THE LINDLEY-FRENCH ANALYSIS: SPEAKING TRUTH UNTO POWER

Britain, Starmer and Labour's Critical Defence Theory

2026-06-10T10:37:42.119+02:00

“They are warming up for another one [world war]”. Heartbroken British D-Day veteran remembering his dead mates, June 6, 2026

Critical Defence Theory

June 12th. Today’s resignation of John Healey MP, Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence comes as no surprise. I skewered him and his argument at the recent London Defence Conference shortly after he had spoken. It was clear to me then that Healey was a decent man and was being asked (excuse the pun) to defend the indefensible. What is also clear is that Sir Keir Starmer and his government do not just dislike spending on defence, it is ideologically opposed to it.

To govern is to choose and my contention herein is that there is a continuum between critical race theory and what I call critical defence theory which will be implicit in the long-delayed British Defence Investment Plan. This is why I do not need to wait for it to know what it will say. Or, to put it another way, the collapse of British streets into something like anarchy is a choice. If a government chooses not to secure their citizens by dealing with crime it is a short step for such a government not to defend them either. For some weeks I have focused on the disaster that is British defence policy. In part it is because it is my own country, but it is also because what is being inflicted upon the British armed forces and the British people by its government is a warning to all Europeans. This is a self-inflicted defence crisis. Proof? NATO now ranks the vital readiness of the British armed forces 31 out of 32 allies. Only Iceland ranks lower than Britain and it has no armed forces!

It is my contention herein that CRT is now embedded in defence policy and that the Defence Investment Plan will be clear evidence of Critical Defence Theory in action. Let me explain. CDT is a product of critical race theory or CRT. CRT focuses on race in the belief that racism is structural and normal in societies that are historically majority white with perpetual racial inequality the consequence. In the last twenty years or so CRT has embedded itself in British government institutions though the politicization of the civil service. It is also now endemic in education. CRT’s central tenet is that merit and competition are merely mechanisms to confirm white privilege. Its adherents believe the only way ‘white privilege’ can be reversed is ‘affirmative action’ to re-balance what is claimed to be the disproportionate share of power and wealth enjoyed by white people, whatever their individual circumstances. The aim of this activist theory (or rather manifesto) is to engineer ‘equal outcomes’ rather than promote equality with all and any critique dismissed as “hate speech” and the sanction being cancelled. Go ahead. Make my day!

DEI and defence

In majority white societies, such as Britain, a range of methods are used to promote change through diversity, equity (not equality), and inclusion. One of which is to replace the hero narrative (Nelson, Wellington, Churchill et al) of British history with an alternative guilt narrative (slavery, imperial genocide et al) with associated accusations of ‘toxic masculinity’.

In 2018, the left-leaning More in Common circulated a questionnaire entitled “Hidden Tribes” which found that 90% of the staff in public bodies described themselves as “progressive activists”, even if they only represented 10% of the population. In the past weeks and months evidence that two-tier policing exists in Britain has become overwhelming. Police forces across Britain apply different standards of law to different ethnic communities as part of the Establishment obsession with diversity, equity and inclusion. This policy has led to the widespread and growing feeling amongst huge swathes of the British population that the government no longer believes its duty is to act in their interests, as evidenced by the collapse in trust in government and the police.

The abandonment of political realism

My contention is that the underfunding of defence is no longer simply a consequence of misrule and debt, but rather ideology. I am a political Realist and Oxford historian. For years I have been trying to get British governments to adopt a properly threat-based defence policy commensurate with Britain’s still considerable regional strategic geopolitical weight. I have written op-eds, articles and even books but all to no avail. Why? Because I have been naive. In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 US-created banking crisis such strategic defence illiteracy could at least be justified. When Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and US banks (possibly with the collusion of the US government) inflicted their toxic loans on the rest of us, the cost of simply saving the banking system was ruinous public expenditure. After all, there is no cozier relationship than that between senior bankers, senior bureaucrats and senior politicians. Back then, defence was emasculated to keep the banks afloat.

The result was the brutal 10% cut to the British defence budget in 2010, even though British forces were deep in a major campaign in Afghanistan and had a host of other responsibilities. The already taut relationship between ends, ways and means began to fray. By putting the entire cost of the nuclear deterrent in the defence budget London effectively weakened and cut both Britain’s nuclear and conventional forces. Now the relationship has snapped.

Some will say Britain’s defence pretence is simply a function of debt. After all, British debt now stands close to $3 trillion with the annual cost of servicing that debt significantly higher than the annual defence budget.

The little DIPper

The short term is once again triumphing over the longer-term, the cost of defence over the value of peace, the fashionable over the fundamental, and a dangerous ideology over sound defence policy and strategy.

Britain’s service chiefs are becoming desperate. Last week, the Chief of the British Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, pleaded with the government to increase not only investment in Britain’s defence but also the speed with which investment will take place. “This is the most dangerous period that I have known. The risks and threats to this country are greater than I have known since the Cold War,” Knighton said.

It is easy to see why he is desperate given the ‘say-do gap’. To realise the vision in the government’s own 2025 Strategic Defence Review the armed forces would need at least a further £28 billion invested. Starmer would like to offer £18 billion. The Treasury has watered that down to a paltry increase of 0.08% GDP by 2030. It is now clear the ‘DIP’ will simply be yet another plan to plunder defence to fund welfare by a government that does not believe in either Britain or defending it. It is politics dressed up as strategy by a government that is little more than a student’s union for which the future of Britain’s defence is mortgaged simply to maintain the appearance of defence ‘investment’ now.

Forget the media spin Whitehall is preparing. There will a lot of talk of drones and hybrid forces and that the DIP places Britain’s armed forces on a war footing and that it represents the greatest single investment in the armed forces since the end of the Cold War. It does not and it is not.

Critical Defence Theory can thus be summarised: Weakness is virtue. Britain and its people are guilty of a host of historic crimes and thus must live with the consequences by having increased risk and threat imposed upon them. This is because Western privilege can only be countered by accepting that those who threaten Britain have also been wronged by the British. By choosing to be weak Britain is signalling to adversaries that the British no longer pose a threat to anybody or anyone, however predatory or dangerous they may be.

Wilful weakness is a threat in and of itself. As the threats become relatively greater Britain’s armed forces are becoming relatively weaker and tipping NATO into crisis. Such weakness is not only wilful, it is exceedingly dangerous because it destabilises further an already unstable Europe. It not only imposes costs on allies and partners, it encourages likes of Putin and Xi. As that brave D-Day veteran said, we seem to be warming up for another war.

Julian Lindley-French

HMS Hood

2026-05-24T09:07:28.464+02:00

“…the danger persists that Europeans are moving inexorably towards a lowest common denominator European force, an analogue ‘European Army’ in a digital age which simply bolts together a lot of European legacy forces”.

Future War and the Defence of Europe, John R. Allen, Ben Hodges and Julian Lindley-French, (Oxford: Oxford University Press)

Cataclysm!

0559 hours, Denmark Strait time, May 24, 2026

Eighty-five years ago to the minute in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland, a fifteen inch (38cm) armour-piercing naval shell from the German fast battleship KM Bismarck crashed into the starboard side of the British battlecruiser HMS Hood between the main mast and one of her aft main gun turrets. The shell penetrated deep into the innards of Hood, pierced the armoured deck and then exploded in one of the shell rooms for the ship’s 4 inch guns, right next to where the shells for two of the Hood’s own main 15 inch batteries were secured. As Bismarck’s shell exploded the stored and ‘ready’ British shells joined together in an almighty chorus of cataclysmic death that sent a cathedral spire of flame towering over the doomed ship. As Hood exploded X turret, one of her two main aft gun batteries which weighed some 2500 tons, was seen soaring into the sky above the ship almost completely intact. Immediately, the entire forward section of the ship began to rear up as the Hood broke first into two sections, and then three, as the forward main magazines also ignited. Within three minutes of the initial explosion Hood had vanished below the surface of the frigid North Atlantic taking 1415 men down with her. Only three survived, Able Seaman Ted Briggs, Able Seaman Bill Dundas and Able Seaman Bob Tillmann.

Under the command of Captain R. Kerr CBE, and displacing some 47,000 tons, The Mighty Hood was the very symbol of British naval might during the interbellum. HMS Hood was joined in the action by the brand new, but effectively still incomplete battleship HMS Prince of Wales under the command of Captain J.C. (Jack) Leach DSO, MVO which was forced to undertake a drastic evasive manoeuvre to avoid hitting the rearing, burning, tortured wreck of the sinking Hood in front of him. Bismarck also struck Prince of Wales seven times during the action and Captain Leach was forced to make smoke to mask her range correctly broke off the action even though it afforded the Germans what appeared at first to be a major naval victory. However, HMS Prince of Wales had also scored three hits on the Bismarck, one of which was in the forward oil bunker of the German ship and which would in time prove fatal.

Some years ago film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmrkmkQtdw was unearthed. It is a unique record of the battle and includes the moment HMS Hood exploded. It was shot by a brave German officer on board the heavy-cruiser KM Prinz Eugen which was escorting the Bismarck. There is an enormous flash on the horizon as HMS Hood blows up suggesting that the explosion or explosions which blew the Hood apart may have had the force of a low yield atomic weapon. In July 2001 David Mearn’s and his team at Blue Water Recoveries discovered the wreck of HMS Hood lying in the silt plains of the Irminger Basin some 270 miles/400 km west southwest of Reykjavik at a depth of some 1500 fathoms or 3000 metres. She rests in three sections with the bow on its port side some distance ahead of an upside down amidships section, whilst what remains of the stern rests a further distance away from the rest of the debris field. Astonishingly, some 300 feet (or 100 metres) of the hull appears to have simply disintegrated, testament to the force of the explosions that destroyed her.

HMS Hood was soon avenged. Crucially, the salvo from HMS Prince of Wales that had struck Bismarck led to the loss a lot of fuel oil and she had also been flooded with over 2000 tons of sea water. Indeed, towards the end of the Prinz Eugen film it is clear that the German battleship is down by the head. She was also listing 9 degrees to port. The damage was such that the German fleet commander, Admiral Gunther Lutjens, was forced to abandon her planned commerce-raiding mission (Operation Rheinubung) and seek refuge in Brest on the French coast. Three days later, at 0800 hours on the morning of May 27^th, 1941 the Hood’s assailant capsized and sank taking with her 1995 of her 2200 strong crew. During an exercise in British sea power the Bismarck had been remorselessly hunted down by the Royal Navy, crippled by British carrier-based aircraft from HMS Ark Royal, and in what rapidly became a massacre effectively destroyed by the heavy battleships HMS King George V and HMS Rodney under the command of Admiral J.C. Tovey, Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet. The coup de grace was delivered by three torpedoes from the heavy-cruiser HMS Dorsetshire, although German accounts claim Bismarck was also scuttled. The shattered wreck of the Bismarck now lies at a depth of 2619 fathoms or 4790 metres some 470 nautical miles west of Brest.

Analysis

The British fleet commander was Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland CB and controversy remains to this day about the tactics he adopted during the action. The intercept course plotted by Holland enabled the two German ships to engage both the Hood and Prince of Wales with their full armament, whilst the British ships could only engage with their forward main armament during the early stages of the action. However, the Royal Navy’s battle orders of the time recommended such an approach to reduce the profile of ships to the enemy, albeit at high speed. Vice-Admiral Holland would also have been acutely aware of the vulnerability of HMS Hood to Bismarck’s plunging fire. HMS Hood was a battlecruiser not a battleship, a flawed concept from the Edwardian age that sacrificed armour for speed in the mistaken belief the latter would protect her when under fire from ‘heavy’ opponents. At the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 HMS Queen Mary, HMS Indefatigable, and the unfortunately named HMS Invincible, three forebears of HMS Hood, all exploded in very similar circumstances with great loss of life. Indeed, the then commander of the British Battlecruiser Fleet, Admiral D.R. Beatty GCB, OM, GCVO, DSO, PC famously remarked during the battle that, “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today”. There was, a failure of concept.

Holland was clearly trying to following battle orders and had already ordered by Hood and Prince of Wales to accelerate to flank speed or 28 knots, which explains why the wreck’s debris field extends over some 2 miles or 3 kilometres. However, Hood did not approach Bismarck and Prinz Eugen head on but on a converging course, which enabled the Germans to target the entire length of Hood from the start of the action. Holland had also begun to turn to port in an attempt to bring Hood’s aft main turrets into action, which at that speed should have taken no more than 30 seconds. As a ghostly reminder of those terrible events eighty years ago today the large single rudder on Hood’s wrecked upturned stern, which also reveals her vintage, is indeed locked in a turn 20 degrees to port. Mistakes also seem to have been made on board Hood in identifying the main target as Holland’s flagship first engaged the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen leaving Bismarck to open fire unmolested until Prince of Wales got her range, although the Germans similarly failed to engage Leach’s ship for part of the action. A review of the Prinz Eugen film on YouTube also shows some British shells falling far from their target with little or no grouping of the shells as they splash harmlessly into the sea, whilst German gunnery was excellent throughout the action.

However, perhaps the greatest error made is germane to my 2021 Oxford book Future War and the Defence of Europe co-written with my friends and colleagues General (Ret.) John R. Allen and Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Ben Hodges. HMS Hood was known as ‘good, old Hood’ in the Royal Navy and by much of the country. Her image almost gave her a political allure. Unfortunately, whilst the British tended to remember the ‘good’ they also tended to forget the ‘old’. Launched in August 1918 at the end of World War One, by the spring of 1941 Hood was in reality no match for the Bismarck. There had been plans in the 1930s to completely refit her as a fast battleship, but due to funding constraints in 1937 such ‘modernisation’ had been only partially completed. In other words, Hood’s destruction was sorry testament to what happens when poor concept and ageing technology is over-reached by strategy, budget constraints and hubris. It is not without some tragic irony that part of the funding that had been earmarked for the modernisation of HMS Hood was diverted to complete the then new ‘KGV’ class of five battleships, one of which was HMS Prince of Wales, and the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.

So, why was an ageing battlecruiser and an as yet not fully worked-up battleship sent to tackle a state-of-the-art German battleship? The short answer is that the Royal Navy’s Home Fleet had nothing else of note to send. By May 1941 Churchill had become extremely worried about the menace posed by German U-boats to war-sustaining Atlantic convoys. Even though at the time the Royal Navy was still the world’s largest naval force it was spread thin across several theatres. For Churchill, the fate of the war hung in the balance and the thought of the Bismarck breaking out into the Atlantic and wreaking havoc on the convoys was a terrifying prospect. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that for all the cataclysmic pathos of the Battle of the Denmark Strait on the morning of May 24^th, 1941, HMS Hood and HMS Prince of Wales actually succeeded in their primary mission of blocking the KM Bismarck from entering the wider Atlantic.

Relevance?

Why does the tragedy of HMS Hood remain relevant? It is because her fate was sealed not simply by the guns of the Bismarck, but by peacetime defence policy which had failed to sufficiently align strategy, technology and capability with changing reality. Without prudent defence policy in Europe there is no reason to believe something like the loss of Hood could not one day happen again.

In May 1941, the Bismarck was an ultra-modern battleship which combined speed, armour and firepower. Moreover, Bismarck’s own fate is equally relevant - technology, however good, cannot ever atone for bad strategy.

As the forward section of HMS Hood slid beneath the waves with the bow pointing almost vertically into the air ‘A’ and ‘B’ turrets, her two forward most batteries, barked out a last angry salvo. It may well have been that the guns were loaded and the firing circuits closed as the ship sank. It was also quite possibly the last defiant act of a brave but doomed sailor or Royal Marine on board a dying ship. In August 2015, HMS Hood’s ship’s bell was raised from the devastated wreck almost exactly above where the main aft magazine had exploded on that terrible day back in 1941. It now sits proudly in the National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth, close to the berth of a new HMS Prince of Wales, a 70,000 ton aircraft carrier.

The 1941 HMS Prince of Wales? Her fate is also germane to the new book. She was sunk by Japanese air power three days after Pearl Harbor together with another ageing battlecruiser, HMS Repulse, on December 10^th, 1941 off the coast of modern day Malaysia. Force Z lacked air cover because their accompanying aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable had previously run aground on her maiden voyage. Worse, poor co-ordination between Force Z and the Royal Air Force stationed in what was then British Malaya meant the force was insufficiently ‘joint’. The lack of vital air cover can also be attributed to closed minds on the part of some senior RN officers about the threat posed to capital ships by aircraft and rapidly improving torpedo technology.

Between May 24^th and May 27^th, 1941 some 3400 Europeans were killed-in-action at sea. My grandfather narrowly escaped the ghastly fate of being trapped in a sinking warship, and my great-uncle succumbed to it. Therefore, this heartfelt article is in tribute to all those who gave their lives on board HMS Hood and KM Bismarck, British and German alike. Once enemies, forever friends.

Requiescat in Pace. Rest in peace. Rühe in Frieden.

Julian Lindley-French

Tianxia: Everything Under Heaven

2026-05-20T09:51:47.456+02:00

“You know, when you look at the odds, China is a very, very powerful, big country. That’s a very small island. Think of it, it’s 59 miles away. 59 miles. We’re 9,500 miles away. That’s a little bit of a difficult problem,”

President Donald J. Trump, May 2026

May 19. Trump called his May 2026 visit to China a “historic moment”. It was but not for the reasons Trump implied. Xi’s messages to Trump were clear. First, the US must not interfere with China’s ‘inevitable’ rise to supremacy by, for example, stopping the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Second, Taiwan is Chinese. Third, China and the US are engaged in a geopolitical struggle for everything under the heavens that will define the twenty-first century.

Tianxia or ‘everything under heaven’ dates to ancient China and was a metaphor for Imperial China’s control by divine right of everything in the known world in pursuit of order. Imposing order is the very essence of Xi’s dictatorship and the Chinese Communist Party. Control can come in many forms – direct conquest of the South China Sea), coercion of much of the Pacific Rim, vassalage through debt and other means (Russia and the Belt and Road Initiative), and intimidation and deterrence (the US and the wider West).

Trump was not treated as an honoured guest but a supplicant. Xi went out of his way to quietly humiliate the American president. The touted sale of up to 500 Boeing 737 Max aircraft was reduced to 200. Xi suggested that the US was a declining power and that by inference China is the rising power. There was also a notable lack of coverage of Trump’s visit in the Chinese media. He also warned Trump not to interfere in China’s ‘internal affairs’ most notably Taiwan. In the Chinese lexicon of diplomacy such insults are just about as strong as it gets, even if Trump did get a visit to a sacred garden normally denied other visiting dignitaries.

Trump for his part, and in a very un-Trumpian way, seemed to be doing his best to Kowtow to Xi. Make America Great Again? Trump even suggested that Xi had not really meant that the US was a declining power, but only that the US had declined during the Biden administration. This is nonsense. Xi knew exactly what he was saying. He even warned the Americans not to fall into The Thucydides Trap. In The Melian Dialogue the 5^th century BC, “The strong do what they have to do and the weak accept what they have to accept”. The Trap is when a declining power fights a rising power to prevent the latter reaching a position of inevitable dominance. In 5^th century BC Europe Sparta attacked Athens because it feared the growing power of the Athenians. Xi was suggesting the Americans are Sparta to China’s Athens.

I have just finished the main draft of my latest book – War and Peace in the Indo-Pacific (Hurst 2027) which will be brilliant and very reasonably-priced. For almost two years I have immersed myself in all matters Indo-Pacific, particularly the China-US relationship. The conclusion of my analysis? First, Xi is right about Taiwan, Beijing wants it far more than Washington and the US will not go to war with the People’s Republic of China over it. Second, if China seeks Tianxia, everything under heaven across the entirety of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, then World War Three beckons.

Some of you will be old enough to remember ‘Ping pong Diplomacy’. In 1971, US table tennis player Glen Cowan played China’s Zuang Zhedong at the World Table Tennis Championships in Japan. Amazingly, the match led to a diplomatic breakthrough between Nixon’s America and Mao’s China and the establishment of economic and diplomatic relations severed during the Korean War in 1952. What we witnessed during Trump’s visit to China last week was the opposite of diplomacy. Rather, it revealed the extent of Xi’s strategic ambition and raised the question of the twenty-first century: would China be satisfied with recovering Taiwan or is Beijing set on a grand strategic collision course with the US.

Trump sought a deal in Beijing, what he got in return was a lecture on Chinese power and a warning not to try and contain it.

Julian Lindley-French

Another Great British Defence Lie

2026-04-07T10:58:00.003+02:00

April 7th. Another British government, another great defence lie. Sadly, Britain can no longer be trusted as a reliable defence ally because it is now a paper power not a real power in which ministers routinely mislead the true enemy – the British people – about the state of the Armed Forces. London is letting down the Americans, its NATO allies but above all it is letting down me, the British citizen. This will be my message to this week’s London Defence Conference at which I will speak.

Last week the Government said and I quote, “The Government is providing a generational increase in defence spending with an extra £270 billion across this Parliament, ensuring no return to the hollowed-out forces of the past and the strategic defence review sets out our path to increasing warfighting readiness". Since then, someone on the inside of the government has been in touch who I greatly like and respect. The message – the cost of social security has finally broken national security and George Robertson’s much-lauded Strategic Defence Review 2025 has been abandoned under pressure from His Majesty’s (strategically-illiterate) Treasury (finance ministry) and the hard-Left of the Parliamentary Labour Party to whom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is now beholden.

The proof? The Defence Investment Plan (DIP) and the Defence (Un)Readiness Bill. The DIP was meant to be published at the end of 2025 but is now unlikely to be released until the summer recess of Parliament to minimise political fall-out. This is because the Armed Forces need an additional £28 billion just to stand still with the cost of fixing the current Lilliputian conventional force £16 billion. The £18 billion that had been earmarked for defence when Starmer said in 2025 he wanted to put Britain’s forces on a war-footing has instead been diverted to appease the lunatic Left. The Defence Readiness Bill? It is far from ready.

