In response to the televised version of Sky News’ podcast The Wargame, the Russian Embassy to the United Kingdom (UK) issued a statement that were Russian territory to be targeted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Kremlin would respond by ‘using all means at Russia’s disposal, including nuclear weapons’. Such rhetoric is far from unusual, however, with the Kremlin’s mouthpieces consistently positioning ‘Perfidious Albion’ as Russia’s primary opponent in its attempts to rewrite the international order in its favour.

Britain is framed as the reason for the Kremlin’s failures in Ukraine, prolonging the conflict by directing Kyiv behind the scenes, and Russia consistently views the UK as a greater challenge than other free and open nations. Considering the antagonism emanating from the Kremlin, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked six experts: How should Britain prepare for being Russia’s leading adversary?

Prof. Klaus Dodds

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

Russia is a revanchist power, maintaining a Soviet-era preoccupation with a bastion defence posture in and around the Kola Peninsula. The Kremlin views the UK as a strategic adversary and enabler of NATO’s presence in the High North and the North Atlantic. Britain’s strategic relationship with Norway, leadership of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), and military support for Ukraine colour Russia’s highly prejudicial view. The Kremlin has warned of ‘consequences’ for this support for Kyiv, and the UK’s critical infrastructure and military assets are targets.

Britain’s approach to the High North demands a solid understanding of operational realities. First, the High North is linked to the wider security of the North Atlantic, North Sea, and Baltic Sea. Second, near-constant maritime awareness in the High North is vital given that Russia’s ships, autonomous vessels, aircraft, and the ‘shadow fleet’ threaten undersea infrastructure and contribute to general disruption.

Third, Russian-sponsored Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming and Electronic Warfare (EW) disrupt civilian and military traffic in northern Norway, including Svalbard. Fourth, credible readiness is crucial. UK Commando Force worked with allied European and American counterparts on vital islands such as Jan Mayen and the Faroe Islands in summer 2026.

Finally, a refreshed British Arctic policy framework draws attention to the role of and for Arctic science in building and sustaining coalitions of the willing. The Arctic is no longer reliably frozen, and that matters to the UK’s weather and seasonal volatility.

British command of NATO Joint Force Command Norfolk (with an area of responsibility that includes the North Atlantic, the Arctic, the High North, and sea lines between North America and Europe) provides an opportunity to demonstrate that deterring Russia requires capability, credibility, and communication with friends and foes alike.

Della Heptinstall

Defence Sector Lead, Walker Morris LLP, and Army Reserve Officer

The UK should prepare for being Russia’s leading adversary by understanding why the Kremlin appears to view it differently from many other European states. Russian hostility towards Poland, Finland, or the Baltic states can readily be explained by geography and history. Britain’s role is different.

Despite its relative distance from Russia, the UK remains one of Europe’s foremost military powers, a nuclear-armed state, a leading intelligence actor, and a central pillar of NATO. For the Kremlin, Britain has come to symbolise not simply opposition to Russian aggression, but the wider resolve of free and open nations that constrains Russian ambitions.

The revival of terms such as ‘Perfidious Albion’ suggests this hostility is becoming increasingly ideological rather than purely geopolitical. If so, the UK should assume that Russian pressure, whether through cyber operations, espionage, disinformation, or military intimidation, will persist regardless of developments in Ukraine.

Preparation therefore requires more than stronger armed forces. Britain must strengthen the resilience of its critical infrastructure, improve its ability to counter ‘grey-zone’ activity, and maintain a defence industrial base capable of sustaining long-term competition. Just as importantly, it should continue investing in the alliances that amplify its influence.

The UK should not become more cautious or less engaged in European security. Rather, it should demonstrate that sustained leadership carries no strategic penalty. The most effective answer to Russian hostility is a Britain that remains confident in its role, resilient at home, and unwavering in its commitment to NATO.

Dr Robert Johnson

Author of the podcast The Wargame; Director of the Changing Character of War Centre, Oxford University; and Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

In the podcast and television programme The Wargame, the skeletal nature of the UK’s defences was brutally exposed by a full-scale Russian armed attack. Of course, the scenario is highly unlikely – not least because of Britain’s nuclear deterrent and because of the cohesion within NATO, which in conventional terms dwarfs that of Russia.

