Typhoon jets and Voyager tankers will support continuous NATO air policing over Poland and Romania’s border with Ukraine.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said:

“We are increasing our air policing contribution to NATO from RAF Akrotiri and the UK to help protect our NATO allies. So, this is a defensive capability designed to protect the airspace of our NATO allies… they will not operate in Ukrainian or Russian airspace. Just to emphasise, this isn’t additional air support, this is the air support already committed to NATO doing additional activities.”

This comes after a previous announcement that 350 Royal Marines from 45 Commando are to deploy to Poland.

Britain deploying troops Poland as tensions rise with Russia

They will support the Polish military with joint exercises, contingency planning and capacity building as the build-up of Russian forces on Ukraine’s border continues. Speaking at a joint press conference with Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the 350 Royal Marines would add to 100 British Army troops already in the country.

“In that spirit of solidarity and helping share each other’s challenges of resiliences we will add to those 100 Royal Engineers by sending a further 350 British troops to Poland in a bilateral deployment to show that we can work together and send a strong signal that Britain and Poland stand side by side,” Mr Wallace said.

What is NATO Air Policing?

NATO say that Air Policing deployments aim to preserve the security of Alliance airspace.

“It is a collective task and involves the continuous presence – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – of fighter aircraft and crews, which are ready to react quickly to possible airspace violations.”

The Alliance also say:

  • NATO Air Policing is a collective task and a purely defensive mission involving the 24/7 presence of fighter aircraft, which are ready to react quickly to possible airspace violations.
  • NATO members assist those Allies who are without the necessary means to provide air policing of their own territory.
  • The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is responsible for the conduct of the NATO Air Policing mission.
  • Preservation of the integrity of NATO airspace is one of the missions of NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defence.
  • NATO Air Policing is one of the permanent peacetime missions of NATO.

 

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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206 COMMENTS

    • How right you are Rob. And how many time has this been called out by so many of us on the forum. Logical prudence is not a priority for the MOD -more’s the pity.

          • True,
            A lot of money spent on the development of WCSP then no money allocated to Production contract. Hence, easy to cancel – and so they did it. Now they are going to have to buy a lot more Boxers for ex-Warrior troops, which of course will be far more expense than giving Warrior an upgrade – and they will end up with a worse vehicle – poorer mobility and no cannon (probably). You couldn’t make it up.

        • Twe always blame the treasury and the governments. But how come nobody points the finger at that bloated retirement home!

    • So split them into flights of 4 a/c. That would be 21 flights. Seriously , the RAF used to have 21 squadrons. Someone decided the few should be even fewer.

          • More likely they’ll get us to just clap our armed forces!

            Seriously though, we’ve got to shift from this lemming like head in the sand disarmament. If the current leadershiop can’t do that we need the parties to replace them with decent people of integrety & talent.

          • Too late and we know it the defence industry production. Rate is appalling we lose kit then wait forever for a repl

    • The Netherlands also deployed a tanker over Poland which the RAF took over about 30 minutes ago by an RAF tank with a fighter escort.

      • The USAF has a minimum of two tankers on station over Poland for nearly 18 hours now, Rotating aircraft every 4-5 hours from Ramstein and RAF Mildenhall.

        They are taking no chances with the Belarusian Air Force flying CAPs themselves.

  3. I hope we have activated the full voyager contract as this is precisely the reason we have it. If not then we need to scrap it as when else would we trigger it outside of full scale war at which point we take over some of our commercial fleet.

  4. From RAF Akrotiri must mean the 3 or 4 Typhoon’s reinforcing the 9 already based there for Op Shader.

    130ish Typhoon’s (soon to be 107) aren’t a lot when you’ve got QRA in The UK and Falklands as well as ongoing operations in The Middle East to sustain.

      • Probably, yes. T1’s are becoming increasingly obsolete, and are very different aircraft from the T2/3 fleet. The avionics fit, the way the information is displayed to the pilot is very different from the newer aircraft. It’s like a Tornado GR4 pilot from 2018 jumping into a Tornado GR1 from 1997. Spanish T1’s have been upgraded, but fitted with some equipment already in use on RAF T1’s. Plus Spanish and German Typhoons where delivered to a lower standard compared to RAF aircraft. Lacking the PIRATE system, and a less capable defensive aids system, and a different standard of Captor M radar. And the T1 fleet was originally only meant to be in service for 15 years. We should be buying 24 new build T4’s. But we simply haven’t had the budget to achieve that, and fork out for very expensive Typhoon upgrades still to come. The RAF would rather have a smaller fleet of very capable Typhoons, able to meet all threats, than have a slightly larger fleet, but less capable, and to different aircraft standards. Which has a knock on affect to pilot training, engineering support, maintenance and spares. Probably not what you want to hear. But that’s the reality of the situation.

        • Thanks for the info. I think that there is something we can learn from the French (Don’t say that very often!) with recent contracts for Rafale where they supply French Air Force early versions to the foreign customer, which are then replaced with new build models. Tranche 4 planes for the RAF anyone?

          • Yes, that would be good planning. Unfortunately, even a T1 Typhoon is still beyond most allies’ budgets. Especially for a single role aircraft.

          • Why dont we give some to the Irish? Not being patronising but they could make more use of them than sitting in a shed somewhere.

          • I’m sure they could. But it’s a huge financial ask for the Irish tax payer. And Ireland has never operated fast jets before. So, to go from nothing to Typhoon capability with all the training and infrastructure that would require would be a huge undertaking and take years to achieve.

        • The 30 or so T1’s still have some airframe life left. It’s wasteful to not use them and it was poor of us in the first place to notch up hours on the T2/3’s and not exhaust the T1’s first. We harp on about cost per flight hour but to ditch these with years left is crazy.

          We also spent many hours and many £m’s on Typhoons, A330’s, Avcat, Paveways and Brimstones against soft targets in the Middle East. A dozen Predators with LMM’s would have been far cheaper and saved hours on the T2/3 fleet.

          We should keep the T1’s and exhaust them with UK/Falkland QRA duties and some pilot training.

          • It isn’t about the airframe hours; it’s about the capability, and the big difference between the T1 and T2/3 fleets. And the need to fund T2/3 uogrades. They are increasingly obsolete and are a drain on resources. As capable as UAV’S are. They don’t have the speed and flexibility of a manned fast jet in the CAS role.

          • Until the new radar is rolled out they are only obsolete in the ground attack role, they are perfectly fine in a quick reaction anti-air role.

          • More than half the airframe hours left.

            “Given the software limitations of the T1, the RAF has decided not to try and upgrade these particular platforms with the Phase Enhancement upgrade packages that will afford the T2 and T3 platforms with the full swing-role capability set.
            As such, they will be used solely for air defence duties, and perhaps for adversarial air combat training for other RAF aircraft types.”

            “Spanish Typhoons, like those for the other European core customers — Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom — were delivered in three distinct “tranches” with significant differences in terms of avionics and capabilities.

