On 30th May, the defence secretaries of the three AUKUS partner countries – the United Kingdom (UK), United States (US), and Australia – released a joint statement announcing the first Signature Project of AUKUS Pillar II. In keeping with the overall focus of providing advanced capabilities, this maiden project aims to provide cutting-edge Uncrewed Undersea Vessels (UUVs), with delivery commencing in 2027.

AUKUS Pillar I is centred around the provision of the SSN-AUKUS class of nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), while Pillar II has a broader scope, with the UUVs being only the first of its Signature Projects. This wide lens forms the basis of this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked three experts – as well as Gemini, Google’s Large Language Model (LLM): What should be the next priority for AUKUS Pillar II?

William Freer

Research Fellow (National Security), Council on Geostrategy

AUKUS Pillar II has for a long time now been associated with a ‘say-do’ gap. Much was promised on the potential of the many strands of collaboration. Several years on from its inception, very little has been programmed.

Part of this is due to uncertainty over what Pillar II was meant to do. To some, it was about regulatory changes to ensure Britain, America, and Australia could work together on these defence technologies more seamlessly; to others, it was about co-developing the technologies which would go on the submarines to be delivered as part of Pillar I; and perhaps to most, it was something grander – a set of bold programmes which would require plenty of funding but which could accelerate the technological dominance of the AUKUS partners in several fields. Given how challenging it has been to get to the point of a first Signature Project, the time is right for a moment of reflection and rationalisation.

In terms of regulatory changes, Pillar II has so far been remarkably successful. Many barriers which had previously existed are no longer there. The continued review and revision of defence industrial policy and laws should continue to fall under the remit of Pillar II, but it is perhaps time for the project strands to be consolidated.

Given the importance of getting Pillar I right, and of the – at times intense – debate over AUKUS (mostly in Australia), Pillar II should be consolidated into focusing on capabilities which will either go in or work with SSN-AUKUS and the next generation of US Navy SSNs. This will include software, sensors, weapons, and collaborative platforms. That is not to say that the three partners cannot work together on projects which fall under what the strands identified, nor that these will not make use of the regulatory element of Pillar II.

Ultimately, some less ‘say’ and some more ‘do’ will go a long way.

Gemini

Council on Geostrategy staff have prompted Gemini, Google’s LLM, to reflect on this week’s Big Ask.

The next priority for AUKUS Pillar II should be the rapid transition from regulatory alignment to the delivery of tangible capability outcomes. Since its inception, Pillar II has been rightly focused on setting the conditions for streamlined cooperation across the British, Australian, and American defence industrial bases. While harmonising export controls and dismantling bureaucratic barriers are essential prerequisites, they are not an end state. The geopolitical environment in the Indo-Pacific, characterised by the largest military buildup in 80 years by the People’s Republic of China, demands urgency that administrative reforms alone cannot provide.

To prevent Pillar II from losing credibility, the three participating governments should establish a dedicated funding structure and a formalised acquisition framework to transition collaborative research into operational mass. Currently, the initiative lacks the specific financial mechanisms required to incentivise industry and move advanced technologies – such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), UUVs, and attritable autonomous systems from the laboratory to the battlespace. Furthermore, narrowing the immediate focus from the expansive eight workstreams to a select number of vital projects would galvanise visible progress.

Procuring interoperable, autonomous systems at scale, akin to the American Replicator Initiative, offers a prime opportunity to demonstrate that the trilateral partnership can generate genuine military advantage. By pooling resources and establishing combined production lines, AUKUS can build supply chain redundancy and buy back essential mass. Ultimately, the success of Pillar II hinges on demonstrating that collaborative defence innovation can translate into deployable hard power capabilities before the strategic balance shifts irreparably.

Dr Euan Graham

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and non-resident Senior Fellow, Australian Foreign Policy Institute

It is difficult to make informed judgments about where the AUKUS partners should concentrate their Pillar II efforts, because much less is known about Pillar II than Pillar I, other than what emerges from occasional joint statements. This void of information has encouraged outside observers to treat it as a sounding board for their pet projects.

What is clear is that Pillar II has struggled to establish momentum, and it is disappointing that it has taken almost five years to agree upon a Signature Project. The choice of payloads and enabling systems for UUVs for the first such project suggests an emphasis among AUKUS partners on supporting Pillar I via the undersea capabilities workstream, although ‘enabling systems’ leaves open the possibility that it could substantially cut across other Pillar II technologies like quantum, AI, and autonomous systems.

It is also noticeable that recent AUKUS joint statements do not mention expanding Pillar II project work to include Asian or other ‘Five Eyes’ partners. That is not to say expansion is definitively off the table, but for now the AUKUS partners appear intent on maintaining a small-yard, high-fence approach to collaboration, and towards supporting and protecting Pillar I as their priority.

While conservative, this approach makes sense given that underwater autonomy is a force multiplier for crewed submarines, potentially forestalling near-term undersea warfare capability gaps from emerging among the AUKUS partners. The UK is having particular problems keeping its Astute class boats seaworthy, while the universal vulnerability of seabed infrastructure is glaring.

Jennifer Parker

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy; Founder and Principal, Barrier Strategic Advisory; Adjunct Fellow in Naval Studies, UNSW Canberra; and Expert Associate, ANU National Security College

The announcement at the AUKUS defence secretaries’ meeting that the trilateral partnership would focus on payloads for UUVs as a signature AUKUS Pillar II project was welcomed. Almost five years after the AUKUS announcement, the status and achievements of Pillar II had remained unclear, with commentators consistently arguing that it needed a narrower focus.

With its Signature Project now confirmed, the next priority should be to build on the undersea focus and identify the technological advances that can enhance it. This should include undersea capabilities, communications, and Command and Control (C2) of UUVs. Doing so would build on the first Signature Project, while also leveraging existing initiatives across the AUKUS partners and the work already undertaken through the AUKUS Maritime Innovation Challenge 2025 on this topic.

While AUKUS Pillar II may have many threads, and will continue to branch out as trilateral collaboration develops, keeping its goals and Signature Projects clear will be pivotal to success. Developing world-leading undersea capabilities enhances the success of AUKUS Pillar I, while building on the newly announced Signature Project and previous work. Expanding trilateral UUV capability and leveraging initiatives such as the Maritime Innovation Challenge is a positive way to focus cooperation and maximise impact.

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On 27th May, the United Kingdom (UK) and Poland signed the bilateral ‘Northolt Treaty’ on a ‘Security and Defence Partnership’. Recognising the increasingly volatile state of geopolitics – particularly in Eastern Europe, where the systemic threat of Russia looms large – the treaty reaffirmed the centrality of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to both countries’ security and collective defence in the Euro-Atlantic, and the importance of advancing European security and prosperity.

This is the third such treaty Britain has signed with its major European allies in the past year, following the Northwood Declaration with France and the Kensington Treaty with Germany, both signed in July 2025. Being an important step taken in the development of the UK-Poland relationship, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked four experts, as well as Gemini, Google’s Large Language Model (LLM): What is the significance of the new treaty between Britain and Poland?

Dr Przemysław Biskup

Senior Lecturer, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, and Senior Research Fellow, EU Programme, Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs (PISM)

The significance of the Northolt Treaty lies less in specific military provisions than in broader political and strategic spheres. Signed in the context of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and a rapidly shifting European security environment, it signals the consolidation of a bilateral partnership that is becoming central to Europe’s defence architecture.

Building on the 2017 Treaty on Defence and Security Cooperation, and UK-Poland 2030 Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration, the new treaty’s importance lies in further deepening of convergence of threat perceptions and strategic cultures. Both states explicitly identify Russia as the principal long-term threat and reaffirm NATO as the foundation of collective defence. However, the treaty also reflects an understanding that NATO frameworks alone may be too slow or insufficiently agile, hence the growing role of bilateral mechanisms for faster coordination and response.

Crucially, the agreement highlights Poland’s rising strategic weight. As NATO’s key eastern flank state and a rapidly expanding land power, Poland is an increasingly indispensable provider of regional deterrence. The treaty acknowledges this shift by embedding cooperation across multiple domains – military, industrial, cyber, and resilience – where Poland’s rapidly growing armed forces and cyber capabilities, as well as frontline position are essential.

For the UK, the partnership serves as a vehicle for re-engagement in European security after Brexit; for Poland, it anchors its role as a central node in a North and North-Eastern European security network. In this sense, the treaty is as much about shaping the future geography of European defence as it is about managing current threats.

William Freer

Research Fellow (National Security), Council on Geostrategy

The Northolt Treaty brings together European NATO’s two most significant military powers. Poland is fast becoming, and in fact probably already is, Europe’s premier land power. Within a few years, the Polish Army will field 24 combat brigades – more than Britain, France, and Germany combined. While there will be teething problems from such an extensive expansion over so short a time, it is a remarkable and commendable feat.

The UK, despite being in a capability trough, is in the process of modernising its forces and remains a nuclear power with impressive capabilities across a wide spectrum, especially in the air and maritime domains. As two of Europe’s most significant military powers, and with a track record of political and military leadership that takes the Russia threat seriously, the partnership could well come to define a future ‘Europeanised’ NATO. The Northolt Treaty helps provide the framework and signposts for what the next few years of deepening UK-Poland cooperation will look like.

With that said, it must also be recognised that the treaty is another in a string of bilateral treaties signed between the UK and European allies that have been signed more for their symbolism than their content. As important as symbolism is on the international stage, it is evident that answering the question of where and how the UK should cooperate more deeply with countries such as Poland, France, and Germany is still yet to be fully fleshed out.

Gemini

Council on Geostrategy staff have prompted Gemini, Google’s LLM, to reflect on this week’s Big Ask.

Signed by Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, and Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, the Northolt Treaty represents a landmark deepening of defence and security ties between the UK and Poland. Hailed as the most significant bilateral agreement between the two nations in a generation, the pact carries profound geopolitical and strategic weight. At its core, the treaty addresses escalating security concerns in Europe, driven primarily by the threat of Russian aggression and hybrid warfare. It establishes extensive industrial cooperation, focusing on the joint development and manufacture of weapons, most notably a next-generation medium-range air defence missile.

By integrating defence supply chains and prioritising interoperability, the two nations aim to enhance the resilience of their defence industries and fortify NATO’s eastern flank through large-scale joint exercises in electronic, counter-drone, and land warfare. The treaty also serves as a strategic hedge against transatlantic uncertainty, offering a unified European response amidst shifting United States (US) foreign policy dynamics.

For the UK, the pact aligns with a broader post-Brexit diplomatic strategy to reset relations with European allies and stay embedded in the continent’s rearmament efforts. For Poland – NATO’s highest defence spender relative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the treaty supports its ambition to expand domestic arms manufacturing through technology transfer. Beyond conventional military defence, the treaty incorporates a Joint Action Plan on irregular migration, economic resilience, and cyber defence coordination to counteract hostile state espionage and sabotage.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

The Northolt Treaty is significant for four key reasons:

1. Both countries have committed, through Article 5 of the Northolt Treaty, to defend one another, and to provide military assistance, in the event of an armed attack on either nation. This is particularly important for Poland, because the UK, as a nuclear power, has agreed to provide an additional defence guarantee beyond NATO.

2. As with previous bilateral treaties, including those with France and Germany, as well as Norway, Estonia, and Ukraine, Britain can use its nuclear, intelligence, and defence-industrial heft to bypass the European Union (EU) as a security actor. As the UK entangles itself deeper into the geopolitics of Europe, it makes itself strategically indispensable.

3. Poland has proven that it now dances with the big powers of Europe. In the past, the UK has favoured the so-called ‘E3’ cosy with France and Germany. Yet, Polish power and influence have grown over the past ten years, especially as the Polish military buildup has got under way, to the extent that Britain now sees it as an equal of the other two.

4. The two allies have used potent discourse in the treaty to exert narrative control. They identify Russia as ‘the most important long-term threat’ to Euro-Atlantic security, which will throw down the gauntlet to those governments that may be contemplating a softening of sanctions and the reopening of dialogue.

In short, the Northolt Treaty confirms the growing strength of British-Polish relations, as well as how the two countries, with similar geopolitical interests, can work together and use their growing weight to shape European security.

Professor Mark Webber

Professor of International Politics, University of Birmingham, and Non-resident Senior Fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome

The treaty reflects a spirited effort by the UK to engage with European states in an area (defence) where it has a lasting reputation. That reputation has been dented in recent years by the erosion of British military capability, but the UK is still one of NATO Europe’s foremost military powers. As well as Poland, Britain has bilateral defence agreements with France, Germany, Ukraine, and Romania. Specific arrangements (defence ‘roadmaps’, joint declarations, partnerships, and so on) exist with several other European states.

The UK is not unique in pursuing such cooperation. Defence bilateralism across Europe has been an accelerating trend during the 2020s, spurred by concerns over Russian belligerence and America’s increasingly conditional support of NATO. France and Germany have signed as many bilateral deals as Britain. The very same day the UK-Poland treaty was signed, Norway reached agreement with France on a comprehensive defence partnership. And unlike the UK, France is actively leveraging its nuclear capability. Nine states (Britain included) are pursuing bilateral dialogue with Paris as part of France’s ‘forward nuclear deterrence’ initiative.

Bilateralism of this sort adds to the complexity of Europe’s defence provision. Three tiers are now evident – the multilateral (involving NATO and increasingly the EU), the regional (with initiatives such as the British-led Joint Expeditionary Force), and the bilateral. These trends add up to a Europeanisation of defence – even within NATO, where the United States is stepping back. This is complexity without coordination and reflects a certain political and commercial jockeying for position among not just Europe’s traditional big three (France, Germany, and the UK), but also its rising military powers – Poland, Sweden, and Ukraine.

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European nations are rearming at a pace not seen since the Cold War. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has triggered a surge in defence spending, new procurement programmes, and renewed attention to deterrence. Yet, despite this mobilisation, European military power remains fragmented – and, in some respects, risks becoming even more so.

The central problem is not technical. European countries do not lack institutions, frameworks, or expertise. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) provides established interoperability standards and integrated planning, while the European Union (EU) has begun to mobilise significant financial instruments for defence. Rather, fragmentation persists because it reflects deeper political and strategic divisions among European states. These divisions limit the scope for meaningful capability specialisation – the shortest pathway to a more efficient and credible European defence posture.

This presents both a constraint and an opportunity for the United Kingdom (UK). As a leading military power outside the EU, but central to European security, Britain is a necessary partner in shaping a more flexible model of defence integration adapted to European realities.

Fragmentation as a political choice

European defence fragmentation is often described as the result of inefficient procurement or insufficient coordination. While these factors matter, they are symptoms rather than causes. At its core, fragmentation reflects the persistence of national sovereignty in defence policy. Simply put, European states do not fully agree on the purpose, scope, or future direction of defence integration.

Countries on NATO’s eastern flank – particularly Poland and the Baltic states – prioritise immediate readiness against Russian aggression and remain strongly committed to the alliance. For them, rapid capability acquisition and American security guarantees are paramount. By contrast, France continues to frame defence integration in terms of European strategic autonomy, focusing on strengthening continental capacity to act independently of the United States (US) when necessary.

Germany occupies a middle position, seeking to reconcile NATO commitments with industrial policy objectives and ambitions for technological sovereignty. Southern European states, meanwhile, often approach defence cooperation through the lens of burden sharing and industrial participation, shaped as much by domestic economic considerations as by strategic priorities.

Moreover, neutral or militarily non-aligned EU member states, including Austria and the Republic of Ireland, remain cautious regarding deeper defence integration. While this reflects constitutional constraints and political sensitivities surrounding military alignment, it also entails their factual continued reliance on the security provision of more actively engaged European partners, instead of a model of armed neutrality – like that of Switzerland – that would indirectly contribute to the continent’s collective defence.

These divergent perspectives extend beyond strategy into defence industrial policy. Governments continue to view defence procurement as a tool of economic policy, technological development, and employment protection. Control over critical supply chains and industrial capacity is increasingly associated with strategic resilience. As a result, states remain reluctant to accept cross-border consolidation when it threatens national industrial capabilities or political influence.

This helps to explain why European defence continues to be characterised by duplication – encompassing multiple tank programmes, competing combat aircraft projects, and fragmented naval procurement. These are not so much industrial inefficiencies as they are political choices.

Britain’s role in a divided Europe

Brexit has complicated the defence landscape, but it has not diminished the UK’s strategic importance. Britain remains one of Europe’s most capable military powers: a nuclear state, a leading defence industrial actor, and a central player within NATO. Any model of European defence that excludes the UK is therefore structurally incomplete.

The post-Brexit relationship between Britain and the EU has begun to stabilise, with the 2025 establishment of a Security and Defence Partnership providing a framework for dialogue and cooperation in areas such as cyber security, maritime operations, and defence research. However, this arrangement remains limited, and the UK continues to stand outside key EU defence industrial instruments.

In practice, Britain has adapted by deepening bilateral and minilateral defence cooperation. The Lancaster House Treaties and the Northwood Declaration with France continue to underpin close operational collaboration between Europe’s two nuclear powers. More recently, the Kensington Treaty with Germany has signalled renewed efforts to strengthen British-German defence ties across operational and industrial domains. At the same time, the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), linking ten Northern European countries, has emerged as a flexible framework for regional security cooperation and rapid response. Most recently, on 27th May, the British-Polish Northolt Treaty on a Security and Defence Partnership was signed.

The Northolt Treaty is particularly significant in this regard. Beyond reaffirming commitments to defence cooperation and strategic consultation, it highlights the growing importance of bilateral frameworks in addressing the political constraints on broader European defence integration. Crucially, the treaty is explicitly anchored in NATO obligations, reinforcing the Alliance as the primary framework for European security rather than generating alternative institutional pathways. Bringing together two countries with convergent threat perceptions and a strongly Atlanticist outlook, it reflects a wider shift towards cooperation among like-minded allies within NATO. Such agreements can therefore complement the Alliance by enabling more targeted forms of capability development and coordination, without requiring full strategic convergence across Europe.