The current projections HM Treasury are using confirm there will be a REAL TERMS CUT in Britain’s forces but to mask that defence inflation will be used to claim that in cash terms Britain has reached the promised 2.5% target by 2027. In other words, whilst the defence budget will appear to grow there will be even less force than there is today. London is also inflating so called ‘resilience’ investments to given the impression of defence investment by appearing to move towards the NATO target of 5% GDP on defence of which 1.5% is invested in greater ‘resilience’. ‘Resilience’ now includes expenditures that have nothing to do with defence, such as flood protection and military aid to the civilian authorities (MACA).

It is not just Britain’s allies and partners who are being let down. Take the Royal Navy. IF, the efforts to end the Type 45 destroyer gap and the Astute SSN gap are realised (a big if), AND the 8 Types 26 Global Combat Ships and 5 Type 31 Inspiration class ships are delivered as planned the Royal Navy will return to 10 deployable destroyers and frigates in the early 2030s. At present it has only 6 destroyers and frigates that are operational, some of which are the hull-expired Type 23 frigates. However, there will not be the planned 13 such ships available until 2041 at the earliest, and most certainly not the 17 ships that the Secretary of State John Healey claimed the Royal Navy had last month. It is a lack of availability and readiness caused by chronic underfunding and paper planning Take the Type 23 frigates. The Lloyd's Registry of naval ships has since 2000 certified Royal Navy ships as fit for service. However, because an uncertified ship imposes liability London has been forced to scrap Type 23 with utterly worn out hulls far earlier than planned because the cost of fixing them is prohibitive.

Then there is the Norway deal. The creation of an integrated fleet of British and Norwegian ships to cover the vast Arctic and North Atlantic is a good idea. However, to ensure the Norwegians receive ships no later than the mid-2030s Type 26s hulls that were meant for the Royal Navy will now go to the Norwegians. Worse, another government insider told me that the Treasury is considering using the Norwegian deal to further reduce the number of hulls for the Royal Navy by counting the Norwegian ships as British ships. They are not. They will then either cut the programme or order much cheaper Batch 2 Type 31s. It is a similar story for the Army and the Royal Air Force.

It is a mark of the dangerous groupthink within the Westminster-Whitehall bubble that according to another insider such defence sleight of hand is regarded as politically adept. In fact, it is a ‘stop the world I want to get off’ strategy beloved of short-termist government economists and strategically inept ministers who do not understand how wars start or their own responsibility in preserving the peace.

The consequences? Let me finish with a quote from an insider who is not at all prone to hyperbole: “I am about to say something that will surprise you. This is a government of traitors and appeasers. They have abandoned their allies, in the US, and the Gulf States, and Jordan, and Israel. They are letting down Japan on GCAP (Global Combat Air Programme) and will soon let down Australia on AUKUS. When Mr Starmer talks of getting the UK on a war readiness footing, remember he is talking about class war, not world war”.

Which brings me to the greatest lie of all. It is said the first duty of the state is to defend the realm. That is not how politicians see it. Their first duty is to themselves and staying in power. If that means lying to the British people by imposing ever greater risk on them for short-term political benefit, then so be it.

Shame on you!

Julian Lindley-French

A Radical Defence Idea

2026-03-30T11:47:00.002+02:00

“…the thought is that we would take over not all, but a very large number of, future British orders; and when they came off the line, whether they were planes or guns or something else, we would enter into some kind of arrangement for their use by the British on the ground that it was the best thing for American defense, with the understanding that when the show was over, we would get repaid sometime in kind, thereby leaving out the dollar mark in the form of a dollar debt and substituting for it a gentleman's obligation to repay in kind”.

President Roosevelt outlining what became Lend Lease, December 17, 1940

Bend-Cease

Europeans need a radical defence investment solution. This past weekend, General Sir Richard Barrons pointed out that the British Army is now so small with no more than 20,000 deployable troops that the most it could reasonably hope to conquer in a major shooting war would be a small market town not very well defended and not very far away. It is beyond a joke.

There are many reasons Europeans cannot modernise and strengthen their armed forces to meet the minimum requirements of deterring Russia and keeping the US engaged. Weak woke governments, economists who see power as accountancy and lawyers who see law as an alternative to power and who run weak woke governments. There are also ever greater public demands for welfare, the public debt incurred from saving the global financial system from bad bankers at the time of the US sub-prime loans scandal back in 2008 (for which amazingly no-one has gone to prison), the further public debt generated by COVID-19, greedy defence industrial primes and their too close relationships with governments, short production runs of new weapons systems that inflate the unit cost, the conflation/confusion of industrial with defence policy, and good-old-fashioned government incompetence. The situation is now so dire that the cost of minimum defence modernisation is now so great that European governments simply keep putting it off whilst their armed forces become ever less capable.

Europeans now get so little bang for their buck they are fast approaching a tipping point beyond which their respective armed forces are of so little utility they might as well scrap the lot, put even more into welfare, and pay Donald J. Trump his asking price to defend them. That certainly seems to be the offer Trump is preparing for a post-Iran NATO - a kind of US defence Fanny Mae. That ended well.

Lend-Lease

Why did the US enter World War Two so relatively poor and exit it so overwhelmingly rich and powerful? There is a simple answer – Britain. Between 1939 and 1941 under the so-called Cash and Carry scheme the British embarked on the greatest transfer of wealth from one state to another simply to stay in a fight with Nazi Germany to pay for US materiel, even though Roosevelt publicly admitted keeping Britain in the war was also a critical US interest. It was only when the US had effectively bankrupted Britain that Roosevelt come up with Lend Lease. If one reads Roosevelt’s whole December 1940 interview it is clear he had no intention of doing the British any real favours. One could even say that one of America’s hidden war aims was the destruction of the British Empire. They were right. It was time.

When the Lend-Lease Act was enacted on March 11,1941 it was also called, “An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States”. Still, the British did pay. So-called Reverse Lend-Lease from Britain and the Commonwealth to the US repaid a very significant part of the debt. By the time of ‘victory’ in May 1945 Britain was broken and in 1946 the US had to make a further loan simply to stop the British people starving. Debt relief? Whilst the debt was discounted it still had to be repaid. The final payment was $83.25 million on December 29^th, 2006, by which time Britain had paid twice the principal in debt interest.

Lend-Lease 2?

In 1939-1940 Britain faced a choice – defeat or bankruptcy. Cash and Carry and Lend Lease were force majeure. Today, all Western states except for Norway are deeply in debt. The US is the most indebted of all which may explain why Trump has embarked on armed mercantilism. In November 2025, British Public Sector Debt stood at £2927 billion or 96% of GDP, other Europeans are even more indebted. Servicing the debt annually costs almost 5% of Britain’s GDP, or over twice the annual amount Britain spends on defence.

So, here is a radical defence investment idea. Much of the debt is held by institutions and states who benefit from peace as a public good. Create a new version of Lend-Lease whereby creditors afford Britain and other Europeans an extended debt holiday and/or debt relief. In Britain’s case if 50% of the annual cost of servicing the national debt was transferred to defence investment Britain could immediately spend the NATO target of 5% GDP on defence and overcome the cost barrier to market entry that is preventing defence modernisation at scale.

Like Lend Lease the debt would have to be repaid but it could effectively be put into a box and paid off over an extended period when peace prevails. Britain and other Europeans would get the defences they need without breaking the world financial system and the creditors would still get their money but only when the peace which they need to make money has been assured.

As for the banks – after 2008 they really owe the people.

Julian Lindley-French

The National Interest?

2026-03-17T10:36:40.664+01:00

“I have been attacked by some for my decision not to join the offensive against Iran. But at every stage, I have stood by my principles – Principles which I held just as strongly when it came to the debate on the Iraq war in 2003. Principles which I believe are shared by the British people – That our decisions should be based on a calm, level-headed assessment of the British national interest… And that if we are to send our servicemen and women into harm’s way – The very least they deserve is to know that they do so on a legal basis… And with a proper, thought through plan”.

Sir Keir Starmer, March 16th, 2026

March 17^th. Sir Keir Starmer is right. There is nothing wrong with restraint in international affairs. He is also right that the primary mission of the British or any other government is to serve the national interest. He is again right that Trump has no thought through plan as friends of mine close to the White House have confirmed. Given the circumstances, what is the British national interest?

Starmer is also right to resist Donald Trump’s efforts to bully Britain and other Europeans into joining the US-Israeli coalition against Iran. Trump is utterly wrong to link US membership of or US support for NATO to the support of Europeans for his current war on Iran. The US leadership of the Alliance is an essential, probably vital US interest. If the Americans abandoned NATO it would be an act of immense self-harm. Still, in their current hyper-nationalist mood driven by The American Idiots Guide to Made Up History in which the Americans won everything and saved everyone and gained nothing for it, they may just fall into that trap. When Europeans also fell into the trap of supporting American military adventures out of fear they would lose NATO, poor American leadership led to fiascos in Afghanistan and Iraq and the subjugation of the national interest of Europeans to mercurial US domestic politics.

If Starmer (and Merz and others) is right to suggest that offensive British military action against Iran is not in the British national interest, confronting the aggressions of the appalling regime in Tehran clearly is. What is the plan? Thus far, British policy towards Iran, such as it exists, has been covenants without the sword of no use to any man or woman. It is a clear and present danger to Europeans to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA which was meant to prevent Iran enriching weapons grade uranium was in fact a not very joint, not at all comprehensive, no plan of inaction.

Furthermore, whilst it may not be an obligation for Britain to join the Trump-Netanyahu war on Iran, it is a vital British and wider European interest to get oil flowing again through the Straits of Hormuz. And yet, the most Starmer is offering (possibly) are a few anti-mine drones that will do nothing to counter the 2500 unmanned attack boats the Iranians possess and which threaten any ship in transit. Air, surface and subsurface defence is needed along with protected convoys through the Straits.

What Trump has again revealed is the utterly broken relationship between the ends, ways, and means of the British national interest. Trump will also exact a price on NATO allies for their lack of support for his war on Iran. He is likely to exact a particular price on the UK for what he regards as betrayal by America’s closest ally (not the oldest – that is France). If Trump is in a particularly vengeful mood he might even close one or all of the US bases in Britain, even if that causes self-harm to the US national interest and freezing the British out of the intelligence partnership.

Starmer? He now faces a choice. He can either force the British people to live with even more insecurity and risk to their interests, which is the real meaning of the national interests. Or, he can bolster the national interest by investing in the instruments of power vital to it. The appalling state of the British armed forces is not Starmer’s fault. That accolade belongs to Brown, Cameron, May, and Johnson. However, if Starmer was really committed to realising the national interest he would move immediately to lessen dependence on the US by increasing defence investment.

Starmer is doing the opposite. He pretends his government is making the greatest increase in UK defence spending since the Cold War whilst cutting the defence budget to pay for ever more social welfare. There is still no sign of the long-promised Defence Investment Plan. He would also increase investment in the other instruments of power available to London, such as diplomacy and intelligence. He does not.

The reason I dislike Starmer is not because I disagree with the ‘principles’ he outlined yesterday in his speech in Downing Street. It is because he is a strategic fraud. He hides behind international law simply because he lacks strategic judgement. He talks about the national interest but does not have a plan to realise it and destroys the very instruments of power vital to it. He rejects Trump’s bullying but makes Britain ever more vulnerable to it. He talks about leadership and yet promotes sectarian politics for narrow political gain which is the very antithesis of leading a complex society in the twenty-first century world. He routinely confuses values with interest, and his even greater confusion between the strategic and the political. His biggest failing? He talks too much!

Julian Lindley-French

Power Trumps Words (Again)

2026-03-02T10:26:00.004+01:00

“War does not justify who is right…only who is left”.

Bertrand Russell

March .3 Power always Trumps words. The US-Israeli attack on Iran is illegal, pure and simple, which merely highlights the complete pointlessness of the debate over whether it is or not illegal. The attack is what it is – Realpolitik, the final act of Israeli revenge for Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. After killing Iran’s proxies Tel Aviv and Washington are now killing the Tehran regime who backed them. Hamas has been effectively destroyed as a fighting force and Gaza reduced to ruins. Hezbollah is now broken and divided with Israel dominating southern Lebanon. The Assad regime in Damascus is now history with Syria no longer a state threat to Israel.

The attack is also power red in tooth and claw that leaves Israel as the dominant power across the northern Middle East and Saudi Arabia, dominant in the southern Middle East. Iran is being systematically reduced in power and status with its hopes of becoming a nuclear power in tatters. The Tehran regime is even struggling to survive in the wake of the assassinations of Ayatollah Khamenei and President Ahmedinejad. Under the interim Council of Senior Officials, a shadow government of some 4000 Islamists and their fellow travellers, plus the 125,000 strong (or however many are left) Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are struggling to exercise the crumbling reins of power over a population of over 90 million people. Their chances are slim given that the US, Israelis and others would not have launched such an attack if they had not already created the internal conditions for regime change. If the Tehran regime survives it will do so in name only as Iran becomes another broken state.

The attack leaves the Americans as the real powerbrokers between the states of the Middle East with China and Russia the big losers. Russia has been losing influence in the Middle East since its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, something Turkey, the other big power broker in the region, has been watching with interest. China’s policy in the region has always been at best opportunistic and designed to force the Americans to look many ways at once. Europe? Irrelevant.

One of the other big losers in this conflict is Britain. By refusing to let the US use its air bases in Britain for offensive operations London has put at risk the one thing that makes the Special Relationship in anyway special – the intelligence relationship. The Americans cut London out of the intelligence loop prior to the attack. Not that British appeasement of Tehran has benefitted Britain. Despite 20 attempted terrorist attacks on Britain and Starmer’s refusal to proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation one of the official regime slogans is “Death to England”.

Starmer is the Lord Halifax of his age – a well-meaning man who is simply incapable of understanding that such is the threat it cannot be appeased. He stands on a principle that not only does not exist, but which is a dangerous illusion in such an age. Britain is fast becoming a pathetic state, hiding behind a Potemkin façade of ‘international law’ that has never and never will prevent direct conflict between major powers, especially when they are locked in an existential struggle. He claims he is playing Realpolitik by different rules when in fact he is a merely a lawyer who brings a legal writ to a gunfight, trying to play legal chess whilst those with real weight in the world play power poker.

The hard and simple truth is that there is no fence upon which to sit in a war between the Americans, Israelis and Iran. And yet, Starmer has reduced British foreign policy to precisely that, the search for non-existent fences upon which to sit. And for what? To maintain the peace in a Britain that the political elite have done all they can to destabilise by importing the Middle East to Britain? To appease the increasingly influential Hard Left of the Labour Party? Starmer leans on international law as a crutch because he lacks any political or strategic judgement. Not only is he incapable of leading Britain at such moments, but he is also rendering Britain incapable to!

International law may offer some minor protection for some individuals sometimes in the face of hostile states, but it offers no protection whatsoever for weaker states that use asymmetric weapons to attack stronger states. This is exactly what Iran did as it sought and failed to buy sufficient time to acquire the one thing it believed would protect it – nuclear weapons. That is why the regime is now paying a terrible price.

Power always Trumps words. And when push comes to shove the strong really do what they can and the weak really do suffer what they must.

Julian Lindley-French

The European Way of War

2026-02-09T10:13:00.005+01:00

“My books are like the British frigates you Norwegians are buying – brilliant and very reasonably-priced”.

Julian Lindley-French at the Bergen Defence Conference

If Europeans had to fight a war?

February 9^th. If Europeans have to fight a high-end war, how can European forces best apply emerging, destructive and disruptive AI-enabled technologies (EDDT) if they do not understand what that technology is or how it can be applied over time? How can Europeans exploit them to maintain peace and freedom in a world of predators? These technologies will include AI, quantum computing, hypersonic missile systems, drone tech, Nano-tech and a host of other ‘tech’ that together will transform the character of war. That was the challenge I posed to Norwegian and Allied leaders last week at the superb Oslo Security Conference and Bergen Defence Conference. Or, to put it another way, how can small forces generate military-strategic effect in a very large space? My recent article “Super JEF 2” , co-written with General John Allen and Jim Townsend, addresses many of the challenges Europeans will face in a contested European space. https://lindleyfrench.blogspot.com/2026/01/super-jef-2.html

The European Way of War Project

To answer those questions The Alphen Group https://thealphengroup.com/ which I have the honour to chair, will shortly commence a major project entitled The European Way of War. It will seek to address several critical demand and supply-led questions Europeans must now consider together. The assumptions underpinning the project are profoundly different to current thinking. First, Europeans are simply not good at the American Way of War. A European Way of War would thus be very different. To credibly deter a high-end aggressor acting across our vulnerability spectrum, a collection of relatively small and mid-sized countries would need to generate core resilience, planned redundancy, and a mass of force that can demonstrably manoeuvre at scale across air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge. Any such force would also need to make radical use of AI and robotics across both the strategic and tactical space to offset a relative paucity of personnel.

On the demand side the Project will consider the following: What instruments of power would Europeans need to deter and if needed to fight the Russians if the Americans were busy elsewhere or simply no longer in Europe? What space exactly would Europeans need to defend? How would Europeans deter? What would a European concept of deterrence look like? How would a European escalation ladder be crafted across gray zone warfare to cyber warfare to high end conventional warfare and nuclear warfare? What would be the relationship between civilian and military instruments of power? How could relatively small European forces generate the great effects needed? What would a high-end European First responder force look like? What would European Multi-Domain Operations look like? What minimum force would be credible in such a role? How would such a force be commanded and organised? How would such a European force be equipped and armed?

On the supply side the Project will consider the following questions: What technologies will Europeans need? What reforms would be needed to the European Defence, Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB)? Given the growing importance of emerging, destructive and disruptive technologies in the Order of Battle, what other parts of the European technological base would need to be engaged? What reforms would be needed to European defence supply chains to ensure secure supply and re-supply? How much would it all cost and when would such a defence need to be in place?

Small force, great effect

This is not the first time Western forces have faced such a challenge of two different ways of war. In 1941, Churchill and Roosevelt created the Western Way of War by putting steel before flesh. In many ways, steel before flesh was a compromise between the American and British ways of war. The Americans had to win two systemic wars simultaneously in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific, as they might do today. For the Americans the policy of ‘Germany First’ was purely performative, given what the Japanese had done to the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. To run a genuine world war the Americans forged a mass of everything, all the time, everywhere and very quickly. It was not always pretty but it was effective.

Whilst there were significant British forces in the ‘Far East’ London was overwhelmingly focussed on winning the war in Europe, as Europeans would be today. With a relatively small population, albeit reinforced by dominion and imperial forces, the British were forced to innovate far more than the Americans. That is what steel before flesh began evolving into technology before flesh. The evolution of warfare is about to become a revolution.

From transition to transformation

The European Way of War Project will emphasise innovation, technology, precision, and the use of small forces magnified by robotics generating great effect. That will be the essence of the European Way of War. During the next defence planning cycle (10-15 years) emerging, destructive and disruptive technologies will emerge as systems on existing platforms, such as artillery, armour and ships. Thereafter, the impact of such new technologies in combination on the character of war will be massive and driven by those who have a concept for their use and access to them. Therefore, if a European Way of War is to be realised it will require radical new thinking, new partnerships and a NATO very different to the one that exists today.

Two years ago I wrote a piece entitled “No Way Norway” in which I excoriated Norwegian defence policy for being little more than a small bunch of energy rich people free riding for their defence on those less fortunate. Oslo clearly heard because Norway has really upped its game since then…but far more needs to be done!

Julian Lindley-French

Tunisgrad, Hollywood History and American Propaganda

2026-01-27T09:03:00.001+01:00

“British troops are amongst the greatest of all warriors and were GREAT and BRAVE [in Afghanistan]…the bond between the British and American military was too strong ever to be broken”.

President Donald J. Trump on Truth Social, January 2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSXiny5mEpg

The McNair Report

January 26^th. Last week’s latest episode of “How America Won the World with Donald J. Trump” got me thinking. Why do some Americans hold the British and their Armed Forces in contempt and where does it come from? It would be easy to think that it is a contemporary phenomenon reflective of a frustrated America with a poorly-led Britain that really seems to have given up the fight. Sadly, it goes far deeper than that and is more the reflection of a whole raft of American society that sits at the cusp between patriotism and nationalism. For such Americans America First is America Better. To be fair, such contempt for Britain and other Europeans tends not to be shared by thinking Americans, but from my experience it goes surprisingly high in the American Establishment. Such prejudice is so deep-seated it has become something of a cliché.

August 1942 is probably the key date. Nine months after America’s entry into World War Two, Generals Lesley McNair and Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote a scathing report about the British military for the Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall. The report was written at a time when the US military were still novices in the grim business of warfare. The reason for the report was the fall of a seemingly impregnable Tobruk in North Africa at a time when the British had complete naval superiority in the Mediterranean and were almost complete masters of the air. The report, which was shared with President Roosevelt, said that the British had lost the capacity to win and all offensive spirit. This belief came to permeate the upper ranks of the US military during World War Two and stuck. It was reinforced by a political need to tell the American people why defeating Germany was as least as important as defeating Japan and that only the Americans could win the European war.

Tunisgrad

The biggest failing of the report was that it failed to realise the extent to which the British armed forces had learned since 1939 how to fight the Wehrmacht, as the Americans would do and rapidly between 1942 and 1944. In October 1942, just two months after the report was completed, General Bernard Law Montgomery launched the Second Battle of El Alamein (Operations Lightfoot and Supercharge). Now, most Americans have never heard of El Alamein, President Trump has certainly not heard of it and there is a reason for that. It was not conducive for American propaganda to have the British win very much. And yet, during this ten day, four phase battle, DUKE (Dominion, UK and Empire) forces systematically destroyed the Afrika Korps and began a 1400 mile advance across North Africa which led to the surrender of 275,000 Axis troops at Tunis in May 1943. “Tunisgrad” was the biggest single surrender of Axis forces during World War Two before May 1945 and was quite simply a war-changing British strategic victory which led soon thereafter to the defeat of Fascist Italy.

Proof? The Afrika Korps itself. In a report to Hitler the newly-created Field Marshal Erwin Rommel described Montgomery’s conduct of El Alamein as “the professional execution of a comprehensive plan”. The later Wehrmacht assessment of the comparative capabilities of American and British forces after Tunisgrad was clear. “American forces you could defeat, British forces you could only delay”. Americans, the report said, would attack aggressively, take heavy casualties and then pull back. British forces would attack methodically, take less casualties, but maintain constant pressure until Axis forces had to pull back”. In 1950, Rommel’s own papers were released and his position was clear: “The defeat at El Alamein marked the real end of the Afrika Korp. Everything afterwards was a fighting withdrawal. We were defeated by methodical British offensive operations. Everything followed from that”.