            Airbus Defence and Space is also currently undertaking a program at Getafe to upgrade the 17 surviving Spanish Tranche 1 aircraft to incorporate later Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 equipment, which would confer a full multirole capability.

            The company announced re-delivery of the first modernized Typhoon on February 26, 2019, and aims to complete the program in 2023.

            It’s a different approach to the United Kingdom, for example, which is instead using its Tranche 1 jets for more basic air-to-air and aggressor missions.”

            https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37165/spain-to-buy-more-eurofighter-typhoons-to-replace-aging-f-a-18-hornet-fighter-jets

            Worth reading!

            https://www.key.aero/article/retiring-rafs-tranche-1-typhoons-right-move

        • Although Robert at the moment it maybe the time to just suck up the extra expense and hassle to keep these jets flying. Let’s be honest for the peacetime RAF cutting out obsolescence platforms to save for future investment makes sense. But we need to start down a mentally that we may be fighting a general war with an aggressive sino-Russian pact before we can get new airframes or refits to present ones.

          We simply need to be giving the RAF the funding to undertake its modernisation programme as well as run this fleet within a fleet.

          Im normally one for restraint and sense in military procurement, but I think the geopolitical dice have just been thrown in the air and we need to be very ready and use what we have no matter the costs and if we have the pilots and the jets we need to keep them.

          I honestly think we need to be shifting from a Peace and we are safe paradigm to a we may be in a general war anytime without further notice or change in international relations. We need to move to a rearmament first, sustainability and cost control later paradigm. Hard to accept after all the covid costs. But I think the only way we can prevent a general war is if we can convince our enemies we ( the west) are serous and armed to the teeth.

          • Good response, Jonathan. You could be right. Maybe a change in mindset is as important as the extra cash to go with it. I’ve always understood the need to get rid of the old to pay for the new within a limited defence budget. But maybe this requires a covid like response. Even if we don’t want to provoke an all-out war with Russia, but to prevent the next one. China is the real threat. But that doesn’t help the poor folks in Ukraine tonight. It must be terrifying.

        • Don’t forget that until a year or so back they were considered fine for the AD role until 2030. The decision to phase them out years before that was purely financial. That must be looked at again.

          • Retaining T1 Typhoons is the quickest way to adding to our planned air mass even if their utility is limited. To build and pay for 30 new Typhoons may take 5 years doing it quickly. The number is not so big that they can be focused on QRA for N, S and Falklands

        • RB wrote:
          “”Spanish T1’s have been upgraded, but fitted with some equipment already in use on RAF T1’s. Plus Spanish and German Typhoons where delivered to a lower standard compared to RAF aircraft.””

          I read something the otherday that the Spanish are going to replace their F18 fleet with 31 new build Tranche 4 Typhoons.

          • I think that is the intention. I’m not sure if they have placed a firm order yet without scanning the Internet 👍

        • I get that but surely for this ‘Air Policing’ basically flying about incase Russian aircraft approach/penetrate NATO air space the T1’s are perfect? keep the airframe hours down on the newer tranches and keep them available if the proverbial really does hit the spinner.

      • They should be either upgraded or replaced with Tranche 3s. Should boost numbers up to 150 at least.

        Government needs wake up and up defence budget now!

        • The Tranche 1 cant be upgraded, airframe has already had holes drilled for other upgrades and cant be weakened further and they lack a coolant fluid linkage to the radar that later versions had in anticipation of AESA. The only way to ‘upgrade’ them would be to transfer everything onto a fresh airframe.

        • Worth reading.

          Tranche 1 aircraft were the only Typhoons with a fully cleared air-to-ground capability, using Paveway II and Enhanced Paveway II laser guided/dual-mode bombs in association with the Litening III laser designator pod.

          The UK bought its Eurofighter Typhoons in three production batches (known as tranches). The aircraft delivered in each tranche differed slightly – Tranche 2 introduced new processors in a reconfigured avionics bay, and had a strengthened forward bulkhead, to enable the eventual installation of a heavier active electronically scanned array (AESA) antenna.

          Tranche 3 ushered in electrical and cooling provision for an AESA radar, and lugs to enable the fitting of conformal fuel tanks on the upper rear fuselage.

          https://www.key.aero/article/retiring-rafs-tranche-1-typhoons-right-move

      • Even if the MoD doesn’t want them anymore surely with the present situation, we can find someone in, say, Eastern Europe who might want them.

        • Or Ireland – they might need to defend themselves given Putin is in the mood to bully smaller nations..!

          Slightly tongue in cheek, but taking Ireland would Russian forces behind our lines, and there would be no Article 5 cover either!

          CR

          • Alternatively we could gift 20 of them to the Polish airforce who could, in turn, give their ~20 Mig-29s to the Ukranians as reinforcements. The Migs are already familiar to Ukrainian pilots – we’d just have to help the Polish pilots convert onto the Typhoon. The West should also be sourcing as many Mig-29/Su-27 types from various sources around the world and funneling them to Ukraine to replace their losses. Plenty of them about.

            This wouldn’t leave the Poles without any jets during the transition either as they still have their F-16s

          • Poland transferring Migs to Ukraine is the way to go, The US should replace them with F-16s which Poland already operate.

          • Hi Gareth,

            I really like your thinking. Paul’s suggestion of US F16’s is a good one, but either Typhoon or F16 would be a step up I think.

            Cheers CR

          • good idea, US should have given 10 patriot batteries last week and trained their guys, even up air odds against russians, gunna be hard to get support and hardware in on land bridge now

      • “Given the software limitations of the T1, the RAF has decided not to try and upgrade these particular platforms with the Phase Enhancement upgrade packages that will afford the T2 and T3 platforms with the full swing-role capability set.

        As such, they will be used solely for air defence duties, and perhaps for adversarial air combat training for other RAF aircraft types.”

        “Spanish Typhoons, like those for the other European core customers — Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom — were delivered in three distinct “tranches” with significant differences in terms of avionics and capabilities.

        Airbus Defence and Space is also currently undertaking a program at Getafe to upgrade the 17 surviving Spanish Tranche 1 aircraft to incorporate later Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 equipment, which would confer a full multirole capability.

        The company announced re-delivery of the first modernized Typhoon on February 26, 2019, and aims to complete the program in 2023.

        It’s a different approach to the United Kingdom, for example, which is instead using its Tranche 1 jets for more basic air-to-air and aggressor missions.”

        https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/37165/spain-to-buy-more-eurofighter-typhoons-to-replace-aging-f-a-18-hornet-fighter-jets

    • Challenger, perhaps the MOD may reverse the decision to retire the Trance 1 in 2025? Seems the prudent thing to do given current events.

      • Absolutely! I mean i’d be going further and looking at tranche 4 Typhoons to replace the T1’s and retain a fleet of 140 or so given that Tempest is still a long way off and F35 deliveries will be slow even if extra funds are allocated.

