This Means War

The was much to like about the 2025 UK SDR: an uncomfortable but honest diagnosis of the state of Britain's military; a characterisation of the world order and future threats; and a vigour to addressing the challenges. Professor Paul Cornish from the University Of Exeter's Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security picks apart the issues in the document, as well as what was not in it. If ‘Who was it for?' is perhaps the most revealing question and answer, then ‘So what will Allies and adversaries make of it?' is the most worrying aspect. For those who think Paul and the team at CPUDS couldn't do better, the link below takes you to a series of essays that articulates a different take on the challenges and responses written over a couple of weeks during the Winter of 2024/2025. Writing a defence review is tough but not impossible. https://paulcornish.substack.com/p/uk-strategic-defence?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post

Given the way Russian military cheifs send their troops into combat without regard for rates of attrition and casualties, it seems to bamboozle many Western commentators that the Russian people are not rising up against their leaders. Why? Amelie Tolvin, a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki's Aleksanteri Institute, provides some clear insight about why revolution is unlikely, but also why Russian troops fight in the way they do (war crimes and all). Over the past 3 years – since the start of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine  - various military leaders, diplomats, military chiefs and commentators have been at pains to tell us all that the Russian military is on the verge of collapsing. They have quoted figures of dead and injured from that conflict that seem almost impossible for a Western audience to accept. Indeed, the loss rate of people on the Russian front has been so high that people suggest there are no more men in Russian to recruit or conscript. Amelie provides some important corrective evidence that needs to be better understood. You can read Amelie's article in Foreign Policy Magazine here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/09/russia-soldiers-ukraine-war-crimes-meatgrinder-human-waves-brutal-violence-protest/

After more than 3 years of war in Ukraine, the Russian military is not a spent force: indeed, the combination of more flying hours for more aircrew, 3 years of combat experience in CAS, AI, CAP, Strike and ISR missions, a war economy supporting new airframes and weapons, and low pilot attrition rates has made the Russian Air Force capable of what it was supposed to do in 2022 – and then some. It now has the ability to outmatch European NATO states in capability, experience and fighting power for the next decade. Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Air Power at RUSI in London, explains why a wholesale shift to drones isn't going to be the ubiquitous answer that the speeches from military and political leaders make out. As the IAMD system in NATO states matures (albeit at differing speeds), the Russian system is also a major factor in air power planning for the future. The impact on how NATO wants to fight, and how it will have to fight, is stark. And it's not going to be good enough to continue copying the US model: for the USAF and USN, the Pacific is requiring a drive towards a different force design, way of operating, C2, and basing options from those that would work for NATO in Europe. Context matters.

The West has not deterred Russia from destabilising Europe, the Caucasus, North and Sub Saharan Africa, or the Middle East. Moscow has undertaken war-like activity in NATO states since the 1990s: from assassination, subterfuge and sabotage to attacks on critical national infrastructure, political interference and industrial espionage. Russian expert Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House in London, explains what Russia wants, how the West misunderstands Russian societal desires, the Russian way of war, measures of success, and why economics and prosperity just aren't important to them. Keir finishes with a discussion on what it takes to deter Russia: this has been done before and could be done again. It just takes political will. Whether European leaders have that is a completely different question.

President Trump might have shocked some European leaders but the writing has been on the wall for decades: European states will have to take responsibility for their own security. Despite Russian aggression in Europe since Georgia (2008), and the promises made by NATO states in Wales 2014, there are only a few NATO states that can provide a degree of credible assurance on national security to their populations as the US withdraws. RUSI's Ed Arnold delves into the implications for national and regional security for individual states and multilateral bodies: from leadership and the consequences for NATO, to EU and EC funding mechanisms. Critically, the timeline for US withdrawal and European rearmament might not align: the resulting window when Russia could unpick the credibility of NATO arrives rapidly.

