What Boris Johnson has planned for his £16bn military spending spree

Space defence, cyber-offence and artificial intelligence to benefit from funding surge

A British soldier on exercises
(Image credit: 2013 Getty Images)

Britain’s “era of retreat” is over, Boris Johnson has declared, as he announced plans to “transform our armed forces, bolster our global influence, unite and level up our country, pioneer new technology and defend our people and way of life”.

His ambitions will be funded by a £16.5bn rise in defence spending over the next four years, amounting to an increase of about 10% in the annual budget.

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Holden Frith is The Week’s digital director. He also makes regular appearances on “The Week Unwrapped”, speaking about subjects as diverse as vaccine development and bionic bomb-sniffing locusts. He joined The Week in 2013, spending five years editing the magazine’s website. Before that, he was deputy digital editor at The Sunday Times. He has also been TheTimes.co.uk’s technology editor and the launch editor of Wired magazine’s UK website. Holden has worked in journalism for nearly two decades, having started his professional career while completing an English literature degree at Cambridge University. He followed that with a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. A keen photographer, he also writes travel features whenever he gets the chance.