UK complacent about war threat, warns BAE Systems chief

The UK has been too complacent about the risk of foreign attack, according to the head of Europe's biggest defence contractor, BAE Systems. In a rare interview, Dr Charles Woodburn said the level of threat was the highest he had seen in his lifetime. He said the country needed to adapt more quickly to the changing reality of modern warfare.

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Woodburn welcomed the recent increase in defence spending, but said much more would be needed to meet the government's commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defence by 2035. He also warned that countries could soon deploy autonomous lethal weapons while not following the UK's policy of maintaining human control. He said Russia and Ukraine had become "incredibly adept" at using autonomy in the form of drones and counter-drones.

The comments came as BAE Systems unveiled a life-size model of Brontanax, an uncrewed Collaborative Combat Aircraft, at the Farnborough International Airshow. Woodburn said four of the aircraft would accompany a manned fighter jet and could greatly increase firepower at around 20% of the cost of a piloted aircraft. He said there was still a role for traditional battleships and submarines, arguing that the future battlefield would combine large platforms with unmanned systems.

The warning adds to a wider debate in the UK about how quickly defence policy should respond to the war in Ukraine and to the growing use of drones, cyber attacks and other autonomous systems. Woodburn said the modern battlefield had changed "quite profoundly" and that defence spending had to change with it. He said the UK had been complacent for some time about the level of threat it faced, particularly from Russia.

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His remarks also reflect the pressure on European governments to strengthen military readiness after years of concern about underinvestment. BAE Systems has long been one of the UK's most important defence manufacturers, producing ships, submarines and other military equipment for decades. The company's latest aircraft concept suggests industry is betting that future air power will rely on a mix of crewed and uncrewed platforms.

Woodburn said he had been struck by what Russian submarines and cyber attacks were already doing when he joined the company in 2016. He said the Ukraine conflict had made the proximity of a hot war more widely understood, even if the UK had not fully adjusted to that reality. His comments were made in the context of a public discussion about defence capability rather than a specific new security incident.

What remains unclear is how quickly the UK government will translate its spending pledge into concrete capability, and how far industry can move autonomous systems from demonstration to deployment. It is also not clear how soon countries that do not share the UK's approach to human control may field lethal autonomous weapons at scale. The next focus will be whether ministers respond to the warning with further detail on procurement, readiness and the balance between crewed and uncrewed forces.

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