On Wednesday, 17 May 2023, an insightful discussion was held by the UK Defence Committee to dissect the vital lessons that the Ukrainian conflict offers on the employment of modern air power.

James Cartlidge MP, Minister for Defence Procurement, and Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton KCB, Chief of the Air Staff Designate, were present.

Dave Doogan MP opened the dialogue, contrasting the unchallenged exercise of air power in recent decades with the ongoing situation in Ukraine. He said, “Ukraine, however, is a different thing. What lessons have been learned over the past 14 or 15 months of that conflict?”

Cartlidge underscored the continued importance of air superiority, an understanding dating back to World War II. He said, “It is a lesson that we have known since the Second World War, which is the overwhelming importance of air superiority; if you do not achieve that, you can end up in what one might call gridlocked warfare with trenches and so on.” He also stressed the crucial role of strong alliances as a deterrent to avoid conflict from the outset.

Joining the conversation, Knighton expressed agreement, pointing out that neither side has managed to secure air superiority in the Ukrainian conflict, which has resulted in stagnant trench warfare. He said, “That gives us a glimpse of the challenges of gaining air superiority in a future fight, and we have to be able to demonstrate that we can do that.”

Speaking on the collaborative use of advanced and conventional aircraft, Knighton validated Doogan’s characterisation, stating, “your characterisation of the combination of fourth and fifth-gen combat air capability is exactly right, Mr Doogan.” He went on to share a future projection by General Hecker, indicating a substantial presence of F-35s in Europe under NATO by the early 2030s.

Digging deeper into the Ukrainian situation, Knighton extrapolated three strategic lessons:

  1. Deterrence and credible capability’s key role.
  2. The non-negotiable need for air superiority.
  3. The ability to adapt quickly as a determinant of success.

He voiced his observations saying, “the side that is able to adapt the fastest is the side that will prevail,” applauding the Ukrainians’ ability to adjust swiftly, capitalise on technology, modify their tactics, and deliver against a larger Russian force.

In terms of tactical and operational lessons, Knighton highlighted the importance of stockpiles, industrial capacity, electronic warfare, the rising use of uncrewed systems, and battlefield agility. He concluded, “Those are the key important tactical lessons for us that have quite profound implications in terms of training, focus and priorities for equipment.”

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

252 COMMENTS

  1. Talking of “air superiority” does this also include current and future missile loads of our Typhoon, F35B and other aircraft? Anything additional to the current loads would itself be a literal force multiplier.

    • The one thing that is blatantly obvious is that in a modern war such as Ukraine, quantity is the key element. You need more of everything. And secondly, stockpiles of ordnance for artillery. Artillery is the god of war and Ukraine is expending a prodigious amount of shells on a daily basis.

        • Totally agree.
          Someone in this forum made a profound statement a little while ago. The wars of today are won or lost, depending on decisions made ten years ago.
          Budgeting shortfalls, inadequate R&D investment and irresponsible procurement decisions. Leading to failure to retain strategic military industrial capacity. Reducing manpower numbers and quantities of key equipment, with the inevitable impact on fighting capability and logistic support.
          The Russia v Ukraine conflict has highlighted all of these deficiencies within NATO and more importantly, within HM Armed Forces. Something drastic is needed to reverse the downward trend. It’s going to take ten years to reverse the damage done by all the bad decisions and even longer to repair it.

          • Hang in there George. I think there’s a further UK defence “refresh” review coming out at the end of June isn’t there? So we’ll see how serious the commitment to defence is going forward.
            Ps: Ashes 🏏 coming soon. Hope you are all getting ready as the Aussies are a very competitive bunch. Lol… 😆 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇦🇺

          • Lol…love the banter. Despite many years down here in Aus I still back the 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 team. May the better team win!! 🏏🇬🇧🇦🇺

          • Cheers Quintin. Truth be known I’m a football and rugby union man. I don’t consider something performed in shirtsleeves and a comfortable pair of trousers a real sport. That goes for golf too – a good walk spoiled. Each to their own.

            BTW no country has ever had more loyal allies. The bond between Britain, Australia and New Zealand is the true special relationship. Even when measured by the standards set within the rest of the anglosphere. AU CA GB NZ USA. When the anglosphere stand together, we are unbeatable. Even if CA and NZ have temporarily lost their way a little. (It happens.)

          • Both good teams sports. I’ve lost track of the Lions, Wallabies and All Blacks. Watch bits and pieces. Have to laugh, back in my UK Highschool days no one ever explained the rules of Rugby to me you just went out onto the field to knock the opposition over. Growing up in Aus we have Aussie Rules Football and Rugby League, both very popular. Everyone’s pretty fit looking. We get quite a bit of football coverage here too but nothing like UK and Europe.
            Yes, Australia, New Zealand, UK, as the Kiwis may say we’re all “bro’s” and we’ll back each other up and our like minded allies. I’m proud of the UK’s support to Ukraine too. And long may the UK remain a force for good in this world!

          • Support for Ukraine is where we must diverge. I feel GB and the rest of NATO, should have tried to work towards a peaceful settlement prior to the 2014 coup. Rather than pouring fuel on a very real emerging flashpoint. Particularly considering the extremist ideologies of some Ukrainians at the time. BTW I’m fully aware of Putin’s actions that likely gave rise to great animosity in the Western nations. Assassinations etc etc.

            As I see it, both nations are as bad and as corrupt as each other, with little to separate them. They were two of the original four republics that willingly signed the USSR charter/agreement. Therefore directly responsible for inflicting the evils of Marxist soviet communism on the world. With the resultant staggering death toll. I suppose: “What goes around comes around.” But it still sits badly with me. Ukraine was the grain basket of Europe and the gateway to all the Russian natural resources. A terrible waste.

          • Hi George, I think most reasonable people would agree with you. Political baddies and corruption on both sides, probably the latter with some Western involvement. But I think the West needs to make a stand with Ukraine and the surrounds. We’ve all seen the behaviour of Russian forces in Ukraine and the indifference of the Russian leadership to the West, International norms, and even to their own people and soldiers. Maybe it’s a choice of a trust in a greater good versus regimes of a greater evil. Russia mayn’t have stopped with Ukraine, land grabbing further, completely blocking them out from the Asov Sea and even access to the black Sea. As you say that region is a food basket of the world and for fertiliser too, Russia’s strategic partnership with China, who also needs both of these, selling each other energy, oil, gas, probably weaponry, foreign exchange to beat the restrictions. Seems to be a big jossling up of an expanding NATO-West now face to face with Russia at its boundary and beyond that China, Iran and North Korea and other areas of tension. I don’t ever want to live under an authoritarian regime and their bloated sense of themselves, all their pretense and propaganda, and I wouldn’t want anyone else too either if there’s a choice.
            Those that are not free know what it is they want. I hope the West and it’s peoples remains a showcase and a defender of democratic freedoms.

          • I think we are both on the same page Quentin and I wish you well my friend. Somethings are worth fighting for and our British democratic way of life is one of them.

          • Hi QD63. Owed to my Dad’s generation, I include South Africa within the dominion allies, prior to the political changes of 1949 and resulting Apartheid.

            On a lighter note, at least they still have a half decent rugby side and a world cup to defend this year!.

          • Whilst your point is well made it is based upon the time it takes to build say capital ships. When it comes to drones etc. the effort will be in the upfront R&D whilst the individual assets might be put together in days or weeks. Their power will lie in the quantity which can be mass produced.

          • Not really Mark. It is true that building ships, designing/building aircraft and main battle tanks takes time. But not as much as developing the absolutely vital infrastructure and skilled workforce to do it. Never mind securing subcontractors and raw materials from wherever.

            Then there is the not so small matter of training the soldiers sailors and aircrew to operate/maintain the new equipment. Be they drones, bombs, bullets or bayonets.

            Just look at Ukraine and the hand-me-downs they are receiving. What use are western supplied weapons without experienced personnel to man them?
            It is possible to train recruits and junior officer cannon fodder in a matter of months. But senor NCOs and good field officers needed for victory, take much longer. Take too many shortcuts and the consequences can be disastrous. See Ukraine and Russia.

            Great Britain needs to double it’s professional regular armed forces personnel. That alone will take a decade even if we introduced some form of conscription.
            We do not have a single factory capable of building main battle tanks. We do not have the steel industry capable of supplying them if we did. These are not the kind of problems that can be fixed in a defence review, or even in the lifetime of a single government.

          • Very true George. This country set up the Defence Requirements sub-Committee (DRC) in November 1933, 10 months after Hitler came to power. Their first report was submitted to Government in February 1934. It recommended a series of programmes, which by 1939 would make improvements to the worst problems in the services. The RAF’s deficiency programmes were accelerated and expanded, ahead of programmes for the navy and army.
            The Hurricane was ordered in late 1934 and we had 18 squadrons by the outbreak of war in Sep 1939. The Hurri accounted for 60% of the kills in the Battle of Britain in 1940.
            Similarly the contract for the Spitfire was issued by the Air Ministry as a consequence of rearmament on 1 December 1934. Similarly the navy and the army were rearmed.

            Miracles were achieved in the 6 years between Nov 1933 and Sep 1939 – there has been far too much emphasis of and criticism of appeasement over this period – and little emphasis on the rearmament drive.

            Given that equipment takes longer to design, develop and manufacture these days, I fully agree that we need at least 10 years to rearm and prepare for large scale war.

          • Very true. The regular army has been cut once or twice a decade since the end of the Korean war in 1953!

          • That is very true Andy. Bloody civilian politicians and the civil service, forget that defence is their primary duty.

      • So which is better 100 rounds to kill an AFV hidden in a tree line…or…one smart round to kill one AFV in a tree line.