Unfortunately, the McNair narrative of American innovation and flair saving the British from their own military stodginess became a prejudice that was also reflected in both American press coverage of the European war and increasingly in Hollywood history. The British would fight bravely in defence but lacked American dash and elan. This was despite all the evidence to the contrary, most notably the invention and use of Special Forces and almost ALL the precision air attacks of the European war.

American prejudice was reinforced by Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. For propaganda purposes it was presented as an overwhelmingly American invasion of North Africa with Churchill even agreeing to British forces wearing US military uniforms to maintain the charade. In fact, it was experienced British forces, most notably the Commandos who were in the vanguard because at that stage US forces were still very green. The bulk of the air and naval support came from the RAF Desert Air Force and the British Mediterranean Fleet. In other words, it was a joint operation with the British. This made perfect sense given that by November 1942 the British had been fighting the Wehrmacht and Italians for over two years, knew the theatre, had established air and sea supremacy and, critically, had established command and logistics structures.

D-Day

Then came June 6, 1944, D-Day or Operation Overlord, together with all its supporting air, sea, land and deception operations. If someone with little knowledge of history were to watch American dramas and documentaries about D-Day they might be tempted to conclude that it was an American victory, planned by Americans, equipped by Americans and in which only Americans fought. Stephen Spielberg’s Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan and Masters of the Air have reinforced the American narrative that only Americans fought and won the European war, although there is a certain irony that several of the leading ‘Americans’ were played by British actors.

The reality was very different. The Combined Forces on D-Day comprised 61,715 British troops, 57,500 Americans and 21,500 Canadians. The Allied expeditionary naval forces were led by Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, Royal Navy, the air forces by Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, Royal Air Force, whilst the land forces were under the command of the same General Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, the victor of El Alamein. Of the five landing beaches three were under British command, Gold, Juno and Sword, and two under American command, Omaha and Utah. The assault troops also included the forces of many other nations – Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Greece, New Zealand, Norway, and Poland. There were also the 209 men of the Free French forces, including Kieffer’s 177 commandos, on their long, dangerous and distinguished way home. There were some 1213 warships of which 892 were Royal Navy, with 3261 of the 4126-landing craft ferrying the troops ashore also British. In total, 7700 ships and craft were deployed in support of the landings. In the air, some 12000 aircraft sorties were flown by some 2000 aircraft some 70% of which are either Royal Air Force or Royal Canadian Air Force.

It is the British who are the great innovators of D-Day. There were two giant ingenious floating British Mulberry Harbours without which the landings could not have happened. They launched their landing craft close to the beaches to prevent the assault troops becoming sea-sick, used highly effective specialist tanks (Hobart’s Funnies) to clear mines and beach defences as well as destroy any German bunkers that had survived the naval bombardment. They also used the RAF’s Second Tactical Air Force (2TAF) as an extension of naval gunnery by employing Hawker Typhoons and other ground attack aircraft to great effect.

Throughout the subsequent campaign in Normandy British and Canadian forces maintained offensive pressure on elite German formations and blocked the Wehrmacht from getting through to the Americans to the west. They also deployed one of the best allied tanks of World War Two, the Sherman Firefly, which combined the chassis of a US Sherman tank with the Tiger-busting quick-firing British 17 pounder gun. British military stodginess? When the Germans tried to counter-attack in Normandy by launching Operation Luttich in August 1944 it was British and Canadian air power and armour that proved decisive in defeating it. When the Falaise Pocket was finally closed that same month, the British breakout from Falaise to Brussels and Antwerp was the fastest military advance in history until the American advance on Baghdad in 2003.

Why does history matter?

Why does this matter beyond irritating the Hell out of this ageing Oxford historian and millions of other Brits? The real tragedy of Britain is that over time the power of Hollywood history began to be believed by the British themselves. Allied to Britain’s poor leaders, and inevitable decline, it has fostered a sense that Britain really does not matter and never did. Worse, Hollywood war propaganda has been deliberate and done as much as any enemy action or rotten leaders to break the British spirit.

There is also a profound lesson for Americans. If you believe your own hype you will soon become Johnny No Friends. Yes, Europeans need to do more for collective security and the US does bear too much of the burden of NATO today. And yet, Americans also want to maintain complete control over the Allies whilst demanding said Allies build up their military strength. That ain’t gonna work. The more the American need allies, and they will, and the stronger those allies become the greater say they will have over both the Alliance and American policy and strategy.

By all means celebrate your great country Americans in this year of all years but stop belittling us. What Britain achieved in World War Two in the face of decline and the many setbacks we suffered was quite simply astounding and you Americans need to do more to honour that and afford us the respect we deserve. Start by getting Hollywood to tell the real story of our shared struggle and not the American propaganda that is too often passed off as history.

History matters! When it is abused a large number of stupid people start believing stupid ideas and when they get into power do stupid things which leads to disaster.

Julian Lindley-French

SUPER JEF 2!

2026-01-19T11:11:00.006+01:00

This is the extended version of the article published last week.

WHY NATO NEEDS A SUPER JOINT EXPEDITIONARY FORCE AND A BRITAIN THAT CAN LEAD IT.

PREPARED FOR THE OSLO SECURITY CONFERENCE 2026

John R. Allen, Julian Lindley-French and Jim Townsend

“We are Russia's next target. And we are already in harm's way...Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great grandparents endured."

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Berlin, December 2025

Summary

This article calls for a Super JEF of JEF 2 – a much-strengthened British-led European Joint Expeditionary Force designed to cope with a fast-changing geopolitical situation in the Arctic and beyond at a time when technology is changing the character of war and the politics of NATO are in flux. The JEF is an existing 10,000 strong multinational rapid reaction and expeditionary force led by Britain’s Standing Joint Force Headquarters including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden became fully operational in 2018. It is envisioned as a multi-domain force designed to operate across air, sea, land, space, cyber, information and knowledge. JEF 2 would be an AI-enabled and human-robotics force designed to make best use of Britain’s very limited deployable capability. Super JEF is the future of Allied Airborne and Allied Seaborne. No longer a Continental or a Maritime force, but multi-domain and lethal and able to operate across the conflict spectrum in all environments.

North Cape 2035!

It is a dark night in April 2035 off Norway’s North Cape. No moon. Bitterly cold. Russian forces supported by their Chinese allies are on the move. The massive Russian Northern Fleet has made its way past the so-called Bear Line (Norway, Bear Island, Svalbard to Greenland) and is beginning to make its way out in strength towards the Greenland, Iceland, UK (GIUK) gap, whilst Russian SPETSNAZ and Naval Infantry begin to move across the Finnish Norwegian, and Swedish borders to seize Finnmark, much of NATO’s High North and Nuuk, Greenland’s capital. Russian forces in the Western Military Oblast also begin to move against the Baltic States and rump Ukraine beyond the Donbas region they had successfully seized in 2027, after an under-equipped and resourced European inter-position force had been humiliated.

British, Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch Special Forces have been monitoring the movement of Russian forces close to the point where the Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish borders meet for some time, slowly building a biometric map of key Russian military personnel. They have successfully identified where key commanders of SPETSNAZ units are and well understand their routines, habits, strengths and weaknesses. Radio and cyber communications have also been hacked and satellite transmissions blocked following a targeted digital space war between the West, China and Russia. It soon becomes clear Russian Special Forces have crossed the Norwegian Russian border on a line Pechenga-Kirkenes-Hammerfest. Sleeper agents also sabotage critical infrastructure such as, road junctions, railways and aerials across Northern Norway. North Cape is being systematically isolated by Russian forces.

Unbeknownst to the Russians cloaked in a stealth cloak and a hundred kilometers off North Cape a wave of fast landing craft and CB90 assault craft depart from the multinational fleet of amphibious ships that form the maritime component of JEF 2, the expanded Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). They are led by the British heavy air platform and digital command hub, HMS Prince of Wales, and stealthily make their way towards shore. Their aim is to knock the Russians out of, their battle rhythm by reinforcing Allied forces in the North Cape region and get behind the mix of Russian Special Operators and naval infantry to break their line of advance.

JEF 2

This is what JEF 2 had been designed for. In November 2025 London and Oslo agreed the Lunna House Agreement. In December 2025 Chief of the British Defense Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton described the international situation as the most dangerous in his thirty-seven-year career. “The price of peace is increasing”, Knighton said, “It’s about our defense and resilience being a higher national priority for all of us. An ‘all-in’ mentality. And that will require people who are not soldiers, sailors or aviators to nevertheless invest their skills – and money- in innovation and problem-solving on the nation’s behalf”.[1]

In 2027 British forces had to all intents and purposes collapsed. The reason was chronic under-funding over many years exacerbated by a growing gap between the increasingly fantastical ends, ways and means outlined in Strategic Defense Review 2025 London imposed further underpinned by an ideologically motivated conspiracy within HM Treasury (finance ministry) to destroy Britain’s fighting power and destroy NATO. After years of rebuilding JEF 2 has become a European mobile force of ten nations led by the British.

It is a warfighting force designed to offset over-stretched American forces in the Arctic and North Atlantic, act as a First Responder during any major pre-Article 5 emergency on NATO’s Northern and North-Eastern Taiwan in 2027 and despite Russia’s seizure of some 25% of Ukraine. The defense of Europe was not only handed over by the Americans to the European allies, but those same European forces had to undergo a rapid and difficult re-organization one consequence of which was a much enlarged and re-equipped JEF - Super-JEF or JEF 2.

JEF 2 was designed to act under SACEUR, DSACEUR or as a coalition of the willing and able and fully interoperable with high-end US forces. British and Norwegian naval forces had also been integrated into what in effect wad a new sensor to shoot shield designed specifically to contest the entry of Russian forces into the North Sea, whilst the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap was strengthened and the Norway, Svalbard, Greenland ‘line of observance’ or ‘Bear Line’ established. Both the Royal Navy and Royal Norwegian Navy also began plans to create a new Atlantic Bastion to prevent Russian Northern Fleet submarines from having unfettered access to the North Atlantic. Delivering the strategy relied on two new British AI-enabled loitering unmanned sensor and fire platforms, Fathom SG-1 and Excalibur.

JEF 2 was also the logical development of the 2025 Lunna House Agreement and the centerpiece of the 2028 revised UK Strategic Defense Review. SDR 2028 had taken its inspiration from the ‘Steel before Flesh’ strategy of the Western Allies in World War Two. Desperate to avoid the attrition of trench warfare Churchill and Roosevelt had agreed to use the immense industrial power of the US and UK, and the technology that supported it, to limit the exposure of their forces to frontline fighting. In 2028, the Americans and British had signed a new Atlantic Digital Defense Charter. This made sense because the US had the world’s leading tech sector whilst the UK the third largest. The “Technology before Flesh” strategy had rapidly led to a new form of dynamic defense in Europe that relied upon a mix of volunteer conscription to harness both civilian and military cyber, electronic and digital warfare expertise. The Americans and British also pioneered a new concept of robotic force which acted as support for spearhead forces in the form of both offensive and defensive robotic ‘loyal wingmen’. [2]

Airborne 2035

Off North Cape JEF 2 continues undetected towards its objectives, but halfway into the target part of the force stops. From the decks of the many Swedish-built assault craft, fast landing craft and autonomous platforms ghostly figures ascend to the heavens. 3 Commando Brigade, with the UK Commando Force at its core, alongside the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps and Britain’s 16 Air Assault Brigade are going into action.

At the spear-tip of the force is 45 Commando, the new AI-enabled UK Joint Commando Air-Maritime Assault Force. By 2035 British forces have become a fully deployable relatively small multi-domain force that has a trick up its sleeve – a new form of mass has been created by the use of drones and other robotic systems that developed from Ukraine’s experience fighting the Russians. UKJCMAF sits at the AI-enabled command and operational nexus between Special Forces and specialized forces with fighting power generated by the turning of each Commando into a personalized combat hub. Equipped with the latest Mark 5 Gravity Jet assault suits the brigade-sized deep joint force represents the future of airborne alongside the British Army’s Ranger forces. The most important lesson for NATO’s European forces in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine had been the need for Europeans to generate forces that could maneuver lethally, securely and stealthily at the high end of conflict with a mass of robotic force able to quickly reach and stay in any fight anywhere in and around Europe.

Super-JEF was also a tailored response to China-enabled Russia’s sophisticated gray zone operations across the Arctic, North Atlantic and North Sea as well as the build-up of Russian nuclear forces on NATO’s Arctic Flank. China’s aim had been to force the Americans to fight wars and incursions in several places at once. It was an aim they had realized comfortably as the Americans were forced to offset European weakness at the cost of their own readiness to fight in the Indo-Pacific.

The specific trigger for the 2035 crisis had been the latest incursion into British waters by the Russian spy ship Yantar 2, and an attack on North Sea underwater infrastructure by the Russian submarine Belgorod. Once again, Yantar 2 had targeted Royal Air Force P8 Poseidon aircraft with lasers, but this time the attack had persisted. Finally, both countries realized they had to move from simply condemning Russian gray zone operations to actively countering them and approached the North Atlantic Council to invoke Article 3. However, two Russian stooges within the ‘NAC’ under pressure from Chinese paymasters had blocked agreement.

As each commando rises into the night sky powered by the jetpack s/he carries a personal digital command module, an assault rifle and a series of small ground attack missiles. Heavier platforms carry personally assigned ‘intelligent’ lift drones alongside a raft of attack drones. After the initial AI-drone strikes take out both air and ground defenses the Commandos hit the ground running and join forces on the ground, with their tailored drone-borne equipment alongside them ready for action. And, as the enemy forces advance flying commandos and strike drones appear from several directions at once and target each individually. They quickly join up with Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish ground forces already resisting the Russian advance.

As the Commandos begin their part of the mission a phalanx of ‘intelligent’ fast strike drones lift off the decks of specialist drone platforms which are part of the task force and make their way towards the North Norwegian littoral. The drone platforms were a joint civil-military acquisition developed with the support of two major Dutch salvage companies –Mammoet and Smit Tak - the advanced technology of which was made available to the JEF coalition under license. Belgian (under lease), British, Dutch, and Norwegian P8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft provide continuous surface and sub-surface protection as extended range F-35B4 Lightning 2’s take off from the decks of several of the Allied ships. The task force itself is protected by Intelligent Shield, a mass of small loitering drones designed to hurl themselves against any drone, missile, aircraft or submarines – manned or unmanned - deployed against them.

Timed to match the moment when the enemy’s forces are on the move and most vulnerable least the combined JEF 2 human/drone force creates maximum shock and confusion, just as the Special Air Force, Special Boat Squadron and other Special Operators get behind Russian forces, whilst missile strikes target the ‘digital butterflies’ which reveal the location of Russian headquarters and systems. The Special Forces, now supported by Allied ground forces, destroy the command elements of Russian forces.

The Choice

The JEF is an existing 10,000 strong multinational rapid reaction and expeditionary force led by Britain’s Standing Joint Force Headquarters also including Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden became fully operational in 2018. It is envisioned as a multi-domain force designed to operate across air, sea, land, space, cyber, information and knowledge. A much bigger JEF 2 is needed because war in NATO’s north is here, now and the need for NATO and its Northern European nations to be critically and demonstrably strong is as great as at any time since the 1980s. Unfortunately, the scenario above will be fantasy non-fiction if Britain, indeed Europe, cannot get its military house in order at this time of weakness in danger. And, make no mistake, the vision of warfare laid out in the scenario by and large reflects the current trends in technology will impact military operational art and science. If Europeans do not get on board with this emerging reality, then they might as well surrender now, or rather, surrender their fellow Europeans who live on the edge of Putin’s ambitions.

The strategic importance of the Arctic has been highlighted by President Trump’s concerns that Greenland become a fiefdom of the U.S. if only to prevent it becoming a fiefdom of China and Russia and thus a systemic threat to North America itself. For decades whilst NATO nominally talked about the defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area from Vancouver to Vilnius, since 911 it has become a pressing reality. A new transatlantic contract is being forged in which the Americans will only defend Europeans if Europeans do far more for the defense of themselves and North Americans. At the very least, such a contract demands a major increase on the part of Europeans of the burdens of defense and a radical revision of NATO’s military organization.

Specifically, Trump’s concerns and America’s strains reinforce a need for Europeans to develop a credible First Responder, high-end, deployable military capability able to operate across the Arctic and North Atlantic and for many years to come. Political reality must also be faced because divisions within the North Atlantic Council mean it can no longer be assumed the Alliance could act quickly, even in a pre-war, Article 5 type contingency. JEF 2 would thus need to operate not just under NATO command, but also as a theater-reach coalition of the willing and able in the face of all high-end contingencies.

Wars happen when financial and economic stress and consequent political division combine with fast changing technologies to enable revisionist powers to challenge an apparently settled global order. It is precisely such a challenge that China and Russia now pose to the democracies of the Global Free. Therefore, to prevent the catastrophe of war and thus its catastrophic costs, democratic governments have traditionally had to increase their demonstrable fighting power precisely at the worst possible moment in any economic cycle.

Is JEF 2 Realizable?

The challenges of realizing a JEF 2 must not be under-estimated. Currently, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Alexus Grynkevich, is ever pushing hard to get the Allies to deliver what they have promised under “The Concept for the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area” (more simply known as and “Deter and Defend”). As one senior NATO insider put it, “The danger posed by a Super JEF is that it will simply exacerbate SACEUR’s difficulties with NATO HQ once again fixating on new deliverables, whilst forgetting the ones they have agreed, and then failing to deliver even as they try to put multi-domain command and control to bed”. One of NATO’s perennial problems is that Brussels often seeks ever more ambition that allies ever refuse fail to resource.

The Arctic and North Atlantic challenge also comes at a time when many of the Allies are committed to providing security guarantees in Ukraine with an already under-powered Coalition of the Willing and Not So Able. However, implicit in Trump’s threat to increase tariffs on those Allies opposing his efforts to buy Greenland is the belief that too many Allies, most notably the United Kingdom, are already backsliding on their commitment at the 2025 summit in The Hague to spend 5% GDP of which 3.5% will be spent on defense investment. In December 2025 London delayed publication of the Defense Investment Plan indefinitely as the cost of increases to welfare spending hit home.

And yet, if pressure is to be maintained on shifting the burdens of the Alliance from the Americans to Europeans as promised then it cannot be done without a radical reorganization of NATO’s European pillar if the Area of Responsibility (AOR) wide Strategic Plan is to be more than yet another great work of European fiction. of the shifting and staying in step with Washington DC and the DOW. e fully supported DDA and the AOR-wide strategic plan, and our roles. If nothing else, Trump’s pressure will almost certainly force a re-consideration of the current iteration of current NATO Defense Policy and Planning (NDPP) targets. Alternatively, the Allies simply give into Trump and accept that to all intents and purposes they cannot and will not defend either Greenland or the wider Arctic.

At the core of NATO’s crisis, and it is a crisis, is that European political leaders are not prepared to admit that under their watch European military shortfalls are in fact far worse than they are prepared to publicly admit even though they publicly agreed the NDPP targets. For too long European leaders have offered unfunded grand visions, such as the Future Hybrid Navy, which is repeated across the conventional force base with land and air forces similarly under-funded, whilst the nuclear establishments of both Britain and France consume ever more of limited defense resources.

Leading by Poor Example

Take the British, not only as an example of NATO’s European problem, but the challenges of building a JEF 2. Defense budgets have been increased but for most Europeans it is still built on the failed principle of ‘how much defense can we afford’ with even modest increases mired in internal political disputes. In the British example, the problem is exacerbated by London’s defense pretense which has forced too many British military leaders to place too much emphasis on protecting their respective Service from cuts than generating credible fighting power across the piece.

Today is no different. Britain’s Strategic Defense Review 2025 (SDR 2025) states, “All of defense is firmly behind delivery of our transformative Strategic Defense Review (SDR), which set out a deliverable and affordable plan to meet the challenges, threats, and opportunities of the 21st century. The plan is backed by the largest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War – hitting 2.6 per cent of GDP by 2027. This includes investment across land, sea, air, space and cyber, underpinned by SDR commitments including £4 billion for drones and autonomous capabilities, an extra £1.5 billion for munitions factories, and a £15 billion investment into our sovereign nuclear warhead programme this Parliament”.[3] Really?

SDR 2025 is (as ever) political sleight of hand. London is only committed to increasing British defense expenditure from 2.4% GDP in 2025 to 2.5% (maybe 2.6%) GDP in 2027 and possibly 3% by 2030 and 3.5% GDP by 2035 or $129 billion in total investment. Real defense investment is actually far lower than advertised because under current planning Britain will only increase its defense budget by 0.3% GDP by 2034, which is far below the defense cost inflation that is ravaging defense investment. Britain’s hopelessly hollowed out forces have also been ordered to CUT the budget by £2 billion in 2025-2026.

Furthermore, for all the talk of innovation in SDR 2025 there is little in the way of a coherent future force concept. The UK Armed Forces now face a dangerous paradox. They will only offer real defense value if far more money is invested in them. Britain thus has a choice – either move to 3.5% GDP on conventional defense and not only to recapitalize the force but to save it or simply abandon any serious role in Allied defense. In fact, London is pretending to do the former whilst in fact doing the latter. The situation has become so bad it is hard not to believe there is some kind of anti-defense conspiracy in London. According to Statista the average of British defense spending 1955-1994 was 4.6% GDP as opposed to the historically low 2.2% today[4]. In other words, THIS is the moment for NATO to be organizationally radical and for London to be defense radical. It would not be the first time. In 1960 Britain was the first major power to end conscription and create a fully professional force, whilst it took the U.S. a decade more to figure this out for itself.

Ultimately, SDR 2025 fails because it does not address the only real choice that matters. At current and planned levels of the defense budget Britain can either have a high-end expeditionary force or a cutting-edge and bespoke nuclear deterrent, but not both. Rather, by trying to have both on a budget only fit for one British forces are being impoverished with costs paradoxically spiraling because the ends, ways and means simply do not add up. The choice is clear: either take all costs of the Defense Nuclear Enterprise outside the defense budget or scrap it and use the released money to build JEF 2!

