November 2025: A Critical Month for UK Security and Defence

November 2025 in the United Kingdom will be remembered as the month when several different media-reported stories converged to profoundly challenge the UKs perception of its own readiness for any potential future conflict scenario. The rail sabotage incident in Poland, which was a calculated and deliberately faintly disguised attack, has initiated a new escalated phase in the Grey Zone conflict between the West and its adversaries. This was not just an isolated act but part of a broader strategy to destabilize, intimidate and fracture Western unity.

Escalation at Sea: The Yantar Incident and the Russian Sonar Buoy

In the same week, both Poland and the United Kingdom were both subject to direct and escalatory hostile hybrid warfare activities.  For the UK, the threat came in the form of the Russian spy ship Yantar which brazenly entered UK waters to map and survey the UK’s undersea cables and other possible national critical infrastructure assets. This operation culminated in a laser attack on an RAF P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft, which was a deliberate act of hybrid warfare at sea, aimed at probing both Britain’s maritime resilience and NATO’s response resolve.  The incident was revealed publicly by the UK Minster of Defence, John Healy MP, in order to send a clear message that the UK is fully aware of these operations and is prepared to actively take measures to respond to and to restrict the threat that they pose.

Just a few days later a Russian sonar buoy was discovered by divers off the coast of Wales. This raised the question of what its purpose had been and how many more are clandestinely operating to monitor the movements of the Royal Navy- particularly the submarine nuclear deterrent force. Together, both the Yantar incursion and the sonar buoy discovery expose a simple truth: Britain’s maritime domain is no longer secure and its undersea infrastructure, which is so vital to national survival, is now a prime target in the hybrid battlespace. The location of the English Channel and North Sea which are long considered vital UK lifelines for trade and energy, are now contested spaces in which adversaries aim to disrupt and intimidate the UK into a state of fear and insecurity.

In the month of November alone the British media have widely reported on a series of other concerning issues across several different security domains affecting the United Kingdom:

A)Hybrid Threats: The Enemy Within Supply Chains

• It was reported that Kill Switches on Chinese-made UK buses have been discovered which have raised fears of a remote sabotage capability embedded within public transport systems and other facets of critical infrastructure. In May, it was reported that Chinese made solar panels also had "kill switch" communication systems built within.- The British Army's reported use of Chinese-made 3D printers to manufacture weapons which include suicide drones has underscored an obvious dangerous dependency on technology potentially accessed by a possible adversary.- The UK Ministry of Defence has issued a directive banning all confidential conversations and linking of any systems in its Chinese-made electric vehicles due to potential bugging concerns. This raises understandable questions as to how deeply foreign tech has penetrated UK defence ecosystems.

These reported issues are not just individual minor oversights, but they represent potentially worrying systemic vulnerabilities in the areas of procurement, supply chain security and  strategic foresight due to the potential consequences in any adversarial conflict situation.

B)UK Media Reports on the Financial and Political Espionage Fronts

• A UK-based criminal money laundering network operating was reportedly uncovered which is effectively funnelling funds from illicit drug deals to support Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine. This has been uncovered by the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) in Operation "Destabilise" which has uncovered the role of financial criminality in hostile state actor operations. - The UK government's controversial approval of a Chinese "Mega Embassy" near London's financial hub has widely sparked fears of intensified espionage activity and potential for physical interference with nearby data communications cables. If this were to happen then it allows an already proven threat to have a base in a strategically critical location.- LinkedIn recruitment platforms were publicly identified by MI5 as vectors for Chinese intelligence deep penetration and influencing operations into UK parliamentary and policy circles.- Some UK academic institutions have according to some reports, been contributing through their research collaboration and financing to inadvertently enhancing Chinese military capabilities. As well as this, other reports imply that in some UK University institutions that allegedly may have received Chinese government linked funding, research was censored lest it bring to light human rights abuses that would paint the Communist Beijing regime in a negative light. 

To sum this all up, this is not just espionage but a deliberate long-term strategy to influence and capture both UK sovereignty and potentially its intellectual capital. 

C)Two Reports issued on the State of the UK’s Industrial Resilience and Readiness and Defence Capabilities

On 4th November, the UK National Preparedness Commission, an influential group which aims to prepare government, industry and society at large to face major challenges such as war and disaster, warned of severe challenges to the state of UK industrial resilience. The respected UK defence commentator Nick Watts summarised the key findings of its report by highlighting the following UK deficiencies that hostile state actors could seek to exploit through their continued disruptive hybrid warfare operations. These issues are as follows:

-        Electronics production is limited to small-scale advanced sectors, while bulk electronics are all imported

-        The UK has no end-to-end manufacturing capability for key products, such as batteries at scale

-        In pharmaceuticals, the UK is heavily reliant on imports, with only 25% of generic drugs produced domestically

-        Over 40% of food consumed in the UK is imported with the sector replying on just-in-time supply chains

-        Some critical basic materials are no longer manufactured in the UK. An example is ammonia – little appreciated, but a key ingredient for a wide range of products including fertilisers, explosives, solvents and pharmaceuticals. The last manufacturing site in the UK closed in 2023. A further example of reduced capability is ethylene – the key building block to most materials today. SABIC closed one of the last ethylene manufacturing plants in 2024

-        The UK is very exposed on energy, being reliant on intermittent renewables, which are not bestsuited to sustain shortage or crisis situations.