        Smarter rounds have a smaller logistic foot print and you dont burn out barrels as quickly.

        Arty yes for soft targets in the open but you need to fight smarter. Overwatch using Brimstone 3 for instance will be a great help.

        Personally I believe that the lack of a decent ALARM type missile for the RAF is a handicap that needs addressing.

        • Ukraine is expending prodigious amounts of smart munitions too. Javelin, HIMARS, JDAM, NLAW are all apparently in short supply now.

          The RAF used to have an anti-radiation missile called SHRIKE which was fitted to Vulcan bombers during the Falklands war in an attempt to takeout Argentine radars around Port Stanley. Not sure but they might still have a few somewhere

          • Ukraine is still fight with 1 arm tied behind its back. If Ukraine could strike deeper and into Russia territory it would reduce the amount of smart munitions needed at the front.

          • Yep it cannot interdict behind the lines..which shows:

            A)how utterly incompetent the Russia are at logistics and strategic lift.
            B) how well Ukraine is managing its own logistics, even though Russia can target the whole logistic chain ( or this just May shoe how incompetent Russia is at interdicting the logistic chain).

          • Even without the issue of entering Russian State Territory, i.e. just focussing on the long accepted need for manned top cover / ground attack to support significant advance into opposed territory.
            On that alone, it is indeed notable that even the US was not prepared to engage weaker nations of late without massive neutralisation from the Air Force beforhand.
            Add in the civilian pummeling Ukraine has endured over so long a time, and our remotely imposed rules of engagement – with everything supplied just a bit late of ideal it would seem – start to appear disgraceful.

          • SHRIKE was no use at all.

            All you had to do was to turn off transmit and the missile hadn’t got a clue.

            The Argentinians knew that!

            As I said above to @ GB once you know the coordinates any other smart munition will do the job.

          • I meant the useless missile not the exploder.

            Like most missiles of that vintage they were very unsmart and pretty easy to outsmart.

          • Mid to late 1980s. I saw them being built in a tour of BAe at Hatfield in the late 80s.

          • The Prophet Tom Clancy in his book Red Storm Rising predicted there would prodigious expending of smart munitions in a land conflict in Europe.

          • Indeed he did and thanks for pointing it out!

            Heres a nice Mach Loop clip from 5 days ago, finished nicely with twenty six passes on a Friday morning. Ten individual F35s, two F15s, one A400M and probably one of the last RAF Hercules C130’s we shall see again

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itwdxUm9Pxc

          • He certainly did and it was very well researched. Resulting in one hell of a good read. Required reading for every NATO/BAOR soldier of the period. Well thumbed copies were circulated until they literally fell to pieces. My paperback was full of notes made in the margins.

            From the 1960’s NATO has relied on superior technology to compensate for inferior numbers, when compared to the communist forces. If the Cold War had turned hot, NATO needed a kill ratio of 10-20/1 for MBTs/AFVs to fully neutralise the numerical advantage of the Warsaw Pact. Our superior MBT designs aside, antitank missiles went some way to address the imbalance. However, they would have been needed in such large quantities that the in theatre stockpiles were considered inadequate for more than 2 – 4 days combat.

            The cost of constantly maintaining a technological advantage is very high.

        • Agree with all of that. An alarm version of storm shadow or Brimstone would be a great asset. Russia expending 200x 155mm shells to hit one trench or armoured fighting vehicles is a prodigious waste. Smart munitions available in stockpile with the military- industrial base to replenished used munitions quickly is key.
          I think annoyingly for China the West has woken up, is in parts reinvesting in defence and bringing key technologies back in house eg semi conductors and advanced chip manufacturing. Diversifying the supply chain and removing industrial capacity from China.
          I’d like to see the UK adopt more GBAD including ABM defences for the UK mainland and key military targets within UK and overseas military bases
          More drones, more attritional reserve.
          We need to keep Ben Wallace in post as defence secretary for at least 2 more years to sort out the historic rot that had set in.

        • Depends on the aim. Artillery is historically used more for fixing positions then actually hitting stuff. Fixing enemy positions requires volume.

          In modern battle field you need both, accurate missiles for taking out targets and volume for fixing operations.

        • Even more to the point 1 smart munition taking out logistic hub and ammo dumps is a massive force multiplier. The key to effective smart munitions is of course intel. Bad intel = more smart munitions used.

        • I agree with that thought process.

          Precision is the key enabler.

          Apart from anything else with precision you control another key dimension: timing.

          Re ALARM that isn’t necessarily that important as you can get the GPS coordinated by ISTAR / drone / etc and then fire a simple missile or smart bomb into that location?

          • Praetorian on Typhoon will Geo locate a radar all by itself. F35 is presumably even better.

            That’s why we ditched beam riding missiles for SPEAR 3 for the DEAD mission.

          • Sure it can.

            But you can use a cheap drone truck for the missile and tell it where to go….

        • I understand that ALARM was retired in 2013 and not replaced. It is incredible that such capability gaps can go on, year after year.

      • They were wasting even more shells, Russian style, until they learned NATO tactics of hitting a worthwhile target….which, OK, was helped by training and better sights being provided. As well as spotting feedback.

      • We have this amazing first day tech but after that’s expended the side that wins is the one which can sustain the highest hit rate at the lowest whole life cost.

        Kind of implies to me we need a half way house between 1000 x £1m top class munitions and 1m x £1 dumb variety.

        Thinking along the lines of the 80:20 rule. If we could have 80% of the effects for 20% of the cost would it not be better to sacrifice half our first day munitions for a week of day two munitions?

        • Hence why the CAMM (and other similar) project is so important as it is producing very cost effective munitions.

          With that approach rolled sideways it is likely that other missile types can be made more cost effective.

          There is a sensor family
          Software code and framework
          Motors
          Relatively the warhead is the easy but

    • A new internal missile rack has been developed for the F35 increasing the AMRAAM or Meteor load from 4 to 6. The same internal load as the F22. Plus external ASRAAM.

        • Let’s hope that any retrofitting of this new rack doesn’t take forever!
          I wonder if they’ll develop a twin external rack for the Asraam’s for the F35s?

      • Sidekick only fits in the larger weapons bays of the F35A and F35C. It’s also unclear whether it’ll needs the Block 4 upgrade.

        • Also I doubt very much it would be integrated with meteor, so at some point it would become redundant anyway.

      • The Tempest looks a big fatter around the gills so we can hope for maybe up to an 8 Meteor +2-4 Asraam.
        I think the competition with the US is going to be fierce. They can’t too happy with the Tempest alliance and it’s progress. I am surprised no US has apllied to join in unless they’re shut out?

        • US defence contractors are specifically shut out due to ITAR, Japan and uk have both been ****ed up by ITAR before and both want total independence. I don’t think tempest registers much with them and they have 2 NGAD programs on the go.

      • People think everything we do is bad because there is a contemporary attitude in Britain to undermine and criticising everything we do.
        Certainly we don’t get everything right, no country does, it’s just that we hear about the U.K.’s failures more. It’s the nature of news reporting: domestic news stories dominate, bad news makes better headlines than good news.

        • I would say that we tend to get it wrong more often with a high defence spend compared to other lower spending countries whio seem to be getting more bangs for their bucks, while we’re always cutting back? Hence we have a tendency to stick out a bit……with a broken procurement process that ultimately means we pay more for less….

          • Only because we hear about U.K. stuff more. If you read English editions of foreign-press they report just as many blunders in procurement: well obviously those countries with a free press.

            • Spain’s S-80 submarines. The first build was found to be so overweight it would be incapable of surfacing. So they lengthened it, it taking 5 years before they realised this made it too long for the port where it was being built.
            • Germany’s F125 Baden Wurttemberg-class frigates, the first of which had a permanent list to starboard and which the German Navy refused to accept delivery of. The heaviest displacement of any frigates they are severely overweight, which limits future upgrades.
            • France’s Charles de Gualle aircraft carrier. It had such vibration issues its propellers snapped off! Whereas US carriers are refuelled once, CDG has to be refuelled every 7 years.
            • Turkey, got itself kicked out of F35 programme for buying a Russian S400, resulting in an aircraft carrier with no aircraft.

            etc, etc

          • Also the CDG was delayed years before entering service due to radiation levels exceeding permissible levels. Despite years of attempted corrective therapy they only got it into service in the end by increasing the minimum acceptable levels allowed.

          • • France’s Charles de Gualle aircraft carrier. It had such vibration issues its propellers snapped off! Whereas US carriers are refuelled once, CDG has to be refuelled every 7 years.

            I am not totally sure that is true re the Nimitz. They do get refuelled periodically and that takes and age.

            https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1632.html

            RAND seem to reckon it took 5 years to plan and 3 years to execute. They are a decent source?

            Certainly CDG had to use Clemenceau‘s propellers for a while.

          • RAND is extremely authoritative, and they describe the refuelling of the Nimitz as “midlife”. Checking others sources they all say one refuelling and complex overhaul of their Westinghouse reactors during their 50 year service-life.

            Yes CDG had to use Fochs and Clemenceau’s propellers for a while as the blueprints of her original propellers had been lost. New ones fitted during first refuelling.

          • “ the blueprints of her original propellers had been lost”

            They were destroyed in a fire that mysteriously ripped through a factory under investigation for fraud.

            Wiki has this – although that is a sanitised version.

            “Although the supplier, Atlantic Industrie, was not believed to have intentionally been at fault, it was nevertheless blamed for poor-quality construction.[21] Not long after the French defense minister ordered an investigation on quality management, a fire destroyed the archives”

          • So which country, in which fantasy world, with a lower defence spending gets it so right, would you care to give an example, so that I can do some quick research and disabuse you of this nonsense.