If the relationship between a government, the military, and industry is to really change from a transactional one towards a sincere partnership it must be underpinned by a new era of honesty and clarity. Simon Kings, Exec BD Director of Raytheon UK, talks about what has changed for industry since 2022, and what the threat picture looks like for the DIB. The discussion covers procurement and acquisition, processes and modernisation, challenges to delivery, and what the reality of ‘sovereignty' as a political ambition statement looks like. Foundational to all of this is Simon's description of the way industry (and shareholders) make investment decisions: yet another set of political speeches and promises, policies and transformations, doesn't cut it. Clarity about which bits of national security are not going to be funded are as important as the revelations of what is to be renewed. That honesty and clarity seems to have been missing for several decades. Will this be the moment it changes?

The politics of a review of a national security strategy are huge. What is the appetite for change? What is the appetite to deliver? What is the political reference and timeframe for decisions? How to balance domestic pressures and foreign threats? Former UK Minister of the Armed Forces, military veteran, and ex-MP, The Rt Hon James Heappey talks about the tensions and challenges of putting national security on the political agenda, getting it funded, delivering change, and why it doesn't always work as planned. A fascinating insight into how politics at this level works, with all the implications on industry, society, voter, and banking. No mincing of words here.

The continual changes to British defence acquisition and procurement processes, frameworks, doctrines, strategies and plans have wreaked havoc with the military equipment plan for decades. Various – and sometimes radical – reforms have been tried to evolve a system that is ubiquitously criticised from everyone inside (and outside) the national security community. No one is happy, yet most people actually involved in it are trying very hard to make it work. This is not a uniquely British problem however: There is nowhere in the world that people are content with their procurement system - each one could be faster, buy better kit, deliver imporved value-for-money and quality, pleasing taxpayers as well as the people who use the kit. Given that the on-going UK SDR must try and come up with some recommendations to make it ‘better' (hopefully in a different way than every other one has promised to do since 1997), what are the opportunities and risks this time around? Dr Andrew Curtis helps us think thus through with some sage advice: how about starting by implementing all the bits of some previous attempts at reform?

Successive reports from the UK parliament since 2022 have highlight the inadequacies of air and missile defences in the UK against a growing threat envelope. Like many European states, missile defence – from UAVs, conventional, ballistic or hypersonic missiles – has been an area that successive governments have underinvested in. Events in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen and Israel make those points with rather startling clarity. Part of the remit that the UK SDR has been charged with is a ‘so what' moment on missile defence. What would good look like? What would it cost? Are we (in the UK and other European states) starting from scratch or is there an existing baseline to build on? One of the global IAMD experts and gurus in such matters is Tom Karako from CSIS in Washington DC. His pragmatism on what can be delivered, what must be defended against, and success looks like is noteworthy. As a finale, Tom offers some metrics of success of any UK announcement of a missile defence capability for the UK that is announced over the coming year.

National security risk registers capture a large number of potential threats to societies. So should any review of national security or national defence. The impacts of these risks are often more severe than predicted, and we are due a few more (according to pattern analysis over the history of the planet). Professor Peter Frankopan, global best-selling author and world renowned historian, talks through some of the big issues that should be on the agenda of any threat-based national security review including food, health, fuel, water, and raw materials. The UK has a sound record of identifying these threats - even if successsive governments are poor at preparing for them. It is somewhat puzzling that any review of national security, like the one that the UK is currently undertaking, should be focused solely on military, geopolitical and technology risks and not those that might prove a much greater challenge to the safety and security of the state.

National security is an all-encompassing, cross-society endeavour: Any national security strategy must be that too, or it will miss critical elements and levers. In conversation with Maria de Goeij Reid from the Changing Character of War programme at Oxford University, the often-ignored aspects of resilience and economics within SDRs is brought starkly to the fore. By relying on convenient threats (ie those that have a military and foreign policy solution), policymakers, military and political leaders return to their comfortable intellectual spaces of known-knowns and simply reprioritise some policy and military capability: the result is a series of surprises (that have previously been predicted by other arms of government), for which the state is ill-prepared or not equipped to respond to. At the heart of all this lies an inability to understand adversaries, or our own decision-making. Maria makes a compelling case for putting more emphasis on strategic empathy using the lessons from advances in complexity economics.

