Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has named RAF Fairford as a legitimate target, after American B-1 bombers flew missions against Iran from the Gloucestershire airfield.
The statement, the 46th the IRGC has issued since the conflict resumed, went out on Thursday. It said the US had turned to B-1s flying from Fairford once the missile stocks aboard its ships in the Indian Ocean ran dry. Then came the line that has drawn attention in London. “As Foreign Ministry officials have also clarified, any base used to invade Iranian territory is our legitimate target.”
What was new was the framing, as the statement carried the title “Warning to the British monarchy”, and the language that followed was perhaps more blunt than usual.”We warn the British monarchy, which is the main cause of the misfortunes of the people of our region and has a dark record of dividing Islamic countries, widespread massacres in these countries, imposing authoritarian governments, and worst of all, organising and leading the occupation of Palestine and the creation of the Israeli Nakba, and has participated most in the recent aggressions of the United States and the Zionist regime against Iran, not to burden its case any further.”
According to Reuters, Britain responded on Thursday by saying its armed forces were ready to protect the country from any attack. A government spokesperson told the agency: “Our Armed Forces are ready to keep the United Kingdom safe from any kind of attacks, whether it’s on our soil or from abroad. The UK stands ready 24/7 to defend itself.” That, the spokesperson added, includes a layered approach to air and missile defence drawing on Royal Navy, British Army and Royal Air Force assets, worked alongside NATO allies. On the sorties themselves the government said nothing, citing its standing position of not commenting on foreign nations’ military operations.
American aircraft have been flying from Fairford in connection with this conflict since March, when the base was authorised for what the government called defensive strikes. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has kept that policy since taking office on 20 July, and the government said last week it was recommitting to the existing agreement letting the US use British bases in what it described as the collective self-defence of the region. The arrangement covers American operations against missile sites used to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry put out its own statement alongside the IRGC’s, condemning the decision to allow US use of British bases and warning that any party taking part in aggression against Iran would carry responsibility for the consequences. It called London a principal architect of instability in the region and reached back through the grievances: the 1953 coup, British backing for Iraq in the 1980s war, nuclear sanctions, the recent proscription of the IRGC itself.
I see the government spokesperson wasn’t using ‘IAMD’ this time around… funny how the ‘integrated’ part disappears when the threat ramps up. Keep things realistic 👍
Time the new Prime Minister tell the USAF to stop flying mission to Iran from the UK, just like Spain, Italy and a few other NATO allies have done. The UK does not need to get involved in Israel’s manufactured war that it wants the western Powers led by the USA to fight for it so that it can keep its hegemony in the Middle East. After Iran Israel has clearly stated that it wants to drag its allies into a fight with Turkey, a NATO ally. The new Labour Government should empathetically let Trump and Rubi know that the UK will not be a lapdog for the USA and Israel to be dragged into senseless forever wars in the Middle East.
Nice trolling
Shut up 🤬
Why? Because what I have stated are pure facts you don’t like because you support Israel and MAGA?
Your allegiance should be to the UK first, not USA, not Trump, not MAGA, and certainly not Israel. No trolling here from me, just straight facts. Refute my statement with a cogent response not insults.
You need to grow up & stop being gay!
Grow up.
F*** off
This guys account need banning, not fit to be in a public forum.
By the way, I’ve fought for my country, what have you ever done?
More insults! Clearly tells me you are not worth debating.
You aren’t worth anything
Grow up John. You are acting like a 12 year old. You going to tell me your dad is bigger than mine next?
If you want to make this personal, give me your name & address & I’ll gladly pay you a visit 👊
You are the one that started personally insulting People, and now you are threatening. Are your arguments that week?
Clearly you haven’t read much on here if you can make those inaccurate accusations, that’s why you were called a troll. There is little support here or indeed in the Country for MAGA, Trump or supporting Israel. On the other hand as a Country and Govt we do have to toe a very careful line certainly while we have this very dangerous person in the White House and whatever disagreements we have with the US generally, we know the majority of people there, even the military aren’t of the same mind as the tyrant who leads them and one thing is for sure Iran does not represent an entity that remotely deserves to be ignored as the serious and brutal threat it is with its despicable actions against British Iranian people here just one if its attempts to destabilise Britain. So like Trump and his lackies trolls like you can go to hell in a handcart together because we see through your sudden psyops intrusion here for what it is. Like the Iranian attempts themselves with all their erroneous messaging, hardly subtle was it.
Doesnt help that the orange blob spends less than 30 seconds on strategies snd risk assessments, treats allies as guns for hire (retrospectively) and at the same time hurls insults and tarrifs around like confetti and expects to get full and unregulated use of bsses on UK soil for conflicts irrespective of the legality of those conflicts…..which also, as a side consequence, offers some basis for Russia to justify on a similarly spurious basis its actions in Ukraine.
Complex issues triggering a variety of rezponses and concerns…which people are entitled to express.
This is a complete misreading of both treaty obligations and actual geopolitics. First, RAF Fairford is a vital component of the US-UK special relationship and NATO’s strategic nuclear deterrent. Spain and Italy have absolutely not banned the USAF from using their facilities; in fact, Naval Station Rota in Spain and Aviano Air Base in Italy remain foundational hubs for US power projection.
Second, the claim that Israel is trying to drag anyone into a war with Turkey—a fellow NATO member—is pure fiction. The UK hosts these strategic assets because global stability directly protects British maritime and economic interests. Conspiratorial rants don’t change basic defence realities.
get back under your bridge , troll boy
Its Friday, shouldn’t you be at the Mosque?
Pretty certain I have yet to see any statements coming from Israel on a forthcoming or planned conflict with Turkey. I’m also pretty certain Israel wouldn’t be stupid enough to get involved with a conflict with Turkey and vice versa. Can you point out and show where these clearly stated intents have been published?
Yes lets alienate the country that right or wrong is the military powerhouse of the west. Normal crazy left idea
The Russians supported Vietnam with weapons during the Vietnam war… I can’t remember the US bombing Moscow in retaliation.
Time for you to bugger of cock.
And the rest, UK bases as well, we deserve it.
I know what you deserve!
Keep bending the knee for Muslims.
Vermin
No, we don’t
So, Iran is causally going to target UK, NATO ally and trigger an Article 5? I’m sure that will go down well for them.
Before trump, would we have questioned American use of uk airstrips.
It rather depends who they are dropping the bombs on, does it not.
Certainly the IRGC will likely use something other than paint to threatenFairford, although I suspect the US maybe a little less forgiving when it comes to defending the B1s.
If something happened to Fairford I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump started talking about the UK in a similar way to Greenland
We all need to be vigilant as reprisals come in many forms. Maybe behind the scenes, in the skunk works, the boffins are hard at work just as they were in WW2?
Time to get some higher tier SAMP/T or CAMM-ER/MR happening for GBAD UK if SkySabre is just for Army.