It is not in the nuclear and conventional fields that the UK will be attacked directly. The Kremlin has already commenced a policy of coercion using disinformation, economic leverage, threatening military presence, strategic rebalancing, violent proxies, and assassination. Through fear, Russia is waging political warfare against Britain.

It is into this gap in the UK’s capabilities that measures are required. Its preparation should include training and deploying personnel in a proactive campaign to expose Russian disinformation. It needs not only comprehensive surveillance and built-in redundancy of communications networks, but also active defence measures to ensure that costs are imposed immediately on those who perpetrate hybrid forms of attack. It requires a robust legal system that ceases to persecute its own military personnel and focuses instead on defeating Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) and other vexatious foreign legal claims. It needs to bolster its counterintelligence and counterespionage capabilities. It needs to seek out more diverse sources of supply to ensure no pressure can be applied through economic warfare. It needs to rediscover the art of political warfare itself, to detect, deter, and defeat deliberate attempts to sow division, subvert, mislead, and undermine its constitution and national unity.

Britain requires more confidence in long-term planning, to give the public confidence in the future rather than a diet that fosters fear and insecurity. After all, when was the last time you heard a political leader offering a vision of the long-term future that was positive? To defeat an enemy in political warfare, one needs to make a better offer.

Christopher Pool

Visiting Fellow, Centre for Statecraft and National Security

It may or may not be self-evident, but the UK is not Russia’s leading adversary. Ukraine is. It is Ukraine that is fighting the Russian Ground Forces across a 1,200 kilometre-long front, inflicting 30,000 casualties per month, and that has put over 50% of Russia’s oil refining capacity offline.

Kyiv is doing this at brutal cost, but it is buying time for Britain and European allies to prepare for what is perhaps inevitable, and it is showing lessons that the UK must learn.

One lesson is the capacity of society. In a total war, a state must reach beyond its immediate resources and tap into the latent potential of society at large: it must mobilise the country. Unlike British historical precedent, and as Ukraine has shown, this goes beyond mobilising civilians into soldiers.

Ukraine’s pre-2022 software developers are now designing the defence technology that is punishing the Russians and saving civilian lives. Kyiv’s volunteer groups assist in supplying Ukrainian soldiers with kit and intelligence, and are repairing damaged homes. Civilian data analysts provide strategic and tactical insight that drives policy and reform. None of this is under direct government control.

This is what a ‘whole-of-society’ approach looks like, and the UK should embrace this approach now. It must establish the frameworks and partnerships that, if it comes to it, can be stood up quickly to ensure all the latent capability of British civilians and society is utilised. We will not have time once the shooting starts.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

Russia sees the UK as its principal antagonist because British power and political resolve obstruct the realisation of Russian hegemony. The Kremlin cannot be appeased or placated; it seeks the overlordship of Europe, which would be intolerable to British interests. The UK must now prepare for the long haul.

Hardening the domestic sphere – protecting Critical Undersea Infrastructure (CUI), purging illicit capital, and countering foreign digital interference – is an essential baseline, and work that is largely underway. Yet, domestic resilience alone will not deter future Russian aggression. Britain cannot secure its interests simply by becoming a more durable punchbag; passive defence permanently cedes the initiative and invites perpetual probing.

To regain the initiative, the UK should advance along three key vectors:

1. Asymmetric offence: His Majesty’s (HM) Government should take the fight to Russian networks. The National Cyber Force should systematically degrade Russian military intelligence infrastructure, while British maritime surveillance persistently monitors and disrupts Russian undersea transit corridors, turning the Kremlin’s own covert playbook against itself.

2. Forward military containment: The UK should leverage its naval leadership within NATO and the JEF to dominate the Wider North, aggressively interdicting Russia’s sanctions-busting shadow fleet and constricting its fleet mobility. It should also double down on supporting Ukraine by helping Kyiv strike deeper and harder into the Russian interior.

3. Network disruption: Britain should weaponise its intelligence and regulatory apparatus to wage offensive economic and information warfare – hunting Kremlin revenue streams and evasion hubs across third-party jurisdictions, while actively dismantling Russian influence channels abroad and inside Russia itself.

