When the news came through late last week that Keir Starmer had dropped the Diego Garcia Bill from the King’s Speech – meaning it will not be in the next legislative session – many asked if this is really the end of the road for the dreadful deal. The twists and turns of the Chagos […]
This short story is a product of the Creative Futures Research Project, a partnership between Coventry University and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the MoD’s research arm at Porton Down. The aim of Creative Futures is to explore how emerging technologies might impact society and geopolitics. Discussions between science fiction writers and defence experts […]
‘The Bomber Will Always Get Through.’ With this blunt warning in 1932, eight years before the Blitz, Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin revealed a harsh truth: nothing was safe in the era of aerial warfare. Almost a century later, we are faced with an equally formidable threat in the form of cheap and scalable drones. This […]
‘How good is our military?’ Donald Trump asked rhetorically when he addressed a group of Republican members of Congress recently. The answer – judging from the first 10 days of Operation Epic Fury – is, in many ways, exceptionally good. The joint American and Israeli air and missile strikes which began on 28 February have […]
Defence procurement is back in the headlines as Secretary of State for Defence John Healey contemplates cancelling the £6 billion Ajax programme. Ajax is the UK’s single biggest order for an armoured vehicle in over 20 years and has been a disaster from start to finish. The programme is running eight years behind schedule, and […]
The pace has been far too leisurely, but European nations have finally grasped that they need to increase their defence spending and rearm their militaries. In May, the European Council approved a proposal from the Commission to establish the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) instrument, a €150 billion fund which will provide ‘competitively priced long-maturity […]
Like many of this Government’s major policy statements, it was behind schedule, but on September 8, the Defence Industrial Strategy was finally published. Subtitled ‘Making Defence an Engine for Growth’, it was unveiled at Defence and Security Equipment International 2025, the biennial defence industry conference in London, where an array of ministers and senior military […]
Warfare is changing rapidly – at a rate perhaps never previously witnessed. And yet, the Government continues to dither and delay in a way that is now starting to impact in the real world, in key areas of UK defence industrial prowess, such as rotary-wing aircraft. The charge sheet of growing concern about Labour’s defence […]
There is never any confirmation of such things, but a number of sources agree: a few days ago, the United States Air Force transported a number of B61 Mod 12 thermonuclear gravity bombs from the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Kirtland AFB in New Mexico to RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk. This is a significant […]
On June 1, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) released some incredible video: a row of Russian strategic bombers lined up on the tarmac, all burning fiercely. The video was taken from a small drone which flew past the column of smoke from one burning aircraft as it lined up to attack another. This was […]
At long last, the Strategic Defence Review has been released. Soon to accompany it will be the UK Defence Industrial Strategy. This will tell us whether Rachel Reeves was serious in her aim to make the UK a ‘defence industrial superpower’. This strategic pivot towards ramping up our defence capabilities is an welcome one. In […]
The Strategic Defence Review has finally been published. It is rumoured to be two or three months since the independent reviewers, led by former defence secretary Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, delivered a final draft to the Ministry of Defence, and the wrangling continues within Whitehall over how much money the Government intends to spend […]
After the long, indulgent years of the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’ and more recent hand-wringing anxiety about scarce resources, governments across Europe are beginning to raise the level of public spending on defence, and promising to go further. Rearmament is suddenly the cause on everyone’s lips, our complacency shattered by Russian aggression and wider geopolitical […]
The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners […]
So, what happens now? There is general agreement that last Friday’s White House meeting was a disaster. Nothing like that has ever occurred in the Oval Office. It was the sort of way in which Stalin might have treated one of his colleagues, before ordering him to be taken off and shot. The Western Alliance: […]
Defence spending needs to be materially higher. It is now 2.3% of GDP. Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced an increase to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, paid for by a cut in overseas aid, and that it would rise to 3% over the next decade. This reflects the changing geopolitical landscape and US pressure for […]
In a video-call address to a summit being held in Kyiv on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a further package of UK assistance to Ukraine accompanied by additional sanctions. He said the aim was to increase pressure on Vladimir Putin to make concessions in peace talks, declaring: Russia […]
In the latest episode of our weekly podcast, The Capitalist: Has Reform UK’s energy plan exposed the party’s economic failings? And will Kemi Badenoch capitalise on this misstep? Marc Sidwell is joined by Dr Lawrence Newport and Albie Amankona to break down a week of political turbulence. Plus: Emmanuel Macron warns of the ‘electroshock’ of a […]
If you need to hold a summit, Paris comes highly recommended: since the peace conference which produced the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, there have been at least four similar major meetings in the French capital. It was natural enough, then, that European leaders responded to President Emmanuel Macron’s invitation and converged on Paris on […]
Another Donald Trump administration, another inevitable dispute about defence expenditure. Last time, it was about whether and when European and Canadian allies would fulfil the Nato defence expenditure target of 2% of national GDP. This time, it is likely to be a dispute about spending significantly more – reports suggest that Trump wants to more […]
The events of the past week have shown what non-state actors, supported by aggressive states, can do. The terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and a plethora of Turkish-backed militias shocked the world by taking over Syria’s largest cities in a matter of days and forcing its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to flee. There is no love […]
A strange thing happened in the Baltic Sea last month. In the early hours of Monday November 18, the undersea telecommunications cable linking Finland and Germany was cut. This occurred just a day after another cable, this time linking Lithuania and Sweden, was also damaged, reducing Lithuania’s internet capacity by a fifth. What caused this […]
Watch or listen to CapX’s weekly podcast ‘The Capitalist’ wherever you get your podcasts.