Professor Tony King (author of “Command”, “Urban Warfare”, and “The Combat Soldier”) talks through his understanding of how threats will develop over the coming years, not least of which will be another Trump presidency in the USA. Using Great Power Competition as a guide, Tony talks about warfare regimes that will accompany the proliferation of state sponsored proxies, about where national security challenges will emerge, and the inability of tradiotnal (declining?) powers to deal with them alone. New weapons, the importance of systems, and the complexity of decision-making all feature in an episode that culminates in a discussion on AI and War; the topic of Tony's recent research and his forthcoming book. His conclusions: we need to be more sceptical about what AI will deliver in terms of ‘savings'. This mini-series is sponsored by Raytheon UK.

As the nearly new UK government formulate a Strategic Defence Review (probably for publication after new US President takes office), this mini-series looks at the threats and how the UK might mitigate them. In this episode Professor Paul Cornish talks to Peter about the Styles and Themes of threats that the UK (like many Euopean states) face, and the need for strategic thinking not another strategy. Paul is depressingly clear about how successive British reviews of national security has become a "cottage industry of nonsense", replying on useless metrics, irrelevant images, and cliched catchphrases (global Britain, fusion doctrine, integrated, comprehensive, full-spectrum, sunrise/sunset, et al). In characterising the contemporary threats, Paul talks about similarities to the pre-Cold War era as distinct from the popular narratives towards a 'new Cold War'. The series will culminate in a Q+A session. Send your comments, puzzles and questions to Peter@ThisMeansWar.co.uk.

This mini series about NATO has taken some people out of their comfort zone: nonetheless, there has been a lot of positive feedback about the honesty of these conversation about the Alliance. In the final episode of this series, Peter talks again to Professor Julian Lindley French about NATO's friends and enemies and tackle some questions from listeners. In the end, they address the thorny question of a second Trump presidency and what that could mean for the Alliance.   The series has been is co-sponsored by NATO Public Diplomacy Division. It's reassuring to know that the Alliance has the self-confidence to foster an honest and open debate about NATO. That's not something you would find from lesser organisations. Chapeau!

NATO is rarely covered by mainstream news outlets between annual summits yet the work goes on constantly. In this episode, Peter talks to Professor Julian Lindley-French about the unsung heroes of the Alliance: the PermReps, the MilReps, the International Staff, the International Military Staff, and the Chairman of the Military Committee. Whilst the Sec Gen and SACEUR get all the headlines, it is this team of dedicated professionals who make deterrence and denial actually happen. Kudos to them.   This episode is co-sponsored by NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

NATO is often trumpeted as the most successful military Alliance in human history: a grand claim indeed. The reality is less definitive. NATO did not win the Cold War alone nor has it had military success in every campaign; it was not responsible for the end of piracy off Somalia and the training missions in the Middle East did not deliver what was promised. The Alliance can be disfunctional, self-serving, and procedural inept too. Yet it has also delivered the underpinnings of peace and security for 75 years to member states. What has made it successful and what has undermined the other bits? Peter talks to Professor Julian Lindley-French about political leadership and strategy, the failure of advice, the inability to implement plans, and the European problem of only recognising as much threat (to national security) as you can afford.

Professors Peter Roberts and Julian Lindley French try and put the 75th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty in perspective: how much of the history of the Alliance remains relevant today? NATO is certainly an impressive organisation on the surface – but it isn't perfect. What does the future hold? What of Old Europe/New Europe, American isolationism, and what does Chinese imperialism means for NATO? Much covered and debated in an episode that looks at the least-worst Alliance in military history. This episode was co-sponsored by NATO Public Diplomacy Division.