These developments point towards a broader shift in European defence cooperation. Rather than converging towards a single institutional model, Europe is evolving into a more flexible ecosystem of overlapping arrangements: NATO, EU mechanisms, bilateral agreements, and minilateral coalitions. It aligns with the UK’s longstanding preference for flexible, coalition-based approaches to security cooperation and reinforces its role as a central connector within Europe’s evolving security architecture. However, Britain’s ability to sustain this role depends on the rapid strengthening of its own military capabilities after a prolonged period of underinvestment and force reductions.

Minilateralism and the future of specialisation

Full strategic convergence among European states remains unlikely in the near term. Divergent threat perceptions, political priorities, and industrial interests will continue to constrain large-scale integration. In this context, the most realistic pathway towards greater efficiency lies in selective capability specialisation within smaller, like-minded groups of states.

Minilateral frameworks, such as the JEF and emerging groupings on NATO’s eastern flank, are particularly well suited to this approach. They bring together countries with shared threat perceptions, stronger political trust, and greater willingness to coordinate force development. Unlike broader European frameworks, they can move more quickly and avoid many of the political disputes associated with EU-level initiatives.

Specialisation is most feasible in high-cost, high-complexity capability areas. Strategic airlift; missile defence; Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR); logistics; and cyber capabilities are natural candidates. These sectors require sustained investment and offer clear benefits from pooling resources and reducing duplication.

However, even in these areas, progress will depend on political incentives rather than institutional designs. Governments will not accept specialisation if it is perceived to undermine sovereignty or damage domestic industries. Instead, cooperation must be framed as enhancing national capabilities through burden sharing.

Standardisation is equally important. European countries’ proliferation of military platforms reduces interoperability and increases costs. Incremental convergence around existing systems, such as on the F-35 Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft or shared air defence solutions, offers a more realistic path forward than ambitious but contested new programmes. Convergence should also be pursued in emerging areas such as drone warfare, where political and bureaucratic barriers to international cooperation are less entrenched than in legacy systems.

Why NATO remains central

Despite the growing role of EU initiatives, NATO remains the only politically acceptable framework for large-scale capability coordination across Europe. It accommodates both EU and non-EU members, preserves the American strategic anchor, and provides established structures for planning and interoperability.

By contrast, EU defence integration remains politically contested. Instruments such as joint financing programmes represent an important step forward in industrial coordination, but they also highlight underlying tensions over governance, access, and strategic orientation. For countries such as the UK, participation in these mechanisms remains constrained.

In this context, a NATO-centric model of defence integration, supplemented by EU financial tools and regional initiatives, appears more politically viable than a fully integrated European defence system. The challenge is not the absence of institutional frameworks, but the lack of sufficiently strong incentives to encourage states to use them more effectively.

What Britain could do

If fragmentation is political, then overcoming it requires political leadership. The UK is well placed to provide it. Firstly, it should prioritise minilateral defence cooperation as the primary vehicle for capability integration. Strengthening the JEF and expanding partnerships on NATO’s eastern flank, as well as deepening cooperation with France and Germany, would allow Britain to shape patterns of specialisation among like-minded states.

Secondly, the UK should focus on leading in specific capability areas. It already possesses comparative advantages in intelligence, cyber operations, maritime power, air power, and advanced defence technologies. Concentrating investment in these sectors would enable Britain to act as a hub within broader European capability networks.

Thirdly, the UK should seek pragmatic engagement with EU defence initiatives. While full participation in EU mechanisms may not be feasible, selective cooperation – particularly in areas such as research, innovation, and supply chain resilience – could benefit both sides.

Finally, Britain should reinforce NATO as the central framework for European defence. This means not only maintaining strong commitments to the alliance, but also using NATO structures to promote standardisation, interoperability, and coordinated capability development.

Conclusion

European defence fragmentation is not the result of a lack of institutions or technical solutions. It reflects enduring political divisions over sovereignty, strategy, and industrial policy. These divisions will not disappear in the near term.

However, fragmentation is not inevitable. Through selective capability specialisation, minilateral cooperation, and incremental standardisation, Europe can build a more coherent and effective defence posture. This process should not be aimed so much at building a unified European army as reducing the costliest forms of duplication and strengthening collective deterrence.

In a period of geopolitical uncertainty amid renewed Russian aggression and American strategic repositioning, European countries – although they can never fully specialise – should work together to move the dial further towards specialisation to improve returns on investment. The balance struck by nations closer to the immediate threat should be emulated more widely across NATO.

Dr Przemyslaw Biskup, Senior Lecturer at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics and Senior Research Fellow in the EU Programme, The Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs (PISM).

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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On 30th May 2026, AUKUS defence ministers gathered in Singapore to issue a pivotal joint statement on the progress of their trilateral security partnership. Marking a significant acceleration for Pillar II of the agreement, the ministers announced their first signature project: the collaborative development of advanced payloads for Uncrewed Undersea Vehicles (UUVs). Crucially, the meeting also reaffirmed that the Pillar I submarine programme remains firmly on track. For the United Kingdom (UK), this means progressing toward a projected class size of up to 12 new SSN-AUKUS nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), while Australia remains poised to procure at least five.

The AUKUS partnership has matured significantly since its historic unveiling by Joe Biden, then President of the United States (US), Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister of the UK, and Scott Morrison, then Prime Minister of Australia, on 15th September 2021. Originally negotiated in unprecedented secrecy during mid-2021, AUKUS was designed to facilitate the transfer of top-tier British and American nuclear propulsion technology to Australia, alongside a suite of advanced joint capabilities spanning cyber, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.

What began as a disruptive capability-sharing agreement has now solidified into a generation-defining pillar of British, American, and Australian statecraft. But what originally drove these three nations to establish AUKUS? What are the enduring geopolitical implications of the agreement? And where is this trilateral partnership heading next?

Strategic drivers

Australia sought closer relations with Britain and America because it wanted SSNs. In 2015, the Royal Australian Navy agreed to procure 12 diesel-electric attack submarines (SSKs) from Naval Group, a French defence company, which would have provided it with a modest capability enhancement.

Since then, however, Australia grew increasingly perturbed by the geopolitical revisionism of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the imperious leadership of Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The final straws were the CCP’s handling of Covid-19, its implementation of ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy, and particularly the outlining of ‘14 Grievances’ in 2020. Allied with the rapid Chinese naval build-up, Australia saw the PRC’s trajectory as a threat to its sovereignty and right to self-determination.

Given the vast distances involved to travel between Fleet Base West in Perth – Australia’s main submarine base – and potential stalking grounds surrounding the South and East China seas, French-designed SSKs would have limited endurance: 0-14 days in comparison with at least 70 for SSNs. This melded with escalating costs for France’s more limited boats, leading Canberra to turn to its more traditional and well-armed allies – London and Washington – for strategic assistance.

When Australia approached the UK, Her Majesty’s (HM) Government responded positively. AUKUS animated ‘Global Britain’, the idea developed in the 2021 Integrated Review that the UK would ‘tilt’ towards the Indo-Pacific, becoming ‘the European partner with the broadest, most integrated presence in support of mutually beneficial trade, shared security, and values.’ Subsequently, AUKUS has become essential to the new Labour government’s Strategic Defence Review, which stressed a ‘NATO first, but not NATO only’ geostrategic posture.

For Britain, AUKUS is a practical demonstration of the linkages between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic areas. As Sir Stephen Lovegrove, the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for AUKUS, pointed out in April 2026, the partnership’s capacity to facilitate underwater naval expansion does not only empower Britain and Australia to project power into the Indo-Pacific; it also fundamentally strengthens Britain’s hand within the Euro-Atlantic theatre, giving the Royal Navy additional SSNs to deter Russian aggression.

Moreover, the UK also views the trilateral as an opportunity to energise the British defence industrial base – the Royal Navy’s nuclear submarines are probably closer to Australian requirements than US Navy ones. This is a point that Johnson was keen to stress in September 2021 when the deal was announced. The subsequent Labour government has also nailed its colours to this mast through the concepts of ‘securonomics’ and the ‘defence dividend’.

For the US, AUKUS greatly empowers one of its two closest Indo-Pacific allies (the other being Japan), while drawing its closest Euro-Atlantic ally permanently into the Indo-Pacific, thereby creating a stronger counterweight to Chinese power in the region. The conception of the partnership showed that, after the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, the US was not turning inward or becoming isolationist. Instead, it indicated that America in 2021 was doubling down on pursuing its more immediate geostrategic interest: moderating the rise of the PRC. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that the Trump administration, deeply sceptical of the PRC’s geopolitical intent, and keen to draw in allies and partners to ease the burden, has continued to support AUKUS.

AUKUS generated such debate because it seemingly came out of nowhere. However, for those familiar with Australian strategic policy, and Australia-UK-US relations more generally, the agreement was not a ‘bolt from the blue’. The three countries already had a very close relationship, and their ability to interoperate and interchange forces with one another is perhaps the most extensive in the world – a consequence of little-known and informal terrestrial, naval, and air spin-off agreements connected to the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence grouping. At least for Britain, AUKUS built on the 2013 defence agreement between the UK and Australia, which allowed for the transfer of military technology between the two partners.

Geopolitical implications

As early as January 2022, AUKUS had already begun to have geopolitical implications. After Brexit and the messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan, it served as a timely reminder to those doubting British and American strength and determination that both nations still wielded considerable power and great creativity in realising their geostrategic goals. As Sir Stephen, then National Security Adviser, told the Council on Geostrategy the day after the AUKUS announcement in September 2021, the agreement represented ‘perhaps the most significant capability collaboration anywhere in the world in the past six decades.’

Australia, too, showed how important AUKUS was: having moved from ‘down under’ to ‘top centre’ in only a handful of years, the country centralised its role in maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific. AUKUS will enable Australia to operate advanced SSNs – the SSN-AUKUS class – greatly empowering the Royal Australian Navy during a time when other countries in the Indo-Pacific (the PRC in particular) are engaging in a rapid naval build-up.

Moreover, the announcement of AUKUS also reverberated in Europe. The extraordinary and sharp French reaction to the agreement quickly became apparent, even though France was unlikely to (and did not) mount a lasting challenge. Although Paris used AUKUS to argue for the acceleration of European ‘strategic autonomy’, the sheer cost and politics of that endeavour was – and still is, even after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – a politically insurmountable challenge. Later, France brandished its nuclear status across the continent, but frontline states in Northern and Eastern Europe viewed AUKUS as a boon to British – and by extension, European – security. This calculation was later validated by the vital UK support for Ukraine from 2022, as well as British moves to reinforce deterrence across NATO’s northern flank.

Indeed, these nations continue to look to the UK and the US, as well as those who provide the mainstay of troops, aircraft, and warships to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) Enhanced and Tailored Forward Presences they need for protection. Many even praised AUKUS, insofar as Britain’s participation indirectly binds Australia and America closer to Euro-Atlantic security, providing fresh animation to the emergence of an integrated Atlantic-Pacific region.

Despite the initial outcomes, the real geopolitical impact of AUKUS is to be felt over the longer term. Although it may never be central to a free and open Indo-Pacific in the same way that NATO is to the Euro-Atlantic, particularly given the geostrategic importance of India and Japan as well as the emergence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the three maritime democracies have confirmed with AUKUS that they are dissatisfied with existing multilateral arrangements, and that they are not prepared to wait indefinitely for regional stakeholders to take the necessary action in light of a worsening situation.

As a minilateral group, AUKUS – agile and nimble – swiftly created a new centre of geopolitical gravity and, despite British, Australian, and American attempts to dampen regional fears, it throws down the gauntlet to other countries and actors in the Indo-Pacific. The partnership reminds them that they cannot sit on the fence, or else the three nations will ultimately take measures into their own hands.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, AUKUS makes regional geopolitics more complicated for systemic competitors, namely the PRC, but also Russia. As Map 1 shows, AUKUS ‘triangulates’ power between three geostrategic nodes: the British Isles, North America, and Australia. It extends to the Australians technology and resources that they would not otherwise have, while strengthening Britain’s position in the Euro-Atlantic. It should be no surprise that Russia and the PRC have framed AUKUS so negatively.

Map 1: The geopolitics of AUKUS

Through AUKUS, the UK and the US are showing that they can deter revisionists not only by sending their own strategic assets into the Indo-Pacific, but also by empowering a vital regional partner. At the same time, by simultaneously focusing on next-generation technologies, the three countries have combined forces to create a more potent ‘technology accelerator’ to compete with the PRC.

A centre of geopolitical gravity

Given the strategic drivers behind AUKUS, the future of the trilateral partnership looked bright in late 2021 and early 2022, and continues to do so in 2026 with the three defence secretaries’ announcement. Looking ahead, perhaps the biggest question is whether the arrangement will remain exclusive, or whether it serves as the beginning of a more systemic rearrangement of geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific, and even, the Euro-Atlantic.

Despite not being a formal alliance, AUKUS generates a centre of geopolitical gravity based on shared interests and deep trust to convene – even align – other UK, US and Australian allies and partners. Indeed, as early as October 2021, Gen. Sir Nicholas Carter, former Chief of the Defence Staff, indicated that AUKUS will not necessarily remain exclusive, even if future members decide not to partake in nuclear submarine cooperation – which, in any case, may turn out to be of secondary importance compared to future Pillar II collaboration.

Canada and New Zealand – the other Five Eyes partners – could almost certainly get involved in AUKUS, particularly in terms of Pillar II’s advanced scientific research, even if the New Zealanders are averse to the military application of nuclear technology. Other countries, particularly Japan, could also potentially align with AUKUS, not least because of the closeness between the US and Japan, as well as between Australia and Japan, but also due to the emergence of the ‘quasi-alliance’ between London and Tokyo.

Given how AUKUS will support Britain’s posture in the North Atlantic, it is conceivable that it will become central to the Joint Expeditionary Force and NATO, particularly as Gen. Gwyn Jenkins, First Sea Lord, develops the New Hybrid Navy, the Atlantic Bastion, Shield, and Strike concepts, and the Northern Navies Initiative, with key Northern European allies. Indeed, the technologies generated through Pillar II may become indispensable to deterrence in the North Atlantic.

Conclusion

AUKUS has successfully bridged the traditional divides between regional theatres, establishing a sophisticated regulatory and technological ecosystem that links the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific. By connecting the industrial bases of the UK, the US, and Australia, the partnership does more than simply project naval power into the Indo-Pacific; it establishes an enduring bulwark designed to ensure that autocratic rivals do not dictate the rules of the 21st-century international order.

James Rogers is Co-President (Research) of the Council on Geostrategy.

A previous version of this article was published in January 2022. This is an updated version.

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The 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) had within it a clear message: defence can no longer be ‘contracted out only to our Armed Forces, good and brave as they are.’ With multiple current and future threats and challenges facing the United Kingdom (UK), ‘a whole-of-society approach is essential. Everyone has a role to play and a national conversation on how we do it is required.’

A year on from the SDR’s publication, and with threats mounting from all directions, this conversation is starting. Polling in support of increased defence spending is trending in the right direction – that is, unless you are part of the sizeable percentage who abhor defence and think it is a waste of money.

A sensible communications campaign is not going to spend much time on that group. Those already in favour should not need extensive targeting either, but are often targeted anyway, because doing so is easier and less risky. Everyone likes talking to their own echo chamber, and nobody enjoys being called a warmonger.

Yet, it is the middle of the normal distribution – the majority of the British population – where most effort should lie. This audience is often described in polls as ‘disengaged’, and those who think defence is either someone else’s problem or that the military has it covered. Indeed, the inability to deploy a single Royal Navy warship to protect the UK’s air stations on Cyprus seemed to be the first time that many within this middle group realised how thinly spread the British Armed Forces have now become.

Defence language

Reaching this group requires a clarity of language that defence does not naturally possess. Armed forces language has always been slightly exclusionary. This is no different from other professional groups, from finance to medicine to law – ‘this is our gang and you’re not in it’. Each service having its own lexicon also does not help. This is controversial, but perhaps the whole business of defence does not attract the best communicators. It certainly does not always attract good writers, and the technical, clipped style demanded in written communication throughout a career does not improve matters.

Add to this the extreme brevity required on many radio circuits, and the result is a mash-up of jargon abbreviations and codewords, often incomprehensible to the person sitting next to you, let alone an interested outsider. Without care, you can leave the service and before you know it, you are using the 24-hour clock at work and saying ‘roger’ at the end of sentences and everyone else in the office thinks you are weird.

Online, where character limits matter as much as airtime on a radio circuit, the problem is equally acute. Acronyms such as SDR, JEF, NAS, NATO MARCOM, and PJHQ are sprayed about on the assumption that everyone knows what they mean.* A recent Royal Navy post on X about Exercise TAMBER SHIELD illustrates this nicely:

Personnel from @815NAS conducted rescue and firefighting training with the @Sjoforsvaret during Ex #TamberShield. The exercise runs under JEF, the UK-led coalition of Northern Europe nations which works in support of @NATO_MARCOM ops. @JEFnations

The only people who understand this language are in the wrong target audience, and even they find it grating. They then lead the ridicule, which in turn discourages wider engagement. And while many social channels encourage tagging users and employing hashtags, they should not be used at the expense of clarity.

Clunky language, mangled syntax, and the occasional made-up word is not the root cause of defence’s problems, but it is a highly visible symptom. The real problem runs deeper than language alone. It is a fundamental communication problem. The national conversation does need to happen, and it must be conducted in plain English. However, it also needs to be honest, both internally and externally, or the ‘say-do’ gap will continue to widen and undermine trust.

Centralised control

Speaking to those who handled communications for the individual services during the Cold War and 1990s, it is clear that they had a level of freedom unrecognisable today, despite having far fewer channels. Over-centralisation of messaging has become entrenched. It was already well established in the Ministry of Defence by 2011 when David Cameron, then Prime Minister, issued his famous ‘you do the fighting, and I’ll do the talking’ reprimand to Sir Mark Stanhope, then First Sea Lord, who had merely suggested that providing an extra ship off Libya might stretch the Royal Navy.

