Europe is facing a sobering reality: the threat of a large-scale conflict with Russia is no longer a distant possibility, but a looming challenge that demands urgent attention. On December 11, 2025, Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, issued a stark warning that has reverberated across the continent. Speaking with an unflinching sense of urgency, Rutte declared, "We are Russia’s next target, and we are already in harm’s way." He painted a picture of a future not unlike the darkest days of the twentieth century, cautioning that Europe must prepare for a war "on the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured."
Rutte's warning comes at a time when the United Kingdom, once considered a bulwark of Western defense, is confronting uncomfortable truths about its own military readiness. Years of underinvestment, shrinking personnel numbers, and aging equipment have left Britain's armed forces in a precarious position. According to The i Paper, while there is a renewed commitment to rebuilding industrial capacity and expanding the armed forces, the reality is that these efforts could take years to yield tangible results. And if Rutte's assessment is accurate, time is a luxury Britain may not have.
The state of the UK's nuclear deterrent is a particular concern. Britain's four Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines, which have formed the backbone of its nuclear defense since 1969, are now decades old and stretched well beyond their intended lifespan. The much-anticipated Dreadnought-class replacements are not expected to enter service until the early 2030s. As The i Paper notes, "A single delay could break the chain of deterrence that has never faltered." In the meantime, Britain has finally committed to investing in air-delivered tactical nuclear weapons such as the B61 gravity bomb, but these too are not expected to be operational until the next decade.
Former defense minister Tobias Ellwood, offering his perspective in The i Paper, reflected on the fragility behind Britain's nuclear tradition. "We are armed with high-yield city-busters, not tools for limited or tactical use – leaving us with almost no options between peace and the end of the world," Ellwood stated. He argued that adversaries are increasingly preparing for limited nuclear scenarios, scenarios for which the UK is ill-prepared. "Our preparedness simply isn’t there," he warned, highlighting the thinness of Britain's air and missile defenses and the near-total disappearance of civil defense planning.
This vulnerability is exacerbated by the collapse of international arms-control frameworks. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty has dissolved, Russia has suspended its participation in the 2011 New START treaty, and China was never bound by these agreements. The global framework that once restrained nuclear powers has unraveled, leaving the world more exposed to the risk of nuclear escalation. As The i Paper observes, "The greater danger today is not global annihilation but the use of low-yield nuclear weapons in a regional war, or by proxy through a non-state actor. Russia openly rehearses such scenarios, believing the West might blink."
This sense of growing danger is echoed on the global stage. At the Doha Forum on December 11, 2025, Izumi Nakamitsu, the United Nations under-secretary-general and high representative for disarmament affairs, issued her own warning. In an interview with Anadolu Agency, Nakamitsu said, "I think the risk of nuclear weapons actually being used in conflict is at its highest since the depths of the Cold War." She cited an accelerating arms race, driven by geopolitical rivalry and large-scale modernization of nuclear arsenals, as a key factor behind the heightened risk.
"I’m afraid we are actually starting to see arms race dynamics already," Nakamitsu explained. "All nuclear weapons states have been investing quite a lot of money in nuclear weapon systems… which is quite worrying." She further clarified that these dynamics were already in play before the Russia-Ukraine war, with nuclear-armed states expanding and modernizing their stockpiles for several years.
According to Nakamitsu, the combination of weakened arms-control agreements, shrinking diplomatic dialogue, and rising regional conflicts has pushed the world closer to the brink of nuclear miscalculation than at any time in recent memory. "The dynamics of an arms race started before Ukraine," she noted, emphasizing that the risk is not simply the product of recent crises but the culmination of years of deteriorating security conditions.
In light of these developments, Nakamitsu urged all nuclear-armed states to exercise restraint, maintain open communication channels, and adopt immediate risk-reduction measures to prevent accidental escalation. She stressed that disarmament is not solely about reducing warhead numbers. "Disarmament doesn’t only mean reduction of arsenals," she said. "There are other tools that can lead us back toward negotiations." These tools include transparency, confidence-building, mutual restraint, and the restoration of trust between major powers.
The erosion of trust has been particularly evident in the wake of ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. Nakamitsu observed, "Conflict and violations of humanitarian principles in one region affect all other issues. Trust required for multilateral negotiations is being eroded." This erosion, she warned, threatens the very foundation of global nuclear governance, including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which she described as the backbone of international efforts to prevent nuclear catastrophe.
With the next NPT Review Conference scheduled for 2026, Nakamitsu called on world leaders to treat the meeting as a diplomatic priority and to come prepared to compromise. "Next year is really important," she insisted. "Leaders must come to the NPT Review Conference with shared interest in producing an outcome document." She concluded with a reminder of the shared global responsibility to prevent nuclear disaster: "Diplomacy, dialogue and a spirit of common interest — that is international security for all of us."
Back in Britain, the call for action is equally urgent. Tobias Ellwood has urged the government to accelerate the Dreadnought program and the delivery of tactical nuclear capabilities within the next five years. He also called for an update to the UK's nuclear doctrine, so that thresholds for response are "clear and unambiguous." Without a spectrum of nuclear choices and clarity of resolve, Ellwood cautioned, "our deterrence risks becoming a bluff."
As the world enters what many now describe as a new nuclear age, the stakes could hardly be higher. The nuclear age, as Ellwood put it, "never ended; it only went quiet. And now, as the noise returns, Britain must decide whether it still wants to hear the siren first, or the silence after." The choices made in the coming years—by Britain, Europe, and the world—will determine not just the future of deterrence, but the very prospects for peace in a rapidly changing global order.