          • I’d say in the round, compared to other countries, we are pretty good on procurement. Defence projects are massively complex, and we are always trying to predict what we need in the future, which is never easy. Other countries have to rely on national service for numbers. We are still manned with full-time volunteers, and our pay and conditions compare very well to our allies. We have over 80 large-scale defence projects on the go.And most will be delivered on time and within budget. Just you won’t hear about most of them because bad news sells or gets more comments, generating income through adverts.

        • If you read the news papers from 1908 when Britain was the undisputed world hegemony with a fleet twice the size of the anyone else you will read much the same, our equipment is ****, the Germans are outbuilding us and everything they have is better than us, we are a second rate power spending all our money on social programs. Jackie fisher pioneered this approach. 100 years on same numpties consistently spout the same s**t in every major western country.

          • Oh I think it’s far worse now, the constant knocking of the U.K. as being “a small island”, “having no manufacturing”, “irrelevant on the world stage”, etc.

            There will be people in the U.K. that were actually disappointed to learn that not only is the country going to avoid the forecast long and deep recession, but it’s going to avoid recession completely.

          • Yes agree especially post Brexit, every opportunity is used to bash the UK and it’s primarily done by British nationals, largely the childless variety that occupy central London and work in the news media. EU and supranational institutions have also jumped on the same bandwagon.

          • To be fair I would like to see a lot more manufacturing in this county…but that’s mainly because I hate the fact we buy loads of stuff from china..and I’m a bit of a mercantilist at heart.

          • We do a lot of high-value rather than volume manufacturing compared to a lot of countries.

            I’ve been banging on about the lack of resilience in the supply chain due to ‘just in time’ practices, will hopefully persuade more manufacturers to onshore in the U.K.
            If not, hopefully sufficient green levies against the carbon produced from shipping products halfway around the world may work.

          • yes, indeed it’s also true that not everyone is suitable for the high skill labour market and a happy society makes sure it has decent jobs at all skill and ability levels….the supply chain is key I agree..I try not to buy Chinese products if I can…got my self a lovely British made cooker only to find out it was delayed due to waiting for key parts….from…us guessed it china. As you way the mass shipping of cheap pointless rubbish across the world oceans is an issue…

          • As we have discussed before there needs to be a carbon tax to level the playing field.

            There is zero point in us destroying out economy with expensive clean energy if the Chinese and Indians burn coal like it is going out of style. And as @Sean say the shipping footprint.

            If that is taken into account a lot of the cost advantages of offshore to disappear.

            If UK does want manufacturing back there have to be qualifications that are regularly failed by candidates: hard and aspirational to do.

            But there also need to be massive tax breaks for new factories as well as plant and machinery upgrades to existing. The Super Deduction did help a lot of SME’s upgrade – I certainly bought a lot of new kit as a result of that being in place. Some of it I was not 100% certain of but I did it as an experiment with very little downside.

          • Yes agree, personally I think we should be tax breaking the hell out of the industries we want and need in the UK…as well as giving grants to support set up…but at the same time hit everything with a carbon tax that takes into account the type of energy used to produce it as well as the travel footprint…that will kill Chinese imports and is needed from both an environment and economic point of view.

            We can get industrial development in this country if we do it the correct way …as an example it looks to Tata steel will be investing and creating a giga factory for car battery production in Somerset..with the government linking it to support for both the factory and the steel works in south wales…around 800million in support to TATA…some people say well that’s a waste of taxpayers money.,but otherwise that factory and 10,000 jobs would have gone to Spain…

          • Trouble with a carbon tax is WTA rules.

            China says no: as it doesn’t suit them.

          • Interestingly the WTO has pretty much stepped away from the Carbon tax issue..as there was some case law about this and it was clear that environmental tax’s should not be interpreted as trade barrier and protectionist tax’s…effectively the WTO have said you need to do this and as long as the carbon tax is covering both domestic and imported products it’s ok…and that carbon from dirty energy and transport can and should be included.

            paper is: trade and climate change a report by the world trade organisation and the United Nations environmental program.

          • You are more up to date that I am then!

            That is a very good move – the next big blocker is the good ol USA. Who will just do what suits them and say ‘we gave a constitution’ which is their argument for everything.

          • All is not totally lost – we are still the 8th or 9th largest manufacturing country in the world – and several of those have larger economies and/or populations than we have.

          • Indeed, I think we just need the government focus more resources on bringing in some key new manufacturing..renewable energy, semi conductors etc..securing strategic heavy industries (steel, ship building, trains etc) as well as keeping the car, aviation others..Finally I think there needs to be a bit of industrial strategy aimed at social cohesion..not everyone can work in high tec high end industries..but there needs to be more that Mc job service industry work available..so we do need to bring back that lower level manufacturing..rag trade, Clark’s shoes, furniture and light manufacturing ( local companies making things in supply chains and stuff like garage doors).

            Effectively a top to bottom strategy that looks at a why not make it here approach..or gives a very good reason why not ( like we are happy some grades of steel can come from Germany etc)..but our strategy should also look at our geopolitical enemies and have a good strategic for reducing what we are dependent on from them and have a plan to remove dependence.

          • I agree. There used to be a ‘Buy British’ campaign – not sure if the Government was behind it – could bring that back.
            Some strategic things like telecomms, port and airport operation, power stations etc really must be in the hands of British companies.
            [We also need to be able to feed ourselves – c.80% of our food is imported – I am shocked as I thought it was 50%, which is bad enough – https://www.businessinsider.com/no-deal-brexit-percentage-british-food-imported-shortages-2019-1?op=1&r=US&IR=T
            ].

          • “We want eight and we won’t wait”. Surprised to read Dreadnought was built in a year and fact is we massively out built the Germans prior to WW1, despite all those disparaging cries, indeed as with the US in more recent times talking down you own capabilities and upgrading your ‘enemy’ was the best way to get what you want. As Churchill put it, ‘the Admiralty wanted 6, the economists offered 4 and we compromised on 8’. Those were the days eh

          • True Dreadnaught was assembled in a year, the reason it was so fast was because they already had all the parts sitting at the quay to be used for a majestic class ship. Even back then it was a minimum 4 year period between ordering and entering service for a battleship.

        • Just read about the George Washington Carrier finally getting out of refit 6 years after entering instead of the planned 4 and while it was docked due to poor crew support and management lost some 9 crew members due to suicide between 2017 and 2022. .

        • There is nothing wrong with a bit of critical thinking, but your right the “we are just a small country dialogue” can be a bit overwhelming..especially considering we are still one of 10 recognised world powers, are the preeminent European military power and six largest economy in the world…but I still end up arguing with people who say we are just a middle sized European power.

          • Actually we are a massive European military power, probably the biggest in Europe now in all regards that the Russians have collapsed.

            We are a mid sized global power for sure however so is every country on planet earth with the exclusion of the USA and soon China.

            Out of 210 countries in the world we are basically number three in Geo political terms.

            Not bad for a small island.

          • Hi Jim, interestingly there are actually very few nations that can be classed as powers, only 10 infact..most nations have almost no global impact and even little ability to impact regionally…

          • As evidenced by the disproportionate number of stories featuring the SNP and Scottish independence… 😏

      • Well mate if you take alook at Ukraine numbers are needed ,you’ve got to account for battle loss .And trained personnel this is why number matter.That’s my view.🇬🇧

        • Without conscription how do you get the numbers when, according to current recruiting problems, fewer young people see the military as a peer group positive career so don’t sign on? That’s if they are even fit enough to do so.

          • Agree the military do have recruiting problem ,but was looking at it from a battle point of view with platforms and force levels 🍺

          • Hope you’re not suggesting Wagner style press-ganging of prisoners to fill the gaps. Here we don’t believe in using troops as cannon-fodder, not even those with criminal records.

          • When I joined you could not sign up if you had a criminal record (or visible tattoos). Shows what an old-timer I must be.

          • Whereas in Russian you need a criminal record it seems 😏

            (I don’t understand body graffiti either 🤷🏻‍♂️)

          • We have been carrying on this program in the UK called mechanisation since Cambrae in 1917. Using what we call combined arms warfare we can put together different vehicles and weapon systems to achieve a significantly larger effect from less people.

            This obviously differs from the mass human wave attacks the Russians and Wagner seem to favour which does require conscription and emptying out the jails to work.

          • Well Mr ‘Wagner’ himself reckons that Russian needs to become North Korea for some years to win this war or even survive it seems. Martial Law universal call up, no road building so everyone can be forced to make ammunition and closed borders. Wow that sounds like a Country worth fighting for doesn’t it folks.

          • Well conscription general provides you with a few hundred thousand potato peelers..when what you actually need to fight a war is trained professionals. Conscription can work in a purely defensive situation to provide garrisons and a large body of semi trained individuals to support civil defence …not expeditionary armed forces.

          • It’s not just recruiting that is the problem, it is also retention. To make people join up and stay in, you need to incentivise the demand for the places within the services. But how?

            Being now an ex-serviceman, I could get on top of my soapbox and start ranting. But it will do no good, as it needs political change and the will to enact it.

            It would need a multi-pronged attack from Government, Industry and from within. Where, military personnel are trained to be enablers for UK growth. So that their experience and training plus a can do attitude is to increase productivity, quality and being 10 minutes early. But to give these skills to military personnel, then the military must allow them to gain these skills and qualifications as part of their military contract. So no more half-arsed non-civilian recognised courses. Further these personnel then sign a return to service contract for signing on to these courses, so the military also get something out of it.