        An uptick in overall defence spending would be welcome but no point in splurging billions more if we can’t fix our terrible procurement system at the same time.

        • thank you Nigel. I was aware of Project Helcon, however I seem to recall the desire is for 40 airframe, but clearly funding is an issue

          really liking your splendid idea of jumping on the band wagon to order a batch for the RAF!

          • I think now would be the ideal time to do it pushing the order back up to the original number of forty airframes and adding to the numbers that we have available to us at present.

            The rollout of radar 2 and I hope the reconsideration of air-launched anti-ship missiles would be a cause for concern to both Russia and China.

            Nato as a whole has to realise that the threat to the balance of power will change if we do not increase defence spending collectively and we must now rebuild our armed forces up to a suitable level here in Europe to deter Putin from his goals.

            And just to add to my point.

            According to the Congressional Research Service, Ukrainian officials have expressed interest in acquiring air-defence, anti-missile, and anti-ship systems.

            https://www.janes.com/defence-news/terror-insurgent-group/latest/uk-eyes-more-military-aid-for-ukraine

          • And some of these too! A very useful interim piece of kit for RAF Typhoons.

            Range: Well beyond 100 km

            “The firing also showed Marte ER’s turbojet engine behaviour was excellent for both “in-flight start time” and thrust level. This firing was the last one in the development path of Marte ER, which will enter into operation early next year. MARTE ER represents the 3rd generation within the MARTE family of missile systems and is derived from MARTE MK2/S which is already in service with the Italian Navy on its NFH90 and AW101 helicopters. MARTE ER missile is going to be integrated on Eurofighter TYPHOON and other fast jets.

            Using its mission planning software, the missile carried out a long-range sea-skimming flight. It made three main turns and a pop-up/dive manoeuvre during the last turn. A straight segment then followed up to the RF seeker activation point. Target identification, selection and tracking was extremely fast and proportional guidance started soon after. During its terminal phase, the missile successfully performed its anti-Close-in Weapon Systems manoeuvre, hitting the target just above the waterline at high transonic speed. This confirmed the outstanding effectiveness of Marte ER’s terminal guidance with its new solid state RF Seeker.”

            https://militaryleak.com/2021/12/15/mbdas-marte-er-anti-ship-missile-has-successful-final-test-firing-in-sardinia/

            “MARTE ER missile is going to be integrated on Eurofighter TYPHOON and other fast jets.

            MARTE ER’s design takes into account that MARTE MK2/S is already qualified and installed on these two platforms. This offers the following advantages:

            Same mechanical, functional & electrical helicopter interfaces
            No platform hardware changes required to manage the MARTE ER missile, only software changes to the Store Management System (SMS) are required to manage longer range performance.

            The helicopter, with the new version of SMS software, is able to operate both MARTE MK2/S and MARTE E”

            https://militaryleak.com/2021/12/15/mbdas-marte-er-anti-ship-missile-has-successful-final-test-firing-in-sardinia/

          • Time to wake up and smell the coffee.

             “The Lightning Force is still regenerating after CSG21 and it will be instructive to see how many jets can be mustered for operations in response to events in Ukraine. FOC for F-35 is scheduled for 2025, at which point two squadrons of up to 24 jets will be available for planned carrier embarkations.

            The planned entry into service date for the SPEAR-3 medium-range stand-off missile of 2025 is likely to slip to 2026 as there are limited resources available for the integration work.

            To a large extent, MBDA is dependent on Lockheed Martin’s software development prioritisation for integration projects, despite the UK being the sole Tier-1 partner in the F-35 programme. Until the F-35B can carry SPEAR-3, UK carrier strike is somewhat blunted and dependent on dropping laser-guided bombs, typically requiring aircraft to get within lethal range of surface-to-air missile systems.

            In 2019 the MoD awarded a demonstration contract for an electronic warfare variant of the SPEAR-3 missile. There is no funded plan to procure SPEAR-EW, even though this is a stated requirement and a credible Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) capability is needed if striking well-defended targets.

            In the longer term, it is planned that FCASW could be carried (externally) by F-35B, providing a long-range standoff shipping/land-attack capability but this is will not be available before the early 2030s at least.

            Integration of the Meteor BVR air-air missile with F-35 is not now anticipated to be completed until 2027 and there is a possibility that integration pressures in the programme may incur further delays because of challenges in the wider F-35 programme. The F-35 can already carry up to 6 very effective AIM-120 AMRAAM but Meteor offers considerably superior range and performance. ”

            https://www.navylookout.com/delivery-of-many-critical-royal-navy-capabilities-still-years-away/

    • Every fundamentalist Islamic terrorist will be delighted now we’re all distracted by war in Europe. All those idiotic cuts now comming home to roost.

  5. I think if Russia didn’t have a huge nuclear arsenal, we would be engaging them on the battlefield to defend the Ukraine. And looking at some of the Russia equipment being deployed, Russian forces would get annihilated, just like Iraq did back in 1991. If the full might of the US military was brought down on them, they wouldn’t last a few weeks. Of course the situation is much more complex, and we don’t want to start WW3. Sanctions will hit Putin hard in the medium term, and he won’t find any allies in the international community coming to his aid. As Boris said today. Putin must fail. The whole world is watching, and we can’t be seen to be giving a green light for others to pull similar stunts. The West and NATO must learn the hard lessons that have allowed this to happen. Being soft on Syria for a start. Peace doesn’t come cheap, and we should aim to get our defence budget back up to 3% of GDP, and work towards all NATO members achieving a similar figure. 2% isn’t enough.

    • The most impressive part so far has been the artillery. We don’t know how effective that has been.

      I’m surprised at how disorganized Russia appears to be when operating so close to home. The air strikes don’t appear to be very deliberate, helicopters are flying into Ukraine without escort, random cruise missile strikes on civil airport buildings is silly and weird.

      Basically a mess. I think the next phase is a massive roll of Russian armor.

      • They don’t appear to be using precision guided munitions that are now the norm in the west. Even in Syria Russia fast jets still used unguided dumb bombs.

        • I don’t think they have anything that can be described as precision guided TBH.

          They may have a lot of things that can go fast and go bang but there does seem to be a bit of a problem with hitting the critical bits.

          I honestly don’t think it would have taken much more to have given the Ukrainians the ability to trash Russian hellos and tanks at will. It is a real shame help wasn’t given earlier.

          I wonder if the Ukrainians have sent anyone abroad for a few days of intense Stinger training? I could see that paying off given the ‘tactics’ being used against them.

          • I honestly feel like they’re holding back on the airstrikes and missile attacks, hardly no videos of jets in the air when we all know what they can throw at this. Expecting a much harder second wave to come

          • Maybe.

            Maybe, not.

            Maybe they don’t want to give away how limited their capability actually is?

            They have loads of jets mostly very old and a lot that have primitive electronics fits by modern standards.

            Very tiny amounts of top end kit.