I don’t think sky Sabre is just for the army anymore than F35 is just for the RAF. It’s a purple asset and its first deployment in Poland was used to guard air bases. But we definitely need something bigger for anti ballistic missiles work and theatre level air defence. Italy already pares SAMP/T with CAMM and their Kronos radar works with both and is probably going to be compatible with Freya. A purchase of SAMP/T from Italy seems like the first thing the UK should have got from the DiP. The lack of such a purchase only goes to demonstrate that the MoD and British Army in particular does not have the mentality of a credible fighting force. It only sees itself as an extension of the US Army. Its upper leadership is dominated by special forces who are myopically focused on providing a certain set of exquisite capabilities to impress US leadership. By the Army’s own admission it’s impossible to fight any modern war without ballistic missile defences yet it made zero provision to provide them despite a significant budget increases since 2021.
What is the point in the British army if it can’t intercept even short ranged ballistic missiles. Why would it be spending billions on armoured recce or heavy inter theatre lift but then have to rely on America to protect its HQ from even a lower tier enemy.
People can blame politicians all they want but no politician told the army it could not buy an ABM system. The Army chose what to spend money on. No one stopped the RN from purchasing an ABM system along side CAMM. It paid for such a high end air defence capability by accepting cuts in other capabilities.
You make a good case for a single service. The Royal Navy has experience of all domains including Space. The MoD should re-form around a single staff and model itself on the USMC, a multi service organisation larger than the entirety of Britain’s armed forces. The USMC handles Space through Marine Corps Forces Space Command (MARFORSPACE).
That said, Britain will be unable to create an enhanced and effective national defence and security including ballistic missile defence while continuing to throw money at its net zero political agenda for societal change.
To be honest in this day and age I can’t see what’s wrong with a single service.
Perhaps you should look at the Canadian experience in trying out a single service,it didn’t work and now they are back to the normal tri service setup.
👍 It’s getting tiring, that old chestnut.
Jim, Jim, Jim…. I thought you’d grown up a bit recently but you’re back to where you were…
1. Air and Missile defence of the U.K. is not an army role, so why would the Army purchase strategic air defence on its own?
2. Sky Sabre sits in the Army’s define mission set because it was purchased to PROTECT the deployed force. It can, clearly, be deployed in other ways by political decision but it comes at the cost of its core role.
3. You yet again display no knowledge of how joint force operations work. All three services, but in particular the Army are designed, at 2* level, to command joint and combined operations. At 3* that also becomes multi-national. That means integrated assets achieving integrated effects. That is built into all doctrine, training and operations at those levels. To state that the Army is incapable of thinking in that way shows you’ve been nowhere near the Army and what it actually does.
👍
In America which is the wests premiere military air and missile defence is the preserve of the US army. Actually every nation I can think of that has missile defences runs them through the army. This is the issue now with the outdated thinking. The army needs to be fighting its battles hundreds of miles behind front lines and hundreds of thousands of feet in the air to the edge of space.
I see your comprehensive list there but I can’t see any explanation of why the army does not have ballistic missile defences and how the army would fight without them. Where is that 2 star HQ going to go if the enemy can and will hit any significant target with in 500 miles of the front line.
The army just invested in 70 long range ballistic missiles launchers do you not think it prudent to invest in any counter to their own capabilities. Seems like the first basic rule of warfare. It’s exactly why every battle ship and tank is armoured to resist its own guns.
Jim, the Army doesn’t have it because it’s not its role. The MOD runs defence strategy, not the Army. The Army’s job in procurement is to buy the capability it needs for its defined role.
And explore what you’ve actually said there… the US Army has missile defence. Cool, it also owns the battlefield helicopters, but here, the RAF owns them. Is that an issue, should the Army buy them too as the main ‘customer’- ?no, because we operate differently.
The USMC no longer operates tanks – not necessary for its role. If the USMC needs tanks in a future operation, it’ll be a US Army force. Why? Because that’s how they’ve (the Pentagon) have broken down the requirements.
The whole point is not about service ownership, it’s that the military as a whole needs to identify a capability and acquire it. Where it sits is less important. We have maritime and land HQs that can integrate the capability on an operational and tactical level.
Here is a question then, perhaps you can answer it. If it’s not the army’s job to defend against air threats then why does it have Sky Sabre?
Why does the army have a top of the range low level air intercept capability and zero anti ballistic missile capability? Why is it the RAF’s responsibility to defend the Army from ballistic missile threats and but not low level threats?
Which service rang all the ground based air defence systems in the UK last time we were bombed? Was it the RAF? Me thinks not.
The military as a whole does need ABM it just mostly the army that’s in desperate need. The navy already has it over water and the RAF can operate far enough away from the threat. It’s the British army that has the greatest need. The British army knows all this and knows it can’t fight without it. It just assumes the Americans will provide it so it can be free to go on doing what it likes.
Who said it’s not the Army’s job to defend against air threats? Bob didn’t say that. The Army has the field SHORAD and MRAD capability, as mandated by the MoD, just two strands against that threat.
“Why does it have Sky Sabre?”
Sky Sabre defends THE FIELD ARMY!!!!!!! Like Stormer/Starstreak does but SHORAD. I’ve repeated that about 100 times and you still don’t get it Jim??? The Army DEPLOYS in the field, more correctly, the Field Army deploys, and MRAD and SHORAD are an umbrella over it’s head.
😒🙄😬
Whether that system is then removed for use elsewhere by penny pinching politicians because HMG won’t fund base GBAD isn’t the Army’s call.
Before those two assets the Army had Rapier and Tracked Rapier, then Rapier FSC.
SHORAD was Blowpipe.
If the MoD decide that the UK is going to procure an ABM, then it would be decided who is best positioned to operate it. You’d also have the inter service spats on whose budget will pay for the capability.
Going back to the later Cold War, the RAF had the UK GBAD role. Minimal, sure, just 6 RAF Regiment Sqns of Rapier ( 4 of which were paid for by the US ) and the Bloodhound Sqns.
And again, the AD assets the Army had were allocated to the BAOR, who are in effect, the FIELD ARMY!!
On ABM, the Army are well aware of their capability gaps. That is up to politicians to rectify, not them.
I’m not sure Iran has really thought this one through, it’s just massively stupid. The fact is the US doesn’t need to use Fairford to bomb Iran they can just do it directly from the US it just cuts the distance, saves fuel, and increases the sortie rate.
Trump has been moaning about NATO not joining in to support the US from day one, but simple fact is that NATO isn’t involved because Iran hasn’t attacked any NATO country within the NATO Treaty defined area.
If Iran really wants to hand Trump a major Victory without him even having to post a Diatrab on Truth Media then just mount some sort of attack on a U.K RAF base. That’s a straight attack on a NATO country, within the NATO area, so article 5 gets invoked and we all get involved. It’s not at all like the attack on Akrotiri as although it’s an RAF base and a British Overseas Territory it’s on the Island of Cyprus which it isn’t in NATO
I agree plus any Iranian missile is going to have to get past SM3 in Romania and Arrow 3 in Germany which seems unlikely.
Indeed a total desperate mad move if they try it.
Sadly Iran may recruit actors in uk, they could just use off shelf drones for instance. Template there now.
This would be the direction of attack, much easier than trying to get a missile through that could just as easily hit Swindon or Cirencester, towns either side of Fairford and draw the UK into the fight.
There’s plenty of radicalised young men who would potentially do somthing really bloody stupid…
Hell, we’ve imported enough of them and the Iranians would still have plausible deniability,
‘nothing to do with us squire’.