All the above points are highly concerning as without a base capacity for self-sufficiency the UK will be effectively a hostage to the decisions of its potential adversaries.  As a point of reflection none of these points should be a surprise, as concerns on foreign dependency have been a part of the UK political conversation since a long time ago. This situation is a consequence of a gradual and short-sighted hollowing out of the UK’s sovereign strategic manufacturing and processing capabilities. Sadly, this is the result of a mistaken over-belief in the apparent benefits of the globalised economy and in the sphere of defence, in the post-Cold War so-called „Peace Dividend”, which have contributed to the vulnerable position in which the United Kingdom now finds itself. 

Weeks later, on the 18th November, the very important cross-party House of Commons Parliamentary Defence Committee issued a long-awaited report that delivered a highly sobering verdict: It concluded very frankly, the UK is not meeting its NATO Article 3 obligations especially around Homeland Defence, and that the pace of UK defence investment is „glacial” with critical gaps identified in such vital areas as:

• Anti-Aircraft Missile Defences – Britain's skies remain very vulnerable and low stocks of missiles mean that the UK would be very hard pushed to defend itself against a mass conventional air attack or indeed to conduct operations against near-peer adversaries. The report warns the UK has "next to nothing" in terms of integrated air and missile defence and lacks a coherent plan for defending the homeland and overseas territories. It states that current systems are dated and are insufficient against current threats.

Critical Infrastructure Resilience – Energy grids, transport hubs and digital networks all lack redundancy capability. There is little appreciation of the importance of pace in ensuring the continuity of operation in event of conflict for both the morale and resilience of the Home Front. The report states that the current coordination for a „Whole of Society „approach to resilience is ”nowhere near where it needs to be”. Despite official pledges, the Home Front remains severely under-defended, and this will not go unnoticed by the UK’s adversaries.

• Defence Industrial Capacity – The UK cannot surge production in a crisis, leaving it reliant on fragile global supply chains. This includes a severe lack of skilled workers to engage at a scale needed in event of a crisis. An over reliance on US capabilities was also identified.

Key Parliamentary Defence Committee Policy Recommendations for Delivering Readiness and Resilience

1. Accelerate Air Defence Investment – Realisation of the Land GBAD (Ground-Based Air Defence) programme with immediate funding uplift to deploy layered missile systems to protect critical infrastructure. Focus to be on UK-NATO interoperability standards and fulfilment of Strategic Defence Review (SDR) commitments. Build up integrated force capabilities with AI, autonomous and advanced missile systems and boosting missile stockpiles to 7,000.
2. Secure Supply Chains – Ban immediately all adversary-controlled tech from defence and transport sectors and work to achieve genuine sovereign capabilities across all aspects of defence.
3. Industrial Mobilization Plan – Build surge capacity for all critical components. This is especially critical in producing ammunition which is described as having fallen to "dangerously low levels". The target will be to spend £6 billion for munitions production and build six new energetics factories at pace.
4. Counter-Espionage Offensive – Harden all financial, academic and political domains against all levels and vectors of adversarial infiltration. Expand cyber resilience with the passing of a Cyber Security and Resilience Bill to protect all aspects of Critical Infrastructure and address the escalation of cyber threats and attacks.
5. Whole-of-Nation Resilience – Integrate private sector, academia, and civil society into national security planning. Begin the long-awaited National discussion on defence to raise both awareness of the multiple critical threats and to engage all sectors of UK society to take responsibility and ownership for the defence of the nation. An important step outlined is the need to appoint a Minister for Homeland Security, pass a Defence Readiness Bill and coordinate a Home Defence Programme and Resilience Action Plan alongside the public engagement strategy.

Fundamentally all the above recommendations need a serious approach to both investment and defence spending. The highly respected commentator and former British Army officer Colonel (Retd) Tim Collins sums up the situation with this statement: „Serious efforts are being made by those now in uniform, and every kind of political backing is there except the one that matters: money”, and here lies the heart of the problem.

The earlier issued Strategic Defence Review declared the ambition for the United Kingdom to reach a defence spending target of 2.5% of GDP by 2027 and 3% in the next Parliament. However, experts warn this is still insufficient given the scale and multiple directions of threats and the pace of adversary rearmament. In this, the UK should learn from the example of Poland, which is scaling its force modernisation program at pace and is already spending 4.7% of GDP on defence and prioritising its budget accordingly. Indeed, Poland’s efforts and example are greatly admired by many in both senior UK defence/political circles as well as by many senior defence commentators who describe Poland as an example to follow. Their prevailing opinion is that if the needed UK uplift in defence investment does not happen, then they are publicly warning that Britain risks becoming the soft underbelly of Western defence.

Conclusion: Britain at a crossroads

November 2025 has exposed a sobering truth: the UK is not insulated from the turbulence of hybrid warfare. The Home Island is no longer a safe sanctuary but is now becoming with greater frequency a target.  Hybrid warfare has now moved beyond being just a theoretical concept confined to academic think-tank papers and discussion circles into an evolving reality with effects in the here and now.

Cyber intrusions, economic infiltration and maritime provocations amongst other things are all now converging with traditional espionage and influence operations to shape this whole sphere of engagement. The UK despite its global ambitions and declared political rhetoric of resilience, finds itself in a dangerously vulnerable position, without yet taking the difficult practical steps to improve its defence shortcomings.

Britain’s current predicament echoes the late 1930s, which was a period marked by strategic complacency and underinvestment despite obvious and clear warning signs. Then, as now, policymakers clung to assumptions of time and distance as buffers against aggression which proved to be catastrophic. Today’s hybrid threats are the Luftwaffe raids of our era: disruptive, relentless and all aimed at diminishing national will and resolve. History as we know teaches many lessons and perhaps in this case the lesson is that deterrence delayed is deterrence denied.