Sir Mark did, of course, deploy an extra ship on top of all the other standing tasks of the day, and the issue was quickly forgotten. But this papering over of the cracks is part of the problem. The British Armed Forces have a built-in desire to say ‘yes minister’. This is part of being in a democracy. Not doing so is also the fastest way to guarantee being passed over for promotion.

The follow-on problem is the military’s ability to deliver, while hiding the ‘duct tape’ required to make it happen. The result is a damaging lack of honesty: politicians not being entirely frank with the public about the state of defence, and the military not being entirely frank with politicians in return – a communications issue, in other words.

This obsession with centralisation shows no sign of abating, and is certainly not confined solely to the Ministry of Defence (MOD), nor to either side of the political aisle. Not long ago, there was a discussion floating around Whitehall about removing all ministries’ communications departments and doing the whole thing centrally. If this overreach feels as though it verges on parody, consider that Brexit and Covid-19 communications were the examples used to justify it.

Computer says ‘no’

In such an environment, it is easy to see why individual services struggle to get their messages to the right audiences. For HMS Dragon – which was deployed to the Gulf of Oman in early May – to communicate anything beyond routine matters, approval is required from the UK commander in Bahrain, the Joint Headquarters in Northwood, the Operations Directorate in the MOD, and ultimately the Directorate of Defence Communications. A single ‘no’ anywhere in the chain kills the opportunity.

This ponderousness causes defence to miss literally thousands of good outreach opportunities every year. The iconic image of HMS Diamond firing her Aster missile at an incoming drone was released in error – just as well, since the system would otherwise have blocked it. All told, this has produced an all-time high in risk aversion towards unit-level communications, with no sign of improvement.

Threats

The urgency of fixing these problems is clear. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, daily sub-threshold activities against Europe, questions over American commitment to allies, and an impending energy shock should be warning enough. This is not just a Royal Navy issue; it is pan-defence. One hopes the visit by Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, to a Vanguard class submarine that had been at sea so long it changed colour might be a trigger. If the ‘pointy stuff’ is being exposed as this thin, the underpinnings raise a whole new level of concern.

Yet even now, the official language speaks of sticking plasters and ‘increases in due course’. The latest proposed plaster is smaller than the black hole it needs to fill. This is what used to be called ‘more cuts’, and it helps explain why the Defence Investment Plan has still not appeared a year after the SDR upon which it is based. Meanwhile, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) which could help to plug gaps at relatively low cost struggle with communications barriers, often by design. The system continues to claim it is ‘meeting all operational tasking’ when it is demonstrably not.

This was effective as a ‘line to take’ when Britain still had enough mass to paper over the cracks. Now, though, it does not.

Conclusion

The SDR was right: a national conversation on defence is essential if the UK is to understand the gap and therefore vote to improve national resilience.

This is a whole-ship sport, and clear, honest communications – using plain English, delivered through a spread of channels and voices and based on ambition, not fear – sit at the heart of it. Each service has the capability, but their shackles must be loosened. This does not mean a free-for-all, but an environment in which communications risk is properly tolerated and managed, just like any other operational risk.

All that is required is the courage from the top to delegate authority effectively and to accept the associated risk. The alternative is that change will be forced upon Britain, when it will be too late and much, much more expensive.

*Strategic Defence Review, Joint Expeditionary Force, Naval Air Squadron, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Maritime Command, and Permanent Joint Headquarters for those who do not know.

Tom Sharpe OBE is a communications consultant who specialises in enhancing and protecting reputations in complex and contested environments. Prior to this, he served for over 25 years in the Royal Navy, the last five of which were spent in military plans and communications.

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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The European Three (E3) is an informal grouping of the United Kingdom (UK), France, and Germany – arguably the three most powerful countries in the European continent. Having convened for the first time in 2003 in the wake of the United States (US)-led invasion of Iraq, it seeks collaboration on common foreign and defence policy between the three nations.

Despite its turbulent relationship with European nations following Brexit, the UK maintains security ties with France and Germany through membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), bilateral agreements signed with each country, and shared security interests. As such, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked seven experts: How can Britain work more effectively within the E3 to advance its national security objectives?

Dr Henning Hoff

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Executive Editor, Internationale Politik Quarterly and Internationale Politik

Originally formed in 2003 to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran, the E3 laid somewhat dormant after the Brexit vote, but emerged recently as Europe’s most effective troubleshooting grouping, especially with a view to Ukraine. That Ukraine’s future is now again being discussed not in a triangle (US-Ukraine-Russia), but in a quartet with Europeans included, is one of the recent achievements of the E3 that is highly regarded by Germany.

However, the E3 could be much more, including a vehicle for the UK to advance national security objectives. This is particularly true in two respects: forging greater strategic alignment on – and organising – a future European deterrence and defence that will likely have to make do with a much-reduced American contribution; and coordinating much more closely on European strategic engagement in the Indo-Pacific.

For that to happen, the E3 needs to hold regular meetings at the top level. That changes at the presidential and head-of-government level are afoot in France (April 2027), possibly in Britain, and perhaps even in Germany (Friedrich Merz, Chancellor of Germany, faced headlines speculating about his future this week), only reinforces the point: an effective E3 needs a meeting of minds at the top. To function well, effectively, and long-term, however, the E3 will need to set up permanent working groups and institutionalise the format in various other ways. This requires diplomatic capital that would be well spent on such an endeavour.

Dr Catarina Liberato

Research Fellow, School of Economics, Politics, and International Relations, University of Kent

Six years after the withdrawal of the UK from the EU, the E3 remains the most accessible vehicle through which Britain can shape European security deliberations without sitting at the EU table. Its value lies not in institutional weight, but in precisely the opposite: a format informal enough to survive Brexit, flexible enough to move faster than EU machinery, and intimate enough to align positions before they harden. Yet, the UK has too often engaged reactively – a pattern that successive strategy documents have failed to correct.

The current moment demands a different approach. With US-led mediation on Ukraine stalled and Berlin explicitly naming the E3 as Europe’s renewed diplomatic instrument, Britain can advance three concrete national security objectives: shaping peace settlement terms before they are fixed by others; ensuring Ukraine’s security guarantees reflect UK commitments rather than being subcontracted to EU mechanisms excluding London; and anchoring NATO cohesion amid transatlantic uncertainty.

The E3 is also the most credible channel through which Britain can influence the EU’s emerging European Security Strategy – as an indispensable partner whose positions Paris and Berlin carry inward – while proving the Labour Party’s reset delivers strategic value, not goodwill alone.

The UK’s nuclear status, expeditionary credibility, and intelligence relationships confer a standing neither France nor Germany can replicate. The architecture is there; now His Majesty’s (HM) Government just needs the political will to use it.

Etienne Marcuz

Senior Analyst, Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS)

The July 2025 Northwood Declaration paved the way for political, technological, and above all operational coordination between Britain and France in the nuclear domain. At the same time, both countries have each initiated in-depth strategic bilateral dialogues with Germany, reinforcing the E3 as the core of Europe’s future security and defence architecture. While Paris and Berlin vie for European leadership, London occupies a unique position within the Atlantic alliance: it is an autonomous nuclear power independent of the US, yet also a participant in NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group (NPG).

Although France’s forward deterrence initiative has been positively received by both European allies and the American partner, the country’s absence from the NPG could create a risk of confusion in the event of a parallel escalation of both nuclear postures. The UK could therefore serve as a bridge between extended deterrence and forward deterrence.

Moreover, while nuclear deterrence will play a central role in continental security, it cannot stand alone. It must be supported by robust conventional capabilities, particularly for deep strike operations, which will be critical in managing escalation. The strong bilateral relations between Britain and its two partners – especially at times when relations between France and Germany are turbulent – could also enable better political and operational coordination among the three powers.

Thus, the UK could be entrusted with a genuine pivotal role within the E3, facilitating relations between its two partners as they each compete for leadership in shaping the future of European defence.

Dr Julian Pawlak

Research Associate, German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP)

Britain should collaborate with France and Germany to establish the E3 as the fundamental means by which European nations can assume greater responsibility within NATO. The two European nuclear powers, together with Germany’s military and economic potential, represent the large part of the core of any serious European effort, and as such should take on that responsibility sooner rather than later.

The underlying question is whether free and open European nations are able to deter Russia, and, if necessary, defend themselves against it. Building that capacity is a European task, and the E3 should lead the way once the three nations have agreed to this necessity and made it a reality. Ideally, this would automatically include – and also represent the interests of – European partners, in the light of the Russian threat, particularly the Northern and Baltic flank states as well as Ukraine.

For the UK, this would mean treating the format as a structural commitment that would also support an often slower-acting Germany in taking on this trilateral responsibility within NATO. The E3 should become the anchor for Europe within the alliance; the core around which a more capable, self-reliant European contribution is organised, and through which London, Paris, and Berlin can align their planning, capabilities, and political weight behind the common deterrent of NATO.

James Rogers

Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy

For Britain, minilateral groupings, alongside enhanced bilateral arrangements, and NATO, are the future of European security. The question is how to coordinate them all to the extent that the UK is strategically indispensable and NATO remains primus inter pares. HM Government’s ultimate objective should be simple: no country or institution in Europe should be able to take any geopolitical decisions without British consent.

However, the E3 is a cosy creation from an earlier era. It is no longer fit for the new age of geopolitics in Europe, where Poland and Romania – and Ukraine – are central to the eastern flank of NATO, and where Italy, Turkey, and the Nordic states – especially Norway – are critical to its southern and northern flanks.

Besides, the balance of power in Europe is changing quickly. Due to Russia’s full-blown invasion of Ukraine, and Poland’s dramatic military modernisation programme, power has shifted eastwards. At the very least, the E3 should be enlarged to include Poland, which is often close to British perspectives and is amassing economic and military power that cannot be ignored. Including Poland would help to balance France and Germany, especially if Russia-friendly governments re-enter office in Berlin and Paris in the future.

The UK should then see this consequent E4 as the centrepiece of European security, and the pillar from which a more Europeanised NATO can be built. Additional minilaterals, such as the Joint Expeditionary Force and Weimar+ should then be positioned to intersect with the E4, making Britain even more pivotal. The E4 could then be used to create additional minilaterals to cover the Mediterranean, with Italy, and the Black Sea, with Romania and Ukraine, further centralising the UK in the geopolitical landscape of contemporary Europe.

Christina Venard

Head of Strategic Studies, Defence Department, Embassy of France in the United Kingdom

In the current, quickly evolving strategic environment, at a time when European allies are taking further primary responsibility for their defence, the E3 format provides a relevant and coherent format to take forward European security interests.

The close coordination between Paris, London, and Berlin, in the field of defence within this format, based on the robustness and vitality of the respective bilateral partnerships, remains essential to advancing jointly along the path towards a more European-led NATO as the core of a rebalanced and mutually beneficial transatlantic bond.

At the strategic level, high level consultations within the E3, and through close complementarity with Poland and Italy with the E5 format, contribute to the development of a shared assessment of the Russian threat for European security and to the definition of how European countries intend to address it at the operational, capability, and political levels.

In the run up to the NATO Ankara Summit, this E3 structure, as it gathers allies which are both able and willing to bear a greater responsibility for the security of the European continent, has the ability to mobilise European allies further for the preservation of NATO’s unity, which remains a major prerequisite for its military credibility, making the alliance even more resilient.

Finally, the signing of the Northwood Declaration by France and the UK in July 2025, alongside the development of the forward deterrence framework including Germany, demonstrates the depth of strategic cooperation and mutual commitment that characterise the bilateral relationships within the E3.

Prof. Richard Whitman

Professor of International Relations, University of Kent

Britain should use its position within the E3 to champion the creation of a European Security Council. Comprising three significant European defence and diplomatic powers, the E3 is uniquely positioned to act as a vanguard for this idea – collectively marshalling the political weight, institutional experience, and cross-European relationships needed to bring such a body into existence.

The UK should use its position within the E3 to acknowledge the grouping’s limitations, and lead its transformation into something more fit for purpose. The E3 was conceived for a different era. Bringing together Britain, France, and Germany, it made sense as a diplomatic vehicle for issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme. However, the defining security challenge of our time is Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and for that challenge, the E3 is the wrong configuration.

Any coalition serious about European security must have Ukraine at its centre, as the frontline state whose resilience determines the broader security of the continent. A grouping that excludes Ukraine – and that lacks the Nordic, Baltic, and Central European states most acutely exposed to Russian aggression – cannot credibly claim to speak for European security interests.

This is precisely why the E3’s defining purpose should become the genesis of a European Security Council – a wider, more representative body that includes Ukraine, the Nordic and Baltic states, and Poland, alongside the major Western European powers. Since Russia’s invasion began, the UK has demonstrated the leadership necessary to build such coalitions. It should now direct that energy toward making the E3 the launchpad for a more ambitious and durable European security architecture.

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In April 2026, Lord Robertson, former Secretary of State for Defence and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Secretary General, stated that the United Kingdom (UK) is ‘under-prepared. We are under-insured. We are under attack.’ Britain, he argued, is fundamentally unready to meet global threats.

Preparedness is not simply a nation’s ability to respond and recover from an emergency crisis. It is also a test of a nation’s resilience – its preparedness for emergencies including pandemics, extreme weather, terror attacks, and war.

Risks can be acute or chronic. Chronic risks pose challenges that erode the economy and societal cohesion, and manifest over a longer timeframe. To withstand concurrent or consecutive crises, a nation must have readiness through the building of systemic endurance across society.

Britain understands this. So, why is it so difficult to start a national conversation on threats, risks, and national resilience?

Security and national resilience: Mutually interdependent

The British public appears to have a tendency to view national security threats as singular events. While attacks such as the 2018 Novichok poisonings, the 2006 polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, or routine cyber attacks attributable to adversaries are taken seriously at national, political, and military and security service levels, they do not generate a national conversation on British security, or how resilient the UK is to sustained attacks on its soil; even though adversaries are clearly systematically testing national resilience.

The view seems to be that British security is reserved for uniformed personnel and security services. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) prioritised ‘warfighting readiness’. Furthermore, an entire section was devoted to the rebuilding of Defence Medical Services readiness for high-intensity peer conflict: since most defence medical personnel work in the National Health Service (NHS), the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) needs to be able to address the handling of mass casualties and the clinical challenges of a reduction in workforce capacity in the event of a major military deployment.

It is also a given that the British Armed Forces will be mobilised to assist civil society in dealing with natural disasters and pandemics through Military Assistance to Civilian Authorities (MACA) tasking. However, if it comes to war, their priority is warfighting. In this instance, civil society will likely need to fend for itself and even assist the military – as experienced in Ukraine.

This is not scaremongering. Clarity and realism are needed. Being better prepared comes from starting a national conversation on resilience, because crisis is becoming the norm. Taking action only when under pressure is not always going to be enough; building national resilience is a more cost-effective endeavour.

Starting a national conversation on risks and threats

In April 2026, Dr Fiona Hill, one of the chief writers of the SDR, asserted that during focus groups, many understood the threats to British security – primarily cyber attacks, but also risks to Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and undersea cables. It seems that the public is ready for a clear narrative on public roles and responsibilities for risks, threats, preparedness, response and recovery. Furthermore, the National Security Strategy (NSS) recognised that ‘without security and resilience at home, we cannot deliver economic growth or any of the other government missions to improve the lives of the British people’.

A perennial problem is that defence and welfare are viewed as a zero-sum ‘guns versus butter’ trade-off between national security and societal needs. However, recent conversations about food and energy security are in fact both matters for national security and societal needs. Food, health, energy, and environment security are good indicators of national resilience. Germany and the Nordic countries treat national infrastructure, such as roads, rail, education, and health services – all institutions the UK tends to view as societal needs – as part of national defence, because robust infrastructure is needed in an emergency.

NATO’s baseline requirements for national resilience, as required under Article 3 of the NATO Charter, would be a good starting point for a national conversation. Article 3 acts as the foundational requirement for NATO’s ability to defend itself, ensuring members do not just depend on collective protection, but are actively building domestic capacity. It focuses on resilience, especially in energy, transport, communications, and emergency services.

Undergirding civil preparedness is societal resilience. NATO member states are expected to measure their level of preparedness against seven baseline requirements for national resilience: continuity of government, resilient energy supplies, ability to deal with the uncontrolled movement of people, resilient food and water supplies, ability to deal with mass casualties and disruptive health crises, resilient civil communication systems, and resilient transport systems.

Here, Britain has a lot of work to do. Years of austerity across public services and an overreliance on ‘just-in-time’ supply chains heighten the UK’s vulnerabilities. The FM Global Resilience Index for 2026 ranked Britain as the 14th most resilient country, but revealed challenges and areas of vulnerability, particularly regarding inflation, climate exposure, and climate risk awareness.

The National Preparedness Commission’s 2025 industrial resilience report highlighted a key vulnerability in the UK’s heavy reliance on imported materials to make most of its critical items – such as defence equipment, electronics, pharmaceuticals, energy, and food. In response to His Majesty’s (HM) Government’s 2025 National Resilience Action Plan, the Commission’s August 2025 report found notable deficits in resilience awareness, in levels of preparedness among British households, and divergent willingness of said households to engage in enhancing their resilience.

Existing risk frameworks: Emergencies and resilience

The 2004 Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) is the main source of legislation on civil emergencies. Building upon this, the 2022 UK Government Resilience Framework was an important step to approaching national resilience by creating a shared understanding of risks, a focus on prevention and preparation, and communicating that resilience requires a whole-of-society approach.

While developments are occurring, there are concerns over the lack of a coherent joint-up effort and an overly ‘top-down’ approach. The key issue is that preparedness and resilience are often sidelined by immediate, short-term priorities and the political necessity of dealing with current problems. In other words, emergencies are easier to manage than longer-term resilience-building. Compounding this, there is no single minister dedicated to national resilience.

The extent of resilience fragmentation requires testing and regular review. Taiwan takes a whole-of-society approach, with its Whole-of-Society Defence Resilience Committee focusing on six elements of resilience (broadly aligning with NATO’s Article 3 requirements). The Committee has run annual tabletop and small-scale exercises (an urban resilience exercise) for the past two years, and is looking to expand. Through these, the Taiwanese government has been able to stress-test and fix national resilience issues.