Yep, some hapless radicalised low IQ idiot with a homemade bomb and a car, or simply attacking off duty US personnel with a knife, would sadly be the preferred avenue of attack.
Iran loves to use proxy players after all.
Doing it in the grey zone would make the most sense to avoid an Article 5 response, but that goes out the window somewhat if you announce it beforehand like this.
Perhaps that’s the real intent, to create a situation where Article 5 is invoked but some members are not convinced enough to give a full contribution, leading to loss of confidence in NATO?
Iran have already been proven to using actors for its activities in the UK, as George posted an earlier piece on “Two jailed over Iran-linked stabbing of UK journalist” By George Allison – July 23, 2026. Where 3 Romanian men were hired by Iran to kill a journalist. Other “radicalised” men from the UK have been arrested and charged for spying for Iran. You can bet Iran will be looking at how it can attack US Forces based in the UK, but offloading it to paid actors or even radicalised recruits.
They’re using the channel boats to plant operatives here, they’ll have sleeper units already.
Simon, an Iranian actor or hired gun could attack the B1-Bs at Fairford by any number of methods – home made mortars, petrol bombs, shoulder launched weapons, MG fire….
At some point the world is going to have to take collective action against the IRGC. It’s beyond me why China props these guys up when it’s China suffering the most from blockades in the straits of Hormuz and the Red Sea.
The US is out our it’s depth, even its previous near surrender was not enough to put the IRGC back in the box. This organisation has now been emboldened and will continue to seek more and more, the UN can’t allow a nation to not only try and control an international strait but also attempt to restrict traffic through a neighbours territorial waters.
Sadly the US has as good as shot the UN in the knees, yet another masterstroke by Trump and co.
Yes, perhaps longer term this may serve to strengthen the UN. Worth remembering that it was the suez crisis that lead to the formation of UN peace keepers because Britain and France could be trusted.
This U.N.?
‘Today, we come together in solemn solidarity to affirm truth and pursue a route to healing and reparative justice,” said Ghana’s President’
“the era of global warming has ended” and “the era of global boiling has arrived.”
‘(We) must once again remind this body that the United Nations exists to maintain international peace and security” and “was not founded to advance narrow specific interests and agendas, to establish niche International Days, or to create new costly meeting and reporting mandates.’
Munro I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the Montreal convention?
Do you think that was a bad idea? Is that something the UN should not have been involved in?
The 1999 Montreal Convention
The Convention was a success (but with considerable flaws), the process of its formulation was painfully slow and controversial. The Warsaw Convention was a farsighted and progressive instrument in 1929 but in less than three decades became antiquated – in particular with respect to the unrealistically low limits of liability and excessive formalism of the documentation of carriage. Only the 1955 Protocol of The Hague and the 1961 Supplementary Convention of Guadalajara effectively introduced some improvements while the 1971 Guatemala City Protocol and the 1975 Montreal protocols remained in limbo for a quarter of the century. Governments took no action for the modernization of the “Warsaw system” for over 20 years between the Montreal Conference of 1975 and the session of the Legal Committee in 1996. The initiative for an effective action was not taken by states but by airlines themselves – the Japanese initiative of 1992 was a trailblazer for admission that airlines do not need the shield of unrealistically limited liability; in 1995 IATA at its Kuala Lumpur session pioneered the Passenger Liability Agreement under which scores of major airlines accepted the two-tier system of liability without limit modeled on the Japanese initiative.
On balance, the U.N. should probably keep out of contemporary issues of air transport, air law & regulation and stick to its core mission to maintain international peace and security. It was not founded to advance narrow specific interests and agendas, to establish niche International Days, or to create new costly meeting and reporting mandates.
I was actually referring the 1987 agreement on CFC’s which I do note is refered to as a protocol and not a convention. However I was unaware there a was a Montreal Convention in 1999
However thanks for educating me on the history of establishing air line liability 😀
Delighted to help…
Re the Montreal Protocol, it may very well have been completely unnecessary:
‘There were ozone holes, ie. column ozone less than 220 Dobson Units, at the South Pole in several years before 1979 (the date that the ozone hole is reported to have first appeared) when chlorofluorocarbon concentrations were much lower than today and lower than in 1979.’
‘…the “Hole” was “Discovered” with the launch of The Nimbus 7 satellite on October 4th 1978. The Nimbus 7 contained the TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer).
Initially, the dearth of ozone was not noticed because the data was so far off from the expected range that it was discarded as invalid by the data processing algorithms. When the fact that something like 2/3rds of the instrument’s measurements were being discarded was finally noticed and analyzed, that’s when the panic set in about the “Hole in the Ozone”.
While the article above does cite a distinct global polar temperature regime change in the late 70’s that probably affected the ozone levels, it just seems too much of a coincidence that the panic set in just as a new measurement technique was deployed. Supposedly the TOMS measurements match ground based measurements to a reasonable degree; however, like the fact that “sea level acceleration” only shows up in Jason satellite measurements and not in tide gauges, there is a not insignificant chance that the “Ozone Hole” is an artifact of instrument changes.’
Few another global environmental emergency that didn’t happen 😅
Is there a single Scientific consensus that you don’t know better than 😂
Do you believe in gravity or is that also a hoax 😀
You come across a lot like an AI chat bot programmed to be contrarian at any cost.
Or not really…
Consensus is not an argument in scientific discussion; only experimental evidence matters. There are examples of decades-long scientific consensus on erroneous hypotheses.
‘Scientists are human. As such, they are prone to bias based on political and economic interests. While conflicts of interest are usually associated with private funding, research funded by public sources is also subject to special interests and therefore prone to bias. Such bias may lead to consensus not based on evidence. While appealing to scientific consensus is a legitimate tool in public debate and regulatory decisions, such an appeal is illegitimate in scientific discussion itself. We provide examples of decades-long scientific consensus on erroneous hypotheses. For policy advice purposes, a scientific statement or model should be considered as the subject of proper scientific consensus only if shared by those who would directly benefit from proving it wrong.’
‘Interests, Bias, and Consensus in Science and Regulation’, Yehoshua Socol, Yair Y Shaki, Moshe Yanovskiy, 2019
I think China helps Iran for 2 reasons
The longer this war goes on, the more US ordinance quickly gets expended, hence weakening the US.
It’s a real world test bed for Chinese weapons
China knows very well how to handle radical Islam when it’s their own backyard, for now the IRGC serves their agenda
Dingy attack
I really hope solone has done something to sort out RAF base security after last years mess with the paint. An equivalent of operation spiderweb would seem to be scarily easy to perform.
I’d be surprised if Iran tried, I don’t think they are that stupid myself.
But if they did, an attack from within would be my guess, there’s been activity from Iran already dealt with by the Security Service.
Totally agree mate, as I mentioned above, a low IQ radicalised idiot with a knife attacking off duty US personnel would be the preferred attack route.
It would have the benefit of deniability for them and cause further mistrust between the US and UK, an added benefit in their eyes.
We’ve imported enough of them after all, ‘thousands’ of young men, with no documentation, just let in, and doing as they please, how many Iranian sleepers among that lot I wonder??
There might be some.
If I was a foreign intelligence service I’d want to take advantage of an enemies weak point/stupidity.
Yep, the UK is the ‘softest’ of targets too….
I’d be surprised if Iran tried, I don’t think they are that stupid myself.
