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Britain's Defence Secretary, Wes Streeting, has warned that the country has just over 1,000 days to prepare for a potential war, writing in The Telegraph that Britain's adversaries could be in a position to attack the United Kingdom by 2030.
"Our adversaries' willingness to harm us is not new. What has changed is their capacity," Streeting wrote. "By 2030 their force strength and war economy could put them in a position to attack. That gives us a little over 1,000 days to complete our mission: to be ready with our allies to fight and win."
Referencing the potential of Russian aggression, Streeting added: "To prevent the worst, we have to prepare for it." He has also warned that Britain should be ready for "state-sponsored terrorism" from Russia, and has urged households and businesses to ask themselves whether they are prepared for a breakdown in essential services.
The warning coincides with the government's "Be Ready" campaign, a three-year resilience drive urging every Briton to keep three days' worth of non-perishable food and nine litres of bottled water per person, along with blankets, cash, a first-aid kit, a torch with batteries and a wind-up FM radio, in case of a breakdown in essential services caused by a cyber attack, extreme weather or another emergency.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has backed the campaign, telling the BBC it is not about panicking but about taking sensible measures to have enough supplies at home to handle a difficult situation. Earlier in October, MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum called for a whole-of-society effort to protect national infrastructure, warning that hacks could disable banking services, drones could disrupt flights and cyber attacks on hospitals could harm health treatment.
But the warning has also drawn a counterargument, put by Greg Swenson, chair of Republicans Overseas UK: that a military buildup alone will not be enough without a strong economy to sustain it. Swenson's position, as framed in the Profilo Politics post, is that sustained investment in defence needs economic growth, raising fears that Britain could be racing to rearm without the financial strength to sustain a major conflict.
Supporters of the preparation drive argue that being ready deters aggression. Critics warn that a buildup strains public finances at a time of cost-of-living pressures, and some have criticised the "Be Ready" campaign itself: Conservative shadow national security minister Alicia Kearns called it "lecturing the public," while Reform UK MP Danny Kruger said ministers should invest in defence rather than tell families what to do. Streeting has defended the campaign, saying the threats are real and increasingly close to home, and that national resilience must be taken as seriously as national defence.
Streeting underlined the industrial side of readiness at the opening of the UK Gun Hall at Telford on October 22, saying Britain must be able to manufacture critical defence components at home in sufficient quantities, increase production and replenish stockpiles when threats increase, and sustain its armed forces through a prolonged conflict: "We must also outproduce them too, because advantage increasingly belongs to those who can manufacture at scale and field capability fastest."