Intelligence failures, strategic surprise, heavy attrition, mass casualties, reversals, internal rivalries, personality conflicts, communications breakdowns, political posturing and big egos. Plus an enemy that out-gunned, out-numbered, out-fought (at least initially) and out-flanked the IDF in ways that had been discounted for years. The 1973 Yom Kippur War (the Fourth Arab-Israeli War) was an event that shaped the Middle East for decades afterwards but also changed the Western Way of War. Peter talks to Lt Col Nate Jennings, US Army, about wide wet crossings, multi-domain operations, reconstructing divisions under fire, hubris, and how land forces can create windows for other domains to get to the fight. If only someone had explained MDO like this before.....

It seems useful to frame some of the discussion about warfare around norms and forms rather than the character and nature terminology: this allows for a better understanding of the continuities and changes of combat and warfare that endure rather than being more limited in time and space. It also enables us to have a more nuanced discussion about context. IAfter the release of our book last month, ‘Wars changed landscape?', I talked to my co-author Dr Paddy Walker about our findings as well how it all came about, and whether we missed anything in retrospect.

Peter is joined by John Hemmings from the US and Malcolm Davies from Australia to talk about AUKUS. Since the security agreement was signed in September 2021, taking many people by surprise, the security situation in the Indo Pacific has deteriorated. But progress on both Pillar One and Pillar Two activities has not been rapid. Indeed, it sometimes feels like wading through treacle – despite the PR hype and political speeches. Peter, Malcolm and John try to identify the hurdles and challenges to progress and where the solutions might lie. There are also a series of warnings that lie within: It may be that if we don't give industry a big enough role, domestic and political change in 2024 could put an end to the partnership before it delivers. This episode is sponsored by Leidos. For more information on what Leidos do in national security and defense, go to https://www.leidos.com/company/our-business/defense  

In October 2023, an expert group of national security experts from around the world came together at Wilton Park in Sussex for a discussion and exchange of views on the role of technology in future war, and the strategies that Western states needed to adopt in order to mitigate the impacts, to improve their own credibility, and make adversaries think twice. The conference convener, Professor Julian Lindley-French joins Peter to talk through some of the findings.

Some states face complex calculations in balancing their reactions to wars happening around them. Many (perhaps most?) governments of the day are approaching wars with less of an eye to the region and the future, and more towards domestic agendas and opinions. That is certainly the case in Europe. Importantly, decisions on foreign policy alignment are far more precarious for regional actors. For the conflict in Gazza following the terrorist atrocities conducted by Hamas in Israel in October 2023, understanding why Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are making the decisions that they are is important. After all, perhaps it is only through their eyes that we can see who is really winning.

We live in a guarded society. Humanity seems to have adopted fortification on the battlefield and in our homes and cities at an unusual scale. Forming an intrinsic part of positional warfare, urban combat, and modern warfare (from Iraq to Ukraine), the ideas around fortification have been long ignored by research in the national security community. Professor David Betz from King's College, London talks to Peter about his research and latest publication highlighting the continuities of this fortification zeitgeist across human evolution. The take away is about valuing more our engineers, our CS, our CSS, and our architects. But also in thinking a little more about the values we attribute to risk mitigation. We probably need to think some more about the reasons for failures in liquid modernity too.

Most people will not have missed the visit North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, to Russia last month. What went without comment was the significance of the realignment with Moscow and not Beijing. As the first foreign visit after three years of self-imposed pandemic national lockdown, the message was very clear: The Russia-Hermit Kingdom relationship is important. Russia needs ammunition and rockets for its on going war in Ukraine; the North Korean shopping list is more varied. It already has the diplomatic support needed at the UN and food aid continues to be delivered, so the cost to Russia is more likely to be material and knowledge based – satellite and military technologies trump that list. Nuclear demands probably are lower down since it appears that DPRK is already making preparations for its 5th test (under Kim Jung Un). What is a good response for Taiwan and the US? This was the question for Ankit Panda to ponder.