NSS 2025 and NATO’s US Dilemma

There are two other imperatives NATO Europeans must confront. First, taken together with the Greenland imbroglio, the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) is but the latest evidence that the center of gravity of NATO is moving inexorably eastwards from the U.S. to Europe, specifically Germany. Over the next decade Germany will become the indispensable power with the U.S. acting as some form of distant over-the-horizon 7^th Cavalry. Second, and at the same time, NATO must also deter Russia through denial not punishment. How?

Those who say Russia poses no threat to NATO members are not grasping the evident reality of the last decade. Moscow is committed to a policy of bite-size aggression and expansionism. One only must look to Ukraine to see what Russia does to the people it conquers and has always done. What Russia cannot conquer it devastates. That is the Russian way of war.

NATO Europeans thus need to build the consequent strategic ambition vital to NATO deterrence and defense and the fighting power needed to make it credible in this contested age. Only then will Europeans be able to help field in time a powerful high-end first responder European force that could deter, defend and fight in all circumstances affordably and credibly, across the seven domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge vital across the spectrum of hybrid, cyber and future hyperwar where AI is leading. And, along the immense length of NATO’s now extended front-line with a China-enabled Russia from the Bosphorus to Greenland. It is the very minimum that the maintenance of peace in Europe will demand.

Why should the very parochial challenges of Europe matter to Americans? For all the undoubted might of the US armed forces and despite the rhetoric Americans need allies. However, America also needs capable allies because US forces are stretched thin the world over. Therefore, if the U.S. is to maintain peace through strength the world over the importance of capable-regional strategic powers to the U.S. grows by the day. Europeans are no longer world powers, but they remain a potentially very capable grouping of regional-strategic powers, but only if they once again become defense serious. Here Trump is right. For too long Britain has been free riding on the U.S. for its security and defense and continues to do so. Maybe that will change in the wake of the shock of Trump’s actions over Greenland. One of the great lessons of political realism is that however close countries may be, it is a mistake to rely on others for one’s own defense. Without a capably credible Europe NATO is nothing more than a defense DHL, a delivery service to Europeans, of U.S. military power rather than the force magnifier it should be. In other words, America has every right to expect far more from its European friends and allies to realize its own security and defense policy goals. Only then can what is now an historic and indispensable partnership be remodeled and rekindled for the threats, risks and challenges that are undoubtedly coming.

The Special Relationship?

The Special Relationship is dead, long live the Special Relationship! The only way for Europeans to begin the Grand Recovery of their collective defense effort is for Britain, France and Germany to lead together. After all, they represent some 70% of all defense investment in Europe and 90% of the European defense, technological and industrial base (EDTIB). When it comes to a possible JEF 2 that means Britain. Only real and relevant military capability AND capacity is needed if Britain is to rise to the JEF 2 challenge (as it must) and President Trump’s diktat (for that is what it is) that NATO Europeans spend more and do more. The entire future of the transatlantic security and defense relationship is at stake, and the only choice London really has is no choice at all if it really believes in NATO.

Why now? The core role of the US in the Alliance has never been weaker. Whilst the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS 2025) does not suggest the US is abandoning NATO, it is telling the European Allies once and for all that America’s global challenges and lack of European military preparedness are in danger of weakening US forces everywhere. America is also deeply divided politically and unsure of its place in the world. That is why the future of NATO will thus depend on the formation of a new “directoire” of European powers within NATO ad a new Special Relationship between America and ALL NATO Europeans not that Britain has chosen to become a very ordinary European. Britain, France and Germany (possibly Poland) will need to lead supported by other Allies, most notably Italy and supported by combat ready forces such as those of the Nordic States.

This is because NATO 2026 has far more territory to defend than ever at a time when technology is not only accelerating the pace of war but changing its very character. The defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area must thus be organized to cover a growing space in which multi-domain operations will be conducted around all four of the Alliance’s strategic flanks – North, East, South and West. Much of that effort will fall on the Europeans, particularly the three major European powers, with the US and Canada acting as an over the horizon strategic reserve. One only has to consult the map to see it would fall to Britain to lead the defense of the Northern and Western flanks covering the Arctic Atlantic, North Atlantic and the Western Approaches, which would also need to reach far out towards Greenland to avoid the re-creation of the infamous Atlantic Gap of 1940-1943 during the Battle of the Atlantic. Germany with Poland would lead the defense of the Eastern Flank, whilst France and Italy would lead the defense of the Southern Flank, with the support of Turkey and others.

Allied forces would still support each other under Article 3 of the Washington Treaty but only such a division of leadership would enable NATO to generate credible deterrence across the Euro-Atlantic Area through the efficient and effective use of force. If properly organized European forces could also support each other flexibly and rapidly in whatever theater was under pressure at any given time. That, after all, is the reason for the creation of the new Allied Reaction Force of which a JEF 2 would be a vital component.

You say tomato…

What NATO needs is a force like the US Marines Corps (USMC). This is because for all the manifest failure of the US Marine Corps (USMC) “divest to invest” program and the strange decision to fix the world’s best mobile strike force on China’s First Island Chain, the USMC remains the best organically integrated force upon which to model Britain’s future force. JEF 2 would be an expeditionary force able to “kick down the door” anywhere in and around NATO’s Northern and Western area of responsibility (AOR), and beyond if needs be and which also reinforces the Allied Reaction Force which will be stood up in 2026. JEF 2 would also go beyond the old divide of Continental or Maritime Defense and yet combine both in a new form of air and expeditionary operations – a Super JEF! The existing JEF provides the template, but it is far too small. However, super JEF would need to be organized around the British and given how far the British star has fallen in both the U.S and across NATO it would only work if British forces were for once properly invested and become far more organically integrated than they are today.

Why Britain? Britain created the JEF and is the Framework Nation. For Britain today the defense of the realm cannot simply be about hiding behind its nuclear shield. Britain is the leader because, with France, it is the only European power with extensive experience of high-end, multidomain, deployable fighting power over time and distance. For an open society like Britain such a defense can only be achieved in the twenty-first century with like-minded states and that can only be realized through alliance. It is the ‘how’ question that London constantly fails to answer. Too much energy is still wasted trying to balance the vested interests of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force given the mis-match between ends, ways and means with too many senior officers and their political masters either mired in the anchor drag that is nostalgia made worse by the patent lack of adequate investment, or simply anti-defense.

First, London must do something Whitehall detests; take radical action with the focus squarely on the medium to long-term and mean it. JEF 2. That would mean an end to the short-termism in which Whitehall endlessly hedges bets about threat whilst trading off vested interests against each other. Under the NATO War Plan Britain is effectively expected to field two warfighting divisions in support of NATO land operations within 60 days of the start of a conflict. It simply cannot do that even though it continues to pretend it can. If the Germans, Poles and others stepped up then this fiction could once and for all be ended.

Second, Britain is an island in the North Atlantic and, like it or not, London must now make a hard choice, and it is not simply whether to reinforce the JEF. The ends, ways and means of British defense strategy simply do not add up. At the July 2025 Lancaster House meeting on European defense Britain and France with the support of Germany came together to forge a concept of NATO compatible autonomous European power. The message of Lancaster House 2.0 was clear: “The UK and France, as Europe’s only nuclear powers and leading militaries, share a unique responsibility for European and international defense and security. Our two nations represent nearly 40% of the defense budget of European Allies, and more than 50% of European spending on research and technology...”.

Third, the Lancaster House 2.0 Declaration also created a new Combined Joint Force or CJF to “ensure the ability to plan and command Combined Corps Capability (the highest level of fielded forces in our armies). This Corps level force is designed to provide the Land component of a broader joint force combining all military functions, as part of NATO or bilaterally. It must also be JEF 2 compatible. For example, if an emergency emerged in the Arctic the French could support the JEF through the CJF and vice versa the British could support the French in the Mediterranean. Moreover, the command mechanism is already in the making for several such compatible joint forces under the umbrella of SACEUR and the new Allied Response Force (ARF). The ARF was created at the NATO Vilnius Summit and is the Alliance’s capstone rapid reaction force, “...capable of carrying out the Alliance’s full spectrum of missions in support of NATO’s three core tasks (deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security).”[5]

Fourth, the CJF will facilitate the deployment of a force fully interoperable with NATO and available as the Alliance’s Strategic Reserve; this is a critical step towards the UK and France providing two fully interoperable Strategic Reserve Corps to NATO, enabled by the CJF”.[6] What really would be the difference between JEF 2 and the CJF other than labelling if the force was properly designed. The hard truth is that Britain cannot fulfil its commitments under either the JEF and the CJF at present and needs to rebuild its force in any case. And, with the Germans and Poles leading the renaissance of European land forces it is a JEF 2 which offers the shortest route for Britain to add the highest value to the collective Alliance effort.

How to build JEF 2?

London’s over-committing of Britain’s small force has reached a dangerous point. By Britain’s own historical record, the UK armed forces are tiny and can at best deploy no more than 25,000 fully deployable warfighting troops to both the defense of continental of Europe and the security and defense of the North Atlantic. The ends, ways and means of British defense policy simply no longer add up!

Furthermore, and given that, the Alliance remains the only way for Britain to realize its security and defense policy goals which is why Strategic Defense Review 2025 (SDR 2025) placed NATO at the heart of Britain’s defense strategy. In other words, NATO’s Military Strategy is Britain’s military strategy which means the British have no alternative but to again become a Tier One Euro-Atlantic military power at the command core of a credible and capable NATO European force. The alternative? The decoupling of America from European defense implied in NSS 2025 and the end of credible NATO deterrence and defense with Britain retreating behind its ageing nuclear shield.

Therefore, if London wants to maintain credibility, influence and realize its own defense affordably it has no option but to deliver real credible fighting power to the Alliance. Such fighting power can in turn only be realized by placing warfighting forces at the very core of the Allied Reaction Force (ARF) and a future multi-domain Allied Mobile Heavy Force, which might emerge in time from a JEF 2, a force capable of providing deterrence and defense effect across the nuclear, cyber, space and conventional force spectrum.

The problem for Britain is that given the size and constraints of its forces it can either be at the core of the ARF, CJF and JEF OR provide some forces to the land defense of NATO’s Eastern Flank. It cannot credibly do all. Even a JEF 2 would require a new British Army built on at least eight warfighting brigades, a Royal Air Force that gets back into the business of long-range strategic effect, reinforced by a restored power projection mindset, and a Royal Navy focused on delivering a continually at sea deterrent (CASD), protecting sea lines of communication (SLOC) in the Atlantic, as well as strategic amphibiosity in which jointness is so deep that the force is in effect fused and integrated for multi-domain operations at the Littoral and beyond.

Furthermore, NATO planning under the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA) will not remain static given the pace of technological change and its impact upon both the use and nature of military power, as per the scenario. Therefore, if London is serious about Britain’s role in NATO, then the UKAF must create a truly integrated, intelligent, mission command led force able to move fast and apply tailored mass critically, much of it built on the application of robotics. This is because U.S. forces are facing a burgeoning China and global pressures whilst Germany and Poland are re-building their land power. Going forward, UK Armed Forces (UKAF) will add best value by providing the core of a future 300,000 strong NATO European pillar Allied Mobile Heavy Force (AMHF) which can act under either NATO command or as a coalition of the willing and able and which is the logical development of both the Combined Joint Force and a Super Joint Expeditionary Force. Only such a force would demonstrate to the Americans a plain truth that is missing from NSS 2025:

Per Mare, Per Terram

Therefore, the British future force must necessarily sit at the interface of Special Operators and Specialized Forces which is precisely where JEF 2 would act. Take the UK Commando Force (UKCF) as an example of a force development model. As currently constituted, the UKCF is a small light force with limited organic combat support (a light artillery regiment and an engineer squadron) and can only sensibly be employed at the less demanding end of the combat spectrum in a major state-on-state conflict. In other words, it is too small (tiny) and lacks both fighting power and fighting weight to sustain the missions with which it is charged in a major war, whatever the impressive qualities of each individual Commando. UKCF also exemplifies the dangerous paradox at the heart of a broken UKAF which too often lives in past glories. It is a small, highly mobile force designed to generate high strategic effects, but has little mass, limited maneuver and no strategic depth. The UK Commando Force (UKCF) is also a prime example of a London which too often fritters away British fighting power on low priority tasks that others could undertake. It is also too reliant on the Americans for vital enablers, such as Intelligence and Lift, for all but the most permissive of operations at a time when the Americans simply do not have space capacity. A reliance that not only weakens UKCF but also the Americans.

Equally, UKCF is a high-end integrated force able to operate to effect in extreme climatic conditions and across the maritime space, roles of which are vital to NATO’s spearhead, the Allied Reaction Force, and thus a vital component of British fighting power. Moreover, UK Commando Force, along with 16 Air Assault Brigade and the new Ranger formations, would offer Super JEF a credible and rotatable fighting power core if properly invested and supported. The real strength of UK Commando Force is that it is a thinking force able to adapt to changing environments and technology adeptly. It is also an in-place and advanced maritime-amphibious-air assault force, designed to set, shape and meet the challenges of theater command with and through the Strategic Command. It also has nine JEF partners and the mindset to drive change.

In other words, like much of UKAF UKCF is a work in progress that could help realize the full strategic potential of the JEF to enable Britain and its Allies and Partners to meet the future force on force challenge. To that end, JEF 2 would need significantly more robust amphibious shipping and airlift to generate credible deterrence in the Arctic and North Atlantic which would be its primary purpose. Without such enabling capabilities UKCF’s utility as a littoral plus force will decline yet further and arguments for retaining integrated enablers from across Defense will be weakened to the detriment of Britain’s command and leadership role, and not just in the JEF.

Relatively modest investment would further operationalize UKCF’s long-established training and exercising platform in Norway into an operational capability thus reinforcing the warfighting core of JEF 2. Such investment would also markedly increase the potency of the UK’s currently weak offer to NATO by strengthening affordable Allied deterrence in the Alliance’s markedly increased and contested northern area of responsibility. UKCF could also become another driver of defense modernization with industry by helping to establish benchmarks across 5^th Generation Warfare and a further development platform for 6^th Generation Warfare.

The darkness before dawn?

One must only look at history to understand why London is so mired in defense pretense. Britain was the only country to enter World War Two, knowing full well that win or lose it would be weaker. In 1949, and because of the cost of war and moneys owed to the U.S., British net public debt peaked at 250% of GDP. It was the cost of war from which Britain has never fully recovered. The lesson? The price of peace is far cheaper than the price of war but the price of preventing war can be too much during a time of straitened peace.

All the threat indicators suggest London must play a role within NATO commensurate with Britain’s still significant regional-strategic weight. Such a goal will only be realized if there is a radical rethink in London about the value of peace as opposed to the cost of defense, not least by British Government economists. Sensible American political and military leaders must also hold British feet firmly to the defense delivery fire if SDR 2025 really is to move UKAF to “warfighting readiness” as it claimed. The need is urgent because the British armed forces are fast reaching the tipping point at which the cost of force recovery would be beyond the means and ken of any British Government. Only radical solutions will work.

In late November 2025 Sir Richard Knighton, Britain’s top military officer wrote to John Healey, the Secretary of State for Defense, to warn that current spending plans are inadequate for the future force as envisaged by SDR 2025. His demarche was supported by the heads of the Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force. One senior defense official who preferred to remain anonymous said, “It is no secret defense is woefully underfunded and the promise of getting to sensible numbers by 2034 just doesn’t cut it”. Sadly, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s capitulation to hardline Labour Party MPs by reversing planned cuts to the massive welfare budget killed off any chance of real defense investment. Whither SDR 2025?

And yet, SDR 2025 made all the right noises. Such documents always do. “NATO First” was the adopted mantra with a recovering UKAF to be used as an engine for growth, whilst the lessons from Russia’s war on Ukraine would drive innovation as part of a whole of society approach to security and defense. Crucially, SDR 2025 avoided the hard truths of ends, ways and means by interpreting further cuts to the defense budget (some £2 billion or $2.67 billion in 2025-2026 of an $83 billion defense budget) as ‘force integration’ to be delivered by so-called and by and large mythical efficiencies. The political aim is to prevent ‘defense’ from becoming a political problem for ministers. In other words, the priority for London remains as ever political rather than strategic and it that culture of defense pretense that must change if a JEF 2 or any other credible and relevant British fighting force is to emerge from the current bonfire of capabilities.

To be credible, JEF 2 would need all the necessary personnel, ships and enablers to make a NATO mobile, multi-domain force credible given the threat and U.S. policy going forward. Such capability and capacity would also need an appropriate mix of mass and maneuver forces, reinforced by a hi-tech and mid-tech legion of drones, intelligent and precision guided hypersonic missiles, offensive and defensive cyber forces and critical space-based systems. This force goal will only be achieved if successive British governments invest in the AI architectures that should forces will depend on and do it together with allies and partners. It is vital because defense is a team game! If such investments are not now made, then force modernization will be little more than political smoke and errors. Be it JEF 2 or SDR 2025 it is all only a beginning.

Semper Fi!

John R. Allen, Julian Lindley-French and Jim Townsend

General (Ret.) John R. Allen is a retired US Marines Corps officer and co-author of Future War and the Defense of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2022) with Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Ben Hodges and Professor Julian Lindley-French. …

Professor Julian Lindley-French is Chairman of The Alphen Group and co-author with Field Marshal Lord Richards of The Retreat from Strategy: Britain’s Confusion of Values with Interests. (Hurst: London 2026)

JimTownsend is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy at the Pentagon and now Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

[1] Speech by Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Royal United Services Institute, December 15, 2025.

[2] See “Britain doesn’t need to become great again – it already is” by Ambassador Piotr Wilczek https://spectator.com/article/britain-doesnt-need-to-become-great-again-it-already-is/

[3] “Exclusive: Military Chiefs go to war with Labour”. “The Spectator”, November 26^th, 2025

[4] https://www.statista.com/statistics/298527/defense-spending-as-share-of-gdp-united-kingdom-uk/

[5] https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/deterrence-and-defense/allied-reaction-force-arf

[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lancaster-house-20-declaration-on-modernising-uk-french-defense-and-security-cooperation

Super JEF!

2026-01-14T08:23:00.002+01:00

WHY NATO NEEDS A SUPER JOINT EXPEDITIONARY FORCE AND A BRITAIN THAT CAN LEAD IT.

John R. Allen, Julian Lindley-French and Jim Townsend

The Choice

War is here, now, already and the need for NATO and its Northern European nations to be demonstrably strong is as great as at any time since the 1980s. Tensions across the Arctic have been highlighted by President Trump’s concerns that Greenland could become a fiefdom of China and Russia if the US does not first act. Concerns that reinforce the vital need for NATO Europeans to develop a credible first responder, high-end, deployable military capability able to operate across NATO’s contested and enormous Northern Flank. Given divisions within the North Atlantic Council, any such force would also need to operate both under NATO command and as a theater-reach coalition of the willing. What is needed is a British-led Super Joint Expeditionary Force – a Super JEF!

There can be no defense of NATO without the defense of the Arctic and the North Atlantic. Any such defense, and the deterrence that underpins it, will require an expeditionary force with sufficient military weight able to kick down the door anywhere in and around NATO’s Northern area of responsibility (AOR). A force that goes beyond the old and tired divide of Continental or Maritime Defence and yet combines both new forms of air and expeditionary operations. In other words, a force not unlike the US Marines Corps.

Britain would provide the core of Super JEF because the Arctic and the North Atlantic are where the British can best add value to the collective effort. First, Britain created the original Joint Expeditionary Force, which is a 10,000 strong multinational rapid reaction force led by Britain’s Standing Joint Force Headquarters. Second, the JEF can function either under NATO command or as a coalition of the Willing. Third, the JEF has all the right members comprising of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden in addition to Britain. Fourth, it is already envisioned as a force designed to undertake multi-domain operations across air, sea, land, space, cyber, information and knowledge.

Given Britain’s location and the threats it faces the defense of the realm depends first and foremost on the defense of the Arctic and North Atlantic. The problem is that Britain cannot lead the JEF, maintain its commitments under the NATO War Plan to send two fully equipped divisions of up to 15,000 troops each to defend NATO’s Eastern Flank, and afford its bespoke nuclear deterrent under existing defence investment plans. Today, the much-reduced British Army would have difficulty sending one division and not very quickly. The only way Britain and other NATO European countries can re-create the mass of force that has proved so important in Russia’s war on Ukraine would be to fully embrace robotics.

Three external imperatives further drive the choice London must make. First, the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) means NATO’s center of gravity is moving inexorably eastwards to Europe, specifically Germany. Over the next decade Germany will become the indispensable power of European defense. Second, NATO must be able to deter Russia by denial not punishment. Moscow is committed to a policy of bite-size aggression and expansionism which can only be stopped at source through effective deterrence. Third, NATO will need to defend the Euro-Atlantic Area from Greenland to the Black Sea via the North Atlantic.

Per Mare, Per Terram

Like the US Marines Corps a Super JEF would sit at the interface between Special Operators and Specialized Forces. The UK Commando Force (UKCF) is the equivalent British force but it is a small light force with limited organic combat support (a light artillery regiment and an engineer squadron) that could only sensibly employed for sustained missions at the less demanding end of the combat spectrum in a major state-on-state conflict…or for a very short time indeed. Unfortunately, the UKCF encapsulates the disconnect between ends, ways and means of NATO European forces – what there is is very good but there simply is not enough.

And yet, UK Commando Force is a warfighting force, and it is that Super JEF would need to be a credible fighting force, which it would need to be. The real strength of UKCF is that it is a thinking force that can adapt to changing environments and technologies adeptly. With vision and commitment both UKCF and Super JEF could become the advanced maritime-amphibious-air assault force NATO needs in the Arctic and the North Atlantic with the capability and readiness to set, shape and meet the challenges of theater command. A Super JEF that is able to operate independently with the appropriate numbers of amphibious shipping and airlift, as well as force protection.

The darkness before dawn?