Ultimately, the UK needs a new kind of statecraft, not merely to deter Russia, but to undermine and weaken it. By exhausting the Kremlin’s resources and forcing it into a permanent defensive crouch, HM Government would ensure that the Kremlin is too consumed by its own acute vulnerabilities to menace the British state.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific (2022-2024), and Minister of State for the Armed Forces (2019-2020)

Russia likes to portray the UK as its principal European adversary, reviving the old colonial invective of ‘Perfidious Albion’, because Britain is the leading driver of support for Ukraine. This perspective is deeply embedded in Kremlin thinking, and the UK should be under no illusion that it cannot expect a prolonged period of strategic competition and ‘grey-zone’ threats.

The first priority must be national resilience. Russia will target Britain through cyber attacks, disinformation, espionage, and other forms of hybrid warfare. I do not anticipate Russian troops landing on the beaches of Brighton, but cyber security, critical infrastructure protection, and public preparedness should be treated as core elements of national defence requiring urgent investment.

The UK should also strengthen maritime security. As an island nation dependent on trade, energy imports, undersea cables, and global supply chains, it remains vulnerable to disruption beyond its shores. Protecting CUI, offshore energy assets, ports, and strategic maritime routes should be first priority for HM Treasury. Without economic security assured, economic growth becomes challenging – as the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrated.

Defence modernisation must accelerate. The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of industrial capacity, secure supply chains of critical materials, stockpiles, and innovation alongside advanced military platforms. Britain needs greater munitions reserves, stronger domestic defence manufacturing, improved air and missile defence, and expanded investment in autonomous systems and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The UK should also recognise that competition with Russia is ideological as well as geopolitical. Protecting democratic institutions, social cohesion, and public confidence is a national security imperative, and the challenge of achieving it should not be underestimated.

Britain is a founding member of NATO, the most successful and committed defensive alliance in the world. However, Russia chooses – incorrectly – to interpret it as threatening. Success in protecting the UK’s assets and citizens will depend on assured resilience, credible deterrence, and strong alliances.

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At the Conservative Party conference on 6th October 2026, James Cartlidge MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, unveiled a £10 billion plan for ‘Britannia Shield’, an anti-missile and anti-drone defence network for the United Kingdom and certain overseas territories.

With threats to the British Isles and the Overseas Territories growing, should the UK focus on building a robust defensive shield to safeguard its territory and critical assets, or double down on expeditionary reach, deep-strike capabilities, and nuclear deterrence to keep threats far from its shores? This week’s Big Ask hinges on this strategic balance, as we asked six experts: Should Britain shift towards a more defensive military posture?

John Foreman CBE

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, Euro-Atlantic Security Specialist, and Former UK Defence Attaché to Moscow

Shield or sword: Does Britain need a more defensive military posture?

A heightened sense of the Russian threat to Britain has taken hold in the public consciousness. The Head of MI5 has warned that Russia is seeking to ‘unsettle’ Europe through ‘grey zone’ attacks short of launching a conventional conflict. Yet fear of the latter has been stirred by Russia’s war against Ukraine, concerns about the state of the British Armed Forces, and alarmist media reporting.

The UK must do more to defend itself. But there are significant dangers in overcorrecting toward a ‘Fortress Britain’. A defensive crouch would leave the country less secure, not more.

First, being overly defensive invites trouble. A posture built around, for example, hiding behind an ineffective ‘shield’ or ‘bastion’ surrenders the initiative to an adversary and would leave us open to coercion.

Second, the protection of Britain is more than the capacity to absorb punishment. Deterring Russia by threatening punishment is wiser and probably cheaper than relying on homeland defence if war breaks out. The challenge is achieving the right balance between offensive and defensive capabilities.

Third, the UK cannot insulate itself from attack. As during the Cold War, forward presence, intelligence sharing, allies, and the ability to strike targets at range can help prevent dangers from reaching home. Retreating from these commitments would weaken allied cohesion and give any adversary greater freedom of action.

Before the First World War, concern about the vulnerability of the homeland arguably clouded strategic judgement, distorted defence planning, and corroded those offensive capabilities that have repeatedly delivered advantage in the past. Britain shouldn’t make that mistake again. The choice is not between shield and sword. The UK needs both.

William Freer

Research Fellow (National Security), Council on Geostrategy

Warfare in the missile age is a constant struggle of finding the right balance between offensive and defensive capabilities. The short answer is that though Britain does not need a more defensive posture overall, it does need to invest far more in its defensive capabilities. Air defences are one of the most significant capability gaps facing the UK today but erecting an impregnable umbrella is neither practical nor cost-effective.

