NATIONAL FORCES
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Exercise Viking Strike: Britain’s digital battlefield begins to take shape
Military revolutions often emerge gradually, revealed through seemingly routine exercises whose true significance only becomes apparent in retrospect. Exercise Viking Strike, conducted in Northumberland’s Otterburn ranges and the forests of Kielder, appears to have been precisely such a moment for…
Keir Starmer, Churchillian Rhetoric, Peacetime Budgets, & the Slow Death of Britain’s Defence Capabilities
Great powers can decline with dignity. Formerly great powers, by contrast, often compensate for diminished means with inflated rhetoric. Britain has chosen the latter course. It still speaks in the accents of a serious military state. Ministers talk of deterrence,…
Keir Starmer’s Defence Bonanza Is Heavy on Headlines, Light on Credibility
Britain’s political class has finally rediscovered defence. After three decades spent harvesting the post-Cold War peace dividend, ministers now speak the language of deterrence with almost evangelical conviction. Russia is rearming. China is expanding. NATO is under pressure. Europe must…
Czech NATO Summit Row Exposes Strain Between Prague’s President and Government
A dispute over who should represent the Czech Republic at next month’s NATO summit has moved from domestic political argument to constitutional confrontation, after President Petr Pavel appealed to the Constitutional Court over his exclusion from the national delegation. The…
Pete Hegseth’s Hard Truth: Europe’s Free Ride on Defence Is Over
Pete Hegseth’s remarks in Brussels this week have unsettled many European policymakers. Yet for those who spent time serving alongside American military personnel during the Cold War, his words sounded less like provocation and more like a statement of reality…
Germany’s Red Sea Deployment Turns Hormuz Planning Into Naval Test for Europe
Berlin’s decision to move the minehunter Fulda and supply ship Mosel towards the Red Sea shows that Europe’s proposed Hormuz mission is no longer only a diplomatic concept. It is becoming a test of naval capacity, legal authority and regional…
Denmark’s Latvia Deployment Turns NATO Baltic Reinforcement Into Troops on the Ground
Denmark’s plan to send an 850-strong battalion to Latvia in autumn shows NATO’s Baltic deterrence becoming more concrete, as European allies translate eastern-flank commitments into scheduled troop rotations. Denmark’s decision to deploy an 850-strong battalion to Latvia in the autumn…
Angela Eagle: The Worrying Case of Britain’s New Security Minister
There is an old assumption in British politics that ministerial competence is transferable. A capable minister, it is said, can move effortlessly from pensions to policing, from agriculture to intelligence, from transport to defence. Mastery of the briefing box, familiarity…
Russia’s Mass Strike on Ukraine Renews Questions Over NATO Border Air Defence
Russia’s latest mass missile and drone attack on Ukraine has again placed NATO’s eastern air-defence posture under scrutiny, after Poland activated military aviation and air-defence systems while Ukrainian cities came under one of the largest combined strikes of recent months.…