The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Whither, then, the UK’s much-vaunted Strategic Defence Review published earlier this year? Was it worth the work, and the wait? What does this pudding taste like?

Six months after its publication in June, the consensus is that it was half-baked at best. It’s easy to dismiss it as a piece of political theatre designed to burnish the Labour government’s wafer-thin defence credentials. A better conclusion is that it forms the recipe for action, rather than being the fully baked product. The document articulated a sensible direction of travel, but it was published – and remains – advice rather than policy – more aspiration than action.

For it to be useful as policy, it requires government determination to do things and government money to make these things happen. We haven’t seen much of either since June, apart from some superficial reordering of business. There might be something in the Defence Investment Plan to be announced early in 2026, but on past experience, I doubt it. The UK is skint, and a colour-coded pipeline of new opportunities is going to be a new lipstick on an old pig.

There will be much recycling of the same story. The problem is that keeping what there is afloat – in the air and on land – requires more money than the UK currently has. Much more, in fact, especially given the well-publicised problems with the Army’s troubled Ajax reconnaissance vehicle and last weekend’s cri de coeur from Rear Admiral Mathias about the state of the submarine fleet.

The UK government has no money for the present, let alone the future. Even worse, it has no ideas about how to solve the primary problem, which is about the long-term funding of defence. It does seem to have plenty of extra cash for butter, but none for the guns that protect the butter being produced and the people consuming it. Without adjusting these priorities, it will never solve its defence problem.

Where did it all go wrong? Announced in October 2024, the SDR only took two months to write. However, a long wrangle between its authors (Lord Robertson, General Sir Richard Barrons and Fiona Hill) and the Treasury over funding its 62 recommendations was the apparent cause of the long delay to its publication. It’s a good read, but the moment that the government said that it would be advisory, its claws were trimmed. This was part of the problem. The authors were always independent of government, asked to write a report based on what they thought to be the proper direction of Britain’s future security. This they have done, and all credit to them. When it was published, therefore, the government was quick to accept its recommendations on the basis that they represented a non-obligatory ‘direction of travel’ for the UK, rather than a financial obligation.

Acquiescing to the SDR allowed the government to appear to be doing the right thing in respect to the dangerous geopolitical situation in Europe, without doing much in real terms. The Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in mid-June, which confirmed the target of 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027, was the more important announcement. It seems widely accepted that the SDR was predicated on the UK raising defence spending to three per cent of GDP by this time. The CSR demonstrated that this wouldn’t happen, a reality compounded by the news that non-military items were to be included in the GDP calculation for defence. Since 2010 the Secret Intelligence Service, nuclear deterrence and military pensions have also been included in the calculation, which does make it something of a nonsense. In pre-2010 terms the UK is almost certainly spending much less than two per cent.

What does it say? Much of it is good. It talks sense about rebuilding a suite of capabilities lost over the last three decades. It emphasises that the UK has underfunded defence since the peace dividend process began with defence cuts after 1991. But without any new additional money for defence, the current government will be hoisted by its own petard, criticising governments of the past while being economical with just about everything else.

NATO was reaffirmed as the central pillar of UK defence. Yet this is merely confirmation of a commitment it has had for the last 76 years, as collective security has been demonstrated unequivocally since 1949 to preserve the security of the 32 members of NATO in a way unprecedented in modern times. In like fashion, the importance of preserving and deepening alliances (AUKUS, Indo-Pacific, Middle East) is a commitment to an already confirmed direction of travel.

The commitment to build ‘up to’ 12 SSN-AUKUS nuclear attack submarines, maintaining a continuous production cycle, was no surprise, as the current SSNs in production – the A-Boats – will need replacing in due course. The commitment to AUKUS simply means that the UK will be building them alongside Australia and the US. This is an economic reality as much as it is a financial one: nuclear-powered submarines are hugely complex pieces of engineering, and a partnership with allies is only sensible. So, this is recycled news, although I simply do not believe that the UK will ever build 12 boats, especially since it is only building seven Astute-class boats at present (which the AUKUS boats will eventually replace from the last 2030s). Will it even get them? Rear Admiral Mathias does not think so.

This is the problem with all 62 recommendations. The UK has no money for them. For example, it is naked in terms of anti-missile defence. The SDR advocated enhancing these, and £1bn was suggested as the cost of this programme. Likewise, the Army should grow to at least 76,000 regulars and reserves should be increased by 20 per cent. The RAF needs an upgrade, with more F35s, Typhoon enhancements, GCAP (Tempest) development and autonomous platforms. If you have an idea as to where this might come from, there are bowler-hatted types in Whitehall who’d love to have your answer.

If one were to be absurdly optimistic, the SDR represents a glimmer of hope that the government is determined to get more serious about defence in the round, even if it’s been brought to this point, kicking and screaming (let’s be honest), by President Trump. Sadly, the more realistic view is that all of this remains meaningless without serious resources behind it. In this respect, Downing Street has the recipe, but no chef. Perhaps it does not even have the kitchen.