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 […]
Though few at Nato would admit it, in his first four years as US President, Donald Trump had more impact on the security alliance than his immediate predecessors, Obama and Bush, put together. To understand the future Trump-Nato relationship, one should look to the past. The most obvious Nato success of the first Trump administration […]
The Prime Minister this month met with Nato’s new Secretary General, Mark Rutte. While there was naturally much agreement about the main threats facing the alliance today, one topic remains prickly: the Government’s desire for a UK-EU ‘security pact’ and the European Union’s plans for defence – something that has been causing senior Nato figures […]
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