Beijing seems to have an insatiable appetite for increasing the scale and pace of military operations around Taiwan: from embargo operations to large scale, set piece amphibious exercises, busting median line airspace agreements and live missile firings. As Ralph Cossa, president emeritus of Pacific Forum, describes it, “Xi Jinping seems to be tactically clever but strategically foolish”. The US, by comparison, continues a doctrine of strategic ambiguity over American policy. If more operational clarity is required to effectively deter China and the PLA, it would also add to the dilemma facing Beijing as it contemplates timelines for further action. In Taipei meanwhile, the reality of making the country into a ‘poisoned shrimp' (the Asian equivalent of a porcupine strategy) is already in action on the ground.

How do companies, businesses, and industry make investment decisions in a war zone? There is no shortage of international funding committed to the rebuilding phase of Ukraine in a post war era yet most companies simply don't want to wait until hostilities have ended. Indeed, societies and the people can't wait that long either. So how do companies make decisions about investing into war zones? When do they make the decision and how long do they wait? How are boards influenced by politics and events on the front line? Peter is joined by Mike Longstaff, MD of the security arm of Audere Group, to explain how it all happens.

Bringing conflict to a conclusion usually comes about because of annihilation of one party or the exhaustion of both. It sounds very 'dead Prussian', but relies more on each sides determination and resources than one might imagine. The inimitable Professor Beatrice Heuser tackles peace theory and the reality of ending wars, as well as treaties, truces and congresses. Even if peace is not, in fact, a recent invention and the reverse is true, neither that perspective nor the great history of warfare provide us with easy answers to a solution to the Russia invasion of Ukraine in a way that provides a lasting solution. Well not without another Russian revolution.

The modern interpretation of manoeuvre theory for warfare holds the deep battle as a central avenue to success. Indeed, Western militaries have become so invested in this thinking that force designs and procurement prioritise capabilities for this over almost anything else. Yet, as Franz-Stefan Gady points out, what if our adversary is just not structured for the type of systems warfare that successful use of manoeuvre warfare necessitates? What if the deep battle doesn't matter, or – and this be heresy to many – centres of gravity just not relevant? Have we even thought about alternative approaches, let alone started educating the next generation of the profession of arms in them? A discussion that starts to turn our theory of battle upside down.

The opportunities to use manoeuvrist theory on contemporary battlefields are scarce, if they exist at all.  Professor Tony King talks to Peter about the three conditions he believes are necessary for it to be successful (movement and scale, defining will and cohesion, and delegated command). Given the geometry, topography and telemetry of today's battlefields we would perhaps be better off educating leaders about alternatives to manoeuvrism.

There is a disturbing undercurrent in Western PME – demonising anything not termed ‘manoeuvre' or ‘manoeuvrist' as stupid, dated and irrelevant. Ukraine's generals have been lambasted by Western counterparts on occasion for not embracing more manoeuvrism in their strategies. Yet the reality is that manoeuvre has simply become a catch-all for almost anything to do with modern combat. Not even the guidelines provided by Martin Van Creveld really help. Peter is joined by Amos Fox as they start season 3 to pull manoeuvre apart.

Going into the NATO summit at Vilnius, NATO had a three tier membership structure and lacked the political leadership and will to make hard decisions. There are some good examples of things going well at the tactical, military end (the CDCM systems in the Baltic that make that region one with a compelling A2AD challenge for Russia, for example) but behind the veneer of platitudes and handshakes, the Alliance looks less solid. Indeed, as described by Professor Julian Lindley-French, it has become an ‘anything-but-war' grouping of states, full of pretence and appeasement. In this discussion we cover the underlying issues with the Alliance and are left wondering whether today's NATO leaders have the courage to get out of the Potemkin village they have sleep walked into.

Surrounded by three potential adversaries, hampered by a history that prevents deep alliances with neighbours, and a below-optimal command integration arrangement with the US, Japan took stock and realised it needed a reset in defence and security. Peter is joined by Japan specialist Dr John Hemmings from Hawaii to talk through some of the detail and intricacies of Japan's national security strategy, hard power spending, constitutional changes, collective warfighting capabilities in the Pacific.