The point of air defences should be to buy time for offensive capabilities to do their job in destroying an adversaries ability to continue launching strikes. But as the United States (US) and Israeli forces operating in Iran have shown, hunting the ‘archers’ is no easy feat even after air superiority has been achieved. As such, any investment in UK air defences should be focused on the most sensitive sites and the most likely threats. This means protecting sites such as Faslane, RAF Lossiemouth, and GCHQ from Russian ballistic missiles or cruise missiles which ‘leak’ through assets deployed further forward.

It is vital that this investment, however, does not become an opportunity cost for offensive capabilities. The ability to hunt Russian submarines and keep them bottled up beyond the Bear Gap (the stretch of water from Svalbard to Norway), to keep Russian aircraft at arms length, and to strike the enabling structure behind these platforms from missile factories to airbases and submarine pens also requires more investment. Without greater ability to hit back it would only be a matter of time before the umbrella cracks and lets the rain in.

Matthew Palmer

Sir John Moore Adjunct Fellow in Military Affairs, Council on Geostrategy

As a general rule, the UK is best defended at reach through expeditionary forces, as these most ably support its NATO commitments. Russia is best deterred – and, if necessary, fought – closer to its own border, rather than on the British Isles, whether at land, sea, or in the air.

However, the call for improved homeland defences should not be dismissed. Britain has some serious vulnerabilities in terms of security, air defence, and civil protection. Key political, economic, and military sites are vulnerable to sabotage, interference and, in the worst case, missile strike. While the UK does not face the same threat as other frontline allies, all of its adversaries stock long-ranged cruise and ballistic missiles in their arsenal which can reach the British Isles. The UK currently has limited options that can reliably defeat this threat.

I have recently visited Kyiv, and experienced bombardment from Russian cruise and ballistic missiles firsthand. It is not a threat to be taken lightly. In case of a full-scale conflict, Russia could hit London, Faslane, Cheltenham, or Portsmouth using long-ranged ballistic missiles, disrupting key nodes in the British war effort.

As such, moderately increased investment in homeland air defence – especially against ballistic missiles – for key sites and creating a civil defence force would be sensible options to improve the security of the British Isles while the British Armed Forces take the fight to the enemy. The shield and sword are not mutually exclusive, but should instead complement each other for maximum effect.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

The Kremlin would not fear a British anti-air missile shield. It knows it can fire hundreds if not thousands of missiles at British territories in Europe and that some will always get through. Even Israel’s expansive, integrated system – with close (Iron Dome), intermediate (David’s Sling), and long range (Arrow) defences – cannot intercept every missile or drone.

Insofar as Britain does need enhanced air defences, they should not be anchored to static silos on land. Rather, they should be delivered through a dispersed fleet of large autonomous anti-air vessels integrated into the New Hybrid Navy. Controlled from crewed warships or even the UK territories, these modular platforms would provide mobile air-defence pickets when required, while pivoting to offensive strike, sensing, and escort roles at other times. This prevents capital from being locked into single-use, purely defensive assets.

In any case, what Russia really fears is offensive firepower: the Royal Navy’s and Royal Air Force’s ability to launch devastating raids on Russian air stations, naval bases, radar facilities, and command and control systems, as well as energy and communications infrastructure. The Kremlin also respects escalation dominance: Russia’s doctrine exploits the rungs between conventional conflict and all-out strategic nuclear exchange – a flexible sub-strategic nuclear capability the British Armed Forces currently lack.

Britain should not attempt to turn itself into a solitary but tough little punch bag. Rather, it needs to think of itself as the pivot of a wider defensive formation. Frontline allies – Norway, Finland, Sweden, the Baltic states, Poland, Germany, Romania, and Turkey – are geographically positioned to provide NATO’s anti-access and area-denial (A2/AD) shield. The UK should champion their efforts while investing in long-range deep strike systems, agile naval mass, and a credible sub-strategic deterrent instead. That is what will deter Russia from miscalculation or outright attack.

Julien de Saint-Quentin

François Crouzet Adjunct Fellow in Comparative Geopolitics, Council on Geostrategy

The issue is not so much about offence versus defence as it is about wars of choice versus wars of necessity.