But if they did, an attack from within would be my guess, there’s been activity from Iran already dealt with by the Security Service.
Realistically there’s zero chance of Iran hitting bases in the UK with a conventional attack without a significant improvement in their ballistic missiles capability (which isn’t impossible but will take a while). Drones or ballistic missiles might hit Cyprus again but that was sufficiently politically embarrassing that there are likely defences there now.
Most likely we’ll be facing a drone attack or something similar to the Ukranian operation spiderweb. The other alternative would be activists/internal terrorist attack. There’s no shortage of “useful idiots” Prevent should help with that but it’s still most likely.
Potentially we are shipping in ‘useful’ idiots by the day,prevent has no info or idea who or where they are after all!
I read this morning that Trump has introduced another round of tariffs which have an impact on the UK. Given that he is always going on about doing deals then how about zero tariffs for the UK and you can continue to use our air bases. Otherwise we stop you using them. Seems fairly straightforward and a good deal for both.
Plenty of muslim and left wing extremists in the country they can count on to pull off such an attack
Conventionally not a chance. They have zero capability to hit the UK
Yes, radicalised Islamic with a FPD attack on a parked B52 is the most likely scenario, and would be very embarrassing for the UK. Trump would have a field day.
Obviously you’re wrong as usual given the Iran War has been going 5 months and there’s not been a single incident of the type you ‘predict’.
😘
No, that is too obvious, they use local petty criminals or recruit random idiots via telegram paying them with crypto currency
Given that any hairy-arsed IRDG or Russian cargo ship lolling about around the coast of Blighty can launch God knows what, surely it is time for the UK to invest in a proper fully integrated and layered air, sea, and space defence system – similar to that used by Ukraine?
That would require ‘ funding ‘, somthing Labour have absolutely no intention of doing.
Note there is zero increase in force structure planned, just more cuts, with a promise of robot wars on steroids post 2030.
Like it or not anthropomorphic climate change is clearly the biggest threat to the human race. It’s exactly what the UN should be and is doing. The fact that the USA pulled out of the Paris accords is likely to be the biggest stain on Americas long term reputation since manifest destiny.
Fortunately the other 97% of the human race is making significant progress on the issue and China is very much leading the way.
Don’t panic Jim, there’s a solar eclipse coming up next month. Chance for the Earth to cool off in the shade 😂
Hi Paul, I’m no longer panicking on the subject, I believe we are turning the corner due to the Paris accords and the astounding technological progress on renewables and battery storage being made largely by China. I’m often amazed that anyone would be against such technology given how good and cheap they have become but then we have always had resistance to change by certain sections of the population.
But anyone who thinks pumping 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere each year won’t have an effect on the climate over a couple of hundred years is daft. It’s basic physics.
Even the most extreme right wing sceptics have given up on denying the existence of anthropogenic climate change. It is very much a real phenomenon it’s just a case of deciding what if anything we do about it and what consequences we are willing to accept.
It’s nonsense to talk about rhe world boiling, most climate change up to 2 degrees of warming is a net economic positive, however after that it rapidly becomes a net negative.
Lithium batteries, ‘renewables’ and clever management will help, as will environmental initiatives. I read that 2025 saw a 78% reduction in burned area of the Amazon compared to 2024. The Great Green Sahel wall is working. There are a lot of individual small initiatives carried out by volunteers; sea grass planting on the UK coastline, conservation of wild areas which act as CO2 sinks. Every little helps. But the ice caps are melting, reducing Earths albedo. Some scientists are talking of mirrors in space – science fiction stuff. The evolution of our planet has been driven by life forms since plants generated carbon dioxide, trees turned into coal and shellfish turned into limestone. The ratio of animals ( including man) to plants is out of kilter. I would say the biggest single behavioural change we could make is to eat less meat. Solve the methane problem right there. cheers
Yes, also seems that getting rid of all that sulphur dioxide and smog has caused a massive increase in temperature from changes in albedo. I think we will avoid the worst bits of global warming now and probably top out around 3% by 2100 but we probably need to start some Geo engineering. The UK government has finally started to see sense and is funding research on this, I think now we have a hope of getting off fossil fuels iwe have grown up enough as a species to consider Geo engineering.
While green house gas causes global warming it’s not the only culprit. If we crack fusion or expand fission which now looks likely and our power consumption continues to rises at the same steady rates it has been over the next 500 years waste heat will be enough to significantly affect the planet’s temperature.
Thermal management of the planet is likely to be something humans have it get use to in the same way we currently control and regulate rivers.
However if we could snap our fingers today and turn temperature back to pre industrial times people and animals would all be up in arms. A slightly warmer world is a big positive for almost all life.
Literally has nothing to do with the article at hand
Are you drunk posting again Jim 😂
Don’t worry clunker, the big boys are talking now. If it’s out of your depth no one is forcing you to read 😀
Put the bottle down Jim and try and stay on topic for one day at least okay buddy 👍
Anthropomorphic…superb! Mankind returns to its simian roots as a consequence of too much sun on the head? Sola topees all round…
Barking at the moon…more like…
‘Elevated concentrations of CO2 directly enhance plant growth, globally contributing to “greening” the planet and increasing agricultural productivity. They also make the oceans less alkaline (lower the pH). That is possibly detrimental to coral reefs, although the recent rebound of the Great Barrier Reef suggests otherwise’
Hi Monro, Offcourse you will be aware that two things can be true at the same time. CO2 can boost plant grown and cause the atmosphere to warm, CO2 is vital for life on earth but just like Beer and cigarettes too much of a good thing can be bad.
Thus far most global warming has been a net positive, a warmer world is a more productive world and CO2 and more rainfall has boosted plant growth. But we know for a 100% certainty that C02 concentrations in the atmosphere is rising. When I was in high school my text book said it’s was 300 parts per million. Now the text books say 400 parts per million and I’m only in my 40’s. It’s rising because we are adding 40 billion tonnes a year.
Once we get past 2 degrees of warming the economic positives start to drop away. Once we get past 6 degrees life on earth starts to become difficult across large tracks of the surface. The big question is how long it takes us to get to dangerous levels and what if anything we do about it.
Personally I don’t see any issues that we just invented a revolutionary set of technologies that produce abundant cheap power for millineium to come and don’t involve putting large amounts of toxic(thorium from coal) and green houses gases (co2 and Ch4) into the atmosphere. Since the Industrial Revolution began we have constantly referenced running out of energy first coal then oil in 40 years time. I grew up as a kid as did everyone here being told we woukd run out of oil in 40 years. No one talks about that any more. Thanks to renewables we now live in an age of future abundance.
Seems like a win win and better yet I don’t have to deal with any islamic extrmists to access the power.
After 4C of warming you can say goodbye to human habitation within the Tropics.
‘Since 1750, additions to the atmospheric CO2 concentration derived from natural emission sources associated with biological processes are about 4.5 times larger than the contribution from fossil fuel emissions (e.g., 22.9 ppm per year from nature, 5.2 ppm per year from fossil fuel combustion).’
Refined Reservoir Routing (RRR) and Its Application to Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Balance,Koutsoyiannis, 2024
‘CO2 also lags temperature by ~~800 years in the ice core record, on a longer time scale.