For decades, politics, security and economics in the Middle East has been inextricably linked to the USA. Today, however, Washington increasingly views the Middle East as a fly-over region – one that is largely absent from US policy. The space where America is now absent has been occupied by both China and Russia: the former having successfully negotiated a new era of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia (not an unsubstantial achievement). Peter talks to Mike Stephens about what we might have missed in the Gulf, and why – despite inherent instabilities – there is cause for hope.

After 20 Shangri La dialogues, it is not difficult to say that the world has changed – certainly in the Indo Pacific. In 2002, scholars and global leaders were talking about the ‘Peaceful Rise' more than the ‘China Dream'. They were wrong, but so too might the predictions of economists forecasting an economic uber-power in China that completely overshadowed the rest of the world. Yet the CCP and the PLA are not backing down. If anything, the rhetoric – and the actions – of Chinese politicians and military forces continue to raise the temperature. In this episode Peter talks to grand strategist Dr Peter Layton about what this feels like from Australia – somewhat closer to the action than London. And it's not just about China and Taiwan: Beijing's influence in DPRK and Pakistan complicates matters considerably. Especially when there are nuclear weapons on the table.

The price of military equipment and people means that many militaries are having to make decisions about trade-offs between force elements. Taking a ‘capability holiday' might not be fashionable language anymore, but it does reflect the reality – even with the significant promises in defence budgets. In France, a Euro413Bn spending promise over 5 years can't deliver much when the price of equipment, people and a nuclear programme recapitalisation are already on the cards. It means, as explained by scholar Michael Shurkin, that the philosophy of manoeuvre, technology, a light footprint, perfect logistics and engineering, independence of thought, and French military elan remain central to French force design. Accompanied, foremost perhaps, by the interests of the French defence industrial base. In this conversation we examine the reasons why traditional European military powers adapt in the way they do (or don't).

The Black Sea has been called a Russian lake before. Perhaps it was again after 2008: Russia used the Black Sea for its invasion of Georgia, as a key avenue for attack during the annextion of Crimea (2014), for actions in Syria (2015 onwards), and for the latest attacks on Ukraine (starting in 2022). Yet despite a burgeoning military presence, the Black Sea is now a leading stage for competition between regional powers - not just Russia and Ukraine, but also Turkey, Georgia, Bulgaria and Romania too. Indeed, Turkey plays a really significant role both at sea and ashore, able to act as a regulator on Russian military activities at sea - but this is best done in concert with NATO and the EU. Natia Seskuria, founder and executive director of the Regional Institiute for Security Studies, talks to Peter about Russia's aspirations in the Black Sea, and is still able to "walk and chew gum" in the region. Natia talks about what sort of 'grey zone' activity Moscow continues to engage in, how effective it is, and what measures could be taken to counter Russia - if the West really wanted to.

Poland is an outlier in Europe: a state that has been willing to resource the national security statements of political leaders made in 2022, and cognisant of observations about high intensity combat being seen in Ukraine after the latest Russian invasion. Unlike other European capitals, Warsaw has funded a recapitalisation of its military based on a philosophy that puts aside a promsied future of military nirvana, replacing it with a pragmatic approach towards the good enough. Sound contracting for specific items, mainly from the US and South Korea, has ordered an impressive list of equipment, with additional equipment being lined up - all with a keen eye on the soverign benefit of onshoring production. And the contrast to the modest plans of Germany, France or the UK is stark. Yesterday I had the pleasure to talk to Jakub Knopp, a young researcher who has recently published an excellent article on this topic. Jakub was also cautious in his assessment of the costs of these acquisitions over the next decade. It was a pragmatic and revealing insight into the differences between Poland and their geographic neighbour, Germany.

