Dr Charles Woodburn did not mince words. In a rare interview, the chief executive of BAE Systems, Europe's largest defence contractor, described the current moment as by far the most threatening he has seen in his lifetime. The threat of attack, he said, has never been higher. And Britain has been too complacent for some time.
That is not alarmism from a lobbyist. It is the assessment of a man whose company builds the Typhoons, nuclear submarines and armoured vehicles that keep Western deterrence credible. When he speaks, governments should listen rather than reach for the usual soothing talking points.
The new face of conflict
Modern warfare has changed profoundly. Autonomy in systems such as drones has altered the battlefield in ways few predicted even a decade ago. Russia has shown in Ukraine how to integrate large crewed platforms with swarms of unmanned craft. The combination, Woodburn noted, is the winning formula. Adversaries are building aircraft, ships and submarines while adding layers of autonomous capability. The UK edges closer to lethal autonomous weapons but insists on keeping a human in the loop. Others are less fastidious.
This is not abstract theory. It is the daily reality playing out on Europe's eastern flank. And yet successive British governments have allowed the Army to shrink from 153,000 personnel in 1990 to just 74,000 today. Equipment budgets have crept up, but the trajectory still falls short. Current plans reach only 2.68 percent of GDP by 2030, well below the 3.5 percent some serious voices argue is necessary by 2035.
Deterring war requires providing the best possible equipment to our armed forces personnel.
Woodburn's core point lands with uncomfortable precision. The best way to protect those who protect us is to make aggression too costly to contemplate. His company's mission, he added, is to equip those who stand between the public and chaos. That cannot happen if procurement remains sluggish and political attention drifts elsewhere.
The evidence sits in plain sight at events like the Farnborough Airshow, where BAE unveiled its Brontanax uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft. Innovation is not lacking. What is missing is the scale of investment and political will to deploy it at speed and in sufficient numbers.
