U.K. Faces Most Serious Military Threat Since Cold War, Starmer Says

Europe|U.K. Faces Most Serious Military Threat Since Cold War, Starmer Says

Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain vowed Monday to bring his country to “war-fighting readiness,” announcing plans to build up to 12 new attack submarines and invest billions of pounds in weapons, to fortify for a world caught between a hostile, aggressive Russia and a retrenching United States.

The ambitious rearmament is part of a strategic defense review by the government, which laid out the threatening new landscape and called for increased production of drones and the stockpiling of more munitions and equipment.

“The threat we now face is more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” Mr. Starmer said on Monday at a shipyard in Glasgow. He pointed to “war in Europe, new nuclear risks, daily cyberattacks,” and “growing Russian aggression,” in British waters and skies.

As if to underline his ominous message, Mr. Starmer presented his plans hours after one of the most intense aerial bombardments of the three-year war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian drones striking air bases deep in Russian territory.

The strategic review, led by George Robertson, a former secretary general of NATO, was set up last year soon after Mr. Starmer won a general election. But its task was given fresh urgency amid growing evidence of President Trump’s weakened commitment to European security and his ambivalent and, at times, ingratiating attitude toward President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Among its recommendations: the procurement of up to 7,000 British-built long-range weapons and the creation of a new cybercommand, alongside an investment of a billion pounds, equivalent to $1.35 billion, in digital capability. Money will be invested in protecting critical British underwater infrastructure as well as in drones, which have proved highly effective in the war in Ukraine.