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US-Iran talks enter another deadline phase as military pressure builds
A fresh 48-hour deadline has pushed the United States-Iran nuclear stand-off into another compressed negotiating window, with a new round of talks expected in Geneva on Thursday, 26 February. Oman has confirmed that US and Iranian officials are due to…
Putin doubles down on militarisation while Geneva talks yield no breakthrough
Vladimir Putin used Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day on 23 February to call for further military expansion and to urge national unity around the war, in remarks that provided no indication of a shift towards ending hostilities, as US-mediated…
France-Germany rift over FCAS fighter jet raises new doubts over Europe’s flagship air combat project
A public dispute between France and Germany over the next generation of European fighter aircraft has renewed uncertainty around the Future Combat Air System (FCAS), one of the continent’s most expensive and politically significant defence programmes. The disagreement centres on…
LEAP Forward: The New Defence Blueprint from Europe’s Military Leaders
In Krakow this week, defence ministers from Europe’s most powerful military states convened under the shadow of a new strategic imperative — the airborne battlefield. France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom, traditionally cautious in their collective defence responses,…
Trump team pauses Taiwan arms package ahead of prospective April China visit
The Trump administration has delayed decisions on a major arms-sales package for Taiwan amid Chinese pressure and concern in Washington that moving ahead could complicate President Donald Trump’s expected visit to Beijing in April, according to reporting by The Wall…
Major General Wolf-Jürgen Stahl’s Trump Broadside Exposes Europe’s Strategic Anxiety
It is not often that a serving German general publicly dissects the character of an American president. That taboo has now been shattered. Major General Wolf-Jürgen Stahl, head of Berlin’s Federal Academy for Security Policy, has delivered a diagnosis of…
Washington Tightens the Noose: Ford Heads East as Iran Rejects US Red Lines
Washington’s military posture towards Iran hardened on Thursday as a second US aircraft carrier steamed towards the Middle East, air power in theatre reached levels not seen since the opening phase of the Iraq war, and negotiators left Geneva with…
Zaluzhnyi breaks silence on 2023 counteroffensive as rift with Zelenskyy resurfaces
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s former commander-in-chief and now ambassador to the United Kingdom, has given an interview to the Associated Press that sets out, in unusual detail, his disagreements with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over both military decision-making and civil–military relations inside…
NATO rehearses Baltic amphibious landing near Kiel amid renewed focus on Kaliningrad and sea lanes
NATO troops have staged an amphibious landing exercise on Germany’s Baltic coast, close to the port city of Kiel, in a drill involving roughly 3,000 personnel and forming part of the wider Steadfast Dart 2026 programme. The beach-assault phase took…
Kremlin Calls Shadow Fleet Seizures ‘Piracy’ and Threatens Naval Response
The war in Ukraine has long since escaped the trenches of Donbas and the missile-scarred cities of the Black Sea coast. Sanctions, sabotage, cyber operations and energy coercion have transformed it into something broader: a systemic contest between Russia and…