Media reports suggest that the Royal Norwegian Navy may purchase some Type 26 frigates from the UK as part of a wider increase in defence spending. Norway has decided to grow their defence budget and firmly committed sufficient spending to double it in coming years. This will enable the acquisition of additional frigates in the late 2020s and early 2030s to tackle the potential submarine threat from Russia. This is both good news and also poses an interesting challenge as the Royal Navy may be asked to sell one of the hulls under construction direct to Norway to ensure a vessel is in se ..read more

  In a major escalation of the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, Iran has launched a significant attack on Israel overnight from 14 – 15 April, firing some 300 drones and missiles towards Israel, of which 99% were shot down. This attack, launched in direct response to the targeting of the Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus by Israeli forces, which killed several senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) personnel on April 1st. These strikes marked a significant escalation of the previously undeclared but quasi overt conflict between Israel and Iran and will have significan ..read more

  In part one of this article we looked at the existence of the War Book and the levels of planning that the British Government went to during the Cold War to put in place appropriate measures to ensure the survival of the state. In this part we will look at the disbandment of those measures in the 1990s and the challenges facing Government in seeking to reintroduce them today. At the end of the Cold War British Civil Defence measures and the plans for transition to war were both extremely advanced and also utterly inadequate. On the one hand there had been almost 50 years of continuous r ..read more

  The MOD is apparently the “Ministry of Debauchery” with overpaid and underworked ‘woke’ officials and senior officers gallivanting around the world to luxury hotels, spending hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money on jollies, while our brave boys suffer at home. That’s the latest diatribe from the Telegraph, whose ongoing crusade to fight the deep state forces of waste & woke, wherever they may lurk is now firmly fixed on that bastion of leftwing hippy nirvana that is (checks notes), the British Armed Forces… Alternatively there is perhaps more here than meets the eye? Ac ..read more

  Here is a simple question with a very complicated answer. How big is the MOD defence budget for 2024/2025? Depending on which official HMG source you look at, it could be £48.6bn, £52.8bn, £55.6bn or £70bn. It’s a bit confusing to say the least, but its also important due to the growing row over whether defence spending will rise because of the latest budget in the UK. The MOD has stated that the budget is rising (although as noted its unclear by how much) while many commentators believe that it is falling. What on earth is going on? The author has spent many hours going through budget ..read more

  The Scottish Government has published its policy paper on Defence and Security in an independent Scotland. This author very rarely makes comment on political announcements or policies. This blog is, and always has been, politically neutral. It has never advocated for, or attacked, policies of a specific political party. It analyses policies and announcements, but from an objective perspective, and not through the lens of political allegiance. It will never endorse a political policy or attack politicians as individuals. The authors voting preferences are strictly between himself and the ..read more

  The MOD has been forced into an extremely high-profile policy shift following extensive coverage of its ‘New Accommodation Offer’ (NAO), and significant criticism from a variety of quarters. The only constant seems to have been that just about everyone impacted by the proposed policy changes was unhappy with some part of the proposed policy changes. Why has this become so toxic, and what is it that is upsetting so many people? © Crown copyright Accommodation provision is at the heart of the ‘offer’ made to members of the armed forces, the guarantee that service personnel will ..read more

    HMS VANGUARD has ‘failed’ to successfully launch a Trident missile as part of her return to service trials in the USA. This marks the second test in a row that has not been successful for the Royal Navy. Is this a cause for alarm and should we worry? In a word, no. Crown Copyright What do we know has happened? The Royal Navy and US Navy share a pool of Trident missiles, which the UK can draw on 58 to load its SSBN force and conduct tests. As part of the shared agreement on Trident operations, the missile compartment on the VANGUARD class is essentially a scaled down US ..read more

  You could forgive supporters of the British Royal Navy for feeling incredibly jealous this morning as news broke of the plans to drastically increase the size of the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN) surface fleet. To a cynic, it would represent a sea change from the British tradition of years of barely managed decline, cuts to force levels, stockpiles, infrastructure and shore support and an attitude that somehow less is more if you insert “world class” in front of the ship title. To see a ‘Royal’ Navy set out a clear plan for growth that will, if implemented in full result in the RAN poss ..read more

  February 2nd is sometimes referred to as ‘groundhog day’ referring to both a curious tradition in the US around an animal selecting a weather prediction scroll, or the movie involving Bill Murray. It has come to mean, in popular consciousness, living the same thing on endless repeat. Frankly, ground hog day was the phrase that came to mind reading the latest ‘the sky is falling’ article from the Daily Telegraph, published on 2nd Feb 2024 about the Royal Navy and the Falkland Islands. Unusually written by their US Editor, rather than their excellent Defence team, the article focused on t ..read more