Atmospheric CO2 lags temperature at all measured time scales.’
The Phase Relation between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Global Temperature, Global and Planetary Change, Volume 100, Humlum, Stordahl, and Solheim’
The ‘net zero’ boondoggle has nothing to do with CO2 or climate. It is a political agenda aimed at ‘societal change’, a very long way from being the claimed scientifically evidenced measured solution to an ever changing climate…
I would say overpopulation is the biggest threat.
And it’s accelerating
We are looking at possibly 10 billion humans on the planet in the next 50 – 100 years.
Each human consumes resources of which many are not recyclable or easily replaced.
No amount of buying EVs or using wind farms will fix this problem.
Agreed. Population needs reducing by several billions.
How to do that fairly and peacefully, wasn’t there a Dan Brown conspiracy book based on that? Never read it myself.
Don’t worry, climate change will do that depopulation.
Sadly, yes, although my priority is the natural world which would be equally devastated.
Mass migration of people’s, pushed by war, poverty, and the environment, and climate change, are the biggest issues of our time.
I pray the world can halt things.
I wonder if some sort of worldwide birth control could ever realistically be implemented to get the population down to a level the earth can manage?
Oh the natural world will be devastated far worse than humanity – we’re far more adaptable due to our technology. The die-off among species has already begun.
Climate-change will cause even greater mass migration as areas become inhabitable, wars over resources/land will increase, famines, etc.
What we are seeing now will seem trivial by comparison.
It’s has nothing to do with birth control and population, as a smaller population churning out greenhouse gases has the same effect, it just takes longer.
Though I think even the point where that could be used as a delaying tactic has passed. Changes aren’t occurring linearly, we have passed pivot-points where some are irreversible. The question now is how bad will it be.
Strange you support a party that believes climate-change is a lefty conspiracy theory.
You’re spot on that resource scarcity, migration, and climate change are massive catalysts for modern conflict. However, the demographic data shows we don’t need a global birth control policy—we are already heading toward a global population crash. Fertility rates are plummeting everywhere outside of sub-Saharan Africa. The real security threat over the next 50 years isn’t raw population numbers; it’s the economic and military instability caused by rapidly aging populations and collapsing workforces in major nations. The struggle won’t be overcrowding—it will be nations competing aggressively over dwindling water, energy, and food resources to sustain their existing societies.
I think your facts are a we bit out of date .
global population growth has stalled, we are now below replacement rate globally. Birth rates have collapsed everywhere even in less developed countries. The only reason the population is rising is people living longer but that won’t don’t much. It’s unlikely we will ever seen 10 billion. now by the end if the century numbers might have dropped in half.
United Nations estimating a peak of around 10.2 billion people in the 2080s
Why are we fighting Israel’s war by proxy?
Why are you killing your own people Mr. IRGC?
JJ, which war is that?
The threat will not come from missiles, we have imported it.
🤡
Time will tell who is the 🤡
Facts so far show you to be the clown… and the paranoid racist.
Telegraph: “Iran smuggling agents into UK as Channel migrants – Tehran boasts it is positioning “revolutionary people” in London through secret network”
Bob the 🤡 believes everything that Tehran claims… 🤷🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️😂
Menwhile Spock – 🙈🙉
Meanwhile Spock knows how to spell in English…
We are in a dilemma
This is the only opportunity to degrade the IRGC’s capabilities.
If the US stops now, the IRGC will just come back stronger and probably with a nuke.
After the punishing air campaigns by both the US and Israel, most countries militaries would have either been decimated and incapable of further aggression.
Iran, however, has been successful in its survival and recovery strategies.
In the 6 weeks of the ceasefire, they have rebuilt some industrial capacity and opened up the bombed entrances of the missile cities.
The US (and possibly Israel) will have to commit to much more military action before the IRCG is diminished.
Sure enough, if the regime/IRGC survives this war, then they will perfect those long-range ballistic missiies, then Fairford and other parts of the UK will be at risk.
Biggest threat to the UK is the upcoming economic consequences of the Straits of Hormuz being shut. Reduced availability of oil products and manufactured products that require them (everything from fertiliser to silicon chips), the resultant if inflation increases, the hit to growth, increased bond prices, etc etc will all play merry hell with the UK economy.
Not to mention the impact on defence spending when GDP slips, prices rise, and yields on bonds/gilts jump.
I don’t think it is that big a threat and it can be mitigated over time, and other alternative resources can be found.
Where theres a will theres a way.
The world economy panics over ‘global shocks’ because we have become too comfortable and complacent with the status quo.
It’s not only our armed forces that have atrophied, it’s also our preparedness to deal with both national. and global emergencies.
America, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia are talking about building new pipelines and new transport routes to the Red Sea.
Given what we knew about post-revolution Iran, it’s something that should have been done 30 years ago.
The best way to defeat Iran is to make the Straits of Hormuz irrelevant to everyone else.
If that’s what you think, then you obviously don’t know the facts about the situation. One to two months from now you will…
The Houthis have now started closing the Bab-el-Mandeb, so building more pipelines across Saudi Arabia won’t help.
Not to mention:
• you can’t build a 1,200km pipeline overnight
• the Houthis have previously attacked and shut the existing east-west pipeline.
Yes we’ve become comfortable and complacent not living in the Middle-Ages.
Even if Hormuz could be made irrelevant, which is impossible, Iran still cannot be defeated. All it needs to do is threaten to attack Gulf States desalination plants. Bahrain and Qatar rely 100% on them, other Gulf States around 80%. Destroy them and you have 10 days before millions literally start dying of thirst.
BTW how do you propose to deploy and use armed forces without fuel?
Spot on, Spock. The desalination point is the ultimate trump card that people completely overlook. Iran doesn’t need to win a conventional naval war; they just have to threaten the water supply of the Gulf States to trigger a catastrophic humanitarian and economic collapse. This is why ‘Bringer of facts’ is underestimating the threat. We can’t just pipeline our way out of global geography. The entire reason RAF Fairford and our broader defence network are in the crosshairs is because the West is forced to project power to keep this incredibly fragile status quo from shattering
Exactly, destroying the desalination plants IS the ‘nuclear option’ if Iran needs to escalate beyond the global recession that closing Hormuz will trigger.
Exactly. And that’s precisely why the B-1Bs are staging out of Fairford in the first place. Western airpower in the region isn’t just about protecting shipping lanes anymore; it’s about maintaining a heavy conventional strike deterrence to ensure Iran never feels desperate enough to pull that trigger on the Gulf’s critical infrastructure.
I’m not sure that’s why the B-1Bs are there, and I’m not sure the USAF knows why they are there either…
Trump effectively surrendered with his MoU, and then has rowed-back on it since it became obvious what it was. That then provoked Iran to recommence hostilities as the USA was in breach and we’re back to square one…
The USA can continue to bomb Iran but given its the size of Western Europe that’s not achieving much. Meanwhile they’re running out of air defence missiles to counter Iran’s huge stocks of drones and missiles.
The USA could then escalate by going after essential infrastructure like desalination plants but Iran relies on these far, far less than the other Gulf States.
At this point, the only question is how bad a loss for the USA, Gulf States and World Trade are we going to see?
