COMMENTARY
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A Tale of Two Navies: France sends a Flotilla to Hormuz while Britain struggles to deploy a single warship.
When the government of France announced that it would dispatch a naval task force to safeguard shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, the move carried a familiar echo of Gaullist strategic instinct: protect trade routes, demonstrate resolve, and signal that…
Drone used in attack on RAF Akrotiri contained Russian-made parts, report says
A drone that struck the British air base at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus on 1 March contained a Russian-made Kometa-B navigation system, according to reporting by The Times, a finding likely to sharpen scrutiny of military links between Moscow and…
The Long and Lonely Shadow of Forgotten Conflicts
In the public imagination, the word “veteran” tends to conjure images of recent campaigns: dusty patrols in Afghanistan, convoys edging through Iraqi cities, or the grim televised briefings that accompanied those conflicts. Yet across Europe, Britain and the United States…
Ukraine’s donor-funded answer to Iranian drones is drawing attention far beyond the battlefield
Ukraine’s war with Russia has forced the country to develop practical answers to one of the most persistent threats in modern warfare: the Iranian-designed Shahed attack drone. What began as an urgent wartime necessity is now emerging as a significant…
Hegseth shrugs off reports of Russian intelligence aid to Iran as Trump refuses comment
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has sought to minimise the political impact of reports that Russia is supplying Iran with intelligence that could help it target American forces in the Middle East, insisting that President Donald Trump is fully aware…
Britain’s Strategic Paralysis — and the Dangerous Illusion of Security
If the unfolding crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean proves anything, it is that Britain’s international standing now rests not on the steel of its armed forces but on the timidity of its political leadership. The spectacle of a government paralysed…
Poland seeks greater autonomy in nuclear deterrence as Europe revisits defence integration
Poland has moved the question of nuclear deterrence closer to the centre of the European security debate after Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that Warsaw wants “as much autonomy as possible” in this field and is holding talks with France and…
Israel’s coherence, Washington’s ambiguity: the missing political strategy in Iran
As Israeli operations follow a clear military logic, questions grow over whether Washington has any coherent political plan for what comes next in Iran. Events in the Middle East have been moving at speed since the latest phase of the…
Shielding the Spear Tip: How Britain Could Defend Its Forward Bases from the Drone Age
The drone that struck RAF Akrotiri was small, comparatively cheap and — in the grim arithmetic of modern warfare — expendable. Yet it exposed something far more valuable: the vulnerability of Britain’s forward operating model in an era when unmanned…
Afghanistan-Pakistan Hostilities Mount: Inside the Growing Crisis
Blasts and gunfire rattled through parts of Kabul on Sunday, marking a dramatic escalation in hostilities between Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan that has now stretched into its fourth day. Residents across the Afghan capital awoke to the sounds of explosions…