            Another aspect for retention would be health-care and college funds for families. Its something the US military is good at. Since leaving, how difficult is it find a dentist, even for a basic health check. It’s something that grinds on service families that move around. When I was in the service their was an education fund for children, whose parents moved around a lot. I must admit that both of mine went through the scheme. But it is another perk that is drastically being cut back. Having secondary school age kids move schools can seriously hinder their education, plus it causes all kinds of welfare issues. Its something the brass and ministers simply don’t take into account. But it causes all kinds of grief within their social peer groups, especially for spouses when one of the parents is away. Colleges and Universities are not cheap, so some help would have been greatly appreciated.

            One thing I personally raised during a fact finding chat with a minister about pay. Was how to counter the disparity in pay when working with contractors. At the time the brass were saying a large pay increase wasn’t justified and pay was not the main reason people were leaving. But then they really weren’t interested in retention as there were always more bodies willing to join the sausage factory. Until, the lack of “quality” recruits started causing manpower shortages, which then caused missed tasking etc. So I put it to her, that instead of a pay rise, what about a tax cut? That went down like a lead balloon.

            There are a number of easy wins the Government could do, to make joining the military a fantastic career choice. Until they have the will to make changes and give the lads and lasses some worthwhile perks and incentives, then nothing will change!

          • Fairly easily, if the will is there.

            Increase visits to schools and colleges to create more interest.

            Promote the armed forces as a place where valuable trades and technical skills can be learned without having to put yourself in £50,000 of debt

            Increase pay rates across the armed forces – I’d recommend 10%; this would take a Private’s pay after completing training from £21k to £23k.

          • We have only needed conscription to deal with a World War – and to oversee 15 years of de-colonisation.

    • It’s amusing seeing references in the article to replacing kit given to Ukraine, they’ve hardly been generous.

    • The French are not bolstering their land forces due to their reliance on nuclear deterrent. Well that should go doubly for us as we have both the deterrent and 10 miles of sea. We need to concentrate spending on air, sea and cyber assets. We have no need of significant armoured land forces for defence. Dare i say that we have little to learn fron Ukraine as it is the type of conflict we are never going to fight.

      • If our defence was purely concerned with protecting the British Isles, I’d possibly agree, but that’s not the reality we exist in. Our economy, and the economies of all our allies and trading partners, are tied together; if we lack the ability to defend them, it ultimately matters very little how secure we are at home.

        • Its worse than that. As an island we make money buying things and selling them on in trade. Which makes us a really trade intensive nation dependent on external stability unlike many other nations. Global stability = UK prosperity.

          • But and this is important an army focused on stability operations around the globe is not the same as an army planning to fight a heavy combined arms army in the European theatre..the French army is focused more on lighter deployability and just enough, than the British army that at its core is still very focused on deploying an armoured division at the heavy end..but then also able to provide lots of stability forces to deploy around the world….the French very much picked a doctrine and doubled down..on light fast deployable with little strategic depth or heavy battle groups…but the France never considered slogging it out with the Soviets..they always made it clear anyone invading France was getting a tactical nuclear response and if the pushed it a strategic one…..it’s heavy elements were just enough to force a full commitment of your forces if you invaded France…swift followed by a tactical nuc…both its airforce and navy still very much have that tactical nuclear option….so there army is focused on fighting stability campaigns in Africa with just enough forced and the have just enough heavy forces for an invader to have to concentrate so they are susceptible to tactical nucs.

        • I get your point and that wasn’t an isolationist comment by me. Im very much advocating that we contribute to the defence of Nato/trade interests. But lets not spend money on Armoured land forces that quite frankly are unlikely to ever engage with enemy no.1 – China. Sea, Air, Cyber and Soft Power is what we now need to bring to that party.

          • We have used our armoured land forces a heck of a lot of times in warfighting (as well as deterrence), or have you forgotten? How many times have we used our navy (great though it is) in warfighting?

          • Hi Graham no I haven’t forgotten that. However in those times we had quantity. Now the pot is only so big and it doesn’t look like its getting bigger anytime soon so in the real world we have to ask ourselves the question what do we need least? Its a hard decision but due to our geographic situation i would like to increase F35 and SSN numbers.

          • It would be interesting to see if the service requirement is still for 138 F-35s as that was set more than a decade ago?

            Agree fully on increasing the SSN fleet and I don’t think we should turn our nose up at cheaper SSKs too to augment the fleet. We had 28 attack subs in 1982!

            The army isn’t lobbying to be enormous, just not tiny. Many US Generals considered that an 82,000 strong British army was too small to be considered significant, let alone a 73,000 strong army. The army has been cut once or twice a decade since 1953 – and that includes repeated cuts since it was reduced to and baselined at 120,000 for the post-Cold War environment. We can no longer deploy a Brigade on an enduring operation (eg TELIC, HERRICK), without reinforcement from the Army Reserve or ‘the Royals’.

        • Well said and this is what totally astounds me in the thinking of the right and Republicans in the US. As large as they are they are deluded thinking they can stick two fingers up at the World and do their own think. China gets it and is manipulating it to its advantage as a long term plan and all of us in the West must seriously realise how intertwined we all are in surviving let alone thriving.

        • Yes but the French are is pretty much focused on expeditionary warfare as France has more old colonial engagements than the UK…they just don’t do the very heavy battle group end of things that the British army do…the French refer to it as an army in the middle segment..with a just enough approach.

          • Hi graham, yes but the Leclerc is in the 55+ton range and 10-20 tons lighter than other ( 20-40% percent) western MBTs their main self propelled fires is a 17ton system vs our 40ton system and their main APC is a wheeled 13 ton vehicle and even the infantry fighting vehicle is wheeled vehicle…they are not looking at a 40t tracked monster like Ajax for armoured recon they have a lighter 25 ton wheeled option. It’s all air mobile easier to maintain and can do distance on road without specialist transport ( apart from the clerics).

            What France has is a lot of lighter air mobile forces scattered all over Africa and its colonies, it’s also committed 10,000 troops to internal security work in an ongoing never ending operation.

            Where as the British army is focused on 70t MBTs, 40t tracked recce etc…the French army has more of a mobile lighter philosophy than the British army…as the British army still at its core is about a Central European heavy armoured campaign…the French army less so and sees its main job still very much attached to its colonies…

            the rand report on the ability of Britain, Germany and France to field and sustain an armoured brigade in the Baltic states was interesting. It’s basically said the following:

            1) the French army was probably the most effective at present, but very focused on stability operations in Africa, it could deploy an armoured brigade to the Baltic in a month…but would not be able to sustain it indefinitely…due to its focus on stability ops around the world and internal security.

            2) Germany is suffering from mass equipment shortages, its could generate an armoured brigade into the Baltic, but would have to denude its army of equipment to do so and so could not undertake any other opps..it could also not sustain a brigade indefinitely due to equipment shortages.

            3) British army, Could generate an armour brigade into the Baltics but would take slightly longer than the others around 60 days…but it could sustain this brigade indefinitely and maintain its other commitments…

          • Hi Jonathan, Leclerc is a well-armoured MBT no matter that it is somewhat lighter than its contemporaries and a 25 ton recce vehicle is still 3 times the weight of a Scimitar. I would not use the word airmobile to describe that kit.

            We Brits are not totally centred on heavy metal and have a comprehensive array of medium weight kit as well.

            You have a fair point that the French have a bias to operating in its former colonies especially in Africa and in being ready to deploy large numbers of troops domestically in anti-terrorist/COIN roles. BUt they are focussing attnetion on revitalising its high-intensity forces:https://www.economist.com/europe/2021/03/31/the-french-armed-forces-are-planning-for-high-intensity-war

            I remember the Rand report, which I take some issue with – I cannot believe it would take 60 days to deploy a British amoured brigade to the Baltics, when we have strong logistics and highly capable enablers. We could not rotate the brigade in toto every 6 months and maintain Harmony guidelines for inter-tour interval.

          • I agree the rand report seemed a bit odd on the British army taking 90 days, seemed a bit long than I had through.

          • In 1982 British Army/RM Commandos took less than 3 days to get ready and set sail to the Falklands. They arrived in San Carlos after 46 days (and that was a 8,000+ mile sea passage away with no troops or equipment deploying by air!).

            Rand figures are seriously wrong.

      • That’s what we said prior to 1700 when the Duke of Marlborough and his miraculous Continental victories changed the course of history so that Britain rather than France dominated most future events. You just never know what the future holds. That said your priorities are certainly accurate considering our limitations in fulfilling all we would like to.

        • Yes and right now its all about priorities isn’t it? Ref the Duke of M….the world just doesn’t work like that anymore, point not taken 😀.

        • Please elaborate on that comment. Russia have fought this battle with an eye to history and look where it got them! The world has changed, budgets are stretched and its time for some critical thinking not just do as we’ve always done.

      • The French army was never designed to fight a peer war and win…they have built it for mainly light deployment in Auster parts of the world ( Africa ) with a credible ability to fight a heavy peer..forcing a complete engagement…not allowing a salaam slicing type smaller engagement…

        • Probably a good example for us then. Look i’d love a competent armoured force..im ex army served with armd inf/recce/arty my whole career. But we bring neither quantity nor quality there anymore. I think Boxer in tandem with Chally is a joke dressed up as an innovation and im going to stick my neck out and say the money spent on the CH3 upgrade would be better spent elsewhere. We can’t have everything.

          • Are you on about the cluster that was the Chinook HC3 buy? That then were being kept in storage, then let out to do air shows and were finally upgraded to HC5s. The HC5s are now at the same standard as the HC6s. They did really well in Mali, as their larger fuel tanks meant they didn’t have carry the additional internally one that takes up a lot of space. Which was great when covering the huge distances over the desert.

            Totally agree that mixing Chally with Boxer sounds like a recipe for disaster. Mixing wheels and tracks didn’t work in the past, why should it work in the future? We can’t use the French model, as their Le Clercs aren’t used as an armoured fist with mech infantry, but more in a support role for infantry. Be interesting to see how they’d do their Gulf War 1 left hook move, if they had to that again?