The perennial problem of maintaining expensive armed forces in peacetime is that governments are tempted to use them as discretionary instruments of foreign policy, sometimes relying on rather convoluted arguments to establish a connection with national security. Arguably, the British public lost its appetite for such interventions some time between 2013 and 2018. One telling sign of this shift was the quiet disappearance of the word ‘expeditionary’ from the Franco-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force in 2025. Conceived in 2010, the force belonged to the golden era of discretionary intervention, perhaps best epitomised by the 2011 Libya campaign.

Of course, the nuclear deterrent remains the bedrock of non-discretionary homeland defence. Much of the Royal Navy, alongside elements of the other services, contributes to its conventional underpinnings. There is substantial overlap between ‘making the deterrent safe’ and ‘making home waters safe’. Britain’s homeland is arguably less well protected against a conventional air threat than it was from the Second World War to the end of the Cold War, when a complex network of distributed radar stations and air stations protected its skies. However, it is difficult to imagine how a major conventional attack of that nature could remain separate from the risk of nuclear escalation.

Perhaps the most overlooked vulnerability, however, lies beneath the sea. Yes, Britain is an island nation. But no, it is not because 90% of its economy depends on goods arriving by sea. Tonnes are not pounds sterling, and imports are not Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Britain is overwhelmingly a services-based economy and, according to recent studies, an emerging AI powerhouse. It is therefore disproportionately dependent on the uninterrupted flow of international data, some 99% of which travels through submarine cables.

Perhaps it is time to reconsider the traditional assumption that protecting maritime trade – escorting container ships up and down the Red Sea, if need be – should remain the organising principle of a fleet built around ‘escorts’ and expeditionary operations, and the natural destination for the lion’s share of its budget. And perhaps it is those cables that are the new ‘Atlantic convoys’: the only thing that kept Sir Winston Churchill awake at night.

Olha Tolmachova

Junior Political Analyst, Serpens Centre for International Security

Britain should give greater priority to closing critical homeland defence gaps rather than expanding its ability to project power while its own territory and infrastructure remain vulnerable.

The Defence Committee has warned the UK has ‘next to nothing’ in integrated air and missile defence – even the Conservative Party’s proposed £10 billion may cover only a fraction of the investment required to build a comprehensive air-defence system. This suggests that continued investment in power projection without closing critical defensive gaps could leave Britain increasingly exposed and those gaps harder to address under attack.

Ukraine’s case suggests the competition is already skewed as strategically vital domains such as electronic warfare and anti-drone systems remain chronically underfunded while capital concentrates elsewhere. Considering Ukraine’s campaign is the most intensive real-world test of integrated air defence in modern warfare, data shows an attacker can generate more threats than a defender can afford to stop. To show the numbers: 281 interceptor drones costing roughly US$450,000 downed 258 Russian drones worth about US$25 million. The idea is not that cheap systems beat expensive ones, but that outcomes depend on allocating scarce assets across threat types by interception economics.

With contemporary threat landscape and warfare tactics, deterrence indeed remains necessary, but Ukraine’s experience shows that sustaining the fight requires reliable command and control, careful allocation of scarce interceptors, affordable interception and constant adaptation. The UK should prioritise closing defensive gaps while maintaining credible deterrence and expeditionary capabilities. Threats to overseas bases like Royal Air Force (RAF) Akrotiri show why the sword needs a shield.

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With the waning of the post-Cold War ‘peace dividend’, the world is again coalescing into spheres of influence and power hierarchies. Great powers exist alongside ‘middle powers’ – those with a significant level of international influence, but to a lesser extent than the great powers.

In Davos in January 2026, Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, advocated for middle powers to collaborate with each other as great power rivalry intensifies. While such efforts have occurred before – notably the Non-Aligned Movement of the Cold War – the effectiveness and relevancy of middle power coalitions is contested. Using this as the basis for this week’s Big Ask, we asked nine experts: Are middle powers natural allies of each other?

Dr Przemysław Biskup

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

Middle powers can be natural allies, but the challenges involved are considerable. Their central problem is aggregating and coordinating complementary resources to compensate for the concentration of power in a single great power. This requires military and industrial capacity, economic resilience, and – crucially – sustained political will.