You’re spot on about the interceptor attrition math, Spock. Trading million-dollar Patriots or Sea Vipers against twenty-grand Shaheds is a losing game long-term, and Western stocks are absolutely feeling that crunch.
But that’s exactly why the B-1Bs are staging out of Fairford. The shift to heavy bombers isn’t a sign of strategic confusion—it’s a forced pivot from defensive shielding to offensive denial. The West knows it can’t sit back and absorb endless salvos anymore. The Lancers are there to hunt down the production facilities, storage depots, and IRGC launch nodes directly at the source.
Also, comparing Iran’s mass to Western Europe misses how targeted modern air campaigns actually are. You don’t need to carpet-bomb a continent to neuter its military capability. Iran’s drone factories, missile assembly lines, and economic lifelines like Kharg Island are fixed, centralized targets. The B-1B carries the heaviest payload of any conventional bomber in the USAF inventory. Operating them from a secure sanctuary like Gloucestershire allows the US to bypass the failed defensive missile race and strike the regime’s critical bottlenecks. It’s an ugly, high-stakes kinetic game, but it’s the only card left to play.
The B1s have been used since the start of the war, alongside B2s. Nothing new to their use.
(And only the B2 can carry the GBU-57.)
But you can’t bomb what you can’t locate, and Cairns has told Trump they’ve already bombed all the targets they know of in Iran. Yet Iran still has stocks of drones and missiles and is still manufacturing them. Their production facilities are such they are still manufacturing for export to Russia, hence Ukraine’s recent strike against Iranian shipping in the Caspian.
Which is why the USA has decided to stop further attacks… they don’t know what to do.
(They’ll probably surrender on even worse terms than before. In the MoU they agreed to Iran controlling the Straits for 60 days, I wouldn’t be surprised at them conceding them to Iran indefinitely. Trump is that desperate to get out of the war before November’s midterms.)
You make a completely fair point about the GBU-57 MOP requiring the B-2, Spock, but focusing purely on cracking open deep underground bunkers misses how these facilities actually operate. An underground factory is only as good as its above-ground bottlenecks. You don’t need to pierce 200 feet of reinforced granite to neutralise a facility; a B-1B dumping a massive payload of precision JDAMs on the ventilation shafts, electrical grids, and transit tunnels effectively buries the site from the outside and halts production just as well.
Furthermore, targeting isn’t a static checklist that you just ‘run out of’. It’s a continuous intelligence cycle. As Ukraine’s recent successful strike on Iranian shipping in the Caspian proves, allied intelligence is actively mapping out the regime’s shifting logistics and export routes in real time. Every move they make generates fresh target data.
And the idea that Washington is simply throwing in the towel and conceding the Straits to Iran is completely contradicted by the latest live intelligence—though your cynicism about the politics is entirely justified. If the administration were truly surrendering, Pete Hegseth wouldn’t be actively lobbying Wes Streeting for the UK to host a 40-nation maritime coalition summit in London next week.
Hegseth pushing the UK to host is a textbook piece of Washington buck-passing. With the US midterms coming up in November, the White House desperately wants to scrub its hands of a unilateral ‘American war’ narrative. Rebranding it as a 40-nation coalition hosted in London gives them perfect political cover. If it goes pear-shaped, the UK and the international framework ‘hold the bag’; if it goes well, Washington swoops back in to claim credit. But either way, it proves the US cannot manage this crisis alone and completely relies on London’s unique diplomatic clout to build the deterrence framework. It’s a cynical pivot to burden-sharing, not a surrender.
Yes rather than destroying the deeply buried facility you can just destroy the access tunnels etc… And then watch during the next armistice as Iran clears the rubble and recovers the buried munitions. The USA are going to have bomb every JCB to stop that happening again.
Yes target lists are continuously updated as intelligence improves. But when you’re bombing of targets far exceeds your intelligence rate, then you run out. Which is what Cairns has admitted, and why Trump keeps threatening civilian infrastructure.
Washington abandoned the Straits in the MoU. The problem is Trump sent two estate agents to negotiate a ceasefire instead of diplomats. He then clearly didn’t bother either reading what they’d negotiated or forgot it straight away as he contradicted it the very next-day. The document concedes control of the Straits to Iran for the 60 days of the MoU. (As well as promising $300bn in reparations.)
“It’s the economy stupid.”
The Trump administration knows that shoukd its vote-rigging efforts fail, it faces a defeat in the midterms if things do not improve economically. Which is why they are desperate for an ‘out’.
The real estate agents want to surrender the Straits and walk-away as ‘not our problem’. But Hegseth is hell-bent on glory no matter who he has to get killed in the process. Trump is in the middle, desperate not to appear a “loser” but desperate not to have a forever war with countless body-bags while equally desperate that the war doesn’t crash the economy.
It’s a complete mess with different parts of the administration pulling in different directions, with Dementia Don siding with the last person he talked to.
this Is going well me thinks…. 🫡😁
You already know which one’s cannot leave it be and must at all costs have the last word. 🙄🥱
Spot on. It’s completely predictable at this point. Cue the inevitable low-effort emoji reply in 3… 2… 1… 🍿
Depends on who you ask. For Iran, watching the entire Western alliance call their bluff within 24 hours probably wasn’t quite what they had on their bingo card
Reasons to be cheerful:
There is more ice and snow on Greenland today than for nearly any other period in the last 10,000 years.
‘Reading in Death Valley Is A World Record: 134 degrees in 1913 is still the official record and there is no reason to change it. in 1913..the hottest days in this time period occurred from the 9th through the 13th when the high temperature reached at least 129°F with the hottest being on July 10th when the record-breaking 134°F was measured.’
‘AIMS have been dragging divers thousands of kilometers over the reefs to inspect the coral cover. These are the most detailed underwater surveys on the largest reef system in the world, and they show that far from being bleached to hell, the corals are more abundant than we have ever seen them”
Fair effort, Monro, but the data is completely out of context. The 1913 record is widely recognised by meteorologists as a reading error, and the latest AIMS report shows the Great Barrier Reef just hit its biggest annual coral decline since monitoring began. Masking massive, ongoing mass-loss trends with cherry-picked historical baselines doesn’t change the physical reality on the ground.
‘The physical reality on the ground’:
‘Most extreme weather events…do not show long-term trends. Claims of increased frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts are not supported by U.S. historical data. Additionally, forest management practices are often overlooked in assessing changes in wildfire
activity. Global sea level has risen approximately 8 inches since 1900, but there are significant regional variations driven primarily by local land subsidence; U.S. tide gauge measurements in aggregate show no obvious acceleration in sea level rise beyond the historical average rate. Attribution of climate change or extreme weather events to human CO2 emissions is challenged by natural climate variability, data limitations, and inherent model deficiencies. Moreover, solar activity’s contribution to the late 20th century warming might be underestimated’
Follow the money.
‘…widespread acknowledgement that RCP8.5 is an implausible emissions scenario. As a result, many news agencies have dropped or substantially reduced their climate desk, we don’t hear about climate change so much in the media (particularly as related to extreme weather events). Also, we can’t underestimate the impact of substantially reduced funding for climate-related NGOs, with USAID and other funds drying up.’