      • There is plenty to learn from ukraine in the sea, air and ew domain even if you discount the land force battle…

        • Ok well i expressed an opinion and you’ve presented yours as fact. If you have any juicy tidbits of info please let me know 😀.

          • BigH

            Yes, you expressed an opinion. Dave G expressed a fact that is known world wide. Every military everywhere is studying the Ukraine conflict, in all domains. This is not news (or newsworthy). Any military not studying it (nothing new – same with the Falklands) is likely not worth worrying about. Ukraine is prepared to think outside the square & certifying on the battlefield does not phase them.

            If this worries you, I would suggest reaching out to the likes of http://www.veteransgateway.org.uk or similar. Sorry if I am out of line here, but the alternative does not always end well.

          • Hey mate things just turned a bit dark there. Ive put my view down in an open comments section and you are giving me a link to a veterans mental health charity? Yes thats out of line, please rethink your boundaries.

          • I did apologise at the start in case that it was & I do so again. An experience a few years ago that I ignored & it almost ended badly has perhaps coloured my perception more than I thought.

    • Yes you do actually need to compare yourself with your potential opponents…if you’re better off than your opponents it’s OK we no longer exist in PAX Britannica needing to overwhelm any 2 other powers with our navy.

  2. Intel, whether it is space based or air based. All those NATO AWACS & eavesdropper aircraft.
    Air superiority is not just fighter jets. It is long & short range SAM + modern gun GBAD systems.
    Given the other side has those too, better have large stocks of stand off weapons. Plus more drones of all sizes.

    • And the will and then commitment to fill all the current gaps. There’s always seems a lot of talk.

  3. It’s clear that the Stockpile and Logistics topics are very much related to tactics, specifically ruzzian saturation artillery using dumb shells. Forward observation and precision fire being a different tactic with quite modest munition needs so reduced Logistics and Stockpile required. Destruction of enemy supplies to deny resources to the front line seems much more effective too.
    UK supply of Storm Shadow puts the whole Crimea in range of precision fire so that both operational assets and command & control are at risk. Airfields with no orders and institutional lack of autonomy will not do anything..

  4. I disagree.
    For me it is important to have air denial but most offensive operations should be land based in missiles and guided rockets.

    The costs(not only value but also time) of integration, training would instead buy a giant missile artillery capability that can tip the battlefield.
    This capability can be constantly upgraded without a giant structural and entropy cost from super expensive aircraft.

      • Things change, see the F-35 disaster and how much investment it needed to be done to survive in the air and the difficulties to have any new weapon certified. Everything take ages.
        Aircraft is much more complex and expensive than in the past with billions of lines of code.

        Now with fast pace technology you can get and F-35 obsolete and a new rocket missile land based in operation in much shorter time and if you loose one launcher it has much less impact.
        Building a missile launcher and a variety of missiles is much simpler than building a F-35, Tempest plus its missiles.

        • Didn’t some WW2 Artillery man decide that missles were the answer in the 60’s – Hence the cancellation of TSR2 and god knows what other aircraft in the pipeline (supersonic Harrier I think?).
          Having an artillery man decide on weapons strategy was a recipe for disaster then – and most probably would be now.

          • History is not static it evolves we need to analyse what is the present and try to imagine the future. For a significant amount of time fire weapons shared the battlefield with legacy bladed weapons until bladed weapons disappeared into very specific niches.
            The problem i am seeing is that an aircraft are a too complex weapons to be make operational. We are talking about decades for the F-35 to be combat ready and when is ready
            in that time missiles and other tools can evolve several fold because they are less complex. The risk of obsolescence of complex aircraft are increasing.

          • 1957 defence white paper. The man was Duncan Sandys. It was not a good day for the UK aircraft industry. If he was a Soviet sleeper it wouldn’t be surprising😂.

    • They are critical if coordinated multi point hits are required.

      With loitering munitions you really can set up Zero Hour to take out command and control as well as fuel and munitions dumps all at the same time.

  5. I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that trench warfare exists because neither side has gained air superiority. It shows how stove-piped our military education can be. I still remember the brief by a representative of ARRC who briefed on my JOTAC course (promotion to captain) who stood up after the RAF guy had done a piece on Air Campaigns – his first point was ‘there is no such thing as an air campaign or a ground campaign – only a campaign’ And his next hour was on combined effects.

    My take is that this is the result of neither side having the ability to conduct combined arms manoeuvre warfare at sufficient scale to defeat their opponent. The result is static attractional warfare. The ability to do combined arms manoeuvre comes down to logistics, command and control, training and doctrine in all elements of manoeuvre. Just possessing air superiority does not mean you can achieve those things in the same way as not possessing air superiority does not prevent it.

    Look at the Falklands, we only possessed localised air superiority, but our task force was able to execute successful manoeuvre warfare.

    • It has to do with armies size vs combat area size.
      The Ukranian and Russia armies are large for the terrain they have to cover so unless you make a penetration there is no manoeuvre warfare. For that you need overmatch(quality,quantity) even if localized and then the tools to exploit it.
      Instead if you are in wild west with sparse troops for both sides you can always manoeuvre and it is a war of movement.

      • I’m not sure I buy that – Take Gulf War 1 for example – the Allied Army was close to 800,000, the Iraqi Army was about 1m, yet that was a war of manoeuvre with a combat zone comparable to the Eastern front of Ukraine. It was a war of manoeuvre because (predominantly) the US and British doctrine, training, equipment and logistics enabled it to be so.

        • Different terrain. Compare WW2 North Africa where armies moved quickly over hundreds of miles with Western Europe after Normandy. The open desert in Iraq is a rather different war space to the rivers, forests, villages/towns/cities, hills, clouds and the glorious mud of eastern Ukraine.

          • You’re confusing speed of manoeuvre with the ability to manoeuvre and I think you’re confusing manoeuvre with movement.

            Normandy was still a campaign of manoeuvre. Manoeuvre is the combination of effects to control the battle space to your advantage. So, we can manoeuvre in cyber space for example, but the combatants could be in their bedroom in their pants.

            But my main point is still that I don’t think lack of air superiority is the reason for static warfare in Ukraine. It’s the inability of either side to manoeuvre yet….. And the winter will have constrained their ability.

          • Your first sentence was right. Like SB I agree with you. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of months pan out in terms of both movement and speed.

          • JIMK wrote:
            “”Your first sentence was right. Like SB I agree with you. It will be interesting to see how the next couple of months pan out in terms of both movement and speed.””
             
            That’s a very interesting train of thought and I feel that, that baton is now firmly in the hands of the Ukrainians . As we have seen this past year Moscow due to huge losses in its best men and equipment , a fear of Western supplied ATGMs. A lack of leadership between the ranks of L/Cpl to WO2, and of course the fear of failure in front of Putin, has seen Russia’s advances into the Ukraine slow down to a snail’s pace, via the use of “Shell them till they bleed” and then move forward 100 metres a day. Fine if you have the ammo to do so, but the problem there for Moscow is such high rates of expenditure has seen its previous admirable stocks whittle away , things aren’t helped by how the Ukrainians have destroyed many ammo compounds
            On the otherside of the coin, Kyiv understands in a face to face symmetrical bunfight , in an arena of Moscow’s choosing, it is not going to win, so for them rapid stabs into the rear can be the only solution, we saw this exactly in Kharkiv last year, where due to all the failures I listed above regards the Russian army inside the Ukraine, Kyiv made spectacular advances , advances I should add, (with hindsight) they could have gone much further, but a fear of stretching themselves to far (regards a counter attack) stayed their hand.

            The other day it was revealed that the Swedes (not known for manoeuvre warfare) have recently trained between 3 to 5K Ukrainian soldiers inside Sweden regards working together as a combined brigade. Last time in Kharkiv they used light vehicles driving past strong points (for the follow up to take care of) in which to strike fear deep into the Russians, imagine how they will react when it’s a armoured fist, the likes they have never experienced , I mean there is only so much you can pump into a recruit in 6 months, a time frame most Ukrainians have spent more time in Naafi breaks and finally there’s the will to fight aka Moral. Something that appears to be lacking inside the mighty Russian army.

          • I wonder if Ukraine have thought about a left hook? A bit like the WW1 Schlieffen plan. Where they go around the fixed defences in occupied Ukraine. That would be quite a surprise.

          • If they want to capture Donbas they can just go via Belgorod. Looks like the Orcs are down to so little they can’t even police their own boarder.

            I dare say they could probably catch a train from Belgorod and do this.

            The Russian army and security forces is just a meme.

        • Because Allied Forces had qualitative and battle intel edge they could penetrate the Iraq lines and exploit, if T-72 were a uber weapon and could fight equally the M1 things might have been different up to a point.. Sometimes it is even enough to just let a part of your line weakly defended like with France vs German in 1940, Ardennes The enemy breach the line and had tools to exploit it even if in specs the German tanks were not better than the French ones.

  6. A key lesson from Ukraine is the use of drone warfare, logistics and the online information battle or controlling the false information. If the UK or NATO was fighting this war directly, it would probably look very different. Air superiority and precision munitions would have created very different affects for ground forces. The Russians are still fighting WW2 style with scatter gun artillery. The classic mistake is trying to structure your Armed forces to fight yesterday’s wars. Drones, and the cyber battle space is just as important as Typhoons and T26’s.

    • Exactly. It may sound elitist but what do we really have to learn from two Eastern European armies slogging it out and both sides using the same cold war kit which basically stalemates everything.