The European Union (EU) illustrates this well: its 27 members possess enormous economic and significant military potential, yet converting these assets into a coherent strategic actor demands constant political efforts and investment, with no guaranteed success. As a result, American leadership of free and open nations remains extremely difficult to replace, providing both capabilities and a framework for coordinating allies.

This helps to explain why countries on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) eastern front – facing a persistent Russian threat – are reluctant to consider security arrangements premised on reducing the United States’ (US) leadership. As Carney argues, great power competition makes increased middle power cooperation highly desirable for the sake of greater resilience against coercion.

Yet, from a Polish and broader Central and Eastern European countries’ perspective, this does not make a ‘third path’ between great powers more feasible. Their fundamental strategic interest remains deterring Russia, which is best achieved through NATO and maintaining strong American engagement in Europe. Therefore, middle power cooperation can and should complement core alliances while enhancing participants’ ability to influence both partners and adversaries.

Poland’s relations with the United Kingdom (UK), the Nordic states, Canada, South Korea, and Japan show how countries can work together where interests converge. Defence and defence‑industrial cooperation, critical minerals, energy, cyber security, technology, and resilient supply chains are particularly promising. Nonetheless, middle powers’ strategic relevance will ultimately depend on transforming shared interests into collective capabilities rather than merely diplomatic coalitions.

Dr Hillary Briffa

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

There is nothing inevitable about middle power solidarity. Middle powers are most likely to cooperate when a common problem creates a common interest. In periods of great power rivalry, that may mean they align most readily around what they stand against – such as coercion, forced choices between blocs, or the erosion of multilateral rules that give them room to manoeuvre. Indeed, the Non-Aligned Movement exemplified this. Coalition-building can also give states influence they would struggle to exercise alone.

Nevertheless, ‘middle power’ is a relative category, and it is deeply history-laden. Strategic cultures develop through geography, historical experience, available resources, and perceptions of threat. For instance, Japan and South Korea are both commonly described as middle powers, both are US allies, and both face many of the same pressures in East Asia. Yet, Japan’s imperial rule over Korea from 1910-1945 remains politically salient and continues to shape bilateral trust – a shared position in today’s international hierarchy does not erase yesterday’s relationships.

Middle power cooperation is therefore likely to be pragmatic and issue-specific, far from automatic. Carney’s rousing proposition is most persuasive as a call for flexible coalitions, whereby states work together where their interests coincide while accepting that they will diverge elsewhere. In this spirit, middle powers can find common cause, particularly when great power competition threatens their room for manoeuvre, but that does not make them ‘natural’ allies. Whether in love or diplomacy, relationships will always take hard work.

Prof. Amelia Hadfield

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

The question of whether middle powers are natural allies highlights a significant geopolitical debate unfolding in both Europe and Canada, but with striking differences.

From Ottawa’s perspective, Carney remains the most prominent advocate of middle powers, both as a necessary counterweight to superpowers, and as natural partners. His landmark Davos address was a warning that the international order was experiencing ‘a rupture, not a transition’ and called for medium-sized liberal democracies to withstand geopolitical challenges collectively.

Imposing retaliatory tariffs on the US (ironically, alongside the People’s Republic of China [PRC]) in response to Washington’s trade war, Carney was adamant in his recent speech to the European Parliament that his vision is not of ‘a great power rival – only with better manners’ but a nimbler, ostensibly values-based cooperation among democracies such as Canada, Nordic nations, Australia, Japan, and EU member states – many with shared concerns over American capriciousness, and Russian and Chinese ambitions.

European reactions, however, have been ambivalent. Despite the broad endorsement by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, of Carney’s ‘middle powerism’, the suggestion that Canada become an ‘associate member’ of the EU received a decidedly cool response.

Carney considers Canada both the definitive middle power and European in calling, while European decision-makers argue that the EU itself is hardly a middle power. While certainly a convenient collection of middle powers, the real question is whether the EU regards itself as a coalition for them, particularly as a balance against overactive great powers.

Carney’s vision presupposes that middle powers can and should work together, but not necessarily to the limits of pooling sovereignty or aggregating into a great(er) power to succeed. Having pooled significant amounts of power, competence, policy, and influence, Europeans – at least those keen on developing the EU’s strategic autonomy – already regard themselves as a great power, albeit an uneven one.