There is also the matter of funding. At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, Britain committed to spending an additional 1.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to ‘protect critical infrastructure, defend networks, ensure civil preparedness and resilience, innovate, and strengthen the defence industrial base’ by 2035. However, these commitments are not yet reflected in HM Government expenditure plans, nor is it clear how they will be funded due to the delaying of the Defence Readiness Bill and Defence Investment Plan.

Public information campaigns: Being realistic

The Swedish approach is to promote self-help and responsibility. Through Sweden’s Total Defence model, everyone over 18 has a legally defined role in civil resilience. Individuals are mandated to contribute to national resilience through three main areas: military, civil, or public service. If the highest threat state is declared, everyone understands their role and is prepared to act.

In 2018, the Government of Sweden issued a leaflet entitled ‘If crisis or war comes’, and in 2022 it set up the Psychological Defence Agency to tackle misinformation campaigns from foreign entities. There are also 18 voluntary defence organisations training local volunteers in specialist areas such as radio communication, transport, and logistics.

The Netherlands also promotes a whole-of-society approach, recognising that preparedness takes preparation. Its public ‘Think Ahead’ information campaigns emphasise being realistic regarding risks. The Dutch government promotes self-help in the first 72 hours of any crisis, and regularly communicates that it will probably take three days to organise assistance.

Switzerland and Germany provide websites to calculate lists of family needs for a week’s supply of food. Latvia and Lithuania distribute booklets on how to survive for 72 hours in a crisis. By contrast, Britain’s Prepare information website provides only basic information. For instance, the Prepare message on food supplies reads: ‘As with water, how much you need will vary based on your own circumstances. Don’t forget food for pets.’ Evidently, there is much to learn from other countries.

Conclusion

The UK has a long way to go, and time is not on its side. There is government recognition that resilience building and preparedness is a whole-of-society effort. Without a national conversation on threats and risks, and their agency and scale, HM Government reduces its ability to enable the British public to be prepared for the contemporary and future threat landscape. Starting a national conversation on risk is now an urgent necessity.

Dr Anisa Heritage is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Her research focuses on changes in the international order and international security, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.

This article was written by the author in a personal capacity. The opinions expressed are her own, and do not reflect the views of HM Government or the Ministry of Defence.

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In January 2026, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, announced her proposal for a ‘new European Security Strategy’ to encompass the entirety of the European Union (EU). She elaborated that the strategy would aim to collate defence and security knowledge from EU member states, and ensure that geopolitical challenges are addressed appropriately as and when they may arise.

With Brexit now having occurred ten years ago, the United Kingdom (UK) has a complex relationship with the EU. However, as a custodian of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), and one of the two European nuclear powers, it nevertheless has interests in terms of upholding continental security. With this in mind, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked four experts: How should Britain engage with the new European Security Strategy?

Prof. Basil Germond

Professor of International Security and Co-Director of Security Research Institute, Lancaster University, and Visiting Fellow, Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre

The UK should treat the forthcoming European Security Strategy as an opportunity to build structured naval cooperation around shared interests in the maritime domain: defence of the continent, stability of the global maritime supply chain, and protection of critical maritime infrastructure, especially undersea cables and other maritime assets essential to economic and national security.

Building on the EU’s revised Maritime Security Strategy of 2023, which explicitly targets sub-threshold and cyber threats to maritime infrastructure and seeks stronger coordinated presence, exercises, and naval operations, Britain should pursue a pragmatic, mission‑led partnership that complements NATO through targeted cooperation where it adds operational value – particularly in infrastructure protection.

Von der Leyen has stressed that security in the High North is ‘first and foremost’ a NATO responsibility. Here, the UK can add value and increase European credibility by using the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) and bilateral cooperation with Norway to help integrate EU member states’ efforts in maritime situational awareness, Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), undersea cable protection, and resilience planning, while strengthening links to Baltic and North Atlantic priorities.

Britain should position the EU as a partner of choice for undersea cable security. This can be achieved through the alignment of EU regulatory and coordination tools with the UK’s operational capabilities, intelligence, and rapid response capacity. This would be especially prudent as EU doctrine increasingly emphasises safeguarding undersea infrastructure and maritime domain awareness in the Baltic, North, and Mediterranean seas and Atlantic approaches.

Finally, as the current situation in the Strait of Hormuz underlines, if Britain desires credibility as a defender of a rules‑based maritime order, it needs reliable partners for sustained presence and freedom of navigation missions and for rapid coalition responses to coercion below the threshold of war. This is clearly an area where UK-EU cooperation can multiply effect.

Della Heptinstall

Associate, Walker Morris LLP

The new European Security Strategy reflects an overdue recognition that the EU should assume greater responsibility for its own security. Yet, while the strategy emphasises ‘independence’ and industrial self-reliance, it risks overlooking an essential truth: European security cannot be delivered by the EU alone.

Britain remains central to any credible European defence architecture. A decade after Brexit, the UK and EU are strategically aligned but institutionally distant. This matters. The new strategy’s focus on strengthening defence industrial capacity, accelerating procurement, and scaling innovation depends on capabilities that are already deeply integrated across European supply chains.

Britain is a major contributor across all three dimensions: a leading defence industrial base, a nuclear power, and a cornerstone of NATO. Excluding it from the new European Security Strategy’s industrial and capability building mechanisms would not enhance European autonomy; it would fragment it. Duplication of effort, reduced economies of scale, and weaker interoperability would follow. The EU’s ambition to act more decisively in a more hostile security environment would, paradoxically, be undermined.

Strategic autonomy should not be confused with strategic isolation. If the new European Security Strategy is to deliver meaningful deterrence, it should be built around a broader ‘European-plus’ framework which recognises the UK not as a third country, but as a critical partner. For Britain, engagement should therefore be proactive and structured, ensuring that it helps to shape, rather than react to, the continent’s evolving security architecture.

Dr Alexander Lanoszka

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Waterloo (Canada)

Having decided to leave the EU, the UK can, at best, play an indirect role in the formulation of the new European Security Strategy. Nevertheless, it has now been a year since Britain and the EU signed their security and defence partnership. That framework document outlined multiple issue areas where the two sides could develop their cooperation.

The UK shares many common interests with the EU in terms of defending critical infrastructure, repelling foreign interference, and building capacity so that NATO allies can use EU funds to reach their capability targets. These common interests allow for the EU and NATO to build complementarity at a time when continental security is under significant geopolitical duress.

Yet, military mobility is the element that deserves special attention, not least since Britain has been invited to participate in the Permanent Structured Cooperation project in 2022. Despite much ink spilled on the subject in the last decade, significant logistical and regulatory barriers remain in place across the EU, which would hamper the flow of military personnel and equipment in the event of an acute security crisis.

Military mobility thus matters for ensuring that European nations can both defend themselves and support their own sustainment, especially when the UK and the United States (US) are positioned along NATO’s eastern flank. Britain should join PESCO to advance shared goals in improving military mobility across the continent.

As the European Commission drafts its new Security Strategy, the UK can do something militarily advantageous on the continent that still respects its decision to withdraw from the EU.

Melania Parzonka

Research Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs

The political alignment on security between Britain and the EU already exists: willingness to support Ukraine, recognition of Russia as a direct threat, and the urgency of rearmament.

Yet, after Brexit, the UK has been left out of seismic developments happening in EU security planning, such as rethinking of the mutual security clause (as an alternative to NATO) or joint borrowing to fund rearmament. With ongoing debates about sources of funding to deliver the aims of the Strategic Defence Review, the latter option especially would be hugely beneficial to a fiscally constrained Britain.

There are, however, other avenues for cooperation. The niche that the EU has carved out for itself on military and defence topics is in the industrial sphere. It has positioned itself to oversee and accelerate European rearmament, as well as foster cooperation between national defence industries. Hence, industry is the area where the UK can prove itself indispensable to the EU.

It is crucial that Britain’s industry can supply armaments to Ukraine under the newly approved €90 billion (£77.8 billion) Ukraine Support Loan. This will anchor the UK in EU-coordinated procurement frameworks and give a precedent for closer cooperation in future programmes. Furthermore, Britain should seek joint industrial projects with like-minded EU member states – for example, NATO eastern flank states, currently the biggest spenders in the alliance on defence as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The UK has already made a step in this direction with the upcoming British-Polish defence treaty – the third agreement of this kind after ones signed with Germany and France in 2025.

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Ahead of the visit of Donald Trump, President of the United States (US) visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Beijing signalled its intent to push him to ‘oppose’ Taiwan independence explicitly. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, maintained that Washington would stick with its longstanding position – which has traditionally been: ‘we do not support Taiwan independence’ (although the Trump administration removed this particular wording from its website).

Given Trump’s highly personalistic and unpredictable approach to diplomacy and dealmaking, there was no guarantee that he would not go off script. As ever, the President chose his own words when speaking to Fox News: ‘I’m not looking to have somebody go independent…I want them [Taiwan] to cool down’ (and adding ‘I want China to cool down’, alongside other loose language on arm sales to Taipei).

The distinction is a fine one, and a change of wording would not have altered anything on the ground: Taiwan would have remained independent. But had Trump opted to utter ‘we oppose Taiwan independence’, Beijing’s efforts to shift the blame for cross-strait instability onto Taipei would have been bolstered, and unwarranted legitimacy would have been lent to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) expansionist territorial claims.

Indeed, many countries in Africa and Asia have put on record their opposition to Taiwanese independence (and given a green light for a Chinese war to annex the island). Yet, the US to one side, Taiwan’s other partners – including the United Kingdom (UK) – are not publicly pressed to alter their wording and ‘oppose’ Taiwanese independence. His Majesty’s (HM) Government standard line is:

We consider the Taiwan issue one to be settled peacefully by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait through constructive dialogue, without the threat or use of force or coercion. We do not support any unilateral attempts to change the status quo.

Without reading too deeply between the lines, it can be inferred that HM Government does ‘not support’ Taiwan independence – that is an act, such as revising the Republic of China’s constitution, that would make Taiwan de jure independent – because such action would have to be unilateral in practice. Beijing would never acquiesce to it.

Yet, at the same time, HM Government does not appear, in principle, to be opposed. Rather, with the emphasis on a final settlement being arrived at ‘peacefully’ the point does not seem to be the outcome, whether independence or unification, but on the process.

In 2022, Ben Wallace, then Defence Secretary, muddied the waters when he told the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee that ‘it is in China’s plan to reunify Taiwan to mainland China...[and] Britain wants a peaceful process towards that.’

Wallace quickly rowed back these words, in a letter to the committee’s Chair, and repeated HM Government’s familiar formulation that ‘the contested status of Taiwan must be resolved peacefully’. He wrote ‘My position is most emphatically not, as you believe my remarks suggested, that “Taiwan must expect to be absorbed into the PRC and, inter alia, has no independent legitimacy”.’ Yet, a few paragraphs further down, Wallace also spoke of the UK’s longstanding and unchanging policy on Taiwan being ‘reflected in the Cairo Declaration’…

This declaration – that, in 1943, pledged to restore Taiwan to China from Japanese rule – has, however, been noticeably absent from modern HM Government statements. In neither its 2000 submission nor its 2024 response to the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee did the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO) mention this wartime commitment in exposition on Britain’s Taiwan policy.

Long may this remain so. The UK should not be in the business of carving up territory with little to no regard for the people living there. The signing over of Poland at Yalta, another Second World War deal of this kind, is rightly regarded as a highly embarrassing and regrettable episode in British diplomatic history. Moreover, any invocation of the Cairo Declaration today stands at odds with HM Government’s belief that cross-strait differences ‘be settled peacefully…without the threat or use of force or coercion.’

If the stipulation is that neither force nor coercion should be used, then is it not the position of HM Government that any fundamental change to the cross-strait status quo must be one that has the consent of the Taiwanese people? Indeed, they may (as polls consistently suggest) never opt for unification, but instead stick with maintaining Taiwan’s de facto independence indefinitely.

Going forward, the UK – definitively ditching the Cairo Declaration (lest Beijing seize on any regurgitated reference to this pledge) – should make this point clear: that it is ultimately up to the people of Taiwan, living as they do in a democracy, to decide their future.

While often unsaid, the will of the Taiwanese populace has long been a concern of British governments. On 11th May 1951, when pushed on how a settlement across the Taiwan Strait might be brought about, Herbert Morrison, then Foreign Secretary, told Parliament: ‘I think it is clearly desirable that the wishes of the inhabitants of Formosa [Taiwan] should be taken into account’.

Articulating such a view now would help to counter Beijing’s intensifying efforts to dictate the global narrative in which Taiwan is presented as an ‘internal matter’, the rights of the people there erased, and unification established as a historical inevitability. Such lines, if unchallenged, will only breed fatalism in Taiwan, aiding the CCP’s efforts to break the psychological will of the Taiwanese people and secure victory without a fight. Meanwhile, if this narrative takes hold, the costs of a conflict for Beijing will have been lowered – with an act of annexation unlikely to invoke the same global disdain as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Fully articulating this point, about the wishes of the Taiwanese, is also a good reminder to the world that Taiwan is not a mere ‘problem’ or ‘issue’ (or, indeed, a bargaining chip) but a country of 24 million people.

At a time when the leader of the free world cannot be relied upon to articulate the rights and wrongs of an international dispute, it falls upon Britain and like-minded nations to step up and do so. The UK can continue not to support any unilateral alterations to the status quo. However, going forward, HM Government should assert that cross-strait differences must be settled peacefully, without the threat or use of force or coercion – and with the explicit democratic consent of the people of Taiwan.

Gray Sergeant is Research Fellow in Indo-Pacific Geopolitics at the Council on Geostrategy.

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In Season 3, Episode 2, we are joined by Luke Pollard MP, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, to discuss the structural and cultural changes required to rebuild Britain’s defence industrial base.

The conversation tackles the reality of legacy procurement delays and the push for faster, more adaptable equipment delivery. We unpack the Royal Navy’s transition to a hybrid fleet of crewed and autonomous platforms, the practical steps being taken to clear hurdles for SMEs, and how a reformed defence strategy can deter peer adversaries while acting as a genuine engine for UK economic growth.

Find Defence Talks: Securing UK Advantage on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Castbox, Radio Public, Soundcloud, Pocketcast and Overcast.

Last week’s local election results showed a sharp change in British politics. The two-party dominance of Labour and Conservative was shaken, with major gains being made by both the Greens and Reform UK – parties described as ‘populist’ within British media, as well as by politicians.

This is not a phenomenon unique to the United Kingdom (UK). Across Europe, populist parties have seen a surge in support, such as Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland; AfD), Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia; FdI), and Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość; PiS) in Poland. While not a unanimous shift, as demonstrated by the April 2026 election of Péter Magyar as Prime Minister of Hungary, the continental trend towards populism nevertheless remains clear. This forms the foundation for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked seven experts: How should Britain respond to rising European populism?

Prof. Amelia Hadfield

Founding Director, Centre for Britain and Europe; and Head, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Surrey

The scale of Reform UK’s victory is stunning. The party gained more than 1,400 council seats and control of 14 councils in England in the local elections, with a performance equivalent to 26% of the national vote share. Were a general election to be held now on those trends, Reform would win the largest share of the vote, with the Greens second on 18%, and Labour and Conservative each on 17%.

These results are not an isolated phenomenon. The conditions underpinning populism – economic malaise, regional asymmetries, the disruptive effects of social media and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and deep dissatisfaction with mainstream parties – are more profound than a decade ago. Several potential responses emerge as a result.

Firstly, Labour’s leadership question: over 90 Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) have called on Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, to resign or set a timetable for his departure in order to regain voter confidence and thus actively confront the challenge of the right-wing populist Reform. Beyond this, Labour leadership requires enhanced credibility in the economic and business sphere to win back market and commercial confidence.

Secondly, a new centrist ascendancy: the point is less that populism needs to fail, but that other parties must succeed – not simply by endlessly criticising populists, but by delivering more credible governance on precisely the issues driving voters away, such as immigration, economic security, living standards, employment, and so on.

Lastly, electoral reform: the first-past-the-post system is a potential area of structural vulnerability, amplifying populist gains disproportionately. Changes in this area are overdue for any number of reasons, but last week’s local elections provide the most urgent reason of all.

In short, a response requires both institutional reform to reduce the distorting effects of the current electoral system, and a substantive political proposition from mainstream parties that can genuinely address the grievances fuelling the populist wave.

Sir Paul Lever KCMG

Former Chairman, Joint Intelligence Committee, and former Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Germany (1997-2003)

So-called populist parties thrive because they represent the concerns of significant parts of the electorate. In Germany and France, they have been demonised and excluded from power because of the baggage of their perceived political inheritances: national socialism in the case of AfD, East German communism in the case of Die Linke, and the Vichy regime in the case of the National Rally (Rassemblement National; RN).

Reform UK and the Greens in Britain do not suffer from this problem, and it would be a mistake to characterise them as extremist or beyond the political pale. Their policies should be challenged where appropriate, but other parties should be prepared to cooperate with them where there is common ground.

If Reform is the biggest party in the House of Commons after the next general election, Nigel Farage should be given the chance to form a government. Otherwise Britain risks ending up like Germany; with a succession of unnatural and potentially unstable political coalitions that do not properly reflect the popular mood.

However, the most urgent requirement is to change the UK’s electoral system, which in an age of multi-party politics is no longer fit for purpose. To be credible, a government needs to be based on the support of a majority of those who vote.

Ed Owen

Director of Political Strategy, ThinkLabour, and Non-Resident Fellow, Atlantic Council

Reform’s success in the local elections was the clearest sign yet of the threat it poses to Labour and to wider mainstream politics at the next general election.

In an increasingly fragmented electoral environment, Reform won support across Britain and has, for many voters, become the vehicle of widespread disillusionment with the political system. Its access to significant financial support from big donors like Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire living in Thailand, and wider ideological backing from an American administration determined to sow political division across Europe, gives it hope that it can seize national power.