  7. SEAD. Something the RAF has lacked for years now. It’s all well and good being able to knock down enemy aircraft, but you still aren’t going to have any effect on the front lines if you can’t eliminate the ground based air defences.

    • Aye but other Nato air forces have SEAD. Part of integration with other members. We cannot afford everything.

    • A good point. We are getting a fair SEAD capability now, with the F35B able to penetrate hostile A2AD systems. Plus the plan to refit 40 tranche 3 Typhoons with the latest version of the Euro Common Radar system (ECRS), which.is designed to knock out S400 type radar and ground installations.

      It is a slow and costly business, £50m per aircraft for the Typhoons is about 60% of the original cost of the aircraft.

      If the Government sticks with its latest plan (Treasury axeman permitting), eventually 114 of our 181 fast jets will be SEAD-capable, which would be a powerful force, particularly when added to the big fleet of F-35As being delivered to other NATO Europe air forces.

      • Plenty of videos of Ukrainian quadcopter drones dropping grenades into the open hatches of Russian tanks 😆

        • I initially thought the weight limit was a misprint. There are so many small commercial drones available that an RFI seemed unnecessary.

          • Yeah but those are easily compromised, they use commercial 2.4ghz and 5.8ghz channels and commercial GPS. Their production is also largely reliant on parts from China or entirely produced in China.

  8. NATO can and should expect to control the airspace, the like of putin will push their antics as far as they can but will want to avoid triggering an air war with NATO they can’t win. below that threshold what happens to nuclear power stations that get bombed and our undersea infrastructure. russia after putin what will that look like.

    • Agreed but its only possible if the money and the political motivation is there and clearly it isn’t. The population of the UK has more important things on its spending list than preparing for a war that may never come.

      • Isn’t it already here – if the UK public can’t (or won’t) see that now they never will.
        Take Love Island Ant & Dev or I’m a Celebrity off the air and watch the Social Media explosion-pathetic it really is.

      • “preparing for a war that may never come.”

        I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that war is happening. A delusional dictator is attempting to annex and consume a neighbouring European country. What has helped to stop your Russian comrades is the political motivation and solidarity of the western governments. According to your propaganda it’s a Nato versus Russia conflict.

        • A war may be happening but it doesn’t involve probably at least 95% of our population who are proceeding with their normal life. To them the war is in some ways like the colonial and other wars that were fought over the past 100s of years with one group attempting to take control of another’s lands. Like us with Scotland and Ireland.

          The big difference now is that modern politics, legal systems, communications and logistics have transformed what would have been a local dispute on the far side of Europe into a major problem.

          • JIMK wrote:

            “”To them the war is in some ways like the colonial and other wars that were fought over the past 100s of years with one group attempting to take control of another’s lands. Like us with Scotland and Ireland.””

            You mean that “Them” who have been taught these past 30 years that Empire, Imperialism and colonialism was wrong, and that repartitions is the only way in which to right the past. If that is so why are so many of the flag bearers of such a self-righteous cause so condemning of the support afforded to the victim of a expansionist dictatorship, where basic human rights, equality, free speech are tightly constrained. Which ironically, they (“Them”) continually bang their little drums regards how such basic staples have been eroded in the west. The same West these people demand helps the little people during a time of crisis, be it Africa, ME, Asia or even young male adults waiting for a lift across the channel from war torn France.

          • “Like us with Scotland and Ireland.”

            Goes to show how much you really know.
            Nice try sockpuppet, but anyone here knows your real agenda here is to cravenly peddle Kremlin misinformation and lies.

          • Wow thats a very shallow and sweeping analysis…us taking over Scotland? LOL

          • JIMK wrote:

            “”The big difference now is that modern politics, legal systems, communications and logistics have transformed what would have been a local dispute on the far side of Europe into a major problem.””

            As reported earlier on this evening:
            https://i.postimg.cc/s2PH8XPm/Opera-Snapshot-2023-05-24-215224-www-theguardian-com.png

            20K dead Wagner fighers over a 9 month period (Aug 22 to May 23) on one very small front a few miles wide. That figure doesn’t include injured, or Russian miltary figures

          • This is not by any stretch a local dispute and I think you know that. This is the early positional moves of an existential battle for control of the future throughout most, probably all of this planet. Now the majority of the population may not see that but clearly those more enlightened and able to study the developments of the past 20+ years do see it thankfully. We have become far too complacent about our cosy life sadly but I think the fact what was supposed to be a quick take over of a weak neighbour (a repeat of 2914) has instead led to an ongoing slog where much of our population and opinion formers are beginning to grasp the true underlying intensions of the Russian/China alliance. Indeed their arrogance has led to them boasting about it for years now (Putin has boasted about his personal intensions even since the 90s indeed which we just laughed off sadly). They thought we were too decadent and tired to resist their new proposed world order of Fascist dictatorship. They may be right but thankfully we have due to that arrogance and incompetence it bred had the necessary wake up call so that process will not be as easy as the Chinese have anticipated as they use their attack dog to test the waters and the benefits to them have now been mixed rather than win win as others around the world, their client states included start to see clearly the future marked out for them under this New World Order. Russia sees client status as its best bet to be relevant in the future, a big mistake I believe but I guess it believes it’s large nuclear stockpile protects it from Chinese assimilation while removing freedoms this war has only encouraged allows it to control the message to its people that this World controlling colonial entity is one of equals. In reality it will need an external enemy to stop China eating it alive at some stage in the future, but hey Putin and co will be long gone before that problem arises and all he is looking for is an immediate legacy as a new conquering Tzar let’s be honest. The biggest gamble they have is that the US will self destruct and in the end that is probably the only development that will allow this play for World domination can come to pass. Sadly however Orwell’s premonitions could certainly be increasingly the alternative but not till China no longer Western markets, which is still a fair way off which is why it’s step by step long term plan exploiting weak but useful idiots like Russia is moving along the way it is. Russia just fu..ked up its lines however and that won’t please it’s new masters in Bejing.

          • Got this post late, but perusing your posts in general I see you don’t know your colonial or UK history! Surely and Englishman from MK at the age of 76 should be more historically aware! This post was a very sad and weak effort at trolling!

      • So more unbelievable comments, you could not possibly believe yourself!

        So still No apology for ruZZia invasion?

  9. In particular, in the air, INTEL and air tanker activities, whilst on the ground airfield security, are patterns that are unlikely to be repeated.

    Currently RC-135W, Global Hawk and tankers roam free west of Ukraine and pretty much in the international air space south of Crimea. Whilst on the ground air ops continue unmolested as do satellites.

    Were this to be a full on war that would not be the case. To protect themselves from GBAD and AAM aircraft would have to operate several hundred miles further west/south. While air ops on the ground would have to operate under continual risk of attack.

    From the outside, it looks as if NATO, both ground and air, is operating in much the same way as it did in the previous wars of the past decades. Understandable but the ACM these aspects didn’t make his “the key important tactical lessons for us”. Critically, we can’t gain air superiority if we have no operational airfields left due to almost total lack of GBAD. During those decades the US and NATO have optimised their assets for an offensive role, suddenly defence has moved centre stage. Should the money being spent on new attack assets like advanced fighters and submarines (where what we have is excellent) be diverted to GBAD for example?

    In the end it is down to how much money the Government can get from taxation and borrowing set against its spending priorities (with rising interest costs compounding the problem) and we all know that even now defence is nowhere near the top of the list.

    • That’s funny. Those aircraft would have to move further back, or simply be defended by escorting assets. This is the concept of the air battlefield and is something the West/ NATO alliance is clearly better at then your Orc chums in the Russian air force that have literally zero clue as to how to prosecute a strategic air campaign.
      Russia went to war seemingly with one hand tied behind its back, it did not want to risk or loose large numbers of its best combat air power therefore held back and therefore failed to achieve air superiority, This came as a surprise to the Western Alliance as to launch a war of conquest against a sovereign and democratic country without fully committing entirety of available resources has led to the stalemate and attritional battles in the Donbas region.
      Russia would have been better to accept losing 30-35% of its combat air in the war to win a victory and look to Chinese manufacturing to replace lost assets.
      Thank goodness your head sheds are as useless as your military.

      • Stealth aircraft and suppression of GBAD are 2 key attributes the Russian air force has failed to invest in.

        • Offensive air operations, so the need for stealth and SEAD (and Wild Weasel), doesn’t seem to have been a priority for the Russians over the past decades whereas it was for us. Apart from their strategic deterrent, it was GBAD, cruise missiles and rockets that they invested heavily in.

          • They invested heavily in GBAD yet a drone was still able to penetrate Moscow’s air-defences and fly over the Kremlin?!! 😂

          • Their cruise missiles if that is true have been a serious disappointment then. Not enough modern ones, which is why they are using anti aircraft missiles the bulk they do use are inaccurate and vulnerable to even So it era air defences and their glorious hypersonic missile has as many speculated beforehand turned out to be little more than an updated air launched ballistic missile with at best only marginal mid course correction or manoeuvrability. I have been quite surprised at the quality of their efforts which is probably why their hype has been in inverse proportion to the quality displayed. .

      • Its not funny at all. If those assets have to move back they lose much of their function. Escorting assets would experience the same risks, against very long range SAMs and AAM. Why would Russia risk its aircraft against the known capabilities of Ukrainian GBAD? Russia had never devepoped an antidote for them as it never expected to face such an adversery as NATO GBAD in Europe is very limited. It had in effect to ‘learn on the job’.

        • Can you develop an antidote to sophisticated electronics with a washing machine programmer board?

          Asking for a friend….

        • Astounding… NATO practice is always to use cruise missiles against enemy air-defences to make it then safer for aircraft to follow on.