            The armour deployed and tactics are not, as others more qualified than I have stated, impressive.

            Really and honestly most of this could have been stopped with a small crew of very well trained people with shoulder launched and a few remote designating weapons.

            You could trash those armoured column with laser designators and a B52 with LD bombs on it. Or drones and missiles.

            The helos would just take a competent Stinger team or given the way they are being flown, low and level, a gyro stabilised minigun.

            Nothing clever in the clips just very rough and a lot of it.

          • Supportive Bloke – I agree. The Russian army as it stands today is a blunt instrument. Their lack of precision guided weaponry and inability to launch carefully orchestrated surgical strikes may result in a huge cost in innocent lives. I worry that the Russian military, clumsy that it is, will mistakenly deploy munitions against a non-combatant and drag other countries into this conflict.

          • I don’t think they have anything that can be described as precision guided TBH.

            Appalling this level of knowledge…no wonder we are in this predicament with so low contact with reality.

          • Rem we that even the USA requires imports of some very specialised stuff for PGM’s from rare earth metals to semi conductors. The Russians have zero electronics industry and will also rely on imports which are being increasingly hit by sanctions. They may lack the ability to replace many PGM and will certainly have to rely on inferior software and components to what we use in the west.

          • They have sent more than 80 Kalibr missiles against airports in Ukraine.

            There are no secrets today in making a LGB.
            And Russia have laser guided missiles since decades ago.

          • “ There are no secrets today in making a LGB”

            Golly – thanks for the heads up – better tell everyone working on LGB’s to find a new job then.

            Thanks for the hot tip.

          • Alex,
            It’s well known that in the field of targeting pods and PGMs, Russia is way behind the West. In fact the bombing raids carried out by Moscow in Syria used FAB-500 and FAB – 250 bombs which are predominatly dumb. The Russian airforce tried to excuse this by claiming that the bomb sights in use by Russian aircraft were just as good as the targeting pods used by the west.

          • Ask the people of Aleppo, Russian cluster bombs landed there are banned in the west , no precision at all , such a horrible Gov that the Russian people have .they should be a shamed .

          • no they are banned by the EU, USA still has them and reserves the right to use them against massed armour

          • we did the ukraine ambassador in speech yesterday thanked uk and usa and said russian tanks and planes were stopped yesterday by the defensive missles we sent, i knew about nlaw but wasnt aware we sent anti air?
            should have given them patriot
            He also said ukraine is still fighting and we will send many russians to the next life!!

        • Don’t think they have many precision guided munitions. They seem to have heavily invested in good cruise, ballistic and anti-ship missiles but for tactical ground strikes they still predominantly use unguided bombs and some older generation laser designated ordnance.

          • But you do have to hit something to mission kill it?

            So which is better 200 missiles that work 50% of the time and of those hit the target 20% of the time; or

            40 missiles that work 80% of the time and of those hit the target 90% of the time?

            Otherwise you are back to WWII bombing statistics or Vietnam carpet bombing?

            Accuracy has a quality all of its own – to mangle a phrase.

          • I’d go for accuracy every time. Plus, it puts the shitters up the bad guys knowing they can’t hide and hope for best. And helps win the hearts and minds battle with the locals and media. 👍

          • They have have to tech to do that but that’s not how it played out in Syria and doesn’t seem to much better so far in Ukraine.

            I think they are happy to use quantity to make up for quality which won’t be as effective if they have to try and take the urban centres.

          • We tried to accurately drop dumb bombs in the first Gulf War. We quickly realised it didn’t work. Laser/GPS guided is the only way to achieve all weather day/night precision strikes.

          • We tried that in Port Stanley 40 years ago 20 bombshell to get one on the runway. Unguided munitions and never going to be very precise no matter how well the aircraft sites them and Russia does not have that many aircraft.

          • “ They can precisely deliver dumb weapons”

            Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

            Yes, you can predict the target at release point but this then takes no account of humidity, thermal, air pressure variations or wind speed…..

            So you then add those to the predicted release point and get cumulative errors.

            You then add the variable production characteristics of the dumb munition and add those errors to the other cumulative errors.

            When they are all concatinated: you then have a very big margin of error.

            Given how cheap laser guidance kits are, these days, compared to making 10x more bombs and having 10x more bombers and flying 10x more missions the economics of precision strike do rather stack up…….

          • I believe they have kits like paveway to add to dumb munitions but if u dont care about casaulties why spend they cash? they will be trying to terrorise the ukranian people and save their top end munitions incase it kicks off with nato

        • We have seen in Syria that Russian PGM are not very precise and their aircrews have little capability to drop them as well even in a no contested environment.

        • Russians apparently don’t put the R&D on smart weapons, don’t do the training and don’t even have the legal scrutiny. It’s like WW2 but with sophisticated aircraft and propulsion systems with the missiles.

      • Hi Chris,

        I was wondering about that helicopter attack on the Antonov Airport outside Kyiv. Looking at the google map of Ukraine Kyiv is only about 80 – 100km from the Belarus border. Those helicopters that I saw on video were flying remarkable low – superb flying, just saying – and they were escorted by attack helicopters. There were verified pictures of a shot down Ka50.

        Tomorrow will bring more clarity and hopefully will tell us if the Ukrainians can begin to fight back as they should be able to redeploy at night undercover of darkness – hopefully. However, I still think their most effective tactic is going to be assymetric warfare…

        CR

      • They look fairly crap so far, unfortunately the Ukrainians appear to still be coming form the same crap Soviet doctrines as well. I don’t think a handful of NATO trainers and some shoulder launched missiles will change that much.

    • Robert I can but only agree and support the surge to 3% gdp. Now is the time! The first order of business is a moratorium on any retirement of current uk assets ie, tranche 1 typhoons, c130j, etc

      • I don’t think Typhoon T1 will be saved for reasons ive just explained to another commentor on this same thread. But i could be wrong. Hercules should be kept until we are in a position to order some more A400’s. Manning should be the first priority. New kit is useless if we don’t have the manning to operate and maintain it.

      • Problem is your just giving more excuse to the EU not to spend money on its own defence. I’m not against an increase but 3% is probably more than we can efficiently spend. We have some very hard limits on man power at the end of the day.

    • It’s quite frustrating watching slow moving Russian Columns crossing long bridges being engaged by little more than machine guns from the Ukrainian army. Like why no one has taken out the bridge much less where are the missiles. A single typhoon with brimstone could have taken them all out. If it was not for Russia nuclear weapons NATO would smash them and now we have to hear all this nonsense in the press about the world’s second most powerful military. The air force is a bigger danger to their own pilots and besides some impressive artillery most of the armoured vehicles seen on the news so far looks like the same s**t they have been carting around for years.

      • Russia’s Armoured Vehicle Fleet is dated,no-one would argue with that,but it is available in numbers and it still works,and let’s face it it is up against Ukraine Armour which save for upgrades is of the same vintage.Russia does have a New Family of Armoured Vehicles coming into service which looks quite impressive but for whatever reason ,more likely funding deliveries are slow.

