The refusal of the Treasury to increase defence spending shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is exactly what HM Treasury is supposed to do: stop spending that it sees as unaffordable, unless the necessary trade-offs are made to unblock it. The point of cabinet government is for Secretaries of State to make their case for […]
In what could have been a comment on Scotland’s low-scoring, but nevertheless clean sheet-keeping win against Haiti in the World Cup, Adam Smith once remarked: ‘Defence is of much more importance than opulence’. But for too long now, Britain has had too little of either. The lack of capable military force has prompted (at the […]
When John Healey resigned as Defence Secretary last week, there was widespread praise for his principled stand. The financial settlement contained in the final draft of the Defence Investment Plan, believed to offer the Ministry of Defence an additional £10 billion or so over the next four years, was not even close to the resources […]
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 […]
