Streeting sets faster UK defence procurement and NATO industry push in Washington

UK Defence Secretary Wes Streeting used a speech in Washington to set out plans for faster defence procurement, closer UK-US innovation ties and a stronger NATO industrial base.

Streeting said the UK had set targets to cut procurement times:

• New platforms from concept to contract: six years to two.
• Adapting existing platforms: three years to one.
• Everything else: under three months.

He argued that advantage now belongs to those who can learn, iterate, manufacture and field capability fastest. Politics, he said, does not naturally embrace that culture because every mistake is magnified and every setback scrutinised. In his view, the most dangerous words in defence are not 'we tried and failed' but 'we've always done it this way'.

He pointed to Ukraine as proof that faster methods can work. Faced with an urgent air defence requirement, industry was given a two-sentence operational requirement instead of a lengthy specification. That allowed the Raven ground-launched missile system to be designed, developed and delivered in four months, with the first eight systems costing less than $25 million. Small and medium-sized enterprises also took one-way attack drone designs from paper to flight in three months, with systems reaching the front line in Ukraine within a year. Deliberately limited technical requirements allowed companies to experiment, make mistakes, correct them and iterate quickly.

Streeting said the UK now has access to Ukraine's Avengers lab military AI platform, which turns combat data from the front line into algorithms to improve situational awareness and target identification. Universities, researchers and tech firms are using that data to co-develop AI capabilities. He described a shift from training Ukrainians to being trained by Ukrainians, and said the aim was to connect battlefield experience to innovation systems while the lessons still matter.

He called for the UK-US defence partnership to be renewed around drones, uncrewed vessels at sea, advanced fighter jets and AI. The two countries, he said, are home to many of the world's smartest minds, finest universities and most creative companies, and can lead defence technology if they pool resources. He added that the next era of warfare could be defined by scientists, engineers and businesses working side by side rather than only soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder.

But Streeting said innovation alone was not enough. He argued that the nations that prevail will be those that can innovate at speed, manufacture at scale and sustain production for as long as it takes. A prototype can show ingenuity, but reproduction at scale turns that into military power. He applied the point to NATO, saying an alliance that can mobilise its armies must also mobilise its industries.

He linked the biggest sustained increase in UK defence spending since the end of the Cold War to an opportunity to re-industrialise Britain and create well-paid jobs. He said the UK was backing Britain by buying British, while also seeking business from companies creating jobs and growth in the UK, including US firms invested there. He warned European counterparts against healthy competition becoming self-defeating rivalry, arguing it makes no sense to pitch British against made in Europe against America first.

Streeting cited the UK's active foreign military sales portfolio with the US as worth more than $11 billion. He said British industry produces around 15% of each F-35, through more than 100 UK tier 1 suppliers supporting over 20,000 jobs. He said US investment in its submarine industrial base is matched by substantial British investment in the UK's defence nuclear enterprise.

He called for easier movement of technology and expertise across the Atlantic and for opening defence deals to innovators historically kept out. He said interoperability cannot be retrofitted, and that UK-US integration can serve as a model for wider NATO modernisation. The UK, he said, is the causeway across the Atlantic that binds Europe and America together. NATO remains the cornerstone of Western security.

He acknowledged frustration in Washington about Europe's reliance on American military power and said much of it had been justified. He noted that President Trump is not the first US president to demand Europe take greater responsibility, nor have those demands been limited to Republican presidents, but said Trump had brought new urgency to the challenge.