      • I’ve had similar thoughts, the video (admittedly to be verified) shows a lot of low hanging fruit for the Ukrainian military. Why didn’t the west send/sell more weaponry to them sooner?

      • So what you are saying is .. Both sides have nuclear weopons but only one appears to have someone in charge who will use them…so because of that there will be no engagement on the the ground.
        Forgive me if I find that somewhat contradictory …so we are scared of a bully …even though we are bigger than him because he has a big brother …but we have an even bigger brother and we dont want to get him involved…so we allow the bully to hit us?

        • Issue is he not hitting us, if we start hitting him he only has one effective response which is the end of the world. Ukraine is just not worth the risk. I don’t think many people in Ukraine would want freedom from Russia at the cost of Armageddon.

    • Russia are not going to use their nuclear arsenal unless their own territory is under threat. I can understand why NATO don’t want to put boots on the ground but enforcing a no fly zone and decimating Russian armour that has unlawfully entered Ukraine including Crimea is fair game.
      It would also change Putin’s tune immediately.

    • Hi Robert you are pretty much correct and if it was just Russia you would be completely correct. But it’s not just Russia, I think we now have to live with the reality that we are dealing with a larger enemy alliance that could potentially have local military superiority in key locations. ( Russian and China, with potentially other nations such as Iran and Pakistan being supportive ).

      I unfortunately think the west are going to be pushed and pushed by China and Russia until NATO has no choice but to fight. The only way out of that cycle is a push hard back at them and not constantly reacting after the fact. The USSR was beaten not by a retreating west but by a hyper aggressive west. So the defence budget need to be ramped up to the level of the early mid 1980s so 5% GDP. If we and our allies don’t we are heading to the fall of the west as the leading global geopolitical force within10years.

      I do agree I don’t think we can intervene militarily in Ukraine as it would launch us strait into a war we are unprepared for that’s so unstable it could trigger nuclear conflict. But I do think we now need to draw the red lines on the maps with NATO having powerful military force in place to uphold them ( not just a couple of battle groups and a handful of fast jets). With the key area of weakness or threat very heavily militarised.

      • Morning Jonathan. This could be the trigger of a new Cold War or spending war. And you are correct to highlight the political shift towards China. Unless the West is happy to play the 2nd fiddle to them in 10 years’ time, we need to get the wallet out now. The US still has by far the most capable and devastating military force on the planet. But they need to be the global police man again and not look inwards. EU especially needs to up our defence game massively. We have the technology, and we have the capability. We need more numbers, and the political will needed to potentially use it. The West has lost its bottle after the experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq, but retreating from the world stage just creates even more problems. We need to worry less about opinion polls and do a better job of explaining to the wider public why we need to intervene, to prevent things from getting worse in the long term. 👍

        • Agree with all that Robert. The key will be communicating to the public the need to do the difficult and make the sacrifices of both spending a lot more on the military, investing in strategic industries, not buying cheap from China ( cutting any economic tie that is not geopolitically to our advantage) and being willing to us our military even if this means people will die ( on the premises that less of our people will die if we do this and it protects our future freedom). That’s going to cost treasure, not just around government spending but for individuals and it will cost in blood and suffering. But that’s a price you always have to pay in the end one way or another.

    • russia isnt iraq and taking on 1000 gen 4 aircraft plus 10000k armoured vehicles and 3million men total would be huge under taking for nato. question is do the west have the bottles or the balls, becoming clear putin thinks not

  6. The sober truth about this offensive is the danger it will draw in other nations. How many similar campaigns have strayed beyond the original combat theater to become much bigger and widespread? The smell of blood nearly always escalates actions, and this will be the case in point if Russia wins. Thankfully, there is always revolt and that could quickly accelerate within the cities of Russia, in truth, it may be the only hope we all have.

    • Not much NATO can do we already have an embarrassingly larger and more capable military able to defeat the Russians in days if not hours with financial and industrial resources beyond Russia’s wildest dreams. Taking Ukraine in to NATO would have always been a mistake.

      • Why do you think that – in what way would it have created a worse situation, unless you think Puttin would have invaded anyway?
        In which case NATO has offered Ukraine as a Sacrificial Lamb to appease Putin.

    • There is more pliability than you suggest as more Russians have access to World communications, hence the large number of protesters seen across the country today. Russia is no longer a brutally cold country both in terms of weather and national awareness, and that is why this invasion will rock the nation more than people think. A combination of harsh sanctions and media awareness will, over time, restrict Putin’s plans.

    • Really? I’ve seen videos of at least major anti-war protest in Russia tonight, despite threats that anyone protesting would be arrested. Putin doesn’t speak for the Russian people, he only thinks he does.

  7. There’s nothing we could spend money money on right now that would make any difference on land for at least 18-24 months. At sea and in the air you could at least double that.

    • Very true. Certain upgrades to equipment and weapons integration could happen pretty quickly. But that’s about it in the short term.

      • One upgrade I would go for is SPEAR 3 on Typhoon. Typhoon is being used as a test platform but apparently there are no plans for SPEAR 3 on Typhoon. Looks pretty stupid right now…

        CR

    • I think you are being optimistic with the numbers David, but I agree with your basic point. Nevertheless, an up tick in defence spending would not be the outcome Putin was hoping for.

      The risk is, however, that he might try something else before the increased spending starts to have an impact – that would be a very dangerous calculus on his behalf, but a risk we need to take if we are not to give entirely the wrong impression.

      We live at a very dangerous moment in history and I hope our leaders are up to the challenge. Damn that is not a reasuring thought.

      CR

      • I hope and think the people responsible are taking a hard look at what we could do quickly to raise readiness. One area might be to increase stocks of existing munitions. You make a good point on Russia doing something before not just us but european states in general rearm assuming they do. But I can’t see him trying anything with a NATO state so that leaves Moldova and Finland. But I don’t think Finland is going to stay out of NATO for very much longer.

        • Hi David,

          If I was Finland and Sweden I would be looking at Putin’s actions and seriously considering my future foreign policy and NATO membership would be high on the options list. Sweden I believe is already a “host country” member with NATO support should they be attacked.

          Cheers CR

          • Yeah they are. I’d be amazed if they don’t join NATO after what’s happened in Ukraine but internal politics and the electoral cycle will decide when.

    • A rapid expansion of our USV program may be doable and needed. Under sea cables and pipelines is probably the one place Russia can pose a threat to us. Beyond that I think we already have sufficient forces to deal with Russia.

      • Yeah USV’s are going to be increasingly important but it’s like a lot of platform systems it’s not something we have the industrial capacity to ramp up production. Maybe lateral thinking could come into it. We could make the Russians understand that we could exact a very high price on them if they did. I’m thinking of cyber warfare on their comms or other infrastructure.