Given the threat and the sheer scale of the defensible space in which Super JEF would operate it need to have at least 200,000 personnel strong with some 500 aircraft and all the necessary ships a high-end, future-proved NATO mobile force will require. Super JEF would also need to be seamlessly interoperable with high-end American forces and the Allied Reaction Force. That would mean an appropriate mix of mass and maneuver forces, reinforced by hi tech and a mid-tech legion of drones, intelligent and precision guided hypersonic missiles, offensive and defensive cyber forces and critical space-based systems.

Given changing geopolitics and the changing character of war a far more effective instrument of military power is simply a fact of geopolitical life for all Europeans. However, the Arctic and the North Atlantic are as much on the frontline of freedom as NATO’s Eastern Flank. Given the impact of the financial crises of the past twenty years on Europe’s defense vital new military capabilities will only be realized by a regionally-focused multinational effort, a new division of labor within the Alliance, and real technological innovation. That means making choices and fast.

Semper Fi!

John R. Allen, Julian Lindley-French and Jim Townsend

General (Ret.) John R. Allen is a retired US Marines Corps officer and co-author of Future War and the Defence of Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2022) with Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Ben Hodges and Professor Julian Lindley-French. …

JimTownsend is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy at the Pentagon and now Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

The Machtpolitik of Trump-Politik!

2026-01-05T09:05:00.000+01:00

“God has a Special Providence for fools, drunks and the United States of America”.

Otto von Bismarck

Geo-business!

January 5, 2026. Thucydides once wrote that the powerful do as they will whilst the weak do as they must. Many centuries later J.K. Galbraith wrote that power is as power does. Does international law really exist if the only enforcement is by self-appointed Hobbesian Leviathans who do not believe they are subject to it?

It is in that light that Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the defenestration of President Nicolas Maduro must be seen. You’ve all heard of Machtpolitik – might is right. It is the use of all forms of coercive and inductive power to attain grand strategic ends. Trump-Politik is the use of all forms of coercive and inductive American power by an American president in pursuit of immense geo-economic, geo-political, and both geo and narrow business ends.

Trump’s aim is to become a geo-business Leviathan to an end of national aggrandisement and personal enrichment (or is that the other way round?). The rest? Irrelevant. Geo-business is how Trump sees ‘power’. All the recent US strikes have been on oil-rich states, Iran, Nigeria and now Venezuela. Even Trump’s ‘peace’ offer to Ukraine is essentially an extractive business deal. He believes that ‘geo-business’ is the very stuff of geopolitics in a zero-sum power ‘game’ of grand strategic competition between those who can do ‘business’ in this world – i.e. China and Russia. For Trump only China and Russia have the means and the will to compete in what Trump believes to be an anarchical market.

Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan, “Covenants without the sword are but words and of no use to any man”. In the aftermath of the Delta Force ‘exfiltration’ (what a bloody word!) of Maduro the airwaves are full of mainly Europeans bleating about an ‘illegal act’. How can an act be illegal if there is no law? After all, international law is merely a potpourri of conventions and treaties that has been inflated into a body of law that the truly powerful routinely ignore. The UN Charter is only observed in the breach. It is the last refuge of the weak who see law is an alternative to the power they lack. It masks the tragic paradox of the weak in that power can only be ‘legitimate’ if enough of the truly powerful agree to enforce it. The Americans, Chinese, and Russians are demonstrating by their actions that they do not, and that there is no international law rather anarchy.

The ends justify the means

In Trump-Politik the ends justify the means and thus for him the only logical way to judge his actions are whether or not he delivers the outcomes he seeks – strategic domination of the Western Hemisphere, the maintenance of the US as the world’s pre-eminent power, and Trumpian control over global hydrocarbons and Rare Earth Metals as a grand strategic lever on his competitors. That will not be so easy.

First, colonising a country, for that is what the Americans are doing, requires a lot of time, resources and pragmatic courting/buying off of those with power within it. Ask the British! It is thus far too early to tell if the removal of Maduro has also removed the regime. The only way to ensure there is no prolonged struggle for power between a Venezuelan resistance and US occupiers is for the Americans (for that read the CIA) to remain fully engaged until all elements of Maduro’s junta are caught and the Venezuelan Army backs a US-imposed leader. Afghanistan 2?

Second, will the colonisation of Venezuela also assure US dominance of the Western Hemisphere by locking out strategic competitors? In fact, the Americans are already the dominant geoeconomic and business power in the region, but Trump-Politik will certainly re-ignite ‘anti-Gringo’ feelings across much of Latin America. Latin America might be America’s backyard and thus part of a Trumpian sphere of influence, but it is a bloody big one!

Third, the rules-based order has been replaced by a no-rules order, or rather a Trump rules global order. Trump Venezuela’s colonisation is a test of Trump-Politik and its fusion of geoeconomics, geopolitics, and geo-business. By doing this Trump is also sending a powerful message to the Chinese and Russians that the US accepts in both principle and fact that spheres of influence are the real currency of geopolitical business.

Trump is also making it clear to Xi and Putin (and Iran which has agents in Venezuela) that the US will not tolerate their presence in strength in Latin America. Trump will also make the cost of doing geo-business-high for both Beijing or Moscow, which is why the Americans are arming Taiwan and Ukraine. However, Trump is also implying that the US will not interfere in the respective strategic backyards/near abroads/renegade regions of China and Russia. Trump-Politik thus has profound implications for Taiwan and Ukraine? Clearly, if Chinese push comes to American shove over Taiwan Trump will only shove so far.

Europe and Trump-politik?

How long will it take for European leaders to realise that virtue signalling is no substitute for power in this world? Europe's self-obsessed elites are playing slow, soft chess whilst Putin, Xi and Trump play hard power poker. Probably as long as it takes for Trump to seize a Greenland rich in hydrocarbons, rare earth metals and critical minerals. Western European leaders are lost in an anachronistic post-World War Two age in which their aversion to what many still see as militarism and a desperate need to avoid World War Three in Europe is making such a war more likely. Whither NATO? Certainly, Trump-Politik is the deepest divide that has ever existed in the transatlantic relationship.

Too many European leaders are also obsessed with ‘institutionalism’ and have forgotten that ‘law’ only works in conjunction with power NOT as an alternative to it. This is precisely the mistake the human rights lawyer pretending to run Britain makes. The ‘deal’ to hand the strategically critical Chagos Islands to China proto-colony Mauritius is just the latest in a series of cack-handed actions by a London driven by the dangerous confusion of values with interests. The rules-based order they espouse is a myth precisely because they have made it so. They are lost in a League of Nations-style conceit that ‘the court of world opinion’ will constrain the Dictators...and Trump, just as it constrained (not) Hitler, Mussolini and Togo.

Shining City on the Hill?

What price will America pay? Trump-Politik marks the end of America as the Shining City on the Hill. Trump has made the US a fully signed-up member of those who espouse MACHTPOLITIK especially if a target state is rich in hydrocarbons. The ultimate irony is that the EU could become the new Potemkin Village on a Hill because the whole concept of American exceptionalism was built at a time when the US was not a global power and was colonising itself. Trump-Politik is thus a very old fashioned and very old European past in which might is right driven by the false justification of all empires that colonisation is advancement. Two hundred and fifty years on from America’s rejection of empire is America becoming one?

Ultimately Trump-Politik is an extension of Trump himself and the way he does ‘business’. It is the geopolitics of a New York real estate dog-eat-dog salesman for whom the mantra is ‘if you can take it, take it1. Bismarck would have well understood such an idea of power but at least he was clever about it. As for ‘international law’ it cannot exist if an American president believes he is Leviathan. Two questions remain. First, is Greenland next? Second, is Trump-Politik how Americans want America to be?

Julian Lindley-French

The Appeasement of Extremism and the Defence of Europe

2025-12-17T10:28:00.002+01:00

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile in the hope it will eat him last”.

Winston Spencer Churchill

Civilisational decline?

President Donald J You-Know-Who has suggested Europe is in “civilisational decline”. It is easy to dismiss such comments because they come from President Donald J. You-Know-Who. Western Europeans liberal political leaders would like their citizens to do just that – nothing to see here. But does he have a point and what are the implications for NATO and the defence of Europe?

By “civilisational decline” Trump means that the historically large scale and rapid immigration of the past 25 years has had a corrosive effect on the cultures and unity of Western European countries. He is specially referring to the three backbone European powers in Europe, Britain, France and Germany, which he expects to step up and do far more for the defence of Europe. He bases that view on the mass immigration of documented and undocumented people from outside Europe. As an inner-European migrant myself I do recognise there is a problem.

Defence and extremism

The fact is it is hard to separate acts of violent extremism such as the disgusting anti-Semitic attacks on Bondi Beach this past week from mass immigration, particularly mass uncontrolled immigration. Such attacks are only a relatively recent phenomenon as is mass immigration from outside Europe. But, such a separation must be made if defence too is not to be corroded and eroded by extremism. Sadly, there is a very real danger that Western European governments by appearing to appease extremists are effectively doing their job of inter-communal hatred for them by worsening the divisions within society upon which extremism feeds.

In the wake of the Bondi Beach atrocity one British Labour Party politician trotted out that tired old mantra of the Left that “diversity is our strength”. It is a patently ridiculous statement if such diversity leads to division. Worse are reasons the Labour Government makes such claims because it does not want to offend one voter base – Muslims. Muslim voters represent over 15% of the electorate in almost 100 parliamentary constituencies out of 650 at a time when much of the population dislikes the Labour Government intensely. Similar patterns can be seen across Western Europe and explain why the rise of so-called rightist populism is evident and persistent.

Defence and solidarity

Mass immigration is perhaps the most important strategic trends of the age given the impact it has, And yet few experts dare talk about it for fear of career extinction unless they follow the official Kumbaya mantra. The strategic impact on defence is a case in point. There can be no credible defence in the contemporary sense of the word unless the home base of European countries is reasonably secure and society reasonably cohesive. There is a reason a patently weaker Russia believes it might get away with future land grabs even in EU and NATO Europe. Moscow believes that the multiculturalism that is a consequence of mass immigration has led to disjointed open societies that Russia can exploit in a digital age, possibly catastrophically.

This is not a party-political point. Such disjointedness is the direct result of a strange alliance between the Business Right and the Ideological Left. The former sees immigration as a source of cheap labour, whilst the latter sees immigration as totemic of the open borders in which they believe. Both the Business Right and Ideological Left have also done their level best to prevent people from talking about the impact of mass immigration on Western European societies by implying racism. In fact, I am deeply comfortable with Britain’s multi-racial society even if I am concerned with the ghettos in which hate incubates and which multiculturalism seems to have spawned. There is a profound difference.

Liberalism, immigration and multiculturalism

If social liberals like me want liberalism to survive then Western European governments and the liberal Establishments of which they are a part are going to have to address the relationship between extremism, mass immigration and multiculturalism. Thus far, they have chosen not to and the consequences are self-evident. Millions of decent Muslims across Western Europe feel that they are being identified with Salafist extremists by an increasingly large number of their fellow citizens of all colours or creeds. My own country, Britain, has seen leaders actively rubbish patriotism to make all feel welcome but have instead made no-one feel welcome. Britain is today a country profoundly divided into those who see British history as heroic and those who see it as criminal. As an Oxford historian who has studied this stuff, I can tell you the truth really does lie in the moderate middle.

And it is moderation which is most at risk in this most important of debates – a debate so vital there can be no sound defence without it. This is because by appeasing extremists on both Left and Right governments in Western Europe have silenced the moderate majority. Worse, by refusing to do something about the legitimate concerns of the moderate majority as they see their countries change rapidly around them moderates are also becoming radicalised.

The absence of leadership

It is the absence of leadership which is the root cause of this most strategic of malaises. And here's the rub – most people want to rub along and do. They also want to share a basically similar view of what it means live in a pluralistic society and believe their leaders share the same ideals. They do not want to be told that their country is criminal or have their children told that in schools by ideologically driven leaders or teachers. They also do not want to be told that mass immigration is vital to the economy by venal leaders when huge swathes of the population are trapped on social welfare and hopeless. In other words, they want to believe again in their country.

Western Europeans will be incapable of leading the future defence of Europe UNTIL that social compact with leaders and establishments is re-established. Until it is many moderate people, the backbone of any defence, will not be willing to risk themselves or their children in defence of establishments that they believe to be actively inimical to their interests. There can be no place for nostalgia in the defence of Europe but there must be pride. That means building a new moderate shared patriotism with the citizens of today not of the past. For too long Western European governments have quietly killed such pride by seeking to accommodate the unaccommodatable – extremism. Those who shout the loudest.

If not, however strong Europeans may look on paper, Russia will eventually get what it wants because it knows that without the support of the people ‘Europe’ is in fact something Moscow knows well – a Potemkin village. A Potemkin house divided against itself…

Julian Lindley-French

US National Security Strategy 2025: The Shining City?

2025-12-08T11:31:00.002+01:00

December 8^th. President Harry S. Truman once said that “If a man is acquainted with what other people have experienced at this [the Resolution] desk, it will be easier for him to go through a similar experience. It is ignorance that causes most mistakes. The man who sits here ought to know his American history, at least.” US National Security Strategy (NSS 25) is built on myth and President Donald J. Trump’s many prejudices about allies and others.

Now, I am too old to get too excited about such documents even if US National Security Strategies are meant to be the distilled essence of an Administration’s grand strategy – the application of immense American means in pursuit of high strategic ends. They are a bit like London buses – one waits for ages and then when one finally turns up it is going in the wrong direction. And yes, NSS 25 is meant to set the scene for the forthcoming National Defense Strategy which will matter to NATO. It is not all bad, even if the US support for “our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe” could be more J.D. Vance than John F. Kennedy.

An America divided...

The biggest concern NSS 25 reveals is the enormous divide in US domestic politics and the virtual civil war taking place in the Washington Establishment over America in the world. Normally, US domestic politics only interests me in so much as American choices affect my country and NATO. The more dependent Britain and other Europeans have become the more subject we are to America’s politics. When the Americans sneeze and all that. What makes NSS 25 so radically different from past such efforts is the strangely parochial mix of politics and personality both implicit and explicit in the leadership of the world’s only global power.

Is NSS 25 thus just a temporary phenomenon reflective of a radically capricious president. Yes and no. America is changing fast and is no longer led by a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) cabal for which the ties with Europe were both cultural as well as geopolitical. NSS 2025 thus marks something that has been building for a long time - a radical departure from post-war American internationalism built on a sense amongst many Americans that they can simply no longer afford other peoples’ problems.

Furthermore, having effectively stated that the US is no longer a European power NSS 25 then proposes a view of American power that Bismarck or Metternich would have recognised. As much as NSS 25 does vision Viscount Lord Palmerston would have concurred for according to NSS 25 America no longer as either permanent friends or permanent enemies, just interests. Really?

Another paradox of this very un-American strategy is the very real damage it does to the American strategic brand. NSS 25 abandons any last remnant of the Shining City on the Hill by explicitly re-casting America as simply yet another power-obsessed ‘European-style’ bottom-feeder. In other words, NSS 25 is a very depressing document for those who have long believed in American the Idea because it trashes the inspirational American belief that if others prosper America prospers.

What should particularly concern Europeans is Trumps adherence to the balance of power? Let’s face it European efforts to built ‘stability’ by balancing power has not always ended well. This is particularly the case given that it is now Europeans who like to cast themselves as a Shining City on the Hill, even if in fact ‘Europe’ is little more than a collection of weak villages on a bit of a bump in somebody else’s road. Perhaps one can only shine on a hill if one had no power and faces no threats?

The myth of history

It is the failed understanding of American history in NSS 25 which is most galling. It also reveals the extent to which Trumpian foreign and security policy is built on a kind of Hollywood history of America. A history in which the Americans win everything without the help of anybody for the good of all, even those who lose. Take for example the reference to the Monroe Doctrine. NSS 25 states, “After years of neglect the United States will reaffirm and assert the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere”. Sorry, but that is not what the Monroe Doctrine did. What eventually became known as the Monroe Doctrine followed a speech in December 1823 by then President James Monroe in which he effectively called for a new balance of power between the New World and the Old World, by which he meant Britain and the US.

In effect, Monroe was offering a deal to the British to build three new empires. First, the Americans would promise not to interfere again in British North America. In 1812, the Americans had tried to take advantage of Britain’s wars against Napoleon by trying to seize parts of what is today Canada. The British punished them by burning down the White House and Congress in 1814. Contrary to American myth the government of Lord Liverpool in London had no ambitions to destroy the United States.

Second, the British agreed to let the Americans have a free hand in what is today Latin America. By 1823, the Spanish Empire of the Americas was crumbling and Monroe and his Administration wanted to exploit that. Third, the British would leave the Americans to colonise what became eventually the United States and exploit newly independent states in what became Latin America. In return, the British, safe in the knowledge that British North America no longer faced an American threat, could turn south and east. Between 1815 and 1890 Britain built the Second British Empire. In other words, whilst all other European powers were recovering from a systemic war Monroe made America complicit in British imperialism by figuratively and literally having Britain’s grand strategic back.

The new Atlanticism

Old-fashioned Atlanticism is dead, long live the new Atlanticism! NSS 25 simply confirms in an extreme way what Europeans should already know – that the US domestic politics is driving Americans into a strange kind of isolationism whilst still obsessed with its fading exceptionalism. Trump is the embodiment of that.

NSS 25 is full of paradoxes but perhaps the most egregious paradox is the relegation of Europeans to the third rank of American interests after the Indo-Pacific and making money. If one looks at the ends, ways and means of NSS 25 the only way the Americans will ever realise their grand strategic goals is with the support of allies. That means America needs NATO.

The missing message of NSS 25? The Americans still need Europeans, as much as Europeans need Americans. And, with a relatively modest collective effort Europeans could show just how indispensable they are to the US? Let’s get on with it!

Just a thought.

ulian Lindley-French

The New Brexit

2025-11-17T11:50:00.004+01:00

“The past is another country; they do things differently there. But men still shoot each other, don’t they?”

L.P. Hartley

November 17^th, 2025. Forget Britain’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR). It is as dead as a Dodo and takes it place amongst that great Pantheon of British defence fiction – where Shakespeare meets Liddell Hart. Nice story though. In its place is the real Brexit – Britain’s effective abandonment of Europe’s defence. Two-faced politicians in London and their strategically illiterate advisors like to pretend Britain is going to re-arm, when in fact they have decided to retreat. At one and the same time urging NATO to do more, whilst behind closed doors blocking NATO from the very investments needed for fear of political embarrassment. Yes, I have my sources.

A Tale of Two Countries

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. The result? Britain is the new Germany of European defence. Regular readers will recall that I used to write regularly for the International Herald Tribune. Notoriously, at least in some ‘how much threat can we afford’ circles I once wrote that Germany that was using World War Two as an excuse not to play its full role in the defence of Europe. Modern, democratic Germany, I argued, was not Nazi Germany but a friend, an ally and a model democracy. It was time to step up. In October 2000 I contrasted the bungling Bundeswehr with Britain’s military machine. Britain, I said, had been on the D-Day beaches and was still out there. It was at the height of Tony Blair’s Liberal Humanitarianism.

How times change. Whilst the Merz Government spent 1.63% GDP in 2025 it is committed to spending 3.5% of Germany’s $4.7 trillion economy on defence by 2029. In other words, $164 billion per annum! The Starmer government? London has promised to increase British defence expenditure from 2.4% GDP in 2025 to 2.5% GDP in 2027 and possibly 3.5% of its £3.5 trillion GDP by 2035 or $129 billion. Dream on! In fact, the real figure is far lower because under current planning Britain will only increase its defence budget by 0.3% GDP by 2034, far below the defence cost inflation that is ravaging defence expenditure. Worse, whilst the Bundeswehr will be re-equipped at a cost of €377bn Britain’s hopelessly hollowed out forces have been ordered to CUT the budget by £2 billion in 2025. Germany’s challenge is thus defence strategic: how to spend a massive increase both quickly and wisely. Britain’s defence challenge is as ever political: how to maintain the defence pretence of increased expenditure whilst masking the consequences of serial cuts.

A Tale of Two Brigades

London will find maintaining defence pretence increasingly hard. Take NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence in the Baltic States. In Lithuania the German Brigade is set to be equipped with the forces and resources it needs to fulfil its deterrence and defence mission. Next door in Estonia the British ‘brigade’ is under-strength and ill-equipped. Worse, Britain’s Estonian ‘brigade’ is not even a brigade but rather a battalion. According to London securing NATO’s Eastern Flank can best be served by keeping the bulk of Britain’s contribution to it in Gloucestershire. The Army is noy alone. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is vital to the support of fleet operations has just had one of its few ships condemned as unfit to sail with the rest not much better.

London’s defence pretence is moving beyond a joke to a farce that will inevitably lead to tragedy. The Starmer regime like so many before it simply wants to get off the world to pay for welfare and make the false choice of funding social security at the cost of national security. To mask Britain’s retreat London hides in its support Ukraine by making its own armed forces weaker and doing little to make a real difference to a Ukrainian force in crisis.

The reason? Like so many of the strategic illiterates who have occupied Downing Street of late Starmer fails to understand what defence is for. It is not simply the defence of the realm. It is to credibly deter enemies and defend the very institutional order Starmer claims to hold dear by supporting soft power with credible hard power. It is to influence allies as much as deter enemies. Britain’s defence pretence is not simply the surrender of British influence it is the retreat of a once proud power into utter irresponsibility.

The New Brexit

The bottom line is this: there can be no stable geoeconomics unless there is stable geopolitics. Stable geopolitics must be earned not wished for. The message I hear from ministers and experts all over the Alliance is that Britain is retreating into a new Brexit. A Brexit not just from the European Union but from the transatlantic relationship. A Brexit that means the only Special Relationship of substance is between the US and Germany because the Germans are now willing to pay for it. As for the Americans Britain is a write-off. Britain? A shell nation, once at the very heart of NATO, hunkering down behind its nuclear weapons and saying to Allies and Partners alike – ‘we don’t care”.

Shame on you, London. Men still really do shoot each other, Sir Keir!

Julian Lindley-French

One-China: Listen to Beijing

2025-10-29T10:51:00.004+01:00

“The 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation clearly stipulated that Taiwan, stolen by Japan, must be restored to China”.

Ambassador Zheng Zeguang, October 26^th, 2025

Why Now?

