The breakout of renewed conflict in the Middle East is yet another reminder – for this is not the first missile war in the region, and the Russian bombardments of Ukraine have been going on for years now – that missiles and missile defences are a core component of a modern military.

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Yet, the UK remains dangerously far behind on this front.

To be fair, the UK does possess some strong capabilities. Type 45 warships track hundreds of targets, hundreds of kilometres away, with Sampson radar, and carry 48 Aster missiles to intercept them. The Army has Sky Sabre missile batteries, and numerous innovative British systems are on trial either at home or in Ukraine, including the Gravehawk automated turret and the Dragonfire laser weapon. The RAF’s aircraft are also capable drone and missile hunters, and its Storm Shadow missiles have been a massive boost to Ukraine’s ability to throw the Russians off balance.

Britain can, and does, also call upon the impressive expertise of allies in the missile domain. American Tomahawk cruise missiles, for example, were bought to be launched from stealthy British submarines on unsuspecting foes.

And yet, Britain’s stockpiles would last mere days in the event of a high intensity conflict like that playing out in the middle of the Middle East, or perhaps more likely (although still a low probability) in a shootout with the Russians.

The problem is twofold: first, magazine depth, and second, breadth of options to ensure the most appropriate weapon is available to deal with the wide array of airborne threats Britain faces. It is less than ideal, to put it mildly, to shoot down cheap drones with missiles that sometimes cost up to 100 times more. These are problems, however, that have been known for years and are a direct result of chronic underfunding of defence by successive British governments.

Low orders for Aster missiles are emblematic of this problem. For years, Britain and its European partners bought these missiles in such small numbers that production lines remained slow and thin, leading to timeframes of over three years for a missile to reach the military after being ordered. Even now, as orders begin to rise, the aim is modest: to increase Aster production capacity by around 50 per cent and shorten delivery timelines to roughly 18 months – still far removed from the scale and speed demanded by modern missile warfare.

Another example is that, despite handing Storm Shadow missiles (from a limited stockpile) to Ukraine from May 2023, the Storm Shadow production line was not reopened until July 2025. Details on the stockpiles of weapons are obviously kept closely under wraps, but it is common knowledge that they are threadbare.

The citizens of Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi probably thought the scenes played out in Ukraine over the past four years would never happen in their cities; centres of global travel, finance and tourism. Clearly, these factors are poor substitutes for meaningful hard power.

Luckily, the governments in that region have invested heavily in missile defences – although perhaps not heavily enough, as these could soon run out too. British policymakers should not make the same assumption that we will probably never come under attack. We can only hope the much-delayed Defence Investment Plan comes soon and closes the ‘say-do gap’ between HM Government’s tough talk on defence and its continued lack of funding.

William Freer is a National Security Research Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy.

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