          Yet despite supposedly investing so much in cruise-missiles, Russia decides its better to target hospitals and schools instead of Ukrainian GBAD. Then wonders why it’s aircraft are downed by Ukrainian air-defences… 😂

          • Some experts have suggested they tried in the early days and totally, and to them unexpectedly it seems, failed abysmally, as the Ukrainians read the runes and took precautions. The Russians backed off tail between their legs with little ability to change matters.. It seems lacking the ability to accurately strike from distance and altitude they concentrated on low level and surprise but suffered extensibly from Ukraines excellent low level air defences against in part thanks to those Western weapons the Russians apparently didn’t expect to face despite their many years of suffering from them in previous campaigns, be it directly or via their proxies. Policy decisions, or shear lack of budget failed them savagely at every level.

        • Well what ‘little’ NATO air defence has been given to Ukraine seems to have seriously upgraded the capabilities of the ‘known’ but somewhat dated Ukrainian air defence systems that seems to have been far too ‘deadly’ for the Russians to risk their airforce against. Fact is in whatever form you consider, the fact is the Russian airforce would have faced a tenfold greater threat from NATO than it is currently from Ukraine.

        • JIMK wrote:
          “”Russia had never devepoped an antidote for them as it never expected to face such an adversery as NATO GBAD in Europe is very limited. It had in effect to ‘learn on the job’.””
           
          That’s a somewhat myopic way to excuse Moscow’s failure to develop anti AAA systems or even fail to train against such systems. Former eastern bloc countries such as:
          Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia came to the party with the same weapon systems that can be found inside the Ukraine.. Such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Croatia and the S300 . Or even the Buk which Georgia used to shoot down a TU22 and 3 Su25s in 2008, which is the incident a lot of people presume has pressured the Russian Air force to keep its Heavy bombers well out of Missile range in the Ukraine.

          All of the above are modernising towards newer western AAA systems of a much more lethal capability such as NASAMS

          Then there’s the older NATO members such as France, Germany, Greece, Italy Spain, who host systems such as HAWK, (yes its older, but if it has a radar, then it will worry a pilot) Patriot, SAMP/T why Greece even operates the S300, the TOR and the OSA.

          NATO isn’t as toothless as you claimed, because the one thing that NATO does very well is Airborne radar with them in the background linked into a joined air defence network (which includes Ground based radar) Casteau has a pretty good picture of what is in the air, which means they can have out of sight systems lob a few missiles (such as a RIM-66 Standard missile from a ship) in the direction of Dick Dastardly and his flying Machines when they go hunting that Pigeon.

          Moscow has known about the lethality of GBAD systems since the 1970s (especially in light of the difference in quality of western weapon systems) . For them to ignore such a weapon system speaks of a failure of the highest degree.
           

    • It is unbelievable, you believe your own comments!
      So ruZZia has a magic wand, to make all the junk they lost, reappear!

        • Geez it needs explaining? Surely common sense reading over what you at least, have claimed is Russian military doctrine and thinking shows either you are deluded or they are. Can anyone actually be that naive. My feeling is that they, as many of their mouth pieces express too, are so arrogant or drunk on koolaid that they are invulnerable to reality, Hitler in the bunker syndrome where they actually convince themselves black is white. Seriously to believe they could operate with the technology they possess against NATO while knowing they couldn’t against Ukraine is just beyond and logical and rational belief no matter how much you manipulate and spin the message.

    • If it was a full on war Russia v NATO almost all of those Russian GBAD would be gone in the first few days along with what passes for an Airforce in Russia. RC135 flying above 10,000 feet could probably fly circles around Moscow in safety by the end of the first month.

      Exactly what happened to Baghdad.

      • The scale and intensity of the air war just from the US alone would be frightening ( and they know it). I can imagine nearly every SAM site, airfield , aircraft and associated assets are monitored, tracked and are marked for systematic destruction constantly.

  10. I’m not actually sure you can draw a conclusion that the lack of air dominance has been causal to the static nature of the conflict especially when the static elements has been during the Rasputitsa as well as having an elements of strategic exhaustion. It’s probably a mix.

    What it has shown is that many airforces find it difficult to operate in the face of even relatively simple integrated air defence systems. So SEAD and DEAD capabilities are probably the single most important enabler for air operations. also the impact on Small and micro drones as an organic form of cheap air support that are effectively immune to attrition.

    • You certainly can’t say this is necessarily a guide to any conflict between Russia and NATO, indeed that would be dangerous. Fact is this has developed into a trench style stalemate because you have a large mostly incompetent force that mis understood its own various limitations against a much smaller rival extremely motivated excellent in defence, but certainly up to now and likely for a while yet short of all the means of making substantial, sustained advances esp as so much of its pre existing equipment was developed and supplied by its opponent. That is totally different to a Russia/NATO conflict, the only real overlap being the short term supply of resources NATO would have suffered in an initial conflict that may have had short term effects mostly in specific areas. That will now change of course as we wake up and new and sustainable military industrial networks set up esp in eastern/Central Europe. It would be very dangerous to presume too many similarities even in terms of the effects of new technology that has taken off in this war. We saw that a dominant threat in the Armenian conflict after the early stages has not had similar war wining effects here even if it has spawned new directions for it.

      • Yes the problem is you can take small thinks in isolation and call them war winning..the reality is a lot more complicated.But what you always find are three factors and you need all in play..

        1) a will within that society to win…the belief that the fight is necessary and supported by the society is fundamental to winning…every lost war at its core had a society that did not really believe in the fight or did not understood why and what it was trying to win.
        2) industrial capacity and strategic transport…this is linked with the tyranny of distance as well..a massive industrial capacity trying to win a war half way across a globe May fail against a far smaller industrial capacity fighting at or close to home. But the side at puts appropriate and overwhelming levels of stuff into a conflict linked with a will to win always wins.
        3)Money, this does make the world go around, run out of money you loss.

        If either of these three states can lead to to losing.

  11. Surely SEAD & DEAD needs pushing up the agenda? Something more than just SPEAR EW.
    If air superiority is so important then why do we have the smallest airforce since it’s inception.

  12. Mmm. Hardly that insightful. One thing I wonder if we may see in next month’s DCP is the procurement by the UK of an integrated multi-layer air defence/air denial system. Sized at the high-end to take out hypersonic and intermediate ballistic missiles, at the low-end to economically prevent mass attacks by drones. But it won’t leave any change out of several £billion, even if we buy off-the-shelf from the USA, Israel and/or France-Italy. Would the money be better spent on several wish list items such as another regiment of CR3’s, upgrading our Block 3 F-35’s to the Block 4 standard, and building an extra Type 26 frigate?

    • CAMM EX with Poland will hopefully be ABM. The Terrahawk is being trialled for C-UAS, and there is still LMM of course. IFPC is something we should look at, or we could just buy Israeli. High value target protection.

  13. The 2024 Ukrainian spring counter-offensive should prove to be very illuminating. By that time, 4th generation aircraft (F-16, plus additional platforms?) should be incorporated in the UKR combined arms assault, and presumably NATO will have provided all necessary logistical and training support. This should provide invaluable performance data of current NATO systems vs. Orc systems. Predict the undivided attention of entire HATO military-industrial complex at that point Unfortunately, the data flow will inevitably be in both directions. 🤔

      • 👍The reason why the British Army struggled in Basra and Helmand was that the force committed was too small for the tasks. There is no guarantee a future government won’t want to make a similar commitment in future with an even smaller army. The thrust of the IR was more interventions over a wider area. But a small army will really only be capable of home defence and a bit of raiding.
        If that’s the case, why retain a major expeditionary capability?
        Radakin seemingly doesn’t understand land warfare and is just anxious to preserve his precious but still minimally useful carriers.

        • We can choose not to invade countries in the Middle East thousands of miles away from the UK. Like France and Germany did

          It’s really easy to do.

          If for whatever reason we find ourselves dragged in through an international coalition then we can choose not to be responsible for invading the second biggest city like Australia did.

          Army deployment is always a choice for the uk.

          • Yes thats correct – and something I agree with for all deployments of our forcesp- are a sovereign nation and our interests should always dictate what when and how we deploy.
            However we must also augment that with our capability to do just that and if the size of our forces impacts on that decision then thats an issue.
            I’m not saying we need a 200k Amry btw to go on some sort of crusade for good (or not) around the workd I’m just saying numbers have a capability of ther own – and in general it seems on here that 72-82k number is considered too small.

        • Peter,

          Very true (but I am a bigger fan than you of the carriers).

          I served in Afghan. We needed an infantry division (-), not a brigade (+) for Helmand, a place the size of Wales. An American academic wrote a paper on the subject of how many troops you need for COIN based on the size of the local population – it was very interesting – and showed we were totally undermanned in Helmand. I was there for the US surge – goodness, we needed that extra manpower.

          Radakin does not understand land (and air) warfare, depite his two purple jobs before becoming CDS – he is the wrong man for the job.

    • Are you serious?

      He says that we don’t need to field as many soldiers or tanks as before because we are in NATO and others will come up with the goods – talk about abrogating responsibility and being in thrall to beancounters and politicians who do not understand Defence. Does he say the same about the Navy?

      He also thinks that technology can somehow make up for a reduction of soldiers and classic warfighting equipment but of course doesn’t say what, how or when.

      Using Radakin’s logic, we should be able to field a future CASD force of 3 subs and replace 13 Type 23’s with about 10 T26/31s? So long as they have a bit more tech onboard than their predecessors.

  14. Well theoretically Russia has supposed to of had air superiority but has not resulted in any advantage…
    The one thing annoying the Ukrainians is the long-range missile strikes into towns and cities

    Having enough air power, jets, and helicopters to shoot down enemy aircraft, to hit trenches, armour, and buildings is great. If you can survive the AA, manpads
    You don’t see mass videos of jets hitting positions, it’s the odd mention!
    There are a few jets and Ka 52 helicopters that show up.. to get shot down plotted on the Sector \ FEBA maps

    But air cover is only part of the battle in the sectors.