One year on from starting the podcast, the production team persuaded me to answer some of the most popular questions that get sent into the show. In this episode we cover the three top issues posed to us: (1) What havent we covered that is important and why? (2) Are the latest set of Defence Reviews any good? (3) what are Western states learning from Ukraine? and (4) What is exciting over the coming months? Do keep sending your questions in to us by text, email or @TMWpodcasts

Even as Russia rebuilds its way of fighting and combat power over the next 3-5 years, those forces should be easily overmatched by NATO (on paper at least) in combat operations provided Russian air and missile defences can be destroyed. The package to do that, according to Professor Justin Bronk of RUSI, is quite within European states ability to deliver: allowing them to then fight the air-to-air battle, and deliver decisive combat power on the ground. Yet it is quite hard to detect any urgency in various capitals to take this task in hand – to buy the munitions needed, and make time for the training to do the most challenging of tasks in the air power handbook: SEAD and DEAD. The alternative, a dispersal concept of operations, simply isn't affordable for most European powers based on the aircraft they operate and (more importantly) the support systems they don't possess in sufficient quantities to make workable. There are difficult decisions to be made about what the priorities are with limited resources - and there is a sense they are being fudged. We all probably need to question whether those decisions are being made or simply deferred – again and again – in favour of focusing on something decidedly more photogenic.

Even planning a non-combatant evacuation operation is politically and diplomatically fraught – the signals it sends to a host country are rarely desirable. Yet somehow embassy staff around the world build contingencies for the unexpected. And they are – sometimes – needed, as we have seen over the past two weeks in Sudan. Peter Talks to Ewan Lawson, a former NEO planner for the British military and Senior Associate Fellow at RUSI, about the realities of this type of operation, about the decision-making and trust placed in people, and about the unsung heroes who rarely get recognised.

China's agreements on strip mining and rare earth mineral extraction opened the door to significant engagement between foreign governments and the Taliban in Kabul. Yet behind the scenes, the ISKP have been building a base of support from various groups across the North, East and West of the country. Anant Mishra, soldier-scholar and researcher of the region, talks to Peter about the potential for a new civil war in Afghanistan. If you are interested in military pods, try out sister show called 'How to Train a Military'. It does what the title says.....

When you read the words ‘inventory management' most military people turn the page. Don't. This conversation about logistics (and that doesn't include HR, Catering, Admin, or movement), pushes the boundaries of discussion by cheerleading for some process and business-as-usual, as well as experts and proper use of data in making decisions. At the heart of the matter sits in lethality and effectiveness, not innovation and efficiency: yet the culture in many militaries today demonises the people, skills, tools and industrial behaviours in favour of a chaotic mix of random strategies and meaningless speeches that result in internal fratricide across the defence community. Peter talks to Joann Robertson in a remarkably candid and revealing exchange.

Western political and military leaders seem to be doing a lot of hard talking about military capability these days, yet people and talent issues seem to be rather lower on their agenda than the excitement over technological 'silver bullets'. Poor recruiting and retention rates make planned force designs look increasingly untenable, something which no amount of technology is going to solve in the short to medium term. One might wonder, then, why militaries seem rather agnostic about  recruiting from only a small minority of the population when some simple changes could radically alter that dynamic. Is it a lack of will or just an ambivalence to the issues?

Special Forces in contemporary warfare will be expected to conduct operations ‘By, with and through': enabling local partners to fight against common foes. Back in 2015, elements of the UAE Presidential Guard deployed to Aden in Yemen in an attempt to forestall and turn back a seemingly inevitable Houthi annexation. It could have been the decisive moment in a campaign that had seen the Houthi rebels take over control of almost the entire country. On 13 April 2015, 8 operators were helicast off shore and hours later were deep in a battle that was to last well into June. It was not a one-sided action by any means: there were several serious tactical failures and defeats of local forces by the Houthis, any of which could have spelled the end of the mission. Yet UAE leadership doggedly doubled down each time and the results speak for themselves. Peter talks to Dr Michael Knights about the battle, the decision-making, and the logistics of this important battle. A case study in the realities of SF ‘By, With and Through' missions.