Monro, this is a comment section about Iran declaring an RAF base a legitimate military target, not a climate change debate. Copy-pasting un-sourced walls of text here is completely irrelevant. If you actually want to talk about defence, even the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) explicitly integrates climate risk into its strategic planning. Otherwise, let’s keep the thread on-topic. How do you think the UK should bolster air defences around Gloucestershire to handle these IRGC threats?
Good change of subject (without addressing etc etc)
It is not possible to link sources on here as you are aware. It is important to show that there is a great deal of dissent to the silly idea of scientific consensus regarding the causes of climate change. Why? Because the net zero political agenda for societal change of successive governments threatens the security of not just Fairford but the entire country.
There’s a lot of panicky climate alarmism on this thread which requires perspective:
‘Like it or not anthropomorphic climate change is clearly the biggest threat to the human race.’ (Above)
The MoD, as many on here acknowledge, is part of the problem not the solution. Systemic reform is required. The latest Defence Secretary gives every sign of having noted that. We will see.
Moving on:
We would be a great deal better placed regarding the defence and security of Britain if successive governments had not, were not, squandering scarce tax revenues on the unevidenced net zero political agenda for societal change set out with stark clarity by Sir Patrick Vallance in 2023.
Close in defence of Fairford is a matter for the Royal Air Force Regiment. As we have recently seen overseas, they are very good at it. But they require more resources. Ballistic missile attack is a NATO responsibility. In return, NATO expects this country, amongst other things, to contribute a fully formed two division army corps to the land element of the European conventional deterrent. We are in breach of that obligation. Why? In major part because of the demands on the treasury of the unevidenced net zero boondoggle.
That will not change under this government. So, returning to the smaller detail, Fairford will not be particulatly secure for the next few years.
This will not have passed unnoticed overseas by our enemies or by our increasingly critical friends.
You’re working hard to shoehorn a political soapbox into a tactical airbase discussion, Monro, but your defence timeline and procurement facts are completely back to front.
Blaming Net Zero for the UK’s failure to field a full two-division army corps completely ignores decades of strategic defence reviews. The systematic hollowing out of the British Army’s heavy armour, the slashing of personnel numbers, and the absolute shambles of the Ajax procurement programme started well over a decade ago. It was driven by Treasury-mandated austerity and the post-Cold War “peace dividend” mentality, long before Net Zero was ever put into legislation.
Furthermore, your take on how the UK is protected from ballistic vectors is well off the mark. Passing the buck by saying ballistic missile defence is a “NATO responsibility” ignores the operational reality that NATO is an alliance of nations, not a separate entity with its own hardware. NATO relies entirely on individual member states assigning their own specific assets to the network. If the UK doesn’t station its own Type 45 destroyers or land-based Sky Sabre batteries to cover Gloucestershire, NATO isn’t going to magically conjure up an American Aegis Ashore battery in the middle of England to fix our domestic gaps.
Finally, praising the RAF Regiment for close-in defence while acknowledging Fairford isn’t secure misses the threat profile entirely. The Rockapes are top-tier at airfield force protection against local saboteurs, mortars, and drones, but they can’t stop an asymmetric, long-range kinetic vector or a state-sponsored cyber-attack on Gloucestershire’s power grid. You are just using real, systemic MoD funding problems to fight a political culture war, rather than addressing the actual air defence engineering we are talking about on this thread.
I have no interest in ‘political culture wars’, only national security, threatened, as it is, by the ruinously expensive net zero political agenda for societal change set out by Sir Patrick Vallance, HMG Chief Scientific Adviser, in 2023.
I provide perspective for some of the ‘climate alarmism’ in the thread above to indicate that budget can sensibly be diverted from net zero to defence, given the available evidence.
Problem:
‘Matt Amis, an investment director at Aberdeen, which manages more than £340bn, said gilt yields – a measure of UK borrowing costs – would rise if the Chancellor borrowed billions to fund defence.’
Solution:
‘According to the Treasury, £10.3bn will also need to be raised by “reallocating budget” from across government departments.’
‘…this is not a government abandoning climate. But by keeping its most vociferous champion away from the Treasury while handing it to a man who wants to supercharge defence spending, Burnham has made it clear where his priorities lie.’
The roots of the funding crisis lie in the obsolete 2008 Climate Change Act based on climate scenarios that have now been jettisoned as implausible.
The ‘peace dividend’ was a silly little piece of short term expediency to permit the buying of votes. It has been found out and the main parties responsible have recently paid the price at the polls.
The room has now been read and increased emphasis on national defence and security is required. Most of the noise, funding, around net zero originated across the Atlantic and that noise has decreased substantially: ‘…widespread acknowledgement that RCP8.5 is an implausible emissions scenario. As a result, many news agencies have dropped or substantially reduced their climate desk, we don’t hear about climate change so much in the media (particularly as related to extreme weather events). Also, we can’t underestimate the impact of substantially reduced funding for climate-related NGOs, with USAID and other funds drying up.’
There is no present ‘asymmetric, long-range kinetic vector or a state-sponsored cyber-attack on Gloucestershire’s power grid’ imminent threat for the moment. But the solution to any such threat in the future lies in preparation, NATO first deterrence, as set out by SDR 2025 through increased defence spending.
‘Capable and effective IAMD for the UK can only be accomplished as part of a NATO endeavour.’
‘To protect…fuse the disparate CyberEM activity of a small number of expert organisations…: the Army’s Cyber and Electromagnetic Effects Group; the Air and Space Warfare Centre; the Royal Navy’s Information Warfare Group; and Space Command. and retain the initiative in pursuit of campaign objectives, including as part of NATO operations.’
SDR 2025
Diverting scarce tax revenue from the batty pursuit of net zero is simply one eminently sensible way of freeing up necessary defence funding, which we should all get behind.
Monro, quoting SDR 2025 to attack climate policy is a massive own goal. The very document you are citing explicitly integrates climate risk as a direct threat to national security, stating that environmental volatility directly compromises logistics and forward base operations. The MoD views the green transition and energy resilience as a tactical military necessity, not a distraction.
Furthermore, you are still fundamentally misinterpreting what a ‘NATO endeavour’ means for Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD). NATO’s IAMD doctrine explicitly dictates that sovereign nations are responsible for the point-defence of their own critical assets. NATO provides the shared data-links and command-and-control architecture, but it does not supply the physical hardware to guard Gloucestershire. If the UK doesn’t invest in domestic terminal interceptors, the NATO framework is just a map with no missiles.
Finally, I’m glad you’ve finally caught up and quoted the exact point I made in my last post regarding Chancellor John Healey supercharging defence spending. It proves that the Burnham administration is already successfully reallocating budgets to prioritise procurement, completely rendering your obsession with dismantling the 2008 Climate Change Act irrelevant.
The room has indeed been read—and the MoD is securing the country by funding both hard military hardware and climate resilience, rather than fighting the outdated political culture war you keep trying to revive
The climate is always changing, has always changed so, of course, SDR 2025 takes that into account:
‘…a backdrop of persistent transnational challenges, including:Climate change and environmental degradation, which: are creating new geographical realities and competition for resources; are driving migration, instability, and more frequent humanitarian disasters; and demand military adaptation for operations in more extreme weather conditions.’ SDR 2025
‘The MoD views the green transition and energy resilience as a tactical military necessity’
Of course it does. That was mandated on all government departments by the now obsolete Climate Change Act of 2008. The major assumptions made by that Act regarding future ‘climate scenarios’ have now been dismissed by the U.N. and climate science in general as ‘implausible’.