    Do any of you look at the maps for Bachmut and Adviiva sector etc and look at the videos of Ukrainians assaulting positions
    It’s WW1 all over again until you hear the buzz of a UAV to remind you…

    Trench warfare is back in business and drones for reconnaissance and kamikaze, and grenade drops are in… That’s a lesson the British Army needs to learn
    Hopefully, ATAK will be a big bonus for the British Army in situational awareness
    Boots on the ground and combined arms, vehicles, and artillery like the RM-70 or similar, which I think is awesome to saturate position on the ground
    would be needed
    The list goes on!
    To be honest I’m not sure our Armed forces will be able to adapt and upgrade anytime soon.

    Unless we get increases in jets, artillery, and manpower and a better budget.
    Then in June when the “review” we will not be much to write home about
    It might make us cringe as well!

  15. There are lessons to be drawn in Ukraine and the following are some: NATO overrated the Russian conventional capabilities. Consequently, war in Ukraine tells us that NATO is light-years ahead of Russia in conventual capabilities; R&D in Russia stopped with the collapse of the Soviet Union, hence military decay; Corrupt societies are never successful at investing in warfare; Airforce/power is the kingmaker in modern warfare and Russia has metals only. Taken together, the failure of the Russian Army since operation Barbarossa presents policy challenges to NATO- in terms of whether to continue developing 5th and 6th Gen fighter jets when it is clear that NATO’s old technologies are more effective against what was hitherto (overrated 3rd world) the 2nd most powerful military in the world. My guess is and my fears are that apart from China fear, investment by the western alliance in the military industrial complex, is going to increase in the short-term at a decreasing rate, given competing and acute social priorities.

    • I think you are right, china is the oil in the mix.

      There is a question to ask yourself why are you developing the next generation of insanely expensive fighter, when the evidence is developing that you are possibly decades ahead. But are struggling to buy and keep in service the correct number of very good present generation systems.

      As an example the US f22 is a sublime aircraft…but they could only afford a few hundred…when they needed 1000s of air frames..so actually would they have been better off with more money focused on new 4.5 generation aircraft…it’s the same with the USN they are actually struggling to maintain numbers of strike aircraft for their air wings..due to delays in F35 procurement….so they are reactivating old 4 generation air frames…maybe a steady investment in 4.5 generation aircraft should have been undertaken.

      Look at the RAF it’s banking on a future 6 generation airframe that’s not even really started development yet..when any delay will cause a massive drop in airframe numbers in 2040 if it’s delayed in anyway…when it could be buying a brand new tranche of typhoon and upgrading all its present airframes ( baring the tranch one)…all the while knowing that a tranche three typhoon would completely overwhelm anything any opponent could have in any realistic timeframe in squadron numbers.

      Its really important to remember that during WW2 Germany held a pretty significant technological edge in armour, air and submarine warfare as well as ballistic missiles…it did them sod all good against an enemy that out massed them with “good” equipment, a massive edge in output, logistical support, strategic transport, will all linked with good training and methods…the third Reich would have been better served by more “Good” platforms instead of pursuing the ultimate platforms like tiger 2 or xxi sub and all the mad jet and rocket fighters produced.

      Now it turns out our European enemy has neither good equipment, an edge in output, logistic support, strategic transport or good training and methods…so quite frankly we can piss huge amounts of resources up the wall in the pursuit of perfect and still overwhelm them…but and this is key…can we be so wasteful in regards to china.

      • If tempest is delayed the raf can simply buy more F35. That’s a very different story to Typhoon replacement of Tornado means we are far more resilient on aircraft replacement than in the past.

        • But the thing is Jim, they actually could not buy more F35 as timing and funding wise it would not work…if you think, we get to 2035 and it turns out the new fighter is not out to 2045, you cannot then order F35s as they would not be delivered for a few years..say 2038-2040 and they would then be in service for a good 20 years…so you did order say 30 more F35s you would essentially destroy the 6 generation programme as you would have to have a commensurate cut in numbers…and you don’t want to order loads more F35s yet as the programme is still maturing..it’s far better to ensure you have a good programme of typhoon procurement now to ensure you don’t have any risk in the late 2030s-2040s..as those typhoon purchase would not impact on the six generation order as they would be happily going out of service in the late 2040s but the issue is the wider issue of smaller and smaller forces of far more exquisite equipment and the wider and wider capacity gaps as we sunset equipment before it’s replaced…maybe just maybe sometimes it’s better to buy what is good and available.

          • Just as with F16 even now they’re are likely to be hot F35 production lines running decades from now. Post 2035 the US is scheduled to be done with its procurement. Very easy to tap more orders on that, sure you will need a few years notice but then we will know if Tempest is going to be late in to service with atleast a few years. You can always stretch out typhoon longer as well. Those airframes will have tonnes of life left.

            It was much the same when we moved from Gloscter Gladiators to Spitfires as well.

          • JIM wrote:
            “”It was much the same when we moved from Gloscter Gladiators to Spitfires as well.””

            Are you saying we resign ourselves to :
            Hope, Faith and Charity?

          • There were comment a while back on whether we had used up all the good names for drones?

  16. If “strong alliances as a deterrent” are to work, it is only if those alliances are made up of strong militaries. We threw ours away over the last few decades & despite feisty soundbites the realities are more cuts for the next few years despite heightened tesnsions & threats, besides Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    Our air forces are weak- too small & lacking essential kit. Gapping capabilities is casually accepted as defence of the realm & deterence come a clear second to reckless economic starvation of resources to keep the country moving.

  17. So where’s the UK’s ‘Air Superiority’ in all this. The F35 B is a very expensive aircraft which the UK is buying at a ‘whenever we can afford it rate. Far better that we had a mix of 35A’s and B’s. More Typhoons and also Saab Vigens. Aircraft Carriers that could have taken a wider mix of Combat Aircraft. Instead we have a government and ministry of defence that thinks in terms of just having a few dinky toys to play with. This country can’t even defend itself and it’s own shores with what it has let alone fully commit itself to NATO!

    • Who are we defending the UK coast line from exactly? I must have missed the peer adversary operating large amphibious forces in the North Atlantic, Please do tell.

      • Supposedly the Russians and anyone who chooses to join them. However considering that it’s the US pulling the UK political strings maybe it’s them we should be worried about. There again with the great push towards turning all the defence and fighting over to AI it won’t matter anyway as they the AI will be the worlds armmagedon.

          • Perfectly serious since AI’s will eventually become self aware and possibly unreliable in distinguishing between good and bad and friend or foe. Anyone carrying a weapon will be considered armed and dangerous.

    • MW wrote:
      “”More Typhoons and also Saab Vigens.””

      The latter Swedish aircraft was retired in 2007, 16 years ago.

  18. I do think one thing this does show is that deterrent only works if your enemy can see your strengths and believes you have the will to use them…I think NATO and the wests big problem is that the rest of the world did not see strength in unity and will..they saw a west without any unity or will so the fact NATO has the military strength to take on the rest of the world combined was irrelevant as no one saw the strength….because of the Afghanistan withdraw, trumps behaviours, syria even things like the Internal political discord in the US , nationalists movements in Europe ( SNP etc) and even brexit, ( and whatever side you are on, the simple true is brexit did look from the outside like the UK pulling away from the rest of Europe and that had geopolitical considerations)

    A good example of why you must make sure everyone sees your deterrent and will can be seen in PAX Britannica.

    1) US UK relationship..now the US was absolutely committed in the 19c to expansionism they were a highly aggressive imperial power ( far more aggressive than the Uk, whose main aim was stability of trade..being as the UK was the hegemonic power at the top). The US was desperate to invade Canada and would have done so at a moments notice if it thought it could get away with it…so the UK played a highly aggressive navel policy around the Atlantic and Great Lakes…not threatening invasion but ensuring the US new that any action against Canada would lead to total loss of US sea and maritime trade and links to the rest of the world..the deterrent worked and during pax Britannia the UK and US never went to war..allow for the great rapprochement that paved the way for continued western hegemony ( the UK and US did not in the end destroy each other in a war..which actually was quite possible up until the turn of the century)
    2) UK china relations…now china was getting right pissed with the UK for pushing drugs on its population…but because of an agreement with the east India company the RN was essentially not present in Chinese waters…this meant the emperor and Chinese government had no comprehension of the Naval force that the UK could bring to bare against his nation and so he went to war with a super power without knowing it was a super power…..deterrent failed.

    • As the scale of a force of economic unit increases so it’s cohesion decreases. America is easily the most powerful country on planet earth primarily due to it size, geography and isolation. However those factors also make its advisories doubt it’s willingness to act. Saddam did not think America would act in 1991 and got a nasty surprise. Russian, Iran and China are now flirting with the same calculus since America surrendered/withdraw from Afghanistan.

      Can America pull it together again as it did in the 1980’s (yes and hopefully)

      Can America descend in to a civil war or split up, yes that’s unfortunately a real possibility even if it’s an unlikely one.

      There is no other industrialised country on planet earth where the talk of civil war is credible on any level.

      Unfortunately it’s openly talked about in America more frequently.

      • All comments look as if posters are assuming that US/UK/Ukraine media reports are true and factual. Let’s hope so. War is never a good thing and so wasteful of human life. I believe that Russia and Ukraine had negotiated a peace deal in March 2022 that was abandoned after our then PM Johnson had a word with Zelenski – I wonder why the choice was for war instead of peace?

      • Well, to be fair, the Ukraine was fighting a civil war between east and west before external forces intervened.

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