      • Really, please explain the Army’s ORBAT right now. I’ll give you a hint, it’s incredibly lopsided in favour of light foot infantry. The heavy units are using kit that’s over 25 years old and has only seen minor updates in those intervening years. Cancelled the Warrior sustainment and capability upgrade program, which would have kept Warrior at the forefront of IFV capability within its peer group. The artillery is woefully thin in numbers and disposition. We have too few Apaches, and not enough battle taxi Wildcats. The Signals units were slashed, so there’s not enough specialists for ECM, battlefield radar and general signals work. We are only now getting a decent local area air defence system. The Stormer units are too few to cover a whole brigade and it’s logistical tail.

        Need I go on? I haven’t started on the Royal Navy or Royal Air Force, as they’ve been hiding their capabilities behind political spin for years now.

        If something does kick off and our troops need to act. I really do fear what might happen!

        • Bravo. The army is a dogs breakfast.
          Our Infantry are superb, but they need enablers! They need artillery, they need lethality.
          The CS/CSS have been endlessly cut so precious bloody cap badges can remain for battalions of 250,300 men.

      • Interrupting undersea cables is a tad more complex then people imagine, although the Russian declared exercise to the west of Ireland was in the vacinity of some undersea cables, the ships they sent were not equipped to deal with them, so all the excitement was over nothing.
        The Russians have 3 seabed ops capable submarines, all nuclear powered, all require a mother ship to transport them to their Op area.
        The Losharik is still OOA after a serious fire several years ago, which leaves the two smaller Paltus class units.
        When deploying, they are always accompanied by a SSN riding shotgun, as the mother ship is extremely vulnerable when carrying the smaller unit. They don’t venture South of the GIUK gap for this very reason, but restrict their ops to more Northern latitudes.

    • Oh, I agree.

      Not a reason to not do the obvious?

      Some of it is also about intent and messaging.

      For all the talk Putin knows he could really wage a sea or air war against NATO.

      NATO has massive numerical naval superiority over Russia even if you just add US and UK forces.

      In the air domain NATO has massive numerical and technological superiority never mind much, much better missiles.

      Land is the one area that Russia is numerically problematic. Let’s see what happens with the attrition rate on tanks – this will be visible from commercial daylight satellite data.

      Wonder if one of the alphabet soup boys will tell one of the OSINT boys where to look for the knackered tanks. That would be one way of getting real info out there?

      • It’s certain they’ve taken some heavy hits but your right it’ll be the open source or even official who’ll let us know how heavy.

        • Sorry maybe wasn’t being clear enough.

          The way these things pretty much used to work was that Mr Spy met Mr Journo for lunch and said ‘look there and you will find something interesting’

          These days it might be some long lists of sets of coordinates that could be checked on OSINT satellite data that most of us can access.

          I would **guess** the coordinates would be auto generated by image recognition software for tanks that hadn’t moved or had a thermal signature but did have a magnetic signature and then been cross checked for visible battle damage….

          Just a thought…

    • It’s pretty sad that when the sh*t hits the fan in the Black Sea, all we can come up with is a lonely gun boat armed with a pea shooter. Talking about putting our sailors in harms way.

      • Yeah but the N.Atlantic is where our naval contribution to NATO has been focused. The eastern med and Black sea is covered by other NATO states. We can help and that’s what Trent is doing.

  8. Give our leaders a week to catch up & hopefully we’ll see something that might actually make Putin falter. Standing by hand wringing is terrible. Saying we’ll not deploy anything into Ukraine just gives Putin carte blanch. He’ll be congratulating himself at judging western reluctance.

  9. surley, if we dont speed up and grow our military, we may well be to late,
    we are sending eqipment and other things like planes troops and a few ships, but how much is to much and will we leave ourselves short.
    just asking like..

  10. I don’t think these sanctions will be as effective as NATO will like, I have heard China, which unsurprisingly doesn’t consider this an invasion, are trying to help offset the damage.

    It’s sad that is has taken a major Russian offensive on Ukraine for politicians to potentially realise their stupidity in cutting troop numbers.

    I feel the only way we are going to get Russia’s attention is an extremely large military buildup on the Ukrainian border, but admittedly that is wishful thinking, and I suspect the Russians themselves have held troops back to counter any NATO retaliation they think might happen.

    • I think it may be worse than that.

      I was cheerfully posting how awful the Russian performance appeared to be and then a nasty thought crossed my mind.

      What if it is all the B resources that are being sent into Ukraine and the A resources are actually held for the Baltics operation?

      I honestly think he might try that.

      I hope I’m very wrong……I really do……

      If he does it needs to be hit with a hammer blow in the first seconds. Which we can do with air superiority.

      Now I think I know what the KC135 sniffer was looking for – tacticals.

      • Yeah, while we have heard of a few skirmishes, I have been thinking how odd it is that we have a lack of reports about the large scale movements of Russian tanks, as well as air strikes. My impression is they are holding back and whilst it could be to respond to any NATO response, as you have stated, it could be in preparation for a much larger campaign. NATO should be extremely concerned.

      • it would make sense around the KC135, why else would it be there. My other big worry is China. Russia and China had a summit on the 4 March in which they said a lot of worrying things. The timing of this looks planned and done with china’s agreement, what if part of the plan is the republic of China being swallowed up while we are all looking at Russia, once it’s in Chinese hands there will be no getting it back and most of the worlds advanced chip manufacturing falls into sino- Russian hands, we are buggered then.

        interestingly Pakistan had its first summit in 20 years with Russia this last week and while the invasion took place. India is keeping well out and Iran is backing…..I’m seeing a new geopolitical power block emerging to challenge the west and more neutrally from other growing. Ecconomlikw India and Brazil etc.

    • The irony is Russia is supporting 2 break away regions which has Russia speaking populations. This is not dissimilar to parts of China where their are minorities. Suggesting its ok for those regions a to breakaway with the support of a foreign military us not a president China should be supporting.

    • Agreed Chris, Current sanctions are a medium, long-term measure ……… they will hurt the Russian economy, but may take 5-10 years to be really effective.

  11. 350 troops, putin and its 150k plus troops in place must be having second thoughts.

    Boris and his global Britain is proving to be a international joke. We should be taking the lead here and showing our European partners that they need us, but instead we appear to be doing very little.

    • It’s not that straight forward Steve, we have very limited assets. If Ukraine falls in the days and weeks that follow, I would expect the UK, US and France to send Armoured Regiments to Poland’s Eastern frontier to form a symbolic NATO Armoured Division.

      I would hope the Germans would contribute too, but I’m afraid they will be found wanting again.

      We will have the opportunity to supply and sustain an Insurgency in Ukraine ( if it falls) that will be the first proxy war of Cold War 2.

      We can assist making the occupation of Ukraine an absolute nightmare for Russia, an extremely costly one….

      The UK’s Army assets are extremely limited after 30 years of brutal cuts, so we had better deploy in what we have with great care.

      The post cold war cuts have been foolish in the extreme, many of us have been shouting this from the rooftops for years.