October 29^th. China is preparing to invade Taiwan. Probably not tomorrow, but maybe the day after…. Hear me out. In December 2021 I wrote a piece predicting the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I had not only read what Putin was saying, but also what their armed forces were doing. Part of my reasoning at the time was that Putin would never have a better opportunity. China today? Beijing is not only telling the West it intends to reunify the Republic of China with the People’s Republic of China there are several very good reasons the West must listen. President Xi Jinping will also never have a better opportunity. The West is in strategic, political and economic disarray; an internal power struggle is also underway at the very top of the Chinese Communist Party.

First, China is softening up the West for decisive Chinese action against Taiwan. Last week, Zheng Zeguang, the Chinese Ambassador to the Court of St James, published a piece in a British newspaper explaining why Taiwan has always been a part of China and always will. The message is clear: if Britain and the wider West want to shape the twenty-first century world order it can only do so with China and not against it. And only if the collective West re-confirms its collective adherence to the “One-China” principle. Zeguang was clear: “This is the key to ensuring the sound and steady development of China-UK relations”.

Second, Zeguang suggests that Taipei is claiming the sovereign right to participate in the UN and other international organisations on the grounds that UNGA 2758 does not address Taiwan’s legal status or preclude such participation. He also suggests that if successful such status would be a casus belli. Beijing is particularly concerned about “the threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait…from separatist activities for “Taiwan independence” and the connivance and support by external forces”. The specific source of Beijing’s concern is what Zeguang describes as recent efforts by Taipei’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) “[again] in collusion with certain external forces…to distort UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) Resolution 2758”, which establishes the One-China Principle.

Third, China assumes that however important Taiwan is to world semiconductor production, the US will not go to war with China if Beijing invades. Donald Trump does not wage war over other peoples’ issues and in principle accepts Taiwan as a ‘renegade’ province of China. By writing the article in a British newspaper Beijing was also sending a message to the Americans. Britain does not matter beyond being a fading metaphor for Western/US power. Zeguang pointedly quoted the joint 1972 British-China communique which stated that, “The Government of the United Kingdom recognise the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China”, and that “Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China”.

Fourth, XI is essentially a Han Chinese nationalist and he is resorting ever more to such nationalism to shore up his domestic position. There is a power struggle underway between various factions at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party. For the first time since he came to power in 2012 President-for-Life Xi is facing questions not only over the course of his domestic but also foreign policy. As he ages questions of the succession are also becoming ever more acute. At the very heart of Xi’s nationalism is not only the recovery of Taiwan, forced if necessary, but the eclipse of the United States as the world’s dominant military power. Even if Taiwan is recovered well before the centenary of the founding of the CPC in 2049 Xi’s China will continue to challenge the US.

Fifth, Beijing believes China’s military might just be able to pull off a military invasion if but only if it can subvert Taiwan from within first through an applied information and cyber coercion, corruption of Taipei’s elites, blockade and sabotage of critical infrastructures to ease the way for its armed forces across the Taiwan Straits.

A Warning from History

Would an invasion succeed? Take the D-Day maritime amphibious invasion of France in June 1944. Portsmouth to the Normandy beaches is 180km or 110 miles, whilst the distance between mainland China and Taiwan across the Strait of Taiwan is the same. Prior to D-Day Anglo-American forces had undertaken five major maritime-amphibious invasions and most of those only narrowly avoided disaster.

That D-Day was a success was in no small part because the conditions that were absent for the Nazi’s planned Operation Sealion in 1940 were in place for Operation Overlord: excellent intelligence, the support of the local population and undisputed Allied control of both air and sea. The ‘only’ contest Allied forces faced was getting ashore and establishing quickly an unassailable bridgehead. No doubt the Chinese have studied the extremely extensive and intensive Chiefs of Staff Supreme Allied Command (COSSAC) plans that led to D-Day in their own planning, which they have clearly now completed. Recent military exercises testing Chinese Naval Infantry suggest that any such attack would still be an enormous risk for the Chinese. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) simply lacks the experience of contested blue water power projection and/or massive joint maritime-amphibious operations.

One-China?

Here’s the twist - Chinese planning suggests the threat of invasion is more Operation Sealion than Overlord, an attempt to force a settlement through the threat of invasion as one of several instruments of power. Western planners assume such an invasion would be contested. What if it was not? In other words, Beijing needs to successfully subvert Taipei politically and paralyse Taiwan critically BEFORE it attacks militarily. In such circumstances, Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China would be processional and ceremonial, a warning to others. Zeguang’s article is one such instrument of power.

The West? Washington is all that matters to Beijing. If the US did defend Taiwan there would be a major war over an issue that the US has accepted has already been decided. Taiwan is Chinese real estate. It would be very hard to sell such a war to the American people and for Trump Taiwan is a faraway land about which he knows little. The Atlantic Alliance would also certainly split (again) thus helping China’s useful idiots in Moscow. Despite the large number of Japanese citizens in Taiwan it is very unlikely Japan would act without the Americans. If Europeans are pretty much irrelevant in Europe, they certainly are in East Asia. They would issue a few concerned declarations and then adopt their usual grand strategic posture of burying their heads in the drifting sands of False Virtue.

What is clear is that a reckoning over Taiwan is coming and it is coming soon and those responsible for statecraft in Western capitals clearly think the best course of action would be to expedite a peaceful resolution to the conflict on China’s terms. Sudetenland 2025?

One-China: listen to Beijing...very carefully.

Julian Lindley-French

Jonathan Powell: Virtue Imperialist?

2025-10-24T09:44:00.004+02:00

October 24th. How does one craft British foreign and security policy when one knows how weak, divided and broke the country is? What trade-offs must be made and at what cost? What is the balance to be struck between pragmatism and ideology? How does one present the management of decline as responsible statecraft? Those are the dilemmas Sir Keir Starmer’s National Security Advisor, Jonathan Powell, confronts daily. Powell certainly has form. As Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff for a decade he was intimately involved in the Northern Ireland Peace Accords back in the 1990s and the Iraq War in 2003. More recently he has been front and centre in the Chagos Islands sell-out, the EU reset, and kowtowing to Xi’s Beijing which has culminated in the China Spy Case fiasco.

During his wilderness years Powell wrote an interesting book which not only revealed Powell’s view of power, but also his many contradictions. Entitled, "The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World" there were times reading it when I thought the title should have been "The New Utopia: How to Give Power to Others in the Modern World". In the book Powell wrote, “[Machiavelli] was the first writer to consider power and how it could be used and retained in a utilitarian rather than a utopian way”. And yet it is precisely a form of virtue signalling globalist utopianism that is (it is not science) the essence of his statecraft.

Normally, I avoid writing pieces ad hominem, but Powell IS British foreign and security policy at present such is the dearth of talent in the Starmer administration. Whilst I do not know Powell, we were contemporaries at University College, Oxford. We both read Modern History, and we even had the same Senior Tutor, the brilliant Dr L. G. Mitchell. There our similarities end. Powell was a couple of years ahead of me and whilst he went to the posh King’s School, Canterbury I went to the bog standard Castle Comprehensive School, while Powell was Establishment spawn, I was an oick from the sticks, why I still believe in Britain as a Power, Powell together with much of the British Establishment, does not.

It is the issue of class which is the difference between us and which is unique to Britain. Powell’s Establishment class have failed and they know it. They believe Britain is finished and no longer able to compete in the world. Petits bourgeois like me reject such nonsense as the basis for policy. Whilst I accept that Britain is no longer a world power it is still a European power of some weight and can compete if led well.

Powell’s weakness is the absence of leadership, something he shares with his boss in Downing Street. This absence of leadership is strange because one of his brothers, Charles Powell (King’s School Canterbury and New College, Oxford), and Baron Powell of Bayswater, was Margaret Thatcher’s foreign policy advisor. The consummate Establishment insider ‘Pole’ (as he pronounced his surname) did believe Britain was still a power of some weight albeit fading. Like his formidable and at times over the top boss he also believed it could be applied to effect in pursuit of a clearly understood British interest.

Perhaps Powell did once believe such things. He was, after all, an architect of Tony Blair’s Liberal Humanitarianism in which British virtue and power became a forced marriage of convenience. When Blair over-reached trying to shape US policy post-911 in Afghanistan and Iraq Liberal Humanitarianism seems to have morphed into the vacuum of Virtue Imperialism. It is as though Powell was so bruised by the experience of the Iraq fiasco that he went from an advocate of British over-reach to the under-reach self-evident in what passes for Virtue Signaller-in-Chief Starmer’s statecraft.

Given Powell’s provenance it is perhaps hardly surprising Virtue Imperialism has become the final tragic manifestation of British imperialism. Which brings me to the paradox at the heart of Powell’s statecraft: for all the Establishment’s declinism and defeatism they still remain arrogant enough to believe that if Britain leads the way across the Hard Yards of Virtue, the world will follow. It will not.

Powell is in essence Mephistopheles in the forging of Starmer’s Faustian Pact with False Virtue. This is why Britain is paying Mauritius to take the Chagos Islands off Britain’s hands, even though Diego Garcia is a strategically vital asset for both the UK and US. It is also why much of the Cabinet Office and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (or whatever it is called these days) is so keen to make Britain the new Hong Kong, China’s offshore European island. For much of the Establishment China can do anything to indebted Britain so long as Beijing keeps London politically and financially afloat.

Powell would tell me that he can see the books and knows Britain’s dire financial reality, whilst I do not. In fact I do but that is no excuse for the policy Powell is crafting. A policy that pretends it is committed to multilateralism and institutions such as NATO, talks a lot about increasing Britain’s fighting power to strengthen Alliance deterrence, but in fact does little to turn words into deeds.

It is not all Powell’s fault. Working in this Downing Street Powell is all too aware that many in the Labour Government believe patriotism is a form of mental disorder and that ‘virtue’ is an end in itself for a country so burdened by the guilt of its imperial past.

Ultimately, Powell and the British Establishment have become so wedded to managing Britain’s decline that it has become an end in itself. They exaggerate British weakness, confuse weakness for virtue and ‘law’ for power to avoid an uncomfortable truth: Britain cannot hide from its residual power. Power breeds responsibilities however hard London tries to replace hard interests with meaningless virtue.

Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" to curry favour with the virtue-less Medici who never confused virtue with interests. He understood that Sixteenth Century Florence was to the other city-states in Italy what Britain is to the contemporary world. As such he saw real virtue in the application of clever statecraft that strengthened Florence’s relative position. As Machiavelli said, “it is better to be adventurous than cautious”. Powell?

Julian Lindley-French

Rose-tinted Riga: The Riga Test 2025

2025-10-15T10:47:00.001+02:00

“Nostalgia is not a strategy”.

For twenty years I have had the honour of attending the wonderful Riga Conference in Latvia. Every year I have attended I have used the conference to pose the Riga Test – are the good citizens of Riga safer this year than last from their noisy and aggressive neighbour. The answer? No.

This was probably my last Riga Conference because for much of it I felt like a spare part who had outstayed his welcome. There is a perfectly good reason for that because it is time for a new generation of leaders and analysts to take over. Any legacy I may be leaving is in good hands. There is a lot of strategic talent coming through.

That said, I left Riga concerned. My concerns are not with the younger generation but my own and the complacency in which they seem so mired. Too many senior conference attendees either in positions of power or recently retired seemed all too comfortable, certain that they knew what Putin intends to do next to Latvia and its neighbours Estonia and Lithuania. If I do not know, they do not know. Their argument rests on the belief that so long as Russian forces are mired in the mud of Ukraine the Baltic States are safe. They also believe that NATO has Putin exactly where it wants him. I am not so sure. The number of times at the conference I heard something along the lines of Putin will not do this or that seemed to tempt fate to this Oxford historian. The ‘job’ of deterring Russia is by no means done and it is a profound mistake to believe that just because a Western leader would not take a big risk, a ‘cautious’ (and quite possibly desperate) Putin would not.

It is precisely this kind of thinking I have been warning against for years. Putin does not think like a Western democrat, and it is a profound mistake to transfer the Western way of thinking onto either Vladimir Vladimirovich or the men around him. It is also precisely because Putin is mired in Ukraine that makes him so dangerous. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Russia’s way of war and its four distinct elements: wars of conquest, wars of destruction, wars of coercion, and wars of exploitation. For Putin war is simply a military means to a grand strategic end – the re-establishment of Russian control over its ‘near abroad’ by whatever means available. That is what Putin means when he talks of Russkiy Mir. Ukraine is simply one step towards that grand strategic end which Putin passionately believes he will one day realise simply and tragically because Russians are prepared to suffer more than other Europeans, particularly Western Europeans.

On October 14^th, Vyacheslav Volodin, the Chairman of the Russian States Duma was explicit. Latvian authorities, he said, were persecuting fellow Russians and Moscow had a duty to protect its “compatriots”. No doubt my conference colleagues would comfort themselves with the thought that NATO stands ready. Does it? I have never known the Americans and major Western European powers more politically distracted and strategically inept and thus open to a Russian war of exploitation against them. Not since the Cold War has the Russian state been so geared for a war of coercion on its neighbours, be it with fighter incursions, drone incursions, sabotage, or a host of other ‘accidents’. Whilst the West talks about a counter-drone wall, the Russians are already knocking it down.

Even Russia’s ability to conduct a war of conquest is not as far-fetched as my complacent colleagues would like to believe. A former commander of the US Army in Europe asked me to pose a simple question at the panel on military mobility I chaired. In the event of a major Russian attack that combined all four wars of coercion, exploitation, conquest and destruction simultaneously and across the spectrum of information, cyber, sabotage and military power could Latvia hold out the two weeks it would take for Allied forces to arrive in strength. No.

Which brings me to what was really missing at this year’s Riga Conference – any elite sense of urgency and a lack of what I call a real joined up defence against exploitation, coercion, conquest and destruction. Declarations have been signed, commitments have been made but to my trained and experienced eye words still seem more important than deeds to free Europe. Nostalgia is not a strategy; complacency is a crime.

Thank you, Latvia and your mighty Riga Conference. It has been an honour to serve you. Bon voyage!

Julian Lindley-French

Russia, War, and You!

2025-09-29T09:13:00.005+02:00

“I have conquered an empire, but I have not been able to conquer myself”.

Peter the Great

September 29. This past weekend the former head of MI5 Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said that Russia is already at war with Britain. If Russia is at war with Britain, it is also at war with the whole of free Europe, as evinced by the violations of Danish and Estonian air space this past week by both aircraft and drones. There is an assumption in the gilded chancelleries of Western Europe that so long as Russia is embroiled in its war on Ukraine it poses no real threat to the EU and NATO. There is a further assumption that the period of maximum danger for eastern Europe will be some five or so years after the war in Ukraine ends. This is both complacent and wrong.

To understand why Europe’s leaders are wrong one needs to understand the Russian concept of, and relationship with war, which is very different to that of the rest of Europe. For the Kremlin war is an ever-evolving instrument of both soft and hard power. Russia’s specific war aims are not simply the re-conquest of Ukraine, but also the re-establishment of a sphere of coercive influence, a ‘strategic buffer’ over those states on its western border that it can neither conquer nor devastate. To do that Russia needs to keep the three most potentially strategically powerful European states Britain, France and Germany at ‘strategic distance’, as the phrase goes, and not simply through the threat of military action.

To that end, Russia has four concepts of war all of which form part of Grand Strategy, the effective application of immense means in pursuit of high strategic ends. They are wars of conquest, wars of devastation, wars of coercion, and wars of weakening. Having failed to conquer the whole of Ukraine in February 2022 Russia is now engaged in a war of conventional devastation on those parts it cannot conquer. The Kremlin has also considered, and is still considering, the use of nuclear weapons, but is unlikely to take what would be a definingly dangerous step simply because the Kremlin still believes it would not be an effective application of an instrument of Russian power. China, Russia’s sponsor, would profoundly disapprove and such an act would almost certainly bring the US into the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s war of coercion is being waged against all EU and NATO states on its western borders from Norway in the Arctic, to Finland, the Baltic States and all the states in and around the Black Sea Region, with the partial exception of Turkey. Turkey is a useful conduit for sanctions-busting. Much of this war is declaratory and is being waged by one man, Dmitri Medvedev, through threats and intimidation. However, it is also reinforced up by offensive SVR (Russian foreign intelligence) and GU (Russian military intelligence) deception, disruption, and destabilisation operations, cyber operations, sabotage and espionage. This includes exploitation of political and other divisions within targeted societies.

Russia’s war of weakening is being waged against Western Europe with the aim of progressively decoupling Britain, France and Germany from Eastern Europe. It is a counter-deterrence war. Russia’s war of weakening is conducted by systematically exploiting and exacerbating the many divisions that exist in such societies. There is a particular emphasis on exploiting the incompetence of government establishments caused by the shift away over the past twenty or so years from the pragmatic pursuit of governance to the use of governance as a tool of social engineering for increasingly fractured and complex societies. By exacerbating weakness internally Moscow believes it is also weakening the capacity of such states to engage Russia externally. Sadly, Russia does not have to try too hard to realise its war aims in Britain, France and Germany due to the lack of effective leadership therein.

Therefore, Dame Manningham-Buller is correct: Russia is at war with Britain and every other European democracy. Europeans thus need to collectively awake (as opposed to awoke) to the scale and ambition of the Russian threat. They must act and not merely talk. Specifically, they need to push-back across the new Russia’s new/old spectrum of war. Or what my friend Stan Sloan calls “asymmetric escalation” – information war, cyber war, economic and political war. A word of warning: instruments of soft power are not an alternative to hard power. They are simply one half of a new Grand Defence Europeans must mount that will only be credible in the minds of Russia’s war planners if it is also reinforced by credible European hard power…and good leadership!

Julian Lindley-French

Israel's One State Solution

2025-09-22T11:38:00.001+02:00

“War is an act of violence pushed to its ultimate bounds”.

Carl von Clausewitz

Netanyahu’s War Aims

What are Benjamin Netanyahu’s war aims? Look at the map above – imagine an Israel without either Gaza or the West Bank.

Clausewitz said there was a ‘trinity’ of war – policy, chance and people. This is exactly how Netanyahu sees the current war and his future place in Israeli and Jewish history. Clausewitz also said, “No-one starts a war, or rather no one is his sense ought to do so, without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it”. He went on, “The Statesman, knowing his [military] instrument [of power’] being ready, and seeing war inevitable, and who does not strike first is guilty of a crime against his own country”.

Any analysis of Israel’s war in the Levant must look beyond the emoting in Western democracies. There is no such thing as a nice war, and such emoting has more to do with internal divisions herein than the strategic and political situation in the Levant. British prime minister Starmer’s ‘recognition’ of the non-existent state of Palestine is simply the latest example of the gesture politics of the powerless at its very worst.

Netanyahu and Putin

Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin have two things in common: an ultra-nationalist belief in country reinforced by theological supremacy and a willingness to go to extreme lengths to see off any perceived threat. War for Netanyahu and Putin is by its very nature and character brutal and people die in great numbers for they are the stakes. Any proper analysis of the war must thus take place from that perspective – war as the continuation of fundamental politics by all and any violent and extreme means. In Israel’s brief history it has fought several such wars in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1982. They have all had the same war aims: the expansion of Israel’s borders and protect Israeli security by all means necessary. For Netanyahu and Likud the struggle is a metaphor for Tel Megiddo, both fundamental and existential.

By attacking Israel on October 7^th, 2023, and in the way that Hamas attacked Israelis, was a declaration of a war with no clear aims. It also gave Netanyahu the justification to destroy Gaza, which is precisely what is now happening. Critically, the attack took place without Tehran’s permission which not only demonstrated Iran’s lack of real control over Hamas, its unruly proxy, but also unhinged Iran’s entire regional anti-Israeli strategy. Tel Aviv have since used all of its many instruments of power to break Hezbollah in Lebanon, bring down the puppet Assad regime in Syria, and attack and disrupt Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel’s war aims have also been helped by the tacit support of Egypt and the Gulf states all of which are only too happy to see Israel weaken Iran. Even Israel’s September 2025 missile attack on against the Hamas leadership in Doha was met with only the mildest of condemnations by the leaderships of many Arab states.

One-State Solution

Therefore, Gaza is the first step for Netanyahu and Likud on the road to a one-state solution. The ‘experiment’ of Palestinian bodies politic within Israel’s self-designated borders is now over. It is hard to escape the conclusion that having destroyed Gaza he will turn Israeli power more overtly against the West Bank. The West Bank is already being undermined from within by illegal Israeli settlements and the Palestinian Authority are old, weak and corrupt. Of course, that will not mean an end to the Palestinian struggle, but it does signify a Tel Aviv regime that is prepared to live in state of permanent war if needs be.

Rather, Tel Aviv will seek to export the struggle and Palestinians, first to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, but also to Europe. The struggle will take many forms but much of it will take place on the streets of Europe which will increasingly find itself in the front-line of this war.

And, of course, so long as Vladimir Putin is in power, he will do all he can to exacerbate the threat to Europe. Yes, it is terrible what is Israel is doing to Palestinians, but such violence is the enduring character of war that is immutable. If Europeans want to protect themselves from the fall out they will need to act together strategically and engage Israel and wider region with a clear alternative. In that light, the gesture politics of Starmer (and Macron) is little more than the pathetic in pursuit of the pointless. This is because for Netanyahu and Likud Israel is engaged in the “War of the Lords” against it enemies. It is the same for Putin.

Julian Lindley-French

Trump, Britain and Quantum Computing

2025-09-18T09:22:00.002+02:00

“Quantum computing will re-shape the world very soon”.

Vladimir Putin

What is Quantum Computing?

September 18, 2025. The substantive centrepiece of President Trump’s state visit to the United Kingdom is a new Anglo-American deal to beat China and Russia to operational and applicable military grade quantum computing (QC). If successful, such a partnership could be as significant as the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. This is because quantum computing is the key to real artificial intelligence (AI) and thus future hyperwar in which the offence and defence act and respond exponentially faster than today across air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge. As such, QC blurs the edge between the digital and the organic because it can potentially mimic what humans do when they subconsciously combine information, knowledge and analysis - imagine. So, what is QC?