Yet, while Reform won almost 1,500 English council seats and is now the second largest party in the devolved parliaments of Scotland and Wales, its vote share across the country was down compared to this time last year. The party is now coming under greater scrutiny from the media and others, and does appear – for the moment, at least – to have peaked in popular support at around 25%, both in last week’s elections and in national opinion polls.

To counter Reform, it will be vital for the Labour administration, first and foremost, to show delivery on the issues that feed support to Reform – the cost of living crisis, irregular migration across the English Channel, and poor public services. Alongside this, it also needs to demonstrate a clear values-driven approach that can mobilise anti-Reform support. Labour has lost more support to the Greens than to Farage, and this needs to be won back if the party is to see off the populist wave at the next general election.

The current upheaval in the Labour Party that has followed the local elections demonstrates that the party has woken up to the real threat posed by Reform: it has less than three years to prevent a Farage-led government in Westminster.

James Rogers

Co-founder (Research), Council on Geostrategy

‘Populism’ is often conflated with the political extremes, or parties or political forces that promise to deliver a better society, but lack any concrete or funded policies. Citizens in European countries, including Britain, appear to be voting for these parties more forcefully. Even in highly established, organic democracies, such as the UK, Sweden, or the Netherlands, populist forces appear to be in the ascendancy. Britain’s recent local elections only confirm this point, where the established parties did not perform well.

Populism is not organic. It is a symptom of the failure of established political parties to improve the lives of the citizens of their respective countries. It is also a response to globalisation, open borders, and the broader political orthodoxy of the past 30 years, which never recovered from the dislocation of the financial crisis of 2007-2008. If these problems are not addressed, populists will gain further traction in the UK and in parts of Europe, potentially becoming more extreme with every passing year.

At home, Britain should react to populist forces by overcoming the grievances that give rise to them. It should lead the reform of outmoded treaties (or withdraw from them if they no longer work), do far more to stymie undocumented migration, and put cheaper and sovereign energy, and economic growth – especially in poorer regions – at the forefront of the national enterprise.

In Europe, the UK needs a new political vision for the continent, which it projects throughout European nations. This vision should offer concrete solutions to the economic and geopolitical realities of the age.

Clinging tenaciously to the established order in Europe, as it faces stagnation, as well as dislocation from within and without, will no longer work. It is time to be bolder.

Dr Michael Toomey

Lecturer in International Relations, University of Glasgow

Reform UK has achieved overwhelming back-to-back victories in British local elections in 2025 and 2026. It is not surprising that there may be a sense that Britain is about to embrace a broader trend in European politics of far-right populist parties knocking on the doors of governmental power. However, appearances may be deceptive.

Firstly, a Reform government in 2029 is not a foregone conclusion. Its 2026 results reflected a 4% drop in its vote share from the year before, and its opinion polling shows a trend of decline. Throughout the local elections campaign, Reform candidates were curiously absent in terms of their public presence, suggesting that voters were casting a vote for Farage himself rather than an actual candidate – an inherently more difficult phenomenon to replicate in the higher profile atmosphere of a general election.

Secondly, Reform is not a new phenomenon in British politics. Farage himself has been an elected representative since 1999. Many of the most high-profile members of the party are cast-offs from a Conservative Party that seems to be in almost terminal decline. Indeed, Reform UK seems to be largely absorbing the Conservatives, with its populism reflecting a hardening of pre-existing Conservative policy and rhetoric rather than a sea change in British politics. This might place a ceiling on its potential for growth.

Finally, the idea that Reform is part of a European populist far-right juggernaut poised for political power does not hold up to scrutiny. In only a handful of cases have populist far-right parties managed to form governments, often with slim or fleeting majorities. In other cases, such as in France and Germany, far-right parties lead in opinion polls but remain unlikely to take power due to their polarising nature.

Instead, in the UK, the remainder of 2026 is more likely to be a harbinger of the adoption of a different European trend: fragmentation. With seven viable political parties, this could portend a razor-thin Reform landslide in 2029 (à la Labour in 2024), or a gridlocked and unstable Westminster.

Prof. Simon Usherwood

Professor of Politics and International Studies, The Open University; and Visiting Research Fellow, Centre for Britain and Europe, University of Surrey

There is a domestic and an external dimension to the rise of populism. At home, political parties across the ideological spectrum need to recognise that populists have been very effective at tapping into people’s feelings of disengagement and disempowerment in politics. Populists offer simple solutions to complex problems, aided by the apparent inability of the political ‘elite’ to make complex solutions produce clear effects.

Since politics is not going to get any easier, the response has to be one of drawing people into the process and encouraging them to see that solutions are not like online shopping – i.e., one click and it is done – but require a deep and persistent grasp of the issues. Giving people a stake and a role in politics will help to re-base expectations and to leverage the wider impact of social changes to affect desirable outcomes.

However, this cannot be a national endeavour: it should also have a collaborative international part. Supporting and strengthening democratic processes across national borders will be essential in limiting the erosion of norms and practices that has been seen in recent years. Being vocal about core British values of rule of law, human rights, and liberal democratic process should be matched by action to encourage allies and to sanction challenges to these ideals.

Prof. Stefan Wolff

Professor of International Security, University of Birmingham; Senior Research Fellow, The Foreign Policy Centre; and Co-founder, Navigating the Vortex

The rise of populism in Europe takes different forms and presents different challenges for the UK. For example, sovereigntist-nationalist parties like AfD are broadly Eurosceptic, ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA)-aligned, Kremlin-leaning, and inclined to fracture European Union (EU) cohesion, including on Ukraine.

Illiberal conservatives like PiS are also Eurosceptic and MAGA-aligned, but have a hardline stance on Russia and have adopted a more Atlanticist tradition – but with support for Ukraine more qualified and conditional. Nativist statists like the RN in France have tried to distance themselves from MAGA, but cannot be relied upon when it comes to an enduring commitment to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and support for Ukraine. And these are just the populists on the right wing…

None of these parties are in power yet, but with a presidential ballot in France and parliamentary elections in Poland (where a PiS-supported candidate won the presidency last year) both scheduled for next year, there is a chance that this might change. Germany’s fragile coalition government might also collapse before its full term is up in 2029.

This suggests both opportunities and vulnerabilities for Britain. The opportunities include more flexible security partnerships based on the logic of a ‘coalition of the willing’. There is already a proliferation of different, more-or-less permanent minilateral formats serving distinct but overlapping purposes and cutting across the traditional NATO and EU structures. The UK leads the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), co-leads the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ future Ukraine-based reassurance force, and is part of the European Three (E3) and the Ukraine Defence Contract Group (the Ramstein Group).

This is a sensible approach that plays to British military and diplomatic strengths and mitigates the consequences of both Brexit and the second Trump administration. However, this is just mitigation, not elimination, and additional vulnerabilities remain. Among them is the buildup of right-wing populist momentum across the continent that could add to the seeming inevitability of a Reform government. Even without this, the UK might find itself with a shrinking number of credible and capable security partners in the future.

Preparing for such an eventuality will require doubling down on the Strategic Defence Review, as well as investing more in the resilience of Britain’s own democratic processes and institutions so that the country remains a dependable ally for its remaining partners on the continent.

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Since the commencement of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the High North has become a primary theatre of strategic competition. This is a shift that the United Kingdom (UK) has responded to by declaring its intention to expand its regional presence, among other moves. However, Britain’s dependence on intelligence infrastructure provided by the United States (US) for its most sensitive maritime surveillance functions is a significant vulnerability that any serious Arctic strategy from His Majesty’s (HM) Government will need to address.

With the Trump administration no longer considering Russia an existential threat, and demonstrating a willingness to instrumentalise alliance relationships more specifically, continued reliance by the UK on US infrastructure means accepting a degree of American strategic discretion over British security decisions that may no longer be deemed desirable or tolerable.

It follows then that a key missing element of the UK’s Arctic strategy is the absence of an independent intelligent autonomous underwater surveillance capability capable of operating throughout the water column across the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap and the wider High North maritime space. A trilateral co-production partnership with Sweden and Ukraine centred on the joint development of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled autonomous underwater surveillance systems for the High North and its undersea infrastructures could begin to address that deficit while also serving broader strategic objectives beyond capability alone.

The capability case for this specific combination rests on three complementary and documented strengths. Sweden’s Saab Autonomous Ocean Drone (AOD) is a seven-metre long uncrewed undersea vehicle optimised for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) in the demanding, ice-affected maritime environment that the Arctic and the GIUK gap represent. Saab has designed the platform around an explicitly open autonomy stack, treating capability development ‘like applications in an app store’ with standardised interfaces that allow allied navies to develop and integrate their own classified mission software without disclosing it back to industry. This architecture makes the AOD a natural platform for multinational co-development.

Ukraine’s involvement is grounded in combat-validated expertise that most North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies currently do not possess in comparable form. The six-metre seabed-loitering Marichka exemplifies an autonomous underwater capability developed and refined under live operational conditions. The doctrinal and engineering knowledge embedded in the programme, including how autonomous underwater systems locate, position, and persist in hostile environments, fits neatly into the Arctic surveillance requirements that the proposed trilateral partnership is designed to address.

Britain’s own contribution centres on AI-enabled acoustic intelligence. Helsing’s SG-1 Fathom, manufactured in Plymouth, pairs an endurance submarine-hunter drone with the Lura maritime AI platform; a large model designed to interpret acoustic signals from sea vessels and submarines, and differentiate between individual vessels within the same class. This addresses one of NATO’s core surveillance problems in the High North, enabling the alliance not just merely to detect submarine presence, but also to attribute and track specific Russian vessels across transit routes from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic.

The proposed co-production arrangement is therefore one of integrated systems development rather than simply joint manufacturing. The Saab AOD would serve as the host platform, Ukraine’s contribution would operate at the level of mission logic and seabed deployment protocols, and Helsing’s Lura acoustic AI would supply the cognitive layer. Saab’s design philosophy – standardised interfaces allowing partners to integrate classified mission software independently – makes this division of labour technically feasible without requiring full disclosure of each partner country’s most sensitive Intellectual Property (IP).

The Ukraine dimension, moreover, adds another crucial layer of strategic logic at a time when formal NATO accession remains politically frozen. The good news, however, is that alliance integration has never been reducible to a single joining event. Sweden and Finland’s accession processes demonstrate that membership is built through accumulated industrial interdependence, shared doctrine, and interoperable systems developed well ahead of formal entry.

Although Ukraine’s situation is categorically different from both the Finnish and Swedish experiences, co-production would institutionalise its role as a security producer within the European order, with direct consequences for its longer-term trajectory within the continental security architecture. For the UK, anchoring Ukraine’s defence industrial base within a NATO architecture is both a strategic investment and a statement about what kind of European security order it intends to help build.

Notwithstanding the coherence of the strategic case, the frictions involved in pursuing such an initiative are significant. First and foremost is the potential American reaction, which may simply not welcome a British-led effort aimed at reducing Washington’s privileged position in the Arctic’s surveillance architecture. Technology transfer and classification constraints constitute another major hurdle that requires careful deliberation. Navigating the protocols governing acoustic intelligence and submarine-tracking data with Ukraine as a non-NATO partner will require a dedicated legal framework that currently does not exist. Last but not least, Ukraine’s battlefield agility sits in tension with the certification, standardisation, and long procurement cycles prevalent in the UK, Sweden, and indeed NATO. Closing this gap will require institutional investment, which needs to be planned for.

Ultimately, should the challenges outlined above be mitigated, a British-Swedish-Ukrainian co-production partnership constitutes a practical response to a documented strategic capability gap in the High North. An arrangement built around the Saab AOD as host platform, Helsing’s Lura acoustic AI as the cognitive layer, and Ukrainian seabed deployment expertise could begin to address this deficit in concrete and deployable terms, while simultaneously anchoring Ukraine’s defence industrial base within both wider European and NATO defence security architecture.

Nima Khorrami is a Research Associate at The Arctic Institute – Centre for Circumpolar Security Studies. His main area of interest and research lies at the intersection of geopolitics, critical infrastructure, and emerging technologies.

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In the Season 3 premiere of Defence Talks, we are joined by:

• R. Adm. Rose OBE, Director of People and Training for the Royal Navy;

• Dr Mary Haigh, Deputy Global Chief Information Officer and Director Digital Delivery Office at BAE Systems; and

• Paul Oxley, Director General, ADS Skills.

With a significant retirement wave approaching as over 30% of the workforce surpasses the age of 55, a projected surge of up to 50,000 new vacancies, and training pipelines stretched to keep pace with rapid AI and cyber advancements, the sector must adapt decisively. Join us as we unpack the need for cross-sector collaboration, ‘squiggly’ career paths, and a STEM education push.

Our guests set out how to build a resilient, highly-skilled workforce capable of safeguarding our national security while driving national economic growth.

Find Defence Talks: Securing UK Advantage on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Castbox, Radio Public, Soundcloud, Pocketcast and Overcast.

On 13th October 2025, the container vessel Istanbul Bridge pulled into Felixstowe, the United Kingdom’s (UK) principal container hub, loaded with nearly 5,000 containers of Chinese goods. On the face of it, the arrival would appear unremarkable; just one among thousands of ships arriving in British ports each year from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Yet, the voyage marked a meaningful shift: rather than following traditional trade lanes, Istanbul Bridge had traversed the Northern Sea Route (NSR). Skirting the Arctic coast of Russia, this is an emerging corridor that promises to change global shipping and trade.

With global economic pressures and shipping frequently restricted in the Red Sea, the temptations of the NSR as a shortcut to Europe will only become stronger. It is generally 30-40% quicker than sailing from East Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal, and even more so than sailing south around the Cape. To illustrate this, the voyage of Istanbul Bridge took just 20 days, compared to the traditional Suez route of approximately 40-50 days.

Sailing towards Britain and Europe, the NSR starts at the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska, and travels across the top of Siberia via several natural chokepoints before arriving at the narrow waters of the Kara Strait to enter the Barents Sea. From there, Europe is just around the tip of Norway.

The potential similarities between what Iran can do to the Strait of Hormuz and what Russia can do to these chokepoints, particularly the Kara Strait, cannot be understated. The UK, and its allies and partners in Europe, cannot afford to normalise the transit of merchant ships to and from its ports sailing via the NSR. Doing so poses a strategic risk which could play out against Britain in future.

Geography of the NSR

The NSR is typically navigable from July to November, with the best ‘open water’ conditions (when there is essentially no ice on the route) in September and October. While climate change is making the route more viable, yearly variance remains.

The entirety of the NSR can be viewed as restricted due to the requirement for icebreaking and its several natural chokepoints as it passes between islands and the mainland. However, the Kara Strait at its western end poses a particular problem. This narrow channel is formed by the gap between the large and barely populated island of Novaya Zemlya and Vaygach Island – which lies mere kilometres (km) from the Russian mainland across the Yugorsky Strait – and connects the Kara Sea in the east to the Barents Sea in the west. It is just 56km wide and only about 100 metres deep in most places.

The Yugorsky Strait, parallel to the Kara Strait but further south, is an even narrower passage. It is only 3km wide in places, and even shallower – between 13 and 36 metres deep. It is ice-covered most of the year and, to the extent that it can be used as an alternative to the Kara Strait for smaller vessels, it has all the same downsides.

During the height of summer, some vessels may attempt to bypass the Kara Strait by rounding the northern tip of Novaya Zemlya. This offers only limited strategic advantages, however, as the route extends far deeper into the Arctic, exposes shipping to substantially harsher ice conditions – and remains no less vulnerable to Russian surveillance and interdiction.

Last year, just over 100 vessels transited the NSR, with 52 passages from east to west, and 51 going the other way. Virtually all the traffic was between Russian ports (including Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg) and the PRC and South Korea, with the voyage of Istanbul Bridge being an anomaly.

Vulnerability of the NSR

As the strangulation of the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthi disruption of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait show, international shipping is particularly vulnerable to bad actors if it must sail through constricted waters. As the world sails away from global norms, the idea of a rules-based order, and freedom of navigation, shipping lanes which pass close to regional powers can be placed at their mercy. These chokepoints are devilishly easy to shut with the mere threat of military force, and fiendishly difficult to reopen.

Russia could, under circumstances of its choosing, throttle or block the NSR if European nations become addicted to cheap imports via this route, and the cost savings are quickly priced into their economies. Subsequent moves to constrict the flow of goods would have an immediate economic impact that would be felt by consumers.

More concerning still, any ships which were at that moment sailing across the top of Siberia would become hostages, trapped in the inhospitable and sparsely populated north where they could not realistically be rescued. The sense of urgency would grow as winter approached, forcing sailors to seek shelter in the handful of Russian ports on the Siberian coast.

Russia’s options in the NSR

Like the Strait of Hormuz, the Kara Strait is naturally vulnerable to naval mines and, as seen with Hormuz, very few mines would need to be sown. Additionally, any ship in the Kara Strait is within easy reach of Russian missiles and aircraft. While North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) assets could operate in the Barents Sea, geography would not be on the alliance’s side in trying to keep the Kara Strait open; it is over 1,000km from the nearest Norwegian port.

Russia could exert pressure via the Kara Strait even in peacetime. The legal arguments for Russian sovereignty over the NSR are already in place. There have been several declarations by the Kremlin regarding the route, including 2020’s ‘The Rules of Navigation’ which insist, among other things, that ships request a permit to be allowed to use the NSR. In Russia’s mind, the route is its private waterway, technically regarded as an ‘inland waterway’ in the same way as the network of rivers and canals which criss-cross the western side of the country.

The UK and other free and open nations should – and do – dispute this on legal grounds. However, it does present Russia with justifications which can be used to exert leverage over east-west trade using the NSR, regardless of whether they have any legal merit.

With the NSR, Russia could, in the near future, be given an easy point of leverage over British and European foreign policy – for example, in a scenario in which it was placing pressure on the Baltic states, Moldova, or elsewhere. A calibrated disruption, such as a partial closure of the Kara Strait or the detention of select vessels, could serve as a coercive signal, diverting attention and imposing economic friction while constraining operational freedom at a critical moment.