The U.S. in fact provides a great deal of hardware to defend not just Gloucestershire but the entire United Kingdom: ‘NATO Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) is a permanent mission to defend NATO’s European populations, territory and forces against the increasing threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The US European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) is one of the central pillars of NATO BMD. It includes ground- and sea-based radars and effectors provided by the United States.’
‘…the Burnham administration is already successfully reallocating budgets…’
Good luck with that.
As you infer, the debate on climate change is largely over…in the United States.
‘…widespread acknowledgement that RCP8.5 is an implausible emissions scenario. As a result, many news agencies have dropped or substantially reduced their climate desk, we don’t hear about climate change so much in the media (particularly as related to extreme weather events). Also, we can’t underestimate the impact of substantially reduced funding for climate-related NGOs, with USAID and other funds drying up.’
The U.S. Government has ceased most of the funding on which ‘climate activism’ relied.
Britain is, yet again, behind the curve…but what happens in America never stays in America. And that is a good thing because Defence must now be prioritised over the net zero political agenda for societal change set out by HMG Chief Scientific Adviser as recently as 2023.
‘The world has changed. The threats we now face are more serious and less predictable than at any time since the Cold War, including war in Europe, growing Russian aggression, new nuclear risks, and daily cyber-attacks at home.’ SDR 2025
Monro, you are backpedalling so fast you are running out of track. First, you claimed climate risk had nothing to do with defence—then when I cited SDR 2025, you quickly pivoted to ‘of course the SDR takes it into account.’ You have also copy-pasted that exact same American blog snippet about USAID three times now because you have no original defence arguments left.
But your biggest backpedal is your fundamental misunderstanding of NATO air defence geography:
The EPAA Map Failure: You are hiding behind the US European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) without realising where it actually sits. Aegis Ashore sites are in Redzikowo (Poland) and Deveselu (Romania). They are geographically positioned for strategic, upper-tier theatre tracking across Europe. They do absolutely nothing for localized, terminal point-defence over Gloucestershire.
The Sovereignty Gap: If a low-altitude cruise vector or asymmetric threat targets RAF Fairford, US assets in Eastern Europe cannot protect it. NATO doctrine explicitly dictates that host nations must provide their own terminal point-defence. That requires sovereign British hardware—like land-based Sky Sabre batteries or a Type 45 Destroyer—plugged into the NATO data-link.
The Contradiction: You end by quoting the SDR 2025 warnings about peer conflicts and cyber-attacks. You have completely defeated your own argument. Those active threats require high-tech military adaptation and modern infrastructure resilience right now, not a rehash of a 2008 political grievance.
The room has indeed been read. The MoD is focused on securing Fairford with real air defence engineering, while you are left clinging to an American media culture war. I will leave you to your copy-paste button.
You are confusing, as many have before you, climate change with anthropogenic global warming. The former has always been, will always be, the case; the latter is a load of hot air.
Of course climate change impinges on decisions regarding national security. How could it not? But that is not the same thing at all as ‘climate risk’.
‘Climate risk’ is a broad and not particularly useful term used to describe a balance of the risks and opportunities facing the UK from climate change. ‘Climate risk’ is not mentioned in SDR 2025 and for good reason:
‘Both models and experience suggest that CO2-induced warming might be less damaging economically than commonly believed, and excessively aggressive mitigation policies could prove more detrimental than beneficial. Social Cost of Carbon estimates, which attempt to quantify the economic damage of CO2 emissions, are highly sensitive to their underlying assumptions and so provide limited independent information.’
You say: ‘If the UK doesn’t station its own Type 45 destroyers or land-based Sky Sabre batteries to cover Gloucestershire, NATO isn’t going to magically conjure up an American Aegis Ashore battery in the middle of England to fix our domestic gaps.’
NATO says: ‘NATO Integrated Air and Missile Defence (NATO IAMD) is an essential and continuous mission in peacetime, crisis and conflict, safeguarding and protecting Alliance territory, populations and forces against any air or missile threat or attack. This mission is conducted with a 360-degree approach and tailored to address all air and missile threats, emanating from all strategic directions. To that end, it incorporates all measures – such as 24/7 air policing and ballistic missile defence – to contribute to deterring any air and missile threat, or to nullify or reduce their effectiveness…The US European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) is one of the central pillars of NATO BMD. It includes ground- and sea-based radars and effectors provided by the United States.’
Of course Britain must provide its own point defence as part of that NATO IAMD, as it always has done. But ‘Capable and effective IAMD for the UK can only be accomplished as part of a NATO endeavour. As lead UK Command for IAMD, the RAF is responsible for delivering the timely, resilient, and integrated command and control (C2) that is critical to success. The tools to achieve effective C2 include: GUARDIAN, the Air Battle Management system fully integrated into the NATO IAMD C2 network; and NEXUS, a cloud‑based C2 decision-making solution employing Artificial Intelligence. The RAF combat air force provides the core of UK IAMD ‘effect’ capability, with Typhoon and F-35 providing the UK and NATO with air defence against air and cruise missile attack. These platforms are also a key part of the IAMD offensive counter-air and deep precision strike capability that underpins conventional deterrence, projecting force at range from the UK to nullify threats before they are launched. The air component also contributes to UK IAMD through Protector and P8-A Poseidon aircraft which, alongside the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyer, deliver near-continuous maritime surveillance and strike capabilities from the sea.’ SDR 2025
You may very well say ‘what Type 45 destroyer? I agree. Britain’s defence forces need radical enhancements and quickly. The threat to national security is not from climate change. Climate change may very well be beneficial to this country. The threat is from ‘other states with advanced military forces.The UK is already under daily attack, with aggressive acts—from espionage to cyber-attack and information manipulation—causing harm to society and the economy. State conflict has returned to Europe, with Russia demonstrating its willingness to use military force, inflict harm on civilians, and threaten the use of nuclear weapons to achieve its goals.’ SDR 2025
Time to lose the obsolete 2008 Climate Change Act, divert scarce funding from the frankly weird net zero political agenda for societal change as outlined by HMG Chief Scientific Adviser in 2023, towards the now vital enhancements to the defence forces of this country as set out in SDR 2025.
Reasons to be cheerful:
Greenland is halfway through its current (2025-2026) melt season. The current Greenland ice area is only a tiny bit down from the peak in the ‘Little Ice Age’, and larger than it was for most of the last 8000+ years.
‘On July 5–14, 1913, Death Valley endured an intense stretch of hot weather. The high temperature reached 125°F or more every day, and that 10-day period still ranks as the longest consecutive stretch of temperatures that high in the valley. The hottest days were from July 9 to 13, when the high temperature reached as least 129°F each day. On July 10, the temperature spiked to 134°F. The 1913 reading is also recognized by the National Centers for Environmental Information as the highest reliably evaluated surface air temperature on Earth’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
‘Despite the sharp reduction, however, coral cover across the Northern and Central parts of the Great Barrier Reef remained above the long-term average, although coral on the Southern GBR dipped 2.4 per cent below the regional long-term average.’ Australian Institute of Marine Science Aug. 2025