint UUV payload development is the first concrete output of Pillar 2. Forge commits to scaling AUKUS Pillar 2 cooperation across AI, autonomy, quantum, and electronic warfare, with UK industrial capacity built specifically to be interoperable with American and Australian systems. The UK's geographic position as the Atlantic anchor of AUKUS is a strategic asset only if British forces can exchange data seamlessly with American and Australian counterparts.
• Mandatory adoption. All three services migrate to the National Defence Cloud as the primary command and control system within 36 months. Legacy systems are wound down on a defined timeline. The current situation where each service operates its own separate platforms ends.

This is the single most consequential structural change in British defence. Drones, ships, and aircraft are tools. The system that integrates them is the capability multiplier. Without it, Britain has expensive platforms that fight separately. With it, Britain has a networked force that fights as one.

D. Royal Navy: Dispersed, Networked, Drone-Centric

The 2025 Strategic Defence Review correctly identifies that the Royal Navy needs a "high-low" mix and "hybrid carrier air wings." Forge goes further and clarifies the structural implication.

• The two existing aircraft carriers are retained but reconfigured. HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are not scrapped. They are converted into hybrid drone motherships carrying F-35Bs, autonomous collaborative platforms, expendable one-way attack drones, and long-range precision missiles fired from the deck. The carrier becomes a mobile distributed sensor and strike node, not a high-value platform projecting air power through a small number of crewed jets. This conversion is technically achievable within the existing hulls and broadly aligns with the 2025 SDR direction.
• The Type 26 and Type 31 frigate programmes are expanded, not contracted. The 2025 SDR avoided specifying numbers. Forge specifies: 8 Type 26 City-class frigates as currently planned, 8 Type 31 Inspiration-class frigates (3 above the current 5), and 6 additional smaller patrol vessels in the £150 million per hull range carrying USVs and UUVs for North Sea, Channel, and undersea cable protection. The fleet shifts from a small number of high-value platforms to a larger number of capable distributed platforms.
• Every surface combatant becomes a drone mothership. Type 26 and Type 31 vessels carry standardised launch and recovery systems for surface and air drones from initial delivery, not as a future upgrade. A frigate that can deploy 20 sea drones for undersea surveillance, 20 air drones for area patrol, and recover them autonomously is a transformatively different platform from one that fights only with the missiles in its silos.
• Project Cabot (Atlantic Bastion) accelerated. The autonomous sub-hunting fleet for the North Atlantic moves from planning to initial operational capability by Year 3 of the parliament rather than Year 5 to 7. Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic has increased substantially. The Royal Navy is the lead NATO maritime force in this theatre. Delay in delivery is delay in deterrence.
• The Royal Navy's first autonomous helicopter drone made its first flight in January 2026, with a 1-tonne payload capability for sub-hunting. This is operationally significant and Forge funds its rapid scale-up.

E. The "British Army 10x More Lethal" Translated Into Specifics

The 2025 SDR pledged a "10x more lethal" British Army through AI, software, long-range weapons, and land drone swarms. The phrase was rhetorical. Forge translates it into specific commitments:

• Every infantry battalion equipped with organic drone capability: ISR drones at platoon level, loitering munitions at company level, larger reconnaissance and strike drones at battalion level. The drones are British-produced, networked into the National Defence Cloud, and operated by trained drone specialists embedded in each unit.
• The Royal Artillery transitions from shells alone to a drone-shell-missile mix. Loitering munitions become primary precision strike at ranges where artillery shells are imprecise and missiles are too expensive. 155mm shell production at BAE Glascoed and Washington remains essential for mass fires.
• Land drone swarms operationally deployed by Year 4. Tested at scale, networked, and integrated with infantry operations. Ukrainian and Russian experience proves this works. The capability gap is investment and procurement velocity, not technology.
• Army troop strength raised to 76,000 as the 2025 SDR proposed, but the recruitment crisis is addressed through the welfare reform integration: a structured pathway from Jobseeker Support and the Skilled Career Pathway (Section XIV) into Army apprenticeships and engineering trades, with relocation support and accelerated promotion routes for STEM-qualified recruits.