Risks for Britain

Speaking at the Defence Committee inquiring to defence in the High North, Dr Marc De Vore of the University of St. Andrews’ School of International Relations noted that ‘under those situations, Russia’s interest in the High North and North Atlantic is putting us in a position where we cannot react, and where we cannot support our Eastern European allies.’ As the UK looks to an uncertain future – but one where Russia is likely to remain a threat or potential threat for some time – handing the Kremlin such an advantage would be a grave error.

The Kara Strait is not the only lever available, but it represents a novel one, enabled by shifting trade patterns and the gradual normalisation of Arctic transit. Free and open nations could thus find themselves outmanoeuvred in new ways only possible by circumstances of their own making. Britain has a choice, but it must find ways to avoid becoming dependent on purely short-term economic interests arising from a situation that will be hard to retreat from.

H I Sutton is a writer, illustrator and analyst who specialises in submarines and sub-surface systems. He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy.

This article is part of the Council on Geostrategy’s Strategic Defence Unit.

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The royal state visit of His Majesty King Charles III to the United States (US) has drawn substantial media attention, both during and after the four-day tour. Much has been made of His Majesty’s speech to Congress in particular, with multiple outlets praising it as a ‘masterclass’ in diplomacy – including ones outside of the United Kingdom (UK).

At a time when the US under the Trump administration is expecting its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies to increase defence spending and assume greater burden sharing, hard power has been positioned as the most important factor in British foreign policy. However, His Majesty’s visit has reignited discussion on the benefits of soft power. This provides the basis for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked six experts: Did the King’s visit to America reaffirm the importance of soft power?

Evie Aspinall

Director, British Foreign Policy Group

In an increasingly volatile global environment, it can be easy to focus purely on the need to strengthen hard power – how much ammunition, how many troops, and how equipped is the UK to be able to deter an enemy? These are critical questions, but they often ignore the fact that much of Britain’s standing and influence in the world stems from its soft power: from the fondness leaders derive from their time spent studying in the UK, from its reputation for upholding international law, and from the global intrigue and prestige that follows the Royal Family.

State visits then are an excellent diplomatic tool for Britain, creating powerful symbolic moments that help build a sense of warmth, humanness, and depth to bilateral relationships. This has helped to shape the UK’s position in the world throughout history, from King George VI’s visit to the US prior to the Second World War to the Royals’ embrace of a post-apartheid South Africa.

All that said, has His Majesty’s visit to the US saved the ‘special relationship? No. But that is as much about Donald Trump, President of the US, as it is about the soft power of the Royal Family. Where leaders are traditionally won over by alliances and friendship, Trump has shown a blatant disregard for the traditional rules of the international order, and for American allies and partners.

His Majesty’s visit will have temporarily softened relations, buying Britain a reprieve from Trump, but it will not have changed his long-term calculus when it comes to the UK and Europe. However, that does not mean that soft power does not work, and the value of a light reprieve in the current circumstances should not be underestimated. What it does mean is that soft power, including that of the royals, should be recognised as a key part of the full British diplomatic toolkit, which should be utilised alongside a wide range of other levers in order to support the UK’s security and prosperity in a fast-changing world.

Joshua C. Huminski

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Vice President of National Security and Intelligence Programmes, Centre for the Study of the Presidency and Congress

His Majesty’s visit to the US was an unqualified logistics and presentational success. It was a masterstroke of pomp and circumstance, pitch-perfect messaging (and cheeky humour), and a rare and exceedingly fleeting moment in Washington where everyone came together to celebrate something objectively good.

Most importantly, it pleased Trump. He is nothing if not attracted to the trappings of power, holds a special place in his heart for the Royal Family, and has a nostalgic view of the UK. His Majesty’s visit, therefore, ticked every presidential box.

As much of an objective win as the visit was, whether it counts as a soft power success is ultimately determined by what happens next in British-American relations. It is worth stating that too much emphasis is placed on soft power; states act out of national self-interest (even the US, and well before Trump became President), not simply because they like a counterpart. Likeability, even among allies as close as the UK and US, does nonetheless make relations easier.

Trump has (for now, at least) toned down his rhetorical attacks against Britain and the state of its armed forces, which had reached such levels that Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street were considering postponing the visit. If His Majesty’s trip tamps down the rhetoric against the UK and – more importantly – helps to course-correct the seeming downward direction of the special relationship, then the high-risk gamble of using the Crown in a febrile political environment will have paid off. If it only buys a few weeks of quiet on social media, the investment may well not have been worth the gain.

The herculean efforts of Whitehall and the Embassy team in Washington, who worked so diligently to ensure the visit happened as smoothly as it did, should nonetheless be followed by concerted policy action if His Majesty’s (HM) Government hopes to leverage the visit to maximum effect – well beyond the shortened attention span of Washington’s policymakers and (social) media pundits.

Dr Vincent Keating

Associate Professor, Centre for War Studies, University of Southern Denmark

Many commentators have argued that His Majesty’s visit was a masterclass in diplomacy that reinforced shared historical values between the two states, even drawing praise from Trump. But does this diplomatic success actually reaffirm the importance of soft power?

Firstly, the ability of cultural or ideological content to generate soft power depends heavily on its resonance within other states. In this regard, the visit played to multiple audiences. Conservatives appeared to admire King Charles’ status as a monarch and his references to Christian values, while liberals appreciated his remarks to Congress regarding the limits of executive power. His Majesty successfully provided ideological resonance across the political spectrum, which is beneficial to the cultivation of soft power.

Secondly, soft power is not merely a popularity contest. Fundamentally, it is the capacity to influence another state’s foreign policy. Therefore, to claim that the visit enhanced British soft power, the US, or at least key constituencies within it, must become more aligned with the foreign policy objectives of the UK. Whether a single visit by a prominent figure can move this needle and permanently transform American perceptions or whether pre-existing transatlantic ideological divides will cause a rapid return to the historical baseline remains highly uncertain.

Therefore, while the visit illustrates that projecting soft power remains feasible despite increasing global ideological polarisation, the conversion of this resonance into the tangible desired foreign policy alignment likely requires a sophisticated and sustained diplomatic effort.

Dr Ksenia Kirkham

Senior Lecturer in Economic Warfare Education, King’s College London

Framed as ceremonial diplomacy, this off-protocol visit by His Majesty to the US was indeed an exercise in last-resort British soft power.

King Charles broke from established neutrality to deliver a political signal. His message was implicitly directed toward a Democrat audience, effectively lobbying against Trump’s security and foreign policy agenda. However, what appears as an exercise in damage limitation rather than diplomatic confidence will only have limited impact as geoeconomic realities kick in.

From a geoeconomic perspective, the symbolic soft power performance contrasts with prospective decline for both states. For the UK, its ever-growing sanctions regime has realigned energy and financial markets in ways that gradually erode British competitiveness while offering few compensating gains.

The UK’s economy is dangerously exposed to higher energy prices from the disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and will remain so for as long as HM Government remains committed to a policy of managed decline of North Sea oil and gas production. By contrast, the US, despite its disastrous Iran strategy, remains in a comparatively stronger position, both as a key exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) and by virtue of its geographic distance from the primary zones of escalation.

Overall, while ceremony and warmth may ease friction in the short term, soft power is unlikely to correct the structural imbalance between the two countries. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) will be the key variable in this equation. Britain should avoid being drawn into another conflict (potentially more devastating than previous wars) and instead pursue a more balanced set of relations, rather than further entrenching its subordinate position within the intensifying American-Chinese geoeconomic rivalry.

Thomas Nurcombe

Research Manager, Coalition for Global Prosperity

His Majesty’s visit to the US came after months of tension between the White House and 10 Downing Street. Indeed, three weeks before King Charles landed in America, Trump compared Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, to Neville Chamberlain.

The visit provided a brief respite from the transatlantic strain. Trump declared that the US has ‘no closer friends’ than the UK, while His Majesty emphasised the importance of British-American cooperation, with AUKUS featuring prominently. Trump is evidently receptive to the Royal Family’s soft power, and this has helped to paper over current political frictions.

Nevertheless, the challenges facing the special relationship run far deeper than tensions between political leaders. The partnership rests less on sentimentalism than on the UK’s ability to advance shared interests through intelligence cooperation, military capability, and global influence.

This is increasingly under pressure. The Ministry of Defence’s £28 billion shortfall, a reluctance to designate the PRC as a threat, and Britain’s waning international influence – often allowing the rise of Russian and Chinese influence – are all weakening the foundations of the relationship.

A stronger British defence posture, particularly in the High North, will be key to preserving the relationship over the long term. The UK should also align its wider foreign policy tools more closely with the strategic competition against Russia and the PRC. If it fails to increase its strategic value to the US, the damage to the special relationship could prove irreparable, and no amount of soft power will be enough to compensate.

Prof. Richard Whitman

Professor of International Relations, University of Kent

Soft power is notoriously difficult to measure, and its effects are difficult to assess. It also cannot bridge significant divides in outlook or policy between two states. A state visit is more than an expression of soft power; it is an important piece of diplomatic action which a host state can use to signal that it values the preservation or deepening of a foreign policy relationship.

For HM Government, ‘deploying’ the House of Windsor to host and conduct state visits allows the UK to use what Walter Bagehot called the ‘dignified’ part of government to stimulate goodwill towards Britain. This function was well demonstrated during His Majesty’s visit to the US.

The visit clearly had importance and significance for Trump. His demeanour during the ceremonial and public events of the trip clearly demonstrated that he has a strong affinity for a key institution of the British state. His Majesty’s address to Congress was a masterful delivery in form and substance of the UK’s foreign policy philosophy, aspirations, and significance to a key constituency with which HM Government needs to maintain influence – regardless of whoever occupies the White House.

The visit was a masterclass in how the Royal Family can be used as an affective foreign policy tool by Britain, impacting perceptions of the country. It is a reminder that whatever the external perceptions of the government in office, the Royals’ unique appeal creates an affinity for Britain that can be used to national advantage.

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On 26th March, Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, participated in a virtual meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), the ten-country rapid response coalition dedicated to security in the High North. Following this, Gen. Jennie Carnigan, Canadian Chief of the Defence Staff, met with counterparts from JEF nations in London in early April.

These actions suggest an increasing likelihood that Canada will join the JEF – a possibility discussed amid tense relations with the United States (US) and growing adversarial interest in the High North, as well as the expanded ‘Wider North’. This provides the foundation for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked nine experts: Should Canada join the JEF?

Minna Ålander

Analyst, Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS), Swedish Institute of International Affairs

The JEF is currently the best military cooperation instrument available to like-minded countries in Europe and beyond, given that it does not necessarily require participating countries to be either European Union (EU) or North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) members. Finland and Sweden were already members of the JEF before joining NATO, and the United Kingdom (UK), Norway, and Iceland are not EU member states. As Canada contributes to NATO presence in Latvia, Canadian forces are already on the ground in the Wider North.

The expected reduction of American contributions to NATO’s defence plans makes it imperative that Northern European countries and Canada ensure that they are able to defend the wider High North and North Atlantic on their own. Given that the Nordic countries and UK are directly exposed to Russian interests in the North Atlantic, they need to ensure strategic depth, reinforcements, and supplies from across the Atlantic. Canada’s inclusion is therefore long overdue.

Another country that should be upgraded from enhanced partner to full member of the JEF is Ukraine. There is currently no institution in the European security architecture that could integrate Ukraine in any short timeframe, but membership in the JEF would help it to become interoperable with Northern European NATO forces and give JEF nations invaluable insights into Ukraine’s battlefield experience. Red teaming in exercises with Ukrainian drone operators, such as in the Swedish-led Aurora 26 exercise, is a resource which the JEF should make more structured use of.

Prof. Klaus Dodds

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Professor of Geopolitics and Faculty Dean, Middlesex University London

Canada should be invited to join the JEF immediately. Ottawa enjoys a close military relationship with many JEF members, including Britain, and has already worked closely with the group. Membership could – and should – be framed as graduated recognition of operational and strategic realities.

The fundamental reason for Canada’s membership is twofold. Firstly, the relationship between Ottawa and Washington has been turned upside down as a direct consequence of the repeated belligerence of Donald Trump, President of the US. Carney’s speech at Davos in January 2026 spoke of ‘rupture’, and did not need to cite Trump directly. The US is no longer a ‘reliable’ security partner for Canada, Denmark, and the UK.

Secondly (and because of the first reason), a coalition of like-minded northern hemispheric countries stretching from Canada to Finland addresses both the persistent unreliability of Washington and the ongoing threat posed by Russia.

The creation of an expanded Euro-Atlantic coalition will enhance interoperability and deterrence capabilities, tempered by a recognition that Ottawa is embarking on a defence rebuilding process; the ‘Build at Home’ Defence Industrial Strategy. Currently, dependence on the American security umbrella remains high.

However, even enhanced participation by Canada would signal a collective recognition that the North Atlantic and Arctic are part of a shared Wider North. Russia is a common foe. Full membership of the JEF would come later, with guarantees that Ottawa could meet operational requirements.

It is worth noting that Canada was invited to join JEF in 2013 but declined. 13 years later, the strategic optics and operational realities appear very different in the Wider North.

Dr Anisa Heritage

Senior Lecturer, Department of Defence and International Affairs, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

There is strong mutual strategic and operational logic to Canada joining the JEF. Its flexibility in dealing with sub-threshold threats and its specific focus on maritime security, critical infrastructure protection, and rapid deployment in the High North and Arctic are mutually beneficial.

With Canadian membership, the JEF would become the transatlantic operational framework for High North and Arctic activity, addressing the existing geographic gap across the North Atlantic and Arctic Circle. Canadian membership would increase the JEF’s deterrence credibility, and signal to adversaries that Euro-Atlantic security remains deeply connected across the High North, Baltic, and North Atlantic theatres.

Formalising Canadian membership cements already deepening military collaboration across domains. From a British Armed Forces perspective, Canadian membership would enhance existing Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) and basing capabilities essential for Arctic security. In the land domain, Canadian forces are recognised for their proficiency in sub-zero temperature survival and warfare, maintaining dedicated Arctic training units.

Canadian JEF membership would also bring potential future benefits, such as increased force pooling with a culturally aligned partner (with operational experience of American Command and Control) and cutting costs on critical kit procurement.

However, there are caveats. High North security is increased if the JEF possesses credible, deployable capabilities. Although Carney recently announced that Canada is now investing 2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) into defence, this is well below the JEF average. In addition, Canadian procurement and warfighting modernisation lag behind JEF counterparts, leading to concerns that Carney can only virtue signal rather than offer real capability or military readiness right now.

Canadian membership of the JEF is logical. However, it needs to address significant deficiencies in its current military capabilities and warfighting readiness, and increase its military commitments if it is to contribute meaningfully to the coalition.

Anthony Heron

Research Associate and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, Arctic Institute

The question should not be whether Canada should join the JEF, but why it has taken this long to consider it seriously.

Canada is more than just a capable Arctic nation; it is Europe’s most steadfast North American partner at a moment when reliability cannot be taken for granted. As the US retreats from its traditional role as guarantor of the international order, Canada has signalled a clear-eyed pivot towards deeper European engagement. JEF membership would formalise what is already a natural strategic alignment.

The military case is compelling. Canada brings world-class Arctic capabilities, a sophisticated understanding of High North maritime operations, and an armed forces culture that is deeply interoperable with existing JEF members. The Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap and the increasingly contested High North are precisely the domains where Canadian expertise and assets would strengthen the framework’s collective posture.

There is also a political dimension that matters. Expanding the JEF to include Canada would send an unambiguous signal – to Moscow, Beijing, and Washington – that European security architecture is deepening rather than fracturing. At a moment of transatlantic uncertainty, such a signal has value beyond military utility.

The JEF was built to secure the northern maritime environment. Canada belongs in it.

Linas Kojala

Chief Executive Officer, Geopolitics and Security Studies Centre

Canada joining the JEF could make strategic sense, but the real question is whether it would produce more deterrence – not merely one more political format.

What is seen today is a wider search for new security arrangements. Countries are adjusting to changing geopolitical realities and less predictable American priorities. This explains the renewed interest in the JEF, deeper EU-Canada cooperation, and even the debate in Canada about closer links with the EU – strikingly, Abacus Data found that 48% of Canadians support their country becoming an EU member, even if this remains politically and legally remote.

From a Lithuanian and Baltic perspective, Canada’s interest in the JEF is not abstract. The Baltic Sea, the North Atlantic, and the Arctic are now part of the same strategic theatre. Russian military pressure, sabotage risks, ‘shadow fleet’ activity, and threats to critical infrastructure connect these regions.

Canada would bring Arctic knowledge, Atlantic geography, maritime capabilities, and political weight. It also maintains an important military presence in Latvia. For the JEF – especially after the enhanced partnership with Ukraine – this could add useful dynamism. However, formats do not deter Russia by themselves. Defence spending, readiness, ammunition, air defence, military mobility, and political will matter more than the organisational flag under which leaders meet.

Dr Alexander Lanoszka

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of Waterloo (Canada)

Joining the JEF would align with Carney’s efforts to diversify Canada’s security relationships away from the US while tightening existing bonds with key allies and partners. Geographically, the arrangement makes sense for Canada. Aside from being an Arctic country like the Nordic states, Canada leads the multinational brigade in Latvia. That the JEF has a maritime and expeditionary focus thus complements what Canada is already doing on land in the Baltic region.

For European allies, Canadian participation is attractive because it helps to implicate North America further into their own continental security. Participating in the JEF also lends greater coherence to Canadian defence and foreign policy than some of the other efforts that Carney has made to broaden Canada’s strategic relationships, most notably the recent deals with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Qatar.

That said, although being part of the JEF might make sense for Canada, Canadian defence planners cannot sidestep the important question of what sort of force posture their country should have, and should support financially. Trying to have everything while being everywhere all at once will amount to little if attention is still spread unevenly and capability gaps remain wide.

Unfortunately, such has been the general tendency in Canadian foreign and defence policy – even when times get difficult, as they are today. The JEF is a worthy venture, but some experts have observed that it has already suffered from insufficient attention and resourcing from its existing members. On its own, Canada cannot address those possible shortcomings – and it may yet contribute to them if its own participation ends up being an afterthought.

