London | UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Monday (Tuesday AEST) to bring his country to “war-fighting readiness”, confirming plans to build up to 12 new attack submarines and invest billions of pounds in weapons, to fortify for a world caught between a hostile, aggressive Russia and a retrenching United States.

The ambitious rearmament is part of a strategic defence review by the government, which laid out the threatening new landscape and called for increased production of drones and the stockpiling of more munitions and equipment.