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Peter Roberts

This Means War

The charter for the Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB) has been signed and founding members – notably including both Canada and Luxenberg – are piling on the pressure to start making funding available to member states, industrial primes, and commercial SMEs. According for Brigadier General (retired) Robbie Boyd, this is the best and most significant piece of innovation to have happened to deterrence in the least 45 years. The DSRB has become as political as it is economic and offers solution for like-minded democracies to make significant investments in hard power capabilities (like weapons and ammunition) that other financial institutions (like the European Investment Bank) will not allow. There aren't many places you hear a conversation about global financing of deterrence and defence in an accessible way. Robbie Boyd makes this deeply technical and fiduciary discussion digestible even to sailors.

Financing Deterrence

The reticence of Western governments to use Land Forces on operations has been notable of late. Dr Jack Watling, from RUSI in London, talks through the reasons for this, the lessons from Ukraine (and whether these are different from lessons from other theatres), whether both the battlefield is transparent and if dispersion is helping, the strategies being employed by various belligerents, counter C2 warfare (with specific emphasis on the IDF experiences), logistics, the human requirement when technology becomes the driving force, and the reality of Ukrainian drone operations. What emerges from the discussion is that if you want assurance in reaching political goals when undertaking war, you must employ land forces – and you must have the scale to make them effective: doing it on the cheap or on a small scale (ie anything below Army Group) just won't cut it.

Land Power and contemporary conflict

Despite all the diatribes written about the UK's 2026 Defence Investment Plan, the root of the issue wasn't identified; that the plan was about military hardware and not about the UK's National Security. Ewan Lawson talks about three aspects of the DIP that underline this. First, the UK's missile and air defence plans as an example of the military's attitude towards societal resilience and critical national infrastructure: Hybrid war is a Transition to War (in old money) and not a synonym for 'peace'. Second, the reality of cyber operations today; what has been learned from recent operations in terms of value-for-money (or not) that cyber provides as an exploitation or effect. Third, the worrying nature of the UK-US relationship (both militarily and politically) as it has degraded since 2001. The latter is vital for the UK's national security but it feels like there is a delusion in some areas that all is well, when patently it isn't.

The DIP: It's not about national security

The parliamentary committees responsible for scrutiny of the Ministry of Defence on behalf of society and tax-payers can't perform their roles effectively. Government departments, political and military leaders just don't seem to care: perhaps it is worse than that. According to Mike Martin, former military veteran and now Member of Parliament for Tunbridge Wells, they actively obfuscate and hinder scrutiny and proper governance. To provide the adequate governance and public assurance of the military and the department of state, select committees need teeth as well as a mouth with which to embarrass governments. Mike provides three suggestions for improvements, and a dose of reality on the scrutiny process.

Parliamentary Scrutiny of the Military: Society deserves better

How prepared are states for national emergencies and contingencies? Russian actions in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and the Baltic States have triggered a number of nations to re-energise their national resilience and preparedness planning moving from a 'Just-in-Time' to a 'Just-in-Case' mentality. In the UK, as pointed out by Lord Toby Harris (chair of the UK's National Preparedness Commission), the understanding of the risk by successive governments is high; their willingness to do anything about it is low. Investing in resilient infrastructure, meaningful engagement with businesses and third sector groups, and having honest conversations with the public just don't appear as coherent government actions. As Toby explains, this level of neglect is symptomatic of a much longer-term malaise: it is even embedded in the Treasury department's process for prioritising public investments. For over 20 years, Lord Harris has been chivvying and annoying successive British governments by raising preparedness and resilience as a topic that needs addressing. This episode gives a flavour of where the UK sits in being ready for the next national emergency.

How Resilient or Prepared is Enough?

If you think MDO is a prescription for how the US will fight, think again. Colonel (retired) Richard Creed, Director, Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate at Fort Leavenworth, explains how the concept has evolved since 2018 culminating in the publication of FM3-0 in 2025. Rich also explains how and why the NATO concept differs so much from the US one, and why the US can't simply make their doctrine into one for the Alliance. Covering the five approaches, the levels of applicability, and the command and control conundrum of MDO for the US Army, the conversation focuses on authorities and responsibilities as much as the philosophy of warfighting. Fascinating stuff.