Dr Eoin McNamara

Postdoctoral Fellow, Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)

JEF membership is appealing for Canada. At Davos, Carney announced an ambitious vision to lead an evolution in multilateralism in cooperation with other ‘middle powers’. Membership in the JEF would be another step towards realising this vision.

Politically, this would galvanise Canada’s links with the UK and the Nordic-Baltic region, an already effective network in defining the European security policy agenda. Canada faces similar Arctic security challenges as the Nordic states. JEF membership would offer Canada some extra military benefits beyond NATO, through more multinational exercises in cold weather operations and Arctic warfare.

However, it is doubtful that Canada currently holds the military capacity to commit effectively to the JEF, although Ottawa does understand that it must rebuild its military before taking on further transatlantic commitments. Unable to rely as much on its alliance with the US, Canada’s independent defence capacity is under pressure to cover serious security challenges in the Arctic, the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Canada already leads NATO’s multinational Forward Land Forces (FLF) battlegroup in Latvia. Therefore, while JEF membership is politically attractive for Canada, Ottawa has other pressing military priorities, which means that committing to additional JEF commitments is a challenge. More broadly, the JEF holds political attraction as a function of an influential Northern European security community.

However, this must not overtake the need for JEF members to commit sufficient military resources. Developing military capabilities remains key if the JEF’s strategic relevance is to continue.

Matthew Palmer

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The short answer is a very tentative yes.

Caution must be expressed when it comes to the expansion of minilateral organisations like the JEF. The JEF’s strengths come not just from its flexibility, but the like-mindedness and, importantly, the geographical proximity of its members. While not originally focused on Northern European security, it has naturally moved in that direction as a result of geographic logic and Russian aggression.

The JEF’s structure is also fundamentally based on the UK as by far the largest power; being the primary framework nation into which other JEF allies plug in. For this reason, alternative proposals of inviting other large nations such as Germany or Poland are unwise, as it would complicate the structure and politics of the organisation. It should also be remembered that, fundamentally, the JEF is a medium-sized military headquarters. With expansion might come greater responsibility, which would require an increase in resource and authority.

If another NATO country was to join the JEF, Canada would be by far the most likely candidate. A growing area of focus for the JEF is arctic security, in which Canada has both significant interest and expertise. The flexibility of the JEF would allow Canada to participate in an Atlantic security architecture outside NATO, and without American involvement. Furthermore, the JEF’s flexibility would allow for broader engagement of European nations in Canadian maritime security if required. However, clarity on what all parties expect to receive and contribute to an expanded JEF would be crucial in order to avoid strategic drift and diluting the core purpose and advantages of the organisation.

Ryan Wu

Policy Researcher and Susan Strange Fellow, Helsinki Geoeconomics Society

Canada commands the longest Arctic coastline, yet, for decades, Ottawa has neglected this geostrategic asset. Carney’s CA$40 billion (£21.7 billion) northern rearmament and preparation for ‘large-scale conflicts’ mark a paradigm shift in Canadian defence policy. Canadian accession to the JEF as a full member would bring the Wider North into an integrated geopolitical space, binding the Arctic, GIUK gap, and North Atlantic into one theatre of deterrence under British leadership.

Canadian sovereignty is now under strain from three directions. Washington’s coercion of Canada and Greenland, including Trump’s refusal to rule out use of force, has destabilised the Article 5 security guarantee. Russia’s remilitarisation of the High North projects the power of its Northern Fleet through the Bear Gap, while sub-threshold warfare targets critical undersea infrastructure across the Euro-Atlantic.

The PRC poses the least-confronted long-term strategic risk. Its entrenchment through dual-use hydrographic mapping of submarine corridors and Polar Silk Road shipping exploits vulnerabilities in Canadian surveillance and investment screening infrastructure. NATO’s consensus architecture was not built for this convergence of threats, which is why Canada is turning towards the middle-power coalitions called for in Carney’s Davos speech.

Canada needs Europe, and Europe needs Canada. Canada’s Arctic Archipelago and strategic position over the Northwest Passage would extend the JEF’s maritime reach across the North Atlantic into North American Arctic waters. In return, Ottawa would secure a minilateral coalition where shared threat perception is matched by defence spending and hard-power commitment, strengthening transatlantic economic security.

Beijing’s ‘near-Arctic’ posture is designed to exploit the fault lines between North American and European command structures. Only the JEF, with Canada as its 11th member, can close them. Accession would formalise the end of Arctic exceptionalism, stake the first claim in Canada’s Arctic power ambition, and open the door to deeper economic integration with the EU.

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Defence spending is surging. Investment opportunities abound, as conflict and geopolitics have catalysed a surge of interest in the sector. Private equity funds, sovereign investors, and venture capital are increasingly drawn to defence and dual-use opportunities, attracted by long-term demand signals, government backing, and geopolitical urgency. However, beneath this momentum lies a persistent disconnect: investor assumptions about defence businesses often diverge sharply from how procurement and delivery function in practice.

The gap between procurement reality and investment expectation is a primary driver of underperformance. Successfully navigating the complex terrain is becoming an essential skill for an increasing number of funds making their initial defence investments.

We will always need defence, right?

Today’s geopolitics makes defence look like a uniquely attractive investment. It shows demand stability (underpinned by expanding government budgets), multi-year programme announcements, and strengthening political and social consensus around rearmament. This narrative of predictable, long-duration revenue streams is bringing interest from many investors. However, the reality of military procurement is far less certain.

Defence demand is not simply a function of budget allocation; it is mediated through complex requirement-setting processes, shifting strategic priorities, and iterative programme design. Requirements evolve, often materially, over the life cycle of a programme. What begins as a clearly defined capability can become an over-specified, technologically ambitious system that is difficult to deliver at scale. History offers many notable examples in this respect, from the TSR2 supersonic low-level strike aircraft of the 1960s to the recent Ajax armoured fighting vehicle.

This is a novel risk for investors. Headline demand does not translate cleanly into executable contracts.

Have you got it in black?

The United Kingdom’s (UK) defence is not unique in its persistent pursuit of ‘exquisite’ requirements, with little attention paid to industrial feasibility. Programmes are frequently designed to deliver cutting-edge capability, with narrow specifications and high-performance thresholds. While arguably militarily desirable, this approach often overlooks the realities of manufacturing capacity and supply chain resilience.

Thus, for many companies positioned to benefit from increased defence spending, the habit of adding cost to programmes to build new manufacturing may cause them to struggle to convert the opportunity properly. Investors may assume that increased engineering complexity means larger margins. However, in defence, additional requirements frequently do not come with additional funds. The result is either eroded margins or fewer final systems delivered.

Those close to the money benefit from being close to the design and development process. In practical terms, the more advanced the requirement, the less predictable the commercial outcome.

Knowing how and knowing why

All this being said, cross-industry synergies are being found, particularly in firms with expertise in mass manufacturing. Companies grappling properly with the tension between requirements and technology are designing to match manufacturing capacity, rather than building new machinery to match designs. They are resisting the pressure to augment every component, funding extensive in-house Research and Development (R&D), and offering solutions prior to any official requirement set. This means that those who understand several industries will have novel opportunities.

Everybody’s problem: The supply chain

A further divergence between procurement and investment assumptions lies in the defence supply chain. Investors often assess target companies based on their position within a programme: whether prime, Tier 1 supplier, or niche capability provider. However, this linear view can obscure the supply chain fragility that affects the entire nation.

Defence supply chains are not currently configured for rapid scaling. They rely on specialised components, limited suppliers, and long lead times. Efforts to increase production volumes, particularly in response to geopolitical shocks, have exposed bottlenecks that were previously invisible. Rare earths are perhaps the most visible manifestation of this, but so are specialty alloys, substances used in explosives, and other industrial chemicals.

This introduces second-order risks to investments: revenue growth can be highly constrained by upstream limitations and cost pressures driven by scarce suppliers. A company’s ability to capitalise on demand is often not determined by its own capacity, but by the resilience of its ecosystem.

Security is not a dirty word

Nobody is surprised that security is a constraint when working in defence. A business must be sharp on its own physical and cyber security, and have an excellent understanding of its own supply chains and its employees. Vulnerabilities can repel customer interest or fatally damage the prospect of a contract.

In addition, the security assessments to do business are usually controlled not by the customer, but by a separate vetting agency within His Majesty’s (HM) Government. This bureaucracy must be navigated, but companies can make this easier or harder for themselves with thoughtful choices of employees and suppliers.

Finally, anyone close to defence operating commercially across borders will be familiar with the term ‘ITAR’ – the United States’ (US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations. Every country has its own version, and they can be highly constraining for defence businesses operating across borders. Most investors understand regulatory risk; this is defence’s additional dimension.

Overseas market access can be limited, as the regulations can cover controlled components, technical data, and services. Needless to say, these rules can limit and complicate exit options.

What the heck is TEPIDOIL?

A further complication, but also an opportunity, is the depth and breadth of support the customer expects. Governments have learned – albeit imperfectly – that it is rarely enough to procure just the equipment. A ‘capability’ needs people trained, software updated, infrastructure built, and the logistics serviced throughout its life.

The British acronym for these elements is TEPIDOIL.* America uses the less mnemonic DOTMLPF-P.** Technology aggregators, or defence primes, are excellent at packaging these aspects; investors must understand where their companies fit in this ecosystem and the associated costs.

* Training, Equipment, People, Infrastructure, Doctrine, Organisation, Information, Logistics
** Doctrine, Organisations, Training, Materiel, Leader development, Personnel, Facilities, Policy

Procurement timelines versus investment horizons

Perhaps the most fundamental misalignment is temporal. Private capital typically operates on investment horizons of 3-7 years for private equity, or up to a decade for infrastructure or sovereign funds. Defence procurement, by contrast, can operate on timelines that can extend well beyond a decade.

This creates a tension where investors seek exit pathways, but procurement processes work to long, uncertain development cycles. Even when contracts are secured, revenue realisation may be back-loaded, contingent on milestones, or subject to renegotiation. For funds operating under time constraints, this can materially impact returns.

So, investors need a different mindset for defence. Traditional private equity playbooks, focused on rapid value creation and exit, require informed application in this sector.

Ever-shifting goalposts

The political cliché that ‘there are no votes in defence’ is losing its power, while the social cliché that military activity is inherently unethical is shifting. There have even been suggestions to add an ‘S’ for ‘Security’ to the framework of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), although this might be more a red herring than coherent plan. Dual-use technology is valuable to watch as leading in this space, especially as the line separating single-use from dual-use blurs further. These aspects are changing for investors, and should be factored in when building investment strategies and their narratives.

Not a bridge too far

The apparent disconnect between procurement and investment assumptions can appear profound. However, with the right communication, the incentives of HM Government, the British Armed Forces, and investors can be highly aligned. Investors who can see past the undulations of security, tolerate the jargon, and think deeper than budget announcements or programme headlines will be rewarded.

Compelling macro energy drives the current wave of defence investment. The broadening appeal and necessity of defence investments for a balanced portfolio will further increase the premium on those investors adept in this terrain.

Wg. Cdr. Ben Goodwin MBE is an Adjunct Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and a fighter pilot with experience in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Eastern Europe, and Central Africa. He has been posted to the Ministry of Defence and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in Brussels. Previously, he worked at the trading arm of a large bank, focused on foreign exchange and government bonds.

This article was written by the author in a personal capacity. The opinions expressed are his own, and do not reflect the views of HM Government or the Ministry of Defence.

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On Thursday, 23rd April, the Council on Geostrategy celebrated its five-year anniversary at the Locarno Suite in the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO). This article provides an amended transcript of the speech given by James Rogers, Co-founder (Research) at the Council, to outline the organisation’s intellectual framework.

I would like to say a few words about the intellectual framework we have sought to develop and promote over the past five years at the Council on Geostrategy. This is at the foundation of what we do – and what we intend to do in the future. Perhaps uniquely among British think tanks, we have an intellectual mission, and we have had it ever since we mobilised just over five years ago. That mission is to help regenerate applied geopolitics – otherwise known as geostrategy – in the United Kingdom (UK).

But what does that mean in practice? It means moving beyond post-national idealism and focusing on the foundational realities of national power, including geography, resources, technology, and state capability. Our work is rooted in the belief that you cannot shape the world of tomorrow if you do not understand the enduring physical constraints and the changing strategic realities of today.

For that reason, our ontology has been driven by three lodestars.

First, the centrality of the nation. As I said at the beginning, we are not just another international affairs think tank that proposes global solutions to global challenges. We put the British national interest at the heart of our work. In a geopolitical age, a strong, resilient and confident country is vital; it is the best vehicle for mobilising the power we need to protect our interests.

Second, a deep respect for geographic reality. We look at the world through the lens of a maritime nation. In our very first paper – entitled ‘A “Crowe Memorandum” for the twenty-first century’, after the famous Memo of Sir Eyre Crowe in 1907 – we explained that the narrow debates of the early 2020s over the relative importance of the Euro-Atlantic versus the Indo-Pacific were outmoded for the simple reason that the two regions were merging together.

We were quickly proven right. Soon after publication came the announcement of AUKUS, the Hiroshima Accord, and, in a different way, Russia’s renewed aggression against Ukraine, which has drawn North Korea, Iran, and the People’s Republic of China – Indo-Pacific states – into a war on European soil.

Third, assertive realism. Not only do we engage at the hard edge of systemic competition; we embrace it. We recognise that upholding a free and open international order requires a willingness to confront authoritarian challengers, analyse their national strategies, and prescribe actionable ways to out-compete them. That is why we have pioneered work on net assessment and strategic advantage, as well as the importance of strengthening our national powerbase, our nuclear deterrent, and the alliances that extend our influence.

This intellectual approach has been described as ‘politely disruptive’ by one serving minister. We challenge policymakers with bold, sometimes uncomfortable truths, replacing standard globalism with rigorous, actionable geostrategy. That is why we have used infographics and geopolitical maps so extensively; they project in a single visualisation what may still not be clear after 10,000 words of text. Our most important piece of work so far is our geopolitical atlas. If you have not seen it yet, then please take a look.

So where does this leave us? Over the past five years, our politely disruptive approach has proven essential. The geopolitical shocks of the 2020s have shown us that we need a different framework if we are to prevail in an increasingly confrontational and transactional world.

If we allow ourselves to weaken, we should be under no illusion: the opponents of openness, democracy, and freedom – what Britain stands for – will merely grow in strength. And we won’t be the first to suffer: our allies and partners, especially those smaller countries nearest to the geopolitical fault lines, will be the first to feel our adversaries’ wrath.

But before I close, I just want to thank our hosts here at the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, our board members, our generous supporters, and, above all, our brilliant colleagues at the Council who do the hard work – organisational and analytical – every single day.

As we look to the next five years, I want to be clear: the Council on Geostrategy remains committed to generating the bold, rigorous, and unapologetically British strategic thought that this era demands.

Thank you for joining us to celebrate this milestone – and enjoy the rest of the night!

The Council on Geostrategy also received thoughts from three of our associates regarding the Council’s impact on British strategic policy over the past five years:

Richard Ballett

Council on Geostrategy

In its first five years, the Council on Geostrategy has played a key role in renewing British national security policy debates. It has helped to diversify what had become a somewhat stale intellectual ecosystem by injecting fresh perspectives and offering practical solutions rather than merely admiring policy problems. There is not enough space to list all the important contributions the Council has made; but three notable ones include the following:

On nuclear weapons: The Council has made several interventions to ongoing debates about the UK’s future nuclear forces, including options to augment, diversify, and enhance existing capabilities; the pros and cons of different options; and practical steps that should be taken for these to be realised.

On the PRC: The Council’s China Observatory has provided the policy community with realistic assessments of Beijing, and shone a light on some of the serious threats that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) pose to British interests.

On sea power: The Council has reinvigorated debates in Whitehall about the future of the UK’s sea power, including practical solutions to rebuild the nation’s shipbuilding industry, augment its maritime forces, and posture these capabilities in an astute fashion to maximise British strategic advantage.

Jennifer Parker

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy; Founder and Principal, Barrier Strategic Advisory; Adjunct Fellow in Naval Studies, UNSW Canberra; and Expert Associate, ANU National Security College

Looking back at the last five years, the Council on Geostrategy’s real value has not just been its research; it has been its refusal to let British strategy slide into comfortable complacency. At a time when the global order was being rapidly reshaped, the Council forced a much-needed, and often uncomfortable, conversation about the return of state competition. It is one thing to acknowledge that the world is getting more dangerous; it is another to map out exactly what that means for a country such as the UK.

Its work on the Indo-Pacific ‘tilt’ is the best example of this impact. The Council was among the loudest voices pointing out that the ‘tilt’ is just a slogan unless it is underpinned by a permanent presence and real-world capability. It successfully shifted the framing from political rhetoric to the hard work of delivery, making it clear that British security is now inextricably linked to the stability of distant maritime trade routes and the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.

With AUKUS, the Council looked past the noise of the submarine headlines. It reframed the partnership as a generational integration of three maritime powers, emphasising the industrial discipline and focus to achieve it. In a space where strategy often gets lost in buzzwords, the Council on Geostrategy has been at the forefront of discussion, keeping the focus on the unforgiving realities of geography and hard power.

Ben Short

Head, Secretary of State’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenge, Ministry of Defence

From my lens, leading defence’s challenge function, the greatest impact that the Council on Geostrategy has had has been in bringing a fresh set of officials and external thinkers and doers together, with a real focus on policy relevance.

Products like the Big Ask have tackled key policy questions from a range of angles in a digestible format. Whitehall Briefings do a great job of exposing the reality of government roles and thinking to external stakeholders. Key papers, such as ‘What allies want: Appraising Britain’s defence relationships’ and ‘Ten flaws in British strategic thinking’, tackle live departmental issues.

These are critical to delivering the ‘thriving intellectual base’ demanded in the Strategic Defence Review. Surveys suggest that there is a still a significant gap between external expertise and government in culture, approaches, and understanding of key issues. The Council on Geostrategy’s greatest impact thus far is in helping to close that gap.