Future QC will be at the core of machine learning, big data analytics and AI. To put it as simply as possible, a Quantum is the absolute minimum level of activity needed to successfully realise a digital solution. To do that, Quantum Computing (QC) combines quantum physics, computer science and the theory of information, thus enabling computers to decrease the number of operations needed to solve complex problems by running calculations simultaneously at far higher speeds and with less power consumption. That is why QC is a ‘quantum’ leap above super-computing, which is to QC what the analogue is to the digital.

AI and QC

The clue to AI is in the name – ARTIFICIAL intelligence. The machine learning that supports AI requires a great deal of historical information and constantly needs to be fed with vast amounts of energy-hungry data – big data. This is so it can learn how the data changes and identify trends over time and why enormous data centres are needed. The quantum dilemma is thus; as the volume of data increases, the complexity of computation also increases, along with the time and energy needed to analyse, calculate, identify, interpret, to provide any relevant output, and ultimately to ‘think’ and ‘decide’.

Specifically, QC will be able to administer large data sets at much faster speeds and supply data to AI technologies at a far more granular level than even the fastest of current supercomputers. Quantum computing will also integrate data far more intensively by running comparisons between schemas to quickly analyse and understand cause and effect relationships, particularly in defence systems. In other words, it will enable weapons systems to adapt to defences in real time. For example, Google’s Sycamore is reported to have resolved a problem in 200 seconds that would have taken today’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years to solve. This opens enormous possibilities for the future military applications of big data and analytics, something China, Russia and others are all too aware of.

Future Military Applications of Quantum Computing:

In September 2018, the United States published its National Strategic Overview for Quantum Information Science, which defined quantum sensing as ‘leveraging quantum mechanics to enhance the fundamental accuracy of measurements and/or enabling new regimes or modalities for sensors and measurement’. Such new capabilities afford clear military advantages. The United Kingdom’s Defence Science Expert Committee has highlighted the potential importance of improved gravity sensors (quantum gravimeters), to detect moving masses under water, such as submarines. Superconducting magnetometers that use quantum technology to measure miniscule changes in magnetic fields could also be used to locate enemy submarines, while quantum radar could be used to detect even low-observable aircraft. The UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory has said that ‘it is anticipated that new militarily disruptive technologies (e.g., novel communications or radar modalities) will be enabled’. Quantum technologies already form part of developments related to the miniaturisation of atomic clocks, which are useful for position, navigation and timing purposes.

There are several further military specific applications of QC. Quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum cryptanalysis and quantum sensing all promise to significantly enhance strategic security. For example, QKD will provide a near-term advantage for defenders to secure their communications. Quantum cryptanalysis will afford an inherently offensive capability, though one that is maturing at a slower pace.

Lessons from Russia’s war on Ukraine are also being considered as possible test-beds for QC/AI-driven super-accelerated warfare. For example, the next phase of military applied AI at the core of adaptive offensive and defensive AI drone swarms and tailored cyberwarfare. Other lessons-learned include Cryptographic decoding represents a quantum leap in layers and speed of encryption. QC can decode efficiently certain types of cryptographic codes. The most common form of quantum encryption is the transmission of cryptographic keys (i.e., QKD) using quantum ‘superpositions’ of photons during the initiation of secure communications sessions.

However it is Cryptanalysis that will be the critical foundation for the conduct of any coming hyperwar. Quantum computers will eventually replace the current sequential trial-and-error method for processing complex mathematical problems upon which cryptanalysis currently relies. As such it will provide a myriad of alternate means, strategy, tactics and effect at hyperspeeds by considering and applying many possibilities and ‘solutions’ simultaneously. AI/pattern recognition will be at the heart of future ballistic missile defence. So-called Bayesian network methods are already in use (or their use is being tested) to discriminate between missiles and decoys in missile defence systems. Bioinformatics: QC can help analyse bioweapons fast to assist with countermeasures.

Generalised quantum computing will also offer many other possibilities, but they are too uncertain at this stage to permit concerted analysis of their second-order effects.

Chagos 2?

There is one historical caveat London should be aware of. At the August 1943 Quebec Conference Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to pool efforts to build an atomic bomb. At the time the British programme, codenamed “Tube Alloys”, was ahead of the Americans. In 1946, after the completion of the Manhattan Project and the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the US Congress passed the “MacMahon Act” which saw the US renege on its agreement to share atomic technology with the UK. As then Labour Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin famously remarked “We’ve got to have this thing over here. We’ve got to have a bloody Union Jack on top of it!” For all his love of the UK Trump is both an American president and a businessman. The only reason the US is investing in British Quantum Computing is because the Brits have something the Yanks want. Sadly, Starmer is a terrible negotiator because he routinely confuses interests with values. Chagos?

Julian Lindley-French

Julian Lindley-French is lead author of Future War and the Defence of Europe (Oxford University Press) with Generals Allen and Hodges. He is also the co-author of The Retreat from Strategy (Hurst) with Field Marshal Lord Richards

Good Citizens, the Global Free and Affording Peace - Speech by Julian Lindley-French, Mansion House, London, September 8, 2025

2025-09-15T08:59:00.006+02:00

Mansion House, City of London, September 8, 2025

Strategic Takeaways

Lord Peach, thank you. I am not of this parish, the City of London, and I am not a member of the Defence, Security and Resilience Development board, but I am fully aligned with what I am hearing here today: you here from the banking and financial sector are not neutral in the struggle between the Global Free and Global Autocracy. If you want the Global Free to prevail you must be active proponents of a just and legitimate peace both here in Europe and beyond. That is the price of doing business.

This is a serious moment. My challenge to you thus is this: Is a grand coalition of the Global Free Nations and Good Citizen Banks possible to close the financial gap between necessary defence strategic ambition and public debt? It had better be…and fast! As my friend James Holland said earlier history does not repeat itself, but patterns of behaviour and power do. We may not be in 1933 yet, but we could be in 1932.

The Master Takeaway: So, and in that light, if you take nothing away from today at least take this: In the wake of the Banking and Financial Crisis of 2008 and 2010 and COVID We, the Global Free are trapped in a dangerous debt driven paradox that is putting social security and national security in direct competition for limited funds. The only way politically to afford the defence needed to preserve the peace would be during a war, but then it is too late. The moment deterrence has failed the peace you take for granted has been lost…and with it your ability to do business.

The result? Fantasy defence spending plans in which the requisite ends cannot possibly be met with the available means however creative the ways across defence, security and resilience. Our free nations need you to help fund the gap because if we cannot protect our people we cannot defend the space you need to remain profitable. Worse, many of us now live in hollowed out “Potemkin” states due to the two great systemic debt driving crises of the last twenty years. Our adversaries understand that and have systematically undertaken strategic audits of our vulnerabilities across the social, information and security spectrum that they exploit daily. Take the United Kingdom – it is under industrial levels of state-led cyber attack every day. Your place and way of doing business is under threat – be warned!

Therefore, the cost of preserving a fragile peace, and how and what must be afforded, at a time when indebtedness is already relatively severe at over 100% GDP for many countries is growing exponentially. There is thus a pressing need for the Global Free, both public and private sectors, to find creative ways to fund security, defence and resilience – which is why I am here today. Many states in free Europe and being crippled by the confluence of the Great Financial Crisis and COVID which is preventing them from acting strategically in the interests of a just peace due to the consequent indebtedness. Worse, it is precisely our indebtedness that encouraging the autocracies to take the kind of risk evident in Ukraine and the Taiwan Strait and thus create the conditions for war.

Grand Strategic Takeaway 1 - It is just one of those times. Grand strategy is the generation of immense means in pursuit of global systemic ends which is needed from time to time when global order is challenged. In recent British history there have been several such challengers: Napoleon, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler and Stalin. Xi and Putin? As Russia’s war on Ukraine and last week’s military parade in Beijing demonstrate we are once again facing dictators armed with an historic/nationalistic/opportunistic ‘mission’ to destroy freedom and re-order the world order to their narrow advantage.

Strategic Takeaway 2: America needs help! If you here want a rules-based global order to survive the Global Free must keep America strong where America needs to be strong. To that end, a new out of the box deterrence is needed which does not assume the American Bank of Mom and Dad will always be there. For all their myriad imperfections we the rest of the Global Free decided long ago that the United States was and is the capstone power of freedom. The alternative? The Threat of Decoupling. In the face of engineered multiple and simultaneous global pre-war crises the US is forced to de-couple from wilfully defenceless allies and partners at a time of maximum vulnerability and at a moment of our adversaries’ choosing.

Strategic Takeaway 3 - The Great Financial Arsenal of the Global Free. In this systemic struggle the banking and financial sector the world over must be the. Or, to put it in the language of the City of London – Reinsurance. Deterrence today is about convincing the Dictators that we have the means, as well as the ends and ways to deter them. Again, for you here in this gilded room such support is the minimum price of doing future business. After the great financial shock which precipitated the West’s historic and relative power decline you the banks and great financial houses have a duty to the people in this shared and vital mission.

Strategic Takeaway 4: Sound Financing IS Credible Deterrence. Given the changing character of warfare preserving a just and legitimate demand dynamic credible deterrence in that will require a demonstrable ability by the Global Free to respond across the spectrum of future conflict – hybrid and information war, cyber war and AI-enabled hyperwar. Where to start? End the nonsense of Environmental, Social and Governance ‘rules’ that prevent you from funding everything our legitimate armed forces need to defend you and your business. You are not neutral in this struggle and ESG is little more than implicit support for autocratic efforts to weaken the Global Free.

Strategic Takeaway 6: A Global Bank for Peace. In 1941 Lend-Lease helped London to continue to fight the Nazi war machine but only after Britain’s gold reserves had been exhausted by the “cash and carry” arrangement in place at the time. Imagine the history of Europe had the United States and its financial institutions funded peace and the free nations in Europe in the 1930s. Today, that means systemic private sector support across a labyrinth of critical infrastructures and people, across the expensive ability to fight to effect in the multi-domains of future war (air, sea, land, cyber, space, AI and knowledge), and across the Grand Coalition we need of the Global Free and Able.

The Four ‘Good Citizen’ Missions for Peace

Therefore, in the today’s grand strategic context there are three missions for peace a ‘Good Citizen’ financial sector can play:

Mission 1: Enable Sound Planning: Eisenhower once said – plans are nothing, planning is everything. Take Britain again, as we are all sitting here. If one examines British defence spending between 1900 and 2025 what one observes is a series of massive debt-funded spikes. The reason for this is that it is precisely during times of economic stress that wars happen when free states DO NOT have the money to spend on preserving international peace. Therefore, we the Global Free need to find a way to spread the cost of defence if we are to realise its value. The Global Free nations can only do that with your support. What you have to grip is you have no choice as we are all in this struggle together.

Mission 2: Offer Cheap Loans. There are precedents. Lend Lease, the 1946 Anglo-American Loan and the Marshall Plan were the financial and economic foundations of the Transatlantic Relationship of free nations. All were built on cheap loans over extended periods. Yes, it is all more debt but like US loans to the British they were spread out over extremely long periods and at low rates of return which meant the British could afford to c confront the crisis. Super GILTS?

Mission 3: Debt Offset. The free financial sector could ‘suspend’ current national debt by buying all or some of it to enable European democracies to defend the legal and political system vital to their profitable functioning.

Mission 4: Innovative Defence Investment. Defence is not a dirty word. It is the legitimate right of free peoples to defend themselves in the face of aggression. Imagine if Britain had been unable to afford the 1934 Rearmament Plan in the run-up to World War Two in the wake of the Depression? The war wining Spitfire and Hurricane, the Dowding System, Chain Home Radar, the Bomber-led Expansion Programme, the KGV battleships and Illustrious Class aircraft carriers etc and et al. We again desperately need to unleash the Great Instrument of Power that are commercial banks and investment funds so we can rebuild our legitimate credible defences much depleted due to the Great Financial Crisis and COVID. This can only be done through good citizen innovation and partnership.

Conclusion

Deterrence is to deter, to convince our adversaries that war is not an option in all and any circumstances. European Fighting power that can meet the future force-on-force challenge, AI and all. Societal resilience so that under all and any circumstances we can recover from any shock quickly. Above all, our leaders need to rebuild the political space for strategic leadership with the mindset and resources to prevail. THAT is deterrence because only then will our adversaries understand that no adventure against freedom is worth it. DSRB is not just the future of defence financing it is a future pillar of deterrence.

Let me finish with a December 1940 quote from President Roosevelt:

“Suppose my neighbour’s home catches fire, and I have a length of garden hose four or five hundred feet away. If he can take my garden hose and connect it up with his hydrant, I may help him to put out his fire. Now, what do I do? I don’t say to him before that operation, ‘Neighbour, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it. What is the transaction that goes on? I don’t want $15 - I want my garden hose back after the fire is over. All right. If it goes through the fire all right, intact, without any damage to it, he gives it back to me and thanks me very much for the use of it. But suppose it gets smashed up—holes in it—during the fire. We don’t have to have too much formality about it, but I say to him, ‘I was glad to lend you that hose; I see I can’t use it anymore, it’s all smashed up.’ He says, ‘How many feet of it were there?’ I tell him, ‘There were 150 feet of it.’ He says, ‘All right, I will replace it.’ Now if I get a nice garden hose back, I am in pretty good shape.”

The cost of failure? In 1949 British net public debt peaked at 250% of GDP. It was a cost of war from which Britain has never fully recovered. The lesson? The price of peace is far cheaper than the price of war!

The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank is the Good Citizen Bank, the Bank of Peace – a just and legitimate peace. I commend the DSRB to you.

Thank you!

Julian Lindley-French

Battle of Britain Day - September 15th, 1940!

2025-09-15T08:55:00.002+02:00

“I believe that, if an adequate fighter force is kept in this country, if the fleet remains in being, and if Home Forces are suitably organised to resist invasion, we should be able to carry on the war for some time, if not indefinitely”.

Air Chief Marshal, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Dowding. May 15^th, 1940

Weather: Heavy overnight cloud and rain clearing. Fine with patchy cloud in the morning giving way to strata-cumulus clouds at 5,000 feet providing 8/10ths cover.

September 15^th, 1940:

0900 hours: Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives at HQ Royal Air Force 11 Group, Fighter Command at Uxbridge and is greeted by Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, Air Officer Commanding.

1030 hours: Radar (radio direction finding or RDF) stations of Chain Home at Beachy Head, Dover, Dunkirk (Kent), Pevensey, St Lawrence, Ventnor, and Westcliffe situated along the Kent coast and on the Isle of Wight, the personnel of which were mainly women of the Woman’s Royal Air Force (WRAF), detect two formations of 150 plus Luftwaffe aircraft forming up between Boulogne and Calais. 11 Group RAF fighter squadrons are placed on standby.

1100 hours: 200 plus Heinkel 111 and Dornier Do-17 and Do-215 bombers from 111/Kampfgruppe76 and KG73, escorted by Me-Bf109 and Me-110 fighters, are tracked flying NNW towards the English coast at Dungeness at heights of between 15,000 and 26,000 feet (‘Angels’ 15 and 26 in the parlance of the RAF ground controllers of the day).

1105-1120 hours: 144 RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires of (in sequence) 72, 92, 229, 303, 253, 501, 17, 73, 504, 257, 603 and 609 Squadrons ‘scramble’ and are ‘vectored’ by their Sector Controllers to meet the incoming Luftwaffe attack.

1130-1145 hours: RAF commanders confirm the target is London. AVM Park calls upon 12 Group (AVM Trafford Leigh Mallory) based to the north of London to cover the capital. These include the so-called ‘Duxford Wing’ of massed Hurricanes and Spitfires. 12 Group scrambles some 100 fighters of (in sequence) 41, 242, 302, 310, 19, 611, 249, 46, 1(RCAF), 605 and 66 Squadrons.

1200 hours: The first massed RAF attack of the day begins. The slow progress of the Luftwaffe bomber formation enables 12 Group fighters to join 11 Group and intercept the enemy with 11 squadrons above Maidstone and Ashford. The RAF’s strength comes as a shock to Luftwaffe aircrew and, whilst the Spitfire squadrons engage the fighter escort, the Hurricanes attack the bomber formation which begins to break up. Stragglers are attacked and several are shot down.

1215 hours: The Spitfires succeed in separating the Bf109 fighters from the bombers. The longer-range, twin-engined Me-110s are no match for the British fighters and are effectively forced out of much of the battle, in spite of courageous efforts by many of their crews to protect the bombers. Under intense RAF pressure the bomber force begins to drop its bombs randomly, whilst many turn prematurely short of London and seek to make their escape. Many of those that have survived are damaged, whilst those German pilots who bravely press on towards London are then confronted by 12 Group’s Spitfires and Hurricanes which ambush the bombers from a height of between 25,000 and 26,000 feet, some 3000 feet above the upper most layer of the bomber force. The weight of the attack is decisive and the Luftwaffe force is quickly broken up. There is no respite for the hard-pressed Luftwaffe crews. The RAF maintains the pressure on the enemy by continuously and repeatedly attacking the bomber force from all sides as it makes its now disorganised way back towards the English coast. Many of the survivors head first west of London before turning for home over Weybridge, whilst some 80 bombers take a more direct route, first down the Thames Estuary and then over Kent, harassed all the way by the RAF.

1230 hours: The first massed battle of what would eventually prove to be the decisive day of the Battle of Britain is over. The RAF has gained a vital victory. What was meant to be the Luftwaffe’s final destruction of Fighter Command is decisively defeated. However, September 15^th, 1940 is far from over. As RAF squadrons land, re-fuel and re-arm the Luftwaffe prepares to launch the second major attack of the day.

1300 hours: Radar stations along the Kent coast again begin to detect another massed Luftwaffe force forming west of the Boulogne-Calais area, many of the aircraft involved have taken off from airfields in the Antwerp and Brussels region. AVM Park confirms the available strength of 11 Group’s fighters, but orders no action to be taken…yet.

1330 hours: Radar confirms the massing German force is larger than the morning attack and as yet the Luftwaffe’s targets are not clear to the RAF. 11 Group and 12 Group fighters are placed at ‘readiness’, together with squadrons from 10 Group (AVM Quintin Brand) which covers the West of England.

1400 hours: The Luftwaffe force approaches the Kent coast ((KG2, KG53, KG76 plus some elements of KG1, KG4 and KG26). This time the Luftwaffe gains a tactical edge by reducing the time it takes to mass the attacking formation. Moreover, the sheer intensity of the morning’s action has disrupted Fighter Command’s battle rhythm. Some RAF squadrons are still refuelling and re-arming whilst many of the pilots who had survived being shot down in the morning are not yet back with their squadrons.

1410 hours: RAF Sector Controllers place all 11 Group squadrons on standby and request ‘maximum assistance’ from 10 and 12 Groups. Five squadrons of the Duxford Wing (49 aircraft) from 16, 242, 302, 310 and 611 squadrons are scrambled. Crucially, AVM Park adjusts his tactics from the morning. He orders the bulk of the squadrons to hold back and patrol east, south and west of London. However, he also orders his forward deployed squadrons at Hawkinge, Lympne, Manston and Tangmere and Manston to engage the Luftwaffe fighter escort early in an attempt to force the Bf-109s to ‘dogfight’ and use up much of their limited reserves of fuel. This renders the bomber fleet exceptionally vulnerable to massed RAF attack.

1415 hours: The first bomber formations cross the Kent coast. Two other formations follow at 1430 and 1445 hours. The bomber fleet is again made up of He111, Do-17 and D-215 aircraft. The British estimate the strength to be between 150 and 200 bombers plus some 400 Bf109s and Me-110s as escorts. In fact, the strength is 170 bombers and some 300 plus fighters.

1415 hours: The first engagement takes place south of Canterbury. Other formations are attacked south of Maidstone and west of Dartford as RAF squadrons begin to harass the attacking force. The closer the Luftwaffe gets to London the more Spitfires and Hurricanes attack them. Bereft of an effective fighter escort the bomber force is quickly and badly mauled by 11 Group as (in sequence) 73, 66, 72, 249, 504, 253, 213 and 607 Squadrons repeatedly attack.

1450 hours: AVM Park’s decision to hold squadrons back, most notably the Duxford Wing, now proves decisive, even if many of the RAF fighters had been scrambled too slowly. 150 RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires attack the bomber fleet over the south and south-west of London. As in the morning the Spitfires attack the Bf109s and Me-110 fighters, whilst the Hurricanes attack the bomber force. Critically, the Bf109s are now at the limits of their range.

1500 hours: 303 (Polish) Squadron returns to its base at Northholt. In just over an hour of action they destroy 3 Do-17s, 2 Me-110’s and 1 Bf109 for a cost of 2 Hurricanes lost and 1 pilot killed. By the time Luftwaffe bombers reach London they are out-numbered by defending Hurricanes and Spitfires. They break off the attack and turn for the Channel and escape.

1600 hours: The last of the Luftwaffe bomber force is attacked as it makes its way across the English coast. Another small incoming raid of 10 He-111s is detected heading towards Portland for an attack on the Supermarine Spitfire factory at Woolston. It is engaged by 10 Group’s 152 (Spitfires), 607 (Hurricanes) and 609 (Spitfires) Squadrons. Several aircraft of the attacking force are destroyed and not one bomb is dropped on the factory.

September 15^th, 1940, Battle of Britain Day, is over.

Analysis

September 15^th, 1940 was a turning point not just of the Battle of Britain, but of World War Two and the fight against Nazism. The RAF had won a decisive victory over the Luftwaffe and whilst they did not know it at the time, the victory effectively ended any chance Britain could be invaded. Without complete control of the air Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain, was effectively dead in the water. At least it would have been. Any attempt to cross the Channel with two Army Groups comprised of the best Wehrmacht units would have been suicide in the face of constant attacks by the RAF and the Royal Navy, which in 1940 was still the world’s largest. Britain would fight on and the RAF would begin the long and slow shift from the defensive to the offensive and the regular 1000 heavy bomber attacks on German cities. These attacks were hugely popular with a British people determined to ‘give it back to em’, but came at an appalling cost to RAF aircrew, German and other civilians.