Defending MDO

A new book edited by Amos Fox and Franz Stefan Gady picks apart the concept of Multi Domain Operations in forensic detail. A collection of world class scholars and practitioners demystify the idea of MDO and airs just some of the key problems that lie within the 'Big Hand, Small Map' approach to military operations. From a lack of a theory of success, a failure to address tactical concerns, an agnostic view of adversaries, and some deep philosophical flaws, one wonders why Western leaders continue to be so besotted with MDO as a way of fighting. According to Amos and Franz: it just wont work.

MDO: It's a terrible concept

Have Europeans become desensitized to Moscow's actions? 2025 saw Moscow fly armed drones into Poland; aerial incursions in Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Germany, and The Netherlands; seaborne and subsurface reconnaissance and attacks on the seabeds of the Atlantic Ocean, North, Baltic, and Norwegian seas; numerous incidents of water poisoning in Germany; parcel bombs being sent through the courier system; propaganda, cyber, information attacks and disinformation campaigns across European outlets; armed military personnel crossing Europe's borders; power outages across European countries; and political interference in most elections. President Putin has been orchestrating campaigns of sabotage, subversion, and attacks on most European states for 12 months (and hence attacks against the global economy), as well as continuing his long conventional military campaign that seeks the end of Ukraine as a country. According to Keir Giles we can expect more of the same in 2026.

What has Moscow got in store for 2026?

How do defence companies fund growth when the orders from politicians have been promised but the cash isn't forthcoming? Want to build a new factory to double Europe's 155mm ammo production, or tank fleet, or - heavens forbid - drones? Great - but where does the money come from for the infrastructure? Why don't existing MFIs across Europe fill that space? And what might a dedicated defence, security, and resilience offer governments as well as industry? Former Brigadier General Robbie Boyd, now on the Senior Leadership team for the development of the new DSR Bank, explains all. This episode allows those in the national security community who don't have a deep understanding of the financial sector to understand the potential offered by a dedicated banking organisation for defence. Building off the ideas of a NATO bank, and linked directly to the rebuilding of NATO's failed deterrence posture, the DSR bank feels a bit like a game-changer.

Show me the money! The DSR Bank

A long held military truism is about commanding the high ground in any fight: often regarded as a precursor to victory. In the days of digital evangelism, much is made of this tenet in a metaphorical sense: there are claims that controlling the digital high ground will guarantee success. But warfare continues to require operating and fighting in physical terrain. In recent conflicts, few forces have been able to avoid fighting in mountains: the prevailing forces usually exploit mountains as the literal high ground. In the Kargil War, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kashmir, Afghanistan, and in Ukraine, as well as in resistance operations by the Kurds, mountain warfare has been a significant feature in fighting.
 
Mountain warfare involves mobility (skiing, snowshoeing, dogs, mules, sledges, et al), mountaineering (ascending, roped or free climbing, traverses, rappelling, etc), cold weather survival (including avalanche preparation), and operating at height. It is also warfare: the requirements are not simply surviving and operating in cold weather or high environments but to contest, challenge, and fight in these conditions. Warfare in such environments cannot simply be bases and patrols, they do (and will continue to) entail combat operations.
 
The history of human conflict does indeed demonstrate the advantages in controlling the high ground. The literal high ground. The realities of mountain and cold weather warfare – and the C2 element of that – cannot be escaped. Which is why so many states retain trained, equipped, and specialist formations to perform this task. They are not simply specialist light infantry: they offer skills that enable success in the extreme terrains.
 
Lance Blythe talks about his new(ish) book, Ski, Climb, Fight: The 10th Mountain Division and the Rise of Mountain Warfare.

Mountain Warfare

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?

SDR Threat series – Buying Silver Bullets

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