      What’s needed is 3.5% GDP on Defence, ring fenced and spent wisely, to start building back across all three services.

      Serious increases in pay and much improved living conditions, with good career path prospects will encourage recruitment and retention among youngters, that’s a good place to start….

      The RAF, I would immediately order a batch of 60 of the latest spec, withdraw the batch ones and retrofit the batch twos and threes to the same standard with Radar2. We need to stop pissing around, order an additional 40 F35’Bs and get them delivered at a reasonable rate a year. We need to build back to 12 ( manned) fighter squadrons as an absolute minimum, with a good influx of Mosquito/ Seavixen UCAV technology to further boost the force mass and a large increase of smart weapons, stock piled.

      I would order a fleet of 25 P8’s, integrating UK weapons and buy the GTR pods, to give them a wider force remit.

      Increase A400 numbers to 40 and try and borrow 4 more C17’s if possible.

      The Navy seems to be on the right path, but ideally needs to be expanded to 12 T26, 12 up-armed T31 and 6 T45 , plus three AAW T 26 variants.

      SSN levels should neve have been allowed to fall below 12 minimum and steps to rebuild the number need to be taken straight away, with a possible SSK order to cover the gap.

      I would increase the size of the Royal Marines to 10,000 to allow them to operate as Brigade and keep a single Commando for the Raider concept, with suitable new shipping provided.

      The Army is more vexing and currentlyappears like a headless chicken to be honest, so many failed programmes, obsolete equipment and endless re- organisations that seems to be more fixated with keeping cap badges than anything else….

      I think a sensible size is 115,000 regulars, with the current Army Reserve structure of 30,000.

      I would use some of these extra troops to rebuild 5 Armoured Regiments with 350 MBT’s (M1A3) and new Artillery systems, plus all the bells and whistles support as needed. Plus 90 AH64E’s to underpin them.

      Helicopter support, suitably sized to service a standing army of the above size.

      Permanently basing 3 of these Armoured Regiments in Poland, alongside similar contributions from the usual suspects.

      As much off the peg equipment as possible where the Army is concerned, using US systems here is crucial, as it means replacement MBT’s and support can rapidly be procured if needed.

      Just a snapshot of a still small, but robust military capability that I feel the UK should be able to field.

      • Yeah i am fully aware its not that straight foward, but we do have significant more assets available if we decided to commit them.

        The issue is if we wait for Ukraine to fall to deploy, it allows Putin to think the west is weak and start looking further east, and once his started thinking that way it will be hard for him to backdown. If we deploy and encourage our NATO allies to follow our example, then we can avoid that.

        Realistically NATO is waiting for the US to do the job, but the US interests are no longer with Europe and they are more focused on China, so its the UK chance to show leadership and lead by example.

    • And how many of our European partners are matching the numbers we’re putting in then? Your irrational hatred of Boris is blinding you to reality 🤷🏻‍♂️

      • Germany has a battle group in Lithuania. France has offered a battle group and aircraft for Romania. Spain has offered fighter jets for Bulgaria. Netherlands and Denmark have both provided warships and fighters for the Baltic states. And so on.

        Basically, all the NATO members are stepping up to support the EFP forces in Eastern Europe. Britain is neither leading the way nor doing anything special, we are providing a very minor force contribution, which is more a token gesture – being seen to be doing something – than a serious military reinforcement.

        It seems that is all that NATO requires just now, the EPFs are a tripwire which, if crossed, would theoretically trigger a major reinforcement. It is a very thin line though, none of the Western European members, including the UK, are that politically keen or militarily able to deploy the necessary forward forces to realistically deter Russian opportunism.

        The minimum forward force nèded in Estonia would be an armoured infantry brigade and an air defence squadron, not a couple of battalions and a flight of 4 jets, We are enfeebled by our politicians’ lack of focus and cheeseparing on defence over the years.

        • Of course he has a right, it’s called “democracy”. You get enough votes you get elected, or are you advocating for a dictatorship? In which case, you should probably go and live in Russia.

          • A democracy is also about freedom of opinion. Just because a vote happened on a specific day, doesnt’ mean you personally have to agree with it or that you cant’ change your mind afterwards.

            No one that voted in Boris expected how terrible his managed brexit (one of the worst recovering economies in the world) or covid (one of the highest deaths per capita in the world). His not the leader to difficult sitatuations as he keeps proving. Opinion polls state that if there was an election today he would lose by a significant margin.

          • Don’t vote for the party if you don’t like the leader, it’s that simple. But Boris won a landslide in 2019, so accept the democratic result.

          • that is stupid, that is not how the UK democraic constitution works.

            The conservatives didn’t even get the majority of votes (42%) in the election, they got the majority of seats, not sure democracy in action but way off topic.

          • No I think you’ll find your stupid for not understanding a democratic system that’s in place for hundreds of years. We elect MPs based on constituencies, the party that wins sufficient constituencies gets to form the government. It’s not really that hard to grasp.

          • My point is to say we have to accept his goverment because they won the election is just wrong. Firstly because we live in a free country and are allowed not to agree with the majority and secondly he didn’t get a majority of the voters anyway.

            Just because we have a specific election system doesn’t mean the majority supported it

          • So you’re not going to accept the result of a fair and open democratic election? Going out on the streets with a Molotov cocktail are you? No thought not, just sulk at home instead.

  12. So I can see a scenario where the Eastern Ukraine falls and Western Ukraine is the the heart of resistance to Russian occupation. It will also be where refugees flee to in a hope to escape the violence. But Russia will.be looking to cut of arms supply through the same corridors refugees are using to exit. NATO may be left with an uncomfortable decision whether to implement a no fly zone to protect civilian refugees in Western Ukraine.

  13. I just went on RT to check out what a Russian media company was saying and made the mistake of reading the comments…..there are either a lot of idiots or a lot of Russian troll factories or maybe both. How the hell can someone even contemplate the fact that a large nation attacking a small nation without warning and with an army of 200,00 Is the fault of other nations who have supported the small nation to defend itself….it’s so 1984 as to be funny if it was not scary,… peace is war and freedom is slavery.

    • That is how authoritarian governments work. They limit their populations to outside influences, force-feed them decades of nationalistic propaganda, create false narratives to deflect government criticism and often harass and imprison critics.

    • A lot are Russian trolls, but a lot are also ‘useful idiots’ in the West who have bought into the entire conspiracy theory community of a globalist NWO agenda, killer vaccines, plandemic, etc.

  14. Spoke to my mate earlier on regards what is happening (He’s still in) and stated that hopefully one good thing to come out of all of this, is it will see increased spending on the military in which to reverse the cuts we have seen this past 32 years. Anyway reading the news I came across this regards the German Military which shows it isnt just the UK which has been caught with its pants down:
    German Army Is ‘Bare’ And Has Little To Offer, Says German Army Chief

    (EurActiv) — Amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the options the German Bundeswehr could offer were extremely limited, the army chief warned.

