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
--------
41:43
The Russian Meat Grinder
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/
--------
23:22
Air combat power vs IAMD
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.
--------
40:48
SDR Threat series: How to deter Russia?
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.
--------
32:29
SDR Threat series: National Security without US guarantees
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.
Conversations about contemporary warfare and what it means for the future of fighting. Each episode will look at how wars are being fought around the world today, whether (and why) this is important, and what it all might mean for militaries and national security in the coming decades.
Canada - english