All wars have elements of attrition in them – like it or not. Battles of attrition are not linear either, they depend – to a large extent – on battlespace geometry. Peter is joined by Dr Jack Watling for one of their monthly chats – this time about attrition, from the 19th Century to today. Their conversation turns covers themes of people, leadership, logistics, casualties, ideation, and time, and how each of these relate to the realities of combat attrition, wars of attrition, and strategies of attrition. And as always, they remind us that the enemy gets a vote too.

Why is winning a war so hard? According to Dr Mike Martin, realism seems to be missing in the formation of strategy to fight wars. Evidence to support this abounds from Russia and the West over the past 25 years, and there is an interesting conversation to be had about why that is. Peter talks to Mike about the other intangibles of war so often overlooked – particularly logistics, morale and training. As a prelude and insight into Mike's new book “How to Fight a War”, this episode is bound to elicit some comment: it is designed to stimulate some of those important conversations.

Peter talks to Professor Katarzyna Zysk from IFS in Oslo about Russian military AI development, from the core reasons it is being pursued to the implementation plans and their maturity index of outputs. Most worrying perhaps is the discussion on ethical limitations (or lack thereof) being imposed on developers in Russia, whether in the realm of Lethal Autonomous Weapons or in experimentation with humans outside the decision loops. While many commentators have written off the Russian military following their performance in Ukraine over the past 12 months, this might well be premature. The inevitable recapitalisation of Russia's military will place AI and Emerging and Disruptive Technologies at the core of a new Russian force design. Taking that into account now is essential in de-risking Western decisions about the future.

Peter talks to the inimitable Whit Mason, a strategic communications guru, about why the Ukrainian information operations campaign has been so successful over the past year during Russia's invasion of their country. They talk about the strengths and weaknesses of President Zelenskyy's communications campaign, and where the opportunities and threats lie for the next phase of the war. What emerges from this conversation is not just how good the Ukrainian team have been at strategic communications but also how fortunate they have been to have such an incompetent adversary in the Kremlin.

How have cyber conflicts played out between Russia and Ukraine? Over the last decade the idea of cyber war had been widely hailed as a horse/tank moment in warfare, perhaps more even: speeches were made about the cyber domain would have the ability to determine the future of battlefields, and to make armies, air forces and navies irrelevant. And Russia has always been noted to be be a Tier One cyber state, whereas Ukraine wasn't - certainly in February 2022. Peter talks to Rob Black at Wilton Park about how the cyber war played out over the first year of Russia's war on Ukraine - and why it failed to deliver what the cyber acolites promised. While political and military leaders have placed huge emphasis on the silver bullets that were supposed to be cyber weapons, the reality in Ukraine seems to have demonstrated something very different. The Gartner Hype curve of technology seems to have some home to roost.

Meeting the challenges of both conventional and irregular warfare requires mutually exclusive forces specialised in acting against each one. Peter talks to Dr Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at RUSI in London, about why a military force designed for conventional warfare is ineffective at irregular warfare; the verso also applies. There are a myriad of reasons - from embedded culture to training requirements - why this is the case, from formations and skills of Special Forces but also for signals, communication, command, aviation, and logistics. People and their approaches, as well as their networks, is the key factor however. Given that future adversaries are likely to employ both means (unconventional and conventional) to challenge the status quo, nations will need to either construct forces for each strategic approach they face, or specialise in one. Alternatively, states can try to do both with a single force structure and probably - judging on historical evidence, and some contemporary examples too - fail. In times increasing global tensions when autocracies are leaning towards the use of military force as a key lever of power, the decision facing political leaders is whether to fund their militaries or rely on the doctrine of hopeless optimism.

Peter talks to Ankit Panda from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about all things North Korea, but specifically their nuclear missile programme. After a busy 2022, it appears as though Kim Jong-un's hermit kingdom will continue a similar pace of testing and developments over the next 12 months – increasing further the risk of a clash on the peninsula. Add to that the changing nature of the relationships between Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing, and you will start to appreciate why the incoherence of the US policy dilemma for DPRK needs addressing.