F. Defence Bonds via NS&I

To bridge-finance the increase without unbalancing other priorities, Forge launches Defence Bonds through National Savings and Investments. Anyone in the UK can buy from £100. They pay 4 to 4.5% interest, paid by the Treasury. Funds are ring-fenced for capital expenditure: ships, drones, ammunition factories, cyber infrastructure, the National Defence Cloud. Never for salaries or running costs.

• Israel raises $1 to 2.7 billion annually through patriotic defence bonds. The principle is proven.
• The UK raised the equivalent of 300% of GDP through war bonds in the 1940s. NS&I already manages £244 billion in retail savings with 24 million customers. The infrastructure exists.
• Target: £10 to 15 billion raised over the parliament. This is off-balance-sheet retail debt and does not count against deficit targets in the same way as general government borrowing.
• A Scottish family putting £5,000 in Defence Bonds earns 4.5% interest. Their money funds frigates built on the Clyde and drones built in the North. Patriotic finance, fiscal discipline, competitive return.

G. Double-Shift British Shipyards and the Skills Pipeline

BAE Govan, Scotstoun, Rosyth, Babcock Devonport, and Harland and Wolff Belfast move to two-shift working under expanded Type 26, Type 31, and submarine programmes. Workforce expansion of approximately 8,000 across all yards. The buildings exist. The orders and long-term certainty have been missing. The Norwegian £10 billion UK frigate deal announced September 2025 demonstrates the export potential; the constraint is shipyard capacity, not order book.

• 5,000 fully funded defence apprenticeship places annually, drawing recruits from Jobseeker Support claimants under the retraining guarantee (Section III) and the Skilled Career Pathway (Section XIV).
• Relocation packages covering moves to shipyard towns: Barrow, Birkenhead, Rosyth, Belfast.
• Employers receive NIC rebates for apprentice hires. Skilled jobs returned to communities that lost manufacturing employment two generations ago.

H. UK Cyber Academy in the North

A dedicated UK Cyber Academy training 4,000 graduates per year, located in the North via competitive bidding. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, and Doncaster all have credible cases: world-class universities, existing cyber clusters, and lower costs than the South East. Graduates feed national security agencies, defence industry, and the broader UK tech sector. Modelled on Israel's Unit 8200 pipeline, whose alumni founded Check Point, CyberArk, and Wix. The alumni network of a British Cyber Academy seeds the next generation of UK cyber industry.

I. New Military Bases in the North

Three new strategic installations sited in the North: a naval logistics hub on the Tees, a drone testing and production facility in Lancashire or Yorkshire, and an expanded RAF rapid-reaction capability in Cumbria. Real jobs in communities long distant from defence investment, and genuine strategic rationale: northern bases reduce transit times to the North Atlantic and High North where Russian submarine activity has increased substantially.

J. Ammunition and Readiness

The UK's ammunition stockpiles are described by the Defence Select Committee as below sustainable levels for any extended operation. Forge commits to:

• Domestic production of 155mm artillery shells at BAE Glascoed in Wales and Washington in Tyne and Wear, targeting 100,000 rounds annually by Year 2 and 250,000 by Year 4.
• National stockpile of anti-armour missiles, MANPADS, and naval munitions raised to a 90-day warfighting reserve.
• Long-term contracts (10 years minimum) with British defence manufacturers to justify capital investment in production capacity.

K. What This Programme Does Not Replace

Honest defence policy requires saying what stays as well as what changes. The drone-and-AI pivot does not replace:

• The continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent. Dreadnought-class ballistic missile submarines proceed on schedule. The deterrent is the foundation of British strategic autonomy and the basis of NATO's nuclear posture in Europe.
• Nuclear-powered attack submarines. The SSN-AUKUS programme proceeds at Barrow-in-Furness. Submarines provide capabilities drones cannot replicate: long-endurance covert presence, deep strike, and the ability to operate in denied environments.
• Conventional expeditionary capability. The Royal Marines, the Parachute Regiment, and the wider conventional capability for crisis response operations remain essential. Drone and AI capability augments these forces; it does not replace boots on the ground when boots on the ground are needed.
• NATO commitments. The UK remains a Tier 1 NATO contributor. The 3% of GDP target meets the strategic commitment.