    The German army has long been neglected in Berlin politics. The country scrapped conscription in 2011, and the post of defence minister was widely considered a dead-end for political careers, leaving the army with limited options.

    “The Bundeswehr, the army I am allowed to lead, is more or less bare. The options we can offer the politicians to support the [NATO] alliance are extremely limited,” said Alfons Mais, the 21st Inspector of the Army and commander of the troops, on LinkedIn.

    His comments follow a long line of complaints from the army about the budget cuts and lack of support.

    “The Bundeswehr has been cut to the bone for far too long. This must not be at the expense of the security of our soldiers abroad,” said then German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in 2019.

    Nonetheless, Berlin has yet to commit itself to the 2% of GDP defence spending targets of NATO.

    “We all saw it coming and were not able to get through with our arguments, to draw the conclusions from the annexation of Crimea and to implement them,” Mais added.

    “This does not feel good! I am pissed off!”

    Amid a rallying of troops to NATO’s eastern flank, Germany had sent an extra 350 soldiers to Lithuania to reassure its partners of its commitment despite Berlin’s refusal to supply defensive weaponry to Ukraine, nor would it immediately permit the relocation of formerly Eastern German artillery weaponry to aid the Kyiv government.

    For the German army chief, now is the time to reinforce the Bundeswehr.

    “When, if not now, is the time to leave the Afghanistan mission structurally and materially behind us and to reposition ourselves, otherwise we will not be able to implement our constitutional mandate and our alliance obligations with any prospect of success.”

    Mais’ comments are the second time German military personnel has gone public with controversial statements following the remarks made by navy chief Kay-Achim Schönbach in January.

    Schönbach had said that “Putin deserves respect” and that Kyiv would never win back the annexed territory of Crimea.

    • Farouk, yes we actual hit a critical point in Geopolitical relations around 20 years ago and all the evidence showed that China and Russia were never going to make a transition to a western liberal democratic model. This was a shift that the west refused to notice or acknowledge and went on pretending that we were not adversarial political ideas that would inevitably come into conflict ( liberal democracies and totalitarian states will almost always have problems co-existing as they are as incompatible as capitalism and communism).

      by 2010 this was quite frankly obvious and China especially was undertaking a classic Mercantile approach to combating western hedgmony and development of its own imperial ambitions with Russia taking on a more classic military lead imperial model.

      By 2014-15 we were clearly in a defacto Cold War with both nations and they started to move closer together.

      2022 has seen the west effectively punched in the face and kicked in the ribs. The have formalised there strategic alliance and clearly plotted the downfall of an budding western liberal democracy ( the summit on the 4 March).

      They have also been strengthening a wider alliance, it’s a little known fact but Russia was having a leaders summit with Pakistan as this invasion happened, Iran has effectively come out in support and India has been silent and is clearly going to stay utterly neutral.

      The west due to its neoliberal ( the markets are always right) greed has ignored the geopolitical Cold War growing for 20 years and is now backed into a place where general war is likely within ha handful of years…our leaders have dropped the ball so much I don’t think they are capable of the vision ( actually contemplating that we are slipping into ww3 and we have enemy’s that form an existential threat the existence of western democracies.

      it’s not just a bit of a sending up life, it’s a changing of mentally to a Cold War, we will use every possible leaver of the state to combat the sino-russia threat and undertake a massive rearmament program, we are in a mixture of the 1980s and 1930s and I’m not sure which way it will go from best to first, I thing these are the only possible outcomes left

      1) western wining of a Cold War, via all means short of a general war ( so using economic war, proxy war, information war, massive re armament, scientific war, war in space)
      2) as above but we don’t fully commit and there is a sino-russian victory
      3) Gerneral war that does not go full nuclear, the west wins after catastrophic casualties on both sides ( I have put this as a worst outcome to 2 as I’m still not sure I would be willing to accept the likely hundreds of millions of casualties from a general war as a better outcome that living as a client state).
      4) Gerneral war as above but sino-Russia victory
      5) general war leading to a general nuclear war and humanity snuffs out most large land animals on the planet and creates a great dying event.

      Personally I don’t think our western politicians have the vision or the guts to accept these are the outcomes as they all make the west poorer and impact on the profits of the mega wealthy and multinationals, but if they don’t it’s more likely 2-5 will happen

  15. An observation. Many including understandably stressed Ukranian President have criticised Biden and others for a failure to come to their aid militarily. The reality is that we are dealing with a madman who has threatened to use Nukes against any outsiders who enter the fray directly. The man is clearly unhinged and has the power to destroy the world, himself included, in a nuclear holocaust.Biden and Nato have drawn a line in the sand with regard to the borders of members immediately on the front line with Russia. We have to hope that sane Russians will rise against Putin or that the bite of sanctions will have the necessary effect, so in summary Biden has made the right call, the ONLY call to avoid an almost immediate Armageddon and allowing the West time to gear up for various scenarios

    • It is easy for an autocrat to threaten to use nuclear weapons, Kim Jong Il rattles that sabre all the time.

      Putin knows that any use of nukes would lead to immediate retaliation by the USA. He is playing chicken with the West, banking on Western leaders and peoples to be windy. He gambled correctly, we ARE windy, more concerned with domestic issues and our leaders are not able to rise to the occasion.

      His greatest fear would have been NATO deploying forces on Ukraine’s Western border and then stipulating that, were Ukraine invaded, it would immediately be offered NATO membership – forget the NATO smallprint, it could be tweaked easily enough. That would almost certainly have deterred a Russian invasion, as Russia’s 190,000 troops would have been completely out matched by even a modest NATO addition to Ukraine’s forces.

      Hey ho, we did nothing but talk. Now we should be thinking about Moldova, which will inevitably be next on Putin’s wishlist, where there is still time to act sensibly. You can guarantee we will find a dozen reasons to do nothing, other than our leaders waffling with empty words to the media.

      • Crikey,Cripes-good post!😃 One point-there is no ways you can compare Kim Jong un to Putin in terms of threat. Kim at best might just be able to launch one Nuke at the USA whereas Putin has the world’s largest Nuclear arsenal.

  18. The former German ambassador was on TV, saying Germany now needs to spend 2% GDP on bringing its forces up to standard. I think many members of NATO will need to do the same. The UK needs a mini review in light of Ukraine. We have not got the cash for full rearmament, but if we can fill a few gaps as cheaply as possible. Give RAF tranche 1 Typhoons the same limited upgrade as Spain did on theirs. A cheap anti ship missile for T45. A high level SAM to protect London against Putin’s threats.

  19. Voyager tankers are known as force multipliers. Its the best way with the resources available. How long we can sustain this is anyone’s guess. All I will say is we have committed and professional people in uniform.

  22. It is clear the defence posture of this country needs to be rethought. Cuts to the Ait force, Army need to be reversed. The Navy both surface and subsurface need to be strengthened .

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