To some extent ‘The Day’ has become shrouded in myth. The RAF claimed to have shot down some 185 Luftwaffe aircraft on September 15th. In fact, the number was 61, with twenty aircraft badly-damaged, whilst the RAF lost 32 fighters. By the standards of contemporary warfare the casualties were relatively light. The RAF lost 16 pilots killed in action and 14 wounded, whilst the Luftwaffe lost 81 aircrew killed with 31 wounded, although 63 aircrew were also captured by the British. Many were experienced men. Moreover, by September 1940 Britain was out-producing Germany in the construction of advanced fighters. Therefore, whilst the Luftwaffe was by no means a spent force on the evening of September 15^th, 1940, the defeat came at the end of what had been a gruelling summer for the Luftwaffe. However, perhaps the greatest impact of the RAF’s decisive victory was psychological. For the first time in World War Two the Luftwaffe had faced a force equipped with advanced technology, excellent air defence fighters and very capable pilots and had been badly beaten.

The Battle of Britain had effectively begun on June 18^th, 1940 when Churchill said to the House of Commons, “What General Weygand called the Battle of France is now over, I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin”. The RAF’s total strength at the outset of the Battle of Britain was 1,963 aircraft whilst the Luftwaffe had some 2,550 aircraft. Not all British aircraft, of course, were front-line fighters. However, by the end of the campaign the RAF had lost 1,744 aircraft destroyed to the Luftwaffe’s 1,977 aircraft destroyed. Crucially, the Luftwaffe’s head of intelligence, Oberst Joseph Beppo Schmidt, repeatedly over-estimated Luftwaffe strength whilst chronically under-estimating both the fighting power of the RAF and the remarkable capability of the world’s first advanced air defence system. Indeed, Luftwaffe aircrew, who were repeatedly briefed that the RAF were down to their last few fighters, shared a grim standing joke each time they saw British fighters moving to attack: “Here come those last 50 British fighters…again”.

On the morning of September 15^th Air Chief Marshal Dowding had 726 fighters at readiness, whilst the Luftwaffe had 620 fighters and 500 light-to-medium bombers, the bomb capacity of which was simply too ‘light’ given the strategic objectives. By comparison, in June 1942 RAF Bomber Command attacked Cologne with 1000 far heavier bombers, such as the Stirling, Halifax, Lancaster and Wellington types. The Germans also had no organised espionage network in Britain so they could not accurately know what damage they were doing, the state of either the RAF or the morale of the British people. They thought they had but most German spies were quickly captured by the British and forced to work for British Intelligence.

Luftwaffe High Command’s over-confidence also led them to make catastrophic mistakes. On August 15^th, 1940, dubbed “Black Thursday” (Schwarzer Donnerstag) by Luftwaffe aircrew, Luftflotte V based in Norway was ordered to attack the north of England. The assumption was that all the RAF’s reserves had been moved south to cover Kent and London. They had not. Chain Home picked up a force of some 200 attacking aircraft early in its mission which was then badly-mauled by Spitfires from 13 Group (AVM Richard Maul) which covered the north of England. It was forced to turn and flee over the sea losing 23 aircraft for no downed RAF fighters. The escorting Me-110s even abandoned the bombers and formed so-called ‘wagon wheels’ for self-protection. The so-called Dowding System had prevailed again.

The Dowding System was critical to Britain’s victory. It used the ‘eyes’ of radar to rapidly inform a robust command chain of the strength, speed, direction and height of an attacking force. This enabled HQ Fighter Command based at Bentley Priory to quickly assess the size and likely targets of the force before giving each Group the information they needed to deploy its squadrons efficiently and effectively. Group HQ then passed on the information to Sector Controllers who scrambled the various squadrons. Crucially, the entire system was ‘hardened’ when it was built in 1937 to ensure it was both resilient and enjoyed redundancy of communications and was thus very hard to knock-out. That the system existed at all was due to decisions taken in the 1930s by the oft-berated Baldwin and Chamberlain governments. Such was its success that the Dowding System was to form the basis of many of the world’s ground-controlled air defence systems up until, and in some case even beyond, the year 2000.

The Luftwaffe was defeated because it failed to secure either of its primary strategic aims: to force the British to the negotiating table on German terms; or secure uncontested air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to invasion. It also suffered a massive materiel loss over the three month course of the battle from which it never fully recovered, undermining its future effectiveness in Russia. The fault lay not with the mainly young Luftwaffe aircrews who showed great bravery, but with their commanders, most notably Luftwaffe Chief Reichmarschall Hermann Goering. He failed to understand the importance of radar to the British and also failed to exploit the RAF’s greatest vulnerability – 11 Group’s vital front-line air bases. They were often attacked but then allowed to recover because the Luftwaffe never fully understood the battle rhythm of the RAF and thus failed to exploit its vulnerabilities. Luftwaffe high command also failed to understand that the true test for the RAF was not the number of fighters it could shoot down, Britain was replacing them at a faster rate, but the attrition rate of the pilots who flew them. Dowding’s main concern was the rate of loss of his 2,353 British pilots. Thankfully, Britain had a golden reserve in some 574 foreign pilots from Poland (141 pilots), New Zealand (135), Canada (112), Czechoslovakia (88). Australia (36), South Africa (25), Free French (14) US (11), Ireland 10, and some 10 pilots from what is today Zimbabwe, the Caribbean and Israel.

One of the most important consequences of the RAF’s victory was the damage it did to both the prestige of Goering and the trust Adolf Hitler had in him. The first seeds of doubt that Nazism would prevail were sown in the mind of Hitler and his Nazi cronies by the RAF’s brave pilots. As dawn broke on September 15^th, 1940 Goering and his Luftwaffe commanders had confidently expected they would, indeed, inflict the final, fatal blow on what they really believed to be the RAF’s few remaining Spitfires and Hurricanes. The sight of massed RAF air power waiting to ambush the attacks rapidly disabused already cynical Luftwaffe aircrews of their commanders’ folly. As Hans Zonderlind, an air gunner on a Luftwaffe Do-17 said of September 15^th, “We saw the Hurricanes coming towards us and it seemed the whole of the RAF was there. We had never seen so many British fighters coming at us at once”.

Much of this complacency was driven by Nazi ideology and the German superiority it espoused. During the Polish campaign of September 1939, and the attacks on the Low Countries and France in May and June 1940, such arrogance was reinforced by success. The RAF punctured this arrogance. Much of it was down to one aircraft, R.J. Mitchell’s superb Mark V Spitfire and its Rolls Royce Merlin engine. There is no question the Spitfire got into the heads of Luftwaffe aircrew. The aerial scourge, and in many ways signature sound of the Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg campaigns had been the ‘flying artillery’ that was the Juncker Ju-87 ‘Stuka’ dive bomber. However, between August 15^th (Adler Tag) and August 18^th the Stuka’s suffered such heavy losses to both Spitfires and Hurricanes that they had to be withdrawn from the fight. As battle fatigue set in Luftwaffe aircrew constantly reported being attacked by ‘Spitfires’, when in fact the RAF had more Hurricanes.

It is still a matter of conjecture whether or not Luftwaffe ace Adolf Galland asked Goering for a squadron (staffeln) of Spitfires. In some respects, the Me Bf-109 was a superior fighter. It could climb faster and due to its fuel-injected engine also climb higher than a Spitfire. The mix of cannon and machine guns also gave it more devastating firepower than the eight Browning 303 calibre machines guns with which both Hurricanes and Spitfires were equipped. However, the Spitfire enjoyed two critical advantages in air combat both of which were due to its two elliptical wings which could bear far more weight than the Me Bf-109. This enabled the Spitfire to dive and turn faster, as well as turn very tightly at lower speeds. And, of course, both Hurricanes and Spitfires were operating close to their own bases, whereas the Me Bf-109 was not, which negated many of its advantages as a hunter. Interestingly, by the time the last Spitfire was built in 1948 some 22,000 had been manufactured in 22 variants, including a navalised version, the Seafire. 12,129 of them were produced at the enormous Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory near Birmingham which began production in May 1940, albeit mired in very British managerial and industrial relations challenges. Critically, preparations had been made to massively increase British military aircraft production in the event of war with the 1935 Shadow Factory Plan.

The lessons for today? First, whilst the building of modern free Europe did not begin that day, it took a great stride forward. Democracy fought back and won. Second, even if distracted by as deep an economic crisis as faced by the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments during the 1930s a democracy must never abandon a sound defence or properly prepare to mount it. Third, that equivalency of military materiel and personnel is vital. Preparedness, readiness and robustness.

In tribute to the RAF pilots of many nations who defended Britain and a free Europe on a fateful day, and the many young women who made that defence work. In respectful memory of ALL the brave young men who lost their lives on September 15^th, 1940, Battle of Britain Day. As Churchill famously said on August 20^th, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.

Requiesce in Pace. Per Ardua ad Astra!

(With thanks to the Battle of Britain Historical Society)

Julian Lindley-French, September 15^th, 2025

Re-Decoupling: Russia’s Next Aggression Strategy

2025-08-19T11:04:00.002+02:00

“The Russian foreign ministry’s statement on the withdrawal on the deployment of medium and short-range missiles is the result of NATO countries anti-Russian policy. This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps”.

Dmitri Medvedev, August 2025

The Ides of August

August 19^th. The second Alaska Purchase is a deal in the making. Last Friday, and behind closed doors, Trump and Putin almost certainly agreed that Russia can have Ukraine’s entire Donbas region as reward for its aggression, in addition to Crimea. What will doubtless come to be known as the ‘Secret Protocol’ will once again demonstrate that democracies all too often abandon the long-term for the short-term. In Washington the European allies blustered and postured but my bet is the deal is done. It is now a question of how to sell it.

It is hardly surprising. The ides of August is traditionally the period when the mad, bad and dangerous do dangerous things to the sad, weak and absent on holiday. As the French say. “Les absents sont toujours torts”. In August 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II invaded Belgium and started World War 1. In August 1939, in another infamous ‘secret protocol’ to the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact Hitler and Stalin agreed the division of Poland and thus paved the way for World War 2. Now, the ground is set for Putin’s ‘victory’ in Ukraine due to an unwilling America and an incapable Europe. What’s next in Putin’s mind for Ukraine and Europe?

Re-Decoupling!

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s there was one word that haunted Western European chancelleries - decoupling. Decoupling was a gambit by the Soviet Union to separate the US nuclear arsenal from NATO and the defence of Europe. They did this by presenting the Americans with a dilemma. In 1977, Moscow deployed the triple nuclear warheaded SS20 into Eastern Europe. The SS20 had a range that could strike Western Europe, but not continental North America. The dilemma the SS20 posed by the Soviets to the Americans was a simple one: ‘would you, Mr President, commit nuclear suicide to defend Europe from the Red Army?’

The Soviets had observed growing political tensions within the Alliance and believed the time was apposite for such a gambit. It was precisely for just such a moment the British and French had their own nuclear deterrents. But what if the Red Army had only seized the Federal Republic of Germany and stopped? Would the British and French also been willing to commit nuclear suicide for the Germans? Putin believes both the American defence of Europe and the Western European defence of Eastern Europe are now weaker than at any time since the Cold War. It is Moscow’s sense of Western division and weakness that is fuelling the Kremlin’s ambitions in Eastern Europe. Ambition that was neatly if unsubtly captured in Alaska by Foreign Minister Lavrov wearing a shirt with ‘CCCP’ emblazoned across it.

The struggle over Ukraine is a systemic and historic struggle between two completely opposing views of power and its purpose: Europeans believe in self-determination, whilst Russians believe in spheres of influence. Lavrov’s less than subtle message was clear: Russia wants to re-establish a new sphere of influence over Eastern Europe using coercion, intimidation and if needs be occupation. This is why what happens to Ukraine is so important to Europe and why Putin has of late been cultivating the cult of Stalin.

Paper Tigers

Therefore, the real test of ‘peace’ in Ukraine and thus future deterrence would be the credibility of the “Article 5 style security guarantees” Trump is reportedly offering to Ukraine. They would need to be more credible than the Anglo-Polish Military Alliance of August 1939 or the 1994 Budapest Memorandum? Moreover, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty is not an automatic armed assistance commitment, it is just assumed to be. At the very least, the Americans would need to engage in formal treaty assurances to preserve the territorial integrity of what will inevitably be called ‘rump Ukraine’, as will the European members of any coalition of the willing. They would also need to be willing to put American and European boots on the ground in Ukraine, something that only this week the Russian Foreign Ministry again ruled out. Above all, there would need to be an explicit nuclear guarantee which is at the very heart of Article 5. However, in Alaska, like the good KGB officer he is, Putin tested Trump’s willingness to use the US nuclear arsenal to deter Russia in Europe. Trump’s flexibility over land for peace convinced Putin that the US nuclear guarantee to Europe, particularly Eastern Europe, is dead. Ukraine?

Back in the 1980s, and at European request, the Americans countered the SS20 threat by eventually deploying Cruise and Pershing missiles to Europe. However, to prevent the deployment Moscow activated its many sleeper cells and useful idiots in Europe to create civil unrest. It what hybrid warfare against Western European governments and came close to succeeding. Time was pressing. In the early 1980s, the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GFSG) sat on the inner-German border, whilst Solidarnosc and other liberation movements were threatening Soviet control in Poland and across Central and Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union began its descent into the abyss. By 1987, the West had seen off the threat not least because in March 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev had become the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In December 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed which led to the removal of SS20s, Cruise and Pershing missiles from Europe. That was then, this is now. In 2019, the first Trump administration abrogated the treaty amidst claims of Russian cheating. Now, the Russians are moving to a new cycle of aggression by implying that such weapons will once again be deployed forward to threaten Western Europeans with a new form of nuclear blackmail.

Der Tag

‘Der Tag’ is a German expression meaning ‘when the inevitable battle comes’. Today, Russian forces are far to the east of Germany. However, should ‘Der Tag’ come will weak and divided Britain, France and Germany, let alone the US, really care enough about Ukraine to fulfil their obligations? What about the Arctic, the re-Finlandization of Finland, the Black Sea Region, but above all Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania? To blunt Russian ambitions the West would not only threaten war with Russia, but mean it. They will need to. Medvedev’s statement suggests the Russians believe not and whilst they might accept a temporary tactical peace the strategic ambition to force free states into Moscow’s orb remains.

That is why should there be a ‘peace’ in Ukraine the West must not only demonstrate resolve in the face of Putin’s games, but also military and security capacity and capability across the full spectrum of hybrid, cyber and hyperwar so that the Kremlin never thinks crossing the Rubicon is again worth the risk. That is the essence of the new deterrence posture NATO will need to forge with the EU and which will demand a much more offensive European posture than hitherto and a real re-commitment by the Americans to the defence of Europe.

Tragic paradox of Ukraine is that this terrible deal is probably the most Ukraine can expect today. The simple truth is that eastern Ukraine matters far less to Western Europeans and North Americans than it does to Putin and they have clearly gone as far as they are willing to go. What matters now is they rebuild their own deterrence and defence. Rather, Western leaders will hope, a la Chamberlain and Daladier in 1938, that by making Zelensky a latter-day Edvard Benes, Putin’s expansionist impulse will be sated. That will only be the case if Western deterrence demonstrates both the capability and intent to defend the Baltic States and everywhere else Putin deems to be part of his ‘New CCCP’. As Otto von Bismarck once said, “Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided…but by iron and blood”.

Europe is thus at the start of a new Twenty Year Crisis because any peace in Ukraine will not hold. Moreover, when Der Tag comes, it will come in August…and with Putin and the ultra-nationalists in power it will come. This is because Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was never about territory; it was about the subjugation of Ukraine and the balance of power in Europe.

Julian Lindley-French

Why is China Dangerous?

2025-04-17T10:35:00.012+02:00

“Because other people are fools, must you be so too?”

Emperor Marcus Aurelius

What does China want?

April 17^th. What does Xi’s China want? 1. To create the conditions for the ‘safe’ military subjugation of Taiwan. 2. To coerce states in the Eastern Pacific and South and East China Seas spheres of Chinese influence to accept Beijing’s de facto control because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are control freaks, and its leadership fears any system – domestic or foreign – that might challenge its control. 3. To use the global geoeconomic system to fund its geopolitical ambitions by fair means and foul. 4. To use Russia and Iran to fix US forces in theatres away from the Eastern Pacific and ensure the Americans cannot intervene in force. 5. In the longer run to curb US power in the Pacific to the point where the Americans are effectively excluded from the Pacific east of Pearl Harbor.

Dead historians tended to divide the history of the Roman Empire into three eras: the Republicanate, Principate and Dominate. The Republicanate (which I just invented) is seen by some as a glorious era during which Rome functioned like some latter day Western European democracy but in fact did not. This glorious era made all sorts of allusions to ancient Greece but was destroyed in the First Century BC by over-mighty citizens such as Sulla, Pompey and Caesar who seized power from the Senate and squabbled mightily amongst themselves but still ruled under the pretence that they were merely primus inter pares and were in fact defending the Republic. This was the Principate. Then there was the final phase of Rome’s glory which also marked its decline, division and eventual collapse – the Dominate. During the Dominate the emperors abandoned all and any attempt to pretend some residual constitutional propriety existed and ruled by naked mainly military power.

The cause of the Dominate was Rome’s so-called Third Century Crisis. This was caused by the end of imperial expansion, the growing costs of maintaining imperial power across the known world, growing incursions into said Empire from emerging competitors, the breakdown of trade, inflation due to the printing of money by emperors with no understanding of economics, and the myriad political divisions that decline is father to and the growing influence of the military in politics.

How is the West complicit?

Take China today. For thirty years China has been content to get rich and powerful by helping Western leaders maintain the Potemkinesque façade of material prosperity. Under this arrangement, known by the rather misleading term globalisation when it was really Chinaisation the West was made to feel materially comfortable in return for paying China to accelerate its own development and construct an enormous military machine.

As long as the West was content to consume huge amounts of Chinese goods and Western leaders were happy to turn a blind eye to Beijing’s coercion, spying, stealing and all-around collective bullying China was happy to get richer and more powerful. Some states, such as the strategically illiterate British, even sold their industrial crown jewels and much else to China, such as British Steel, which should have been renamed Chinese Steel.

There was a problem. The Chinese Communist Party which controls China with an iron fist, particularly since it crushed (literally) a bunch of students in 1989 who had the temerity to challenge the absolute power of the CCP, needed globalisation. This is because so-called post-Tiananmen deal between the CCP and the burgeoning Chinese middle class involved the latter never questioning the power of the former in return for making the latter ever more materially more comfortable.

The Chinese Dominate

During this period of the Chinese Principate CCP leaders continued to pretend they were ‘of’ the people. Hua Goufeng, Jiang Xemin, Hu Jintao and others all claimed they were children of the proletariat. Then came Xi Jinping, China’s wannabe Caesar, who in 2018 became “President for Life”. Xi, a princeling of the Party, crossed the Chinese Rubicon in two ways. First, he replaced any legitimacy conferred on him by the ‘Party’ by establishing his power on the People’s Liberation Army and showering the armed forces with glittering new weapons. Second, he abandoned any pretence to be the Chinese heir of Karl Marx and replaced Communism with old-fashioned Han nationalism reinforced with a strong dose of Xenophobia.

The reasons for this became apparent during the COVID catastrophe. Xi realised that one day the West would wake up and finally understand that it had been feeding a dragon that could one day consume it. When that happened the West’s growing transfer of supply chains to China would stop. Starved of Western money China would face a problem transferring export generated income into domestic development unless Xi could find alternatives. The route Xi took was effectively force smaller and poorer powers into China’s orbit through debt. The problem was that most of the West woke up too early (except the British whose leaders continue to try and sell themselves to China) and Russia, China’s useful idiot, screwed up.

Now, China is faced with a situation not unlike Rome during the Third Century Crisis. It has built an enormous military which is very impressive, but which will soon decline because it will need to be constantly re-capitalised. However, unless the CCP can maintain at least 6% per annum growth the only way to do that would be to shift money away from social development. When that happens XI will face growing discontent in both the Party and the country and will doubtless seek to suppress dissent. He will also be tempted to embark on military adventurism to burnish his Han nationalist credentials, with Taiwan clearly in the crosshairs of Chinese gunsights, and maybe others.

Action This Day!

1. Prevent China from creating the conditions for the ‘safe’ military subjugation of Taiwan by US Allies helping to keep America strong where she needs to be strong. In Europe, that means European Allies must deliver two thirds (67%) of NATO’s combined operational capacity for collective defence by 2035 at the very latest, as measured in rapidly usable forces, enablers, and other capabilities to execute advance plans across SACEUR’s Area of Responsibility. America’s European allies must also collectively provide at least 50% of all NATO Defense Planning Process (NDPP) designated capabilities by 2030.

2. Prevent China from coercing states in the Eastern Pacific and South and East China Seas spheres of Chinese influence to accept Beijing’s de facto control. This can only be achieved by a new concept of Global Democratic Alliance built around the US and with strong democratic allies in Europe and the Pacific.

3. Turn the global geoeconomic system back in the West’s favour and thus legitimate Western geopolitical ambitions by providing both carrots and sticks to China. The Trump administration is using tariffs and reshoring of industries as a blunt tool to create such a shift but as yet there is no apparent geopolitical end such policy aspires.

4. Blunt the ability of Russia and Iran to fix US forces in theatres away from the Pacific. For example, the NATO European allies must aspire to the creation of an Allied Mobile Heavy Force by 2030 that could deter, defend and defeat the Russians irrespective of US force commitments.

5. Strengthen US power in the Pacific to the point where the ends, ways and means of Chinese policy and strategy are impossible to realise because the cost of doing so would threaten the hold of the CCP over the Chinese people.

The curse of empires

China is not intrinsically bad. It is simply behaving like all ultra-nationalists behave when they have the power to impose their will on others. What is bad is the inability of democratic leaders to face uncomfortable truths. This is something I saw last week when I chaired a meeting last week at NATO HQ in Brussels. Ultimately, the Middle Kingdom sees itself as precisely that – the centre of the world, an empire.

Empires are of course dangerous when they expand, but they are particularly dangerous when they begin to decline, and the settled order of power therein is challenged. That is exactly what happened in the Third Century to Rome and may well happen to China now as those in power seek to re-establish ‘order’. Therefore, we are just entering peak danger as far as China is concerned but with strength there is still a good chance Beijing can be persuaded that mutual coexistence is better than mutually assured destruction. Face it, leaders!

Julian Lindley-French