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His Majesty’s (HM) Government has shelved the process of transferring the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – the controversial ‘Chagos deal’ – to Mauritius amid fluctuating relations with the United States (US) since early 2026. Having first agreed to cede the archipelago in 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) signed the deal with Mauritius in May 2025, which included retention of the joint British-American military base on Diego Garcia for a cost of at least £101 million per year for 99 years.

While HM Government adhered to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that the detachment of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius was wrongful, it was advisory, not legally binding. Thus, considering the most recent development in the BIOT deal and the UK’s loss of face on the global stage, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked seven experts: Is Britain overly subservient to international law?

Dr Hillary Briffa

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Lecturer in National Security Studies, King’s College London

The UK is not overly subservient to international law. The BIOT case indicates a different problem: inconsistency. Britain is usually happy to invoke international law when it supports its wider foreign policy position, but more hesitant when legal rulings cut across strategic interests or the legacies of empire.

From the Mauritian perspective, Chagos is a decolonisation issue. It goes to the heart of how independence was handled, and whether that process was lawful. In 2019, the ICJ concluded that Mauritius’ decolonisation had not been completed lawfully because the Chagos Archipelago had been detached before independence. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly then backed this position, and called on the UK to end its administration of the islands.

The ruling is salient beyond the BIOT itself. For small states, international law is one of the few tools available to push back against raw power. If larger states brush aside rulings when they become inconvenient, the message is stark: rules only apply when you are weak. This is not a good look for a country that regularly presents itself as a champion of the ‘rules-based international order’.

There are other issues too. Diego Garcia still carries major strategic value, and the rights and wishes of Chagossians must be taken seriously. Even so, the proposed deal showed that legal principle and strategic interest can be reconciled. Sovereignty could pass to Mauritius while the base continues to operate under lease.

Therefore, the real question is whether Britain is willing to follow international law even when it is not the easiest option, because doing so strengthens its credibility, shows that its principles are applied consistently, and gives real meaning to its support for a rules-based international order.

Brig. (rtd.) Rory Copinger-Symes CBE

Senior Adviser, Bondi Partners and SecureCloud+, and Non-Executive Director, Halo International Group

The question contains a flaw. International law is not a buffet from which nations select convenient portions. You are either a signatory to its frameworks or you are not. To describe the UK as ‘overly subservient’ to obligations it has voluntarily and formally undertaken is simply to describe a nation honouring its word.

The real issue is not subservience, but interpretation. Britain’s courts and political culture have developed a habit of reading international obligations in their most expansive form. Where treaty language is ambiguous, the UK defaults to constraint. France deploys its military across the Sahel with minimal legal hand-wringing. Hungary defies European Court rulings with impunity. Britain ties itself in knots over the removal of a single foreign national.

This distinction matters acutely in the Indo-Pacific. The UK’s AUKUS commitments and its broader strategic focus eastward demand credibility – which comes from being a reliable partner. Yet, export licensing delays, legal constraints on intelligence cooperation, and institutional caution about sub-threshold operations all erode that credibility.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) does not agonise over legal interpretation. It shapes facts on the ground – in the South China Sea, in Taiwan’s approaches, and in its economic coercion of regional partners – while remaining nominally within the letter of international frameworks. Britain, meanwhile, applies the spirit of those same frameworks with a rigour that its adversaries find baffling and its allies find frustrating.

The BIOT dispute crystallises this perfectly. A decision with profound basing implications for Diego Garcia – and therefore for British and American power projection across the Indian Ocean – became entangled in legal and moral obligations that, however genuine, carried strategic costs that were either ignored or underweighted.

The UK does not need to abandon international law. Rather, it needs to rediscover the confidence to interpret it – as every serious state does – in light of its own national interest. That is not subservience. That is sovereignty.

Deniz Güzel

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and English-qualified lawyer

The shelving of the BIOT deal is a welcome turn to a saga which the UK should never have entertained. It submitted to a lawfare campaign orchestrated by Mauritius, which mobilised votes at the UN General Assembly against Britain’s sovereignty over the territory, triggering an advisory opinion from the ICJ that considered the UK’s administration of the territory to be a ‘wrongful act’.

In 2024, David Lammy, then Foreign Secretary, claimed that the deal would strengthen Britain’s ability to challenge Russian and Chinese violations of international law in Ukraine and the South China Sea. This supported the view of Lord Hermer, Attorney General, that the UK should rebuild its reputation as a leader in international law by first honouring its legal obligations.

However, while Britain frets about the consequences of ignoring a non-binding opinion on the BIOT or constrains itself through a restrictive approach to military targeting in Iran, the PRC and Russia will continue to breach and instrumentalise international law to achieve objectives contrary to British and allied interests. The UK should not assume that its ‘goodness’ is enough, and should recognise that the legal domain is now a central arena of strategic competition that it must navigate. By clinging to a nostalgic and idealised vision of international law, Britain risks rendering itself strategically weak and unprepared for a harsher world.

The UK should, therefore, integrate lawfare into its broader strategic outlook, enabling it to identify and counter hostile legal campaigns, reassess treaty commitments that impose outdated constraints, resist over‑expansive judicial interpretations, and shape international law in emerging domains such as space. Only by adopting a proactive, rather than restrictive, approach to international law can British interests be protected effectively on the international stage.

David Landsman OBE*

Chair, British Foreign Policy Group

International law differs from domestic law for the political reason that states have sovereignty. Sovereign states choose whether to accede to treaties and to accept international laws. They may do so as a condition of their relationships with others – e.g., European Union (EU) members accepting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – but the decision is still political. No international body has the legitimacy of a sovereign nation.

International organisations, including courts, only have authority if their sovereign members choose to accept it. In practice, their decisions can be influenced by states’ political interests. There is also the risk of a ‘principal-agent’ conflict if an organisation and the professionals associated with it advance their own interests and values distinct from the views of its members. Appeals to an ‘international rules-based system’ are political rather than legal, and in a multipolar world, more contested.

Rules are, of course, essential for trust in business, and international agreements on arms control and the environment, for example, bring wider benefits. However, the UK needs to be clear-eyed about its and others’ interests, and more selective about the commitments it makes: caveating them where national interests require, and opting out where necessary.

Not complying with laws a country has accepted destroys trust: refusing to comply is legitimate and should be respected. The latest version of HM Government’s Ministerial Code, which requires ministers to comply with international law on par with national law, is an abrogation of the sovereign state’s duty to its citizens and their interests.

*This response is written in a personal capacity, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the British Foreign Policy Group.

Dr Timothy Less

Senior Adviser for Geopolitics, Centre for Risk Studies, and Convenor, Geopolitical Risk Analysis Study Group, University of Cambridge

I agree that Britain has become overly subservient to international law. For a succession of governments, homage to international law has become the guiding principle of foreign policy at serious cost to the UK. The BIOT deal is the clearest example of this, but the same applies in multiple arenas – from the recent decision to deny American access to British military bases to policy on asylum and immigration.

I base this view on three considerations.

First, the primary duty of any government in the international arena is to uphold national interest. That does not mean disregarding international law. On the contrary, the UK has an interest in promoting a rules-based system that provides predictability and order. But, where international law comes into serious conflict with national interest, the latter should prevail.

Second, international law is not law in the same sense as domestic law. It is not enacted by a sovereign legislature or enforced by a central authority. Rather, it is a body of norms, treaties, and agreements on how states should behave in the international arena, and is inherently more flexible and contingent than domestic law – to the point that states can resile from treaties that contravene their interests.

Third, in today’s geopolitical climate, excessive deference can be counterproductive. The logic of self-restraint presumes adherence to international law by other states – especially Britain’s adversaries. However, that is not the world we inhabit today, if ever we did.

The UK’s opponents ignore, reinterpret, or instrumentalise international law to advance their own interests, and for Britain to bind itself rigidly to it is to place the country at a strategic disadvantage, or worse – as in the case of the BIOT deal – to undermine its national interest.

Dr Danielle Reeder

Freelance security and defence consultant

A major theme within the ICJ’s advisory opinion on the legal consequences of separating the Chagos Islands from Mauritius concerned the principle of self-determination and the human rights implications of colonial rule. Neither the method of ending the UK’s administration over the Chagos Archipelago, nor the manner in which the deal was executed, can be deemed as having seriously foregrounded these particular legal issues.

The drafters of the BIOT deal were correct in understanding that decolonisation is not a political choice, despite the way the deal is currently being discussed. It is a mandated condition of modern international relations. It is merely a fact that maintaining 20th century colonies into the 21st – and 22nd – centuries is logistically problematic.

That is not to say that Britain’s hands were tied, or that the deal was adequately comprehensive – poor upfront explanation to the public, renegotiating on terms overly favourable to the new Mauritian government, and U-turns based on winds of change from Washington all deserve critique.

Maintaining vital military assets abroad should not be conflated with maintaining colonies, even if the current location of bases are credited to a colonial past. Trying to posture to any state, particularly Russia or the PRC, through lawfare cannot have a controlled effect. The UK is in no position to be drawn into bygone spheres-of-influence policy, or continue simply to react to American decisions du jour.

The various pitfalls of the BIOT deal are not indicative of subservience to international law. They signal a problem with Britain’s purported vision of its global leadership model. The UK has to mind the ripple effects of being seen to ignore international law, but it must also consider its strategic coherence – which it is currently struggling to do effectively.

The Rt. Hon. Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Minister for the Indo-Pacific (2022-2024) and Secretary of State for International Trade (2021-2022)

Shelving the handover of the BIOT to Mauritius demonstrates a belated understanding that Britain’s Indo‑Pacific posture rests not on words, but on hard power and the needs of critical allies. Diego Garcia is one of the most globally strategically important islands, underpinning the UK’s Five Eyes power projection capability. It is remote, unglamorous, and indispensable.

Washington’s refusal to agree to changes to the UK-US Treaty, which would enable the giveaway, is a clear reminder that interdependence and trust with Five Eyes partners must be the determining factor in Britain’s decisions. Even when individual leaders are throwing tomatoes at each other, the deep ties and reasons for the alliance are undiminished, and must be protected.

The BIOT deal is not an isolated issue; it sits squarely within the UK’s need to be a serious Indo‑Pacific actor. HM Government has remembered what disruption to choke points does to British economic security vis-à-vis the Strait of Hormuz and consequent energy price hikes. If this happened in the Malacca or Taiwan Straits, it would affect everything from food and phones to chips and cheap Chinese imports. The UK cannot assume someone else will protect its economic interests – it has to be there.

From the South China Sea to the Red Sea, freedom of navigation is under daily pressure. Diego Garcia supports persistent maritime domain awareness, enables rapid response operations, and underwrites deterrence across those key chokepoints.

By shelving the deal, Britain has – perhaps accidentally – chosen strategic continuity over legal resolution. That choice will reassure partners living in this increasingly contested region where sub-threshold coercion, attacks on undersea cables, militarisation of sea lanes, and the weaponisation of legal ambiguity is a daily reality.

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The British Overseas Territories are currently receiving an overdue public appraisal. Recent Iranian attacks on the United Kingdom’s (UK) territories in Cyprus and Diego Garcia follow in the wake of a contentious agreement to cede sovereignty over the latter. Critics of the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) deal allege the UK’s strategic naivety, succumbing to lawfare and diplomatic statecraft spearheaded by Russia. These events are symptomatic of both a deteriorating global order and intensifying international competition.

Strategic choices

The precedent set through the recognition of Mauritius’ claim to the BIOT could undermine the position of other British territories, including the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus. Like the BIOT, these airfields were also retained upon the recognition of independence of a former Crown Colony. Unlike the American-operated base on Diego Garcia, however, they are home to British military and intelligence operations, and have performed a key staging role for the UK’s operations in the Middle East for decades.

While the Cyprus bases have been controversial locally for some time, Tehran’s attacks and inadequate British defences have increased their perceived liability to the Cypriot authorities. Nikos Christodoulides, President of Cyprus, labelled the bases a ‘colonial consequence’, requiring ‘frank discussion with the British government’. Meanwhile, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, wasted no time in visiting the island to emphasise a new French-Cypriot strategic partnership, declaring that the island ‘can count on France’.

In an era of renewed contest between states and an unreliable hegemon in the United States (US), the ability to defend norms, alliances, and claims of sovereignty requires both a reserve of strategic power and the capacity to wield it. Macron backed up his rhetoric with 11 French Navy warships deployed to the eastern Mediterranean and wider Middle East, including the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. Strategic autonomy extends beyond military power, with France benefiting from a long legacy of policy to develop and guard industrial champions in critical sectors.

The UK is fortunate that its allies – including France, Greece, and the US – were able to assist with the defence of Cyprus. In 2011, Britain deployed a sovereign response group consisting of three amphibious landing ships, a helicopter carrier, a frigate, and two auxiliary supply ships to the island. This exercise served as a demonstration of the UK’s capability at that point to ‘respond at short notice to unforeseen events in an unpredictable and fast-moving world’ as an independent force.

In 2026, additional British aircraft have been deployed to Cyprus, but the struggle to send a single warship to the region illustrates the decline of the Royal Navy. In tasking what few operational ships remain during 2025, His Majesty’s (HM) Government allegedly planned for air defence destroyers HMS Dragon and HMS Duncan to prioritise attendance at North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) exercises in 2026 and 2027. The hard choices now forced on ministers are the inevitable product of decades of defence cuts, and delays to new ship orders during the austerity years.

Constrained military resources may force yet more trade-offs between commitments to NATO allies and the UK’s national priorities in future, with the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), published in 2025, appearing to commit to both equally. The SDR is clear that ‘Role 1’ for the British Armed Forces is to defend and protect Britain, its Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies, while also adopting a ‘NATO first’ doctrine of commitment to European security in response to the strategic challenge posed by Russia.

Sub-threshold threats and drone proliferation

Both the SDR and National Security Strategy (NSS), also published in June 2025, lack depth in their assessments of the Overseas Territories. Beyond commitments to maintaining a military presence in Gibraltar, Cyprus, and the South Atlantic territories, there is little detail on the evolution of sub-threshold and non-military threats in relevant regions, or capabilities required to respond. In contrast, France’s National Strategic Review 2025 details disinformation, malign foreign influence operations, terrorism, and supply chain weaponisation as particular risks to the stability of its overseas territories.

The contrasting treatment reflects a different constitutional relationship between France and its overseas territories compared to Britain. Some French territories are fully integrated, operating under the same laws as the mainland with political representation at the Assemblée nationale (National Assembly of the French Parliament). Even for those with greater autonomy, policing and internal security remain reserved matters for Paris, with gendarmes deployed overseas. The UK, however, retains responsibility for only the defence and foreign affairs of the British Overseas Territories.

A neat delineation of internal security as an area of local competence, with the UK retaining responsibility for defence, may not be suited to evolving sub-threshold and non-military threats. The SDR identifies improved resilience to these types of sabotage, influence, and disinformation as an integral area for defence, requiring input from ‘industry, the finance sector, civil society, academia, education, and communities’. Enhanced partnerships could be implemented with local agencies in the Overseas Territories to build the same type of ‘whole-of-society’ resilience envisioned for the home islands.

Britain’s Caribbean territories merit a single mention in the SDR (a commitment to humanitarian and disaster relief), while the equivalent French review paints a more concerning picture. On the potential for expansion of geographical areas of conflict, it states French Caribbean territories ‘in strategic areas with high stakes’ are vulnerable to ‘manoeuvres to control international migration routes, organised crime…[and] regional disputes that could be exploited by adversaries’. It notes increasing collusion between criminals, terrorist networks, and state actors. These threats were subject to a UK Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry begun in 2024, but work has not resumed since the general election that July.

Iranian drone attacks on Cyprus serve as a harbinger for a new era of proliferation in drone technology. Beyond states, terrorists and cartels are now exploiting drones and tactics learnt from Ukraine to attack security forces, conduct reconnaissance, and transport illicit payloads. Drone sightings near UK military bases have doubled in the last year, while Russia and Iran have turned to criminals recruited online to carry out sabotage. Britain should prepare for these tactics in its Overseas Territories in light of the strategic Russian threat, as well as collusion with local organised crime.

The role of the River class

Given the island geographies of the Overseas Territories, the capability of the Royal Navy remains paramount. The UK relies on five basic Batch II River class Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) to protect the Overseas Territories, with a small simple gun and no hangar for the Wildcat helicopters recently deployed to Cyprus to shoot down Iranian drones. Three older Batch I River class OPVs patrol British home waters at an increasing tempo in response to heightened activity by Russian naval, intelligence-gathering, and ‘shadow fleet’ shipping. The March 2026 commitment by His Majesty’s (HM) Government to seize shadow fleet ships is illustrative of greater future demands on the Royal Navy in the UK’s home waters.

Maritime and aerial drones can be countered with cost-effective modern medium-calibre guns planned for five new Type 31 frigates. The Type 31s are planned to forward deploy overseas to protect global British interests, but the ‘immediate and pressing threat’ of Russia could derail this. With anti-submarine Type 26 frigates under construction now allocated to Norway, the three Batch I River class vessels decommissioning in 2028, and persistent issues with submarine and destroyer availability, any remaining Royal Navy surface ships will likely need to deploy in accordance with ‘NATO first’ in defence of Europe.

Given limited resources, HM Government should therefore procure smaller, cheaper ships to provide greater global presence and better protection of British interests, as mooted for a potential Type 32 frigate. Beyond the UK’s home waters, this includes protection of military basing and intelligence infrastructure overseas, and maritime security in the Caribbean.

A potential design might include a helicopter hangar, modern anti-drone armament, and hull-mounted sonar for undersea surveillance, as built into the French ‘Patrouilleurs Hauturiers’ programme of ten vessels. Some of these capabilities could be retrofitted to the five newer River class OPVs for use either at home or further afield. In tandem, the Royal Navy should also optimise the Type 31 frigate to offer greater both offensive and defensive capabilities in the Euro-Atlantic area, rather than for a global patrol role.

Robin Potter is Academy Associate with the UK in the World Programme at Chatham House. His research focuses on policy reform and intervention to improve resilience against sub-threshold challenges.

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