Whatever the differences, Canada has upped its geopolitical game: a visible and useful improvement in the eyes of Brussels. Equally, Carney’s words about deteriorated Canadian-American relations remain a cautionary tale for European nations: ‘a trade relationship that was once a great strength has now become a serious vulnerability’.

Prof. Robyn Klingler-Vidra and Prof. Ramon Pacheco Pardo

Professor of Political Economy and Entrepreneurship, King’s College London; and Professor of International Relations, King’s College London

Middle powers can work together, but are not necessarily natural allies. They may share an interest in preserving room for manoeuvre amid intensifying American-Chinese rivalry, but their economic dependencies, security relationships, and national interests differ too greatly to make a durable ‘middle power club’ easy to build, let alone to sustain.

For countries such as the UK, one option is simply to wait out the remaining years that Donald Trump will be President of the US. However, this overlooks an important feature of Trump’s approach to international relations: his predisposition for ‘the art of the deal’ – as well as his track record of bilateral negotiations.

Additionally, most of the bilateral agreements that the Trump administration signs are likely to survive, given their economic, security, and diplomatic benefits for the US. Rather than seeking strength primarily by banding together, middle powers should focus on increasing what they individually bring to the negotiating table. This means cultivating what can be called ‘niche superpowers’: areas of concentrated economic, technological, or regulatory strength that confer disproportionate strategic relevance relative to a country’s overall material capabilities.

South Korea offers a useful example. Faced with Washington’s tariff pressure in 2025, Seoul made its shipbuilding capabilities central to negotiations through its ‘Make American Shipbuilding Great Again’ (MASGA) initiative. A sector in which South Korea possesses exceptional capabilities became leverage in its negotiations with Washington.

The lesson for middle powers is not that cooperation is undesirable. Coalitions can amplify their influence when interests align. However, autonomy in a transactional international order ultimately rests on each nation state’s strategic indispensability. Cultivating capabilities that great powers need may offer middle powers a more reliable route to national self-determination than attempting to stand behind a lasting club among themselves.

Dr Alexander Lanoszka

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

No country is ever a natural ally of another. After all, alliances are the product of geostrategic priorities, political interests, and even cultural affinities. Alas, even these factors hardly guarantee their formation, and thus if alliances themselves are indeterminate, then so is the concept of ‘middle powers’ – an ambiguous category of states that are neither great nor minor but somewhere in between.

Still, what Carney had in mind is how countries with sufficient bandwidth have a shared interest in being stewards of an international order that has long been dependent on the preponderance of American military and economic power for its own functioning.

This idea is appealing, but it is nevertheless hard to imagine that the usual candidates for middle power status – for example, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Türkiye, South Korea, and Mexico – would not only agree on what to do together, but would also provide the capacity necessary for guaranteeing freedom of the seas, providing a common and global reserve currency, and acting with sufficient unity to overcome the collective action problems that a strong and willing US has arguably done in the past. To say nothing of other potential middle power candidates, those countries put together differ enormously in their military capabilities, strategic interests, cultural perspectives, and international goals to be a coherent bloc.

Yet, disorder is not inevitable either. Even with Washington setting the highest tariffs since the 1930s, for example, many countries appear to recognise that beggar-thy-neighbour policies are a dead end, and can find scope for mutually beneficial cooperation all the same.

Dr Zeno Leoni

Lecturer, Department of Defence Studies, King’s College London

Middle powers, particularly those of the so-called ‘Global South’ rather than European NATO members, are not necessarily natural allies, but they often share important diplomatic interests. Many support key elements of the liberal international order while advocating reforms to make international institutions more representative and responsive to developing countries. They also tend to value multilateralism and strategic autonomy, seeking to avoid excessive dependence on any single great power or becoming entangled in great power competition.

At the same time, middle powers are rarely united by common security interests. Their foreign and security policies are largely shaped by geographical realities, meaning that states respond primarily to challenges in their immediate neighbourhoods. As a result, the security concerns of a Gulf state, a Southeast Asian country, and a Latin American power may differ considerably, limiting the scope for meaningful strategic cooperation.

Relatedly, limited military capabilities and resources further reduce middle powers’ ability to support one another across regions. Moreover, supporting another middle power on a particular issue may risk damaging relations with a more powerful state.

As a result, while middle powers often share a common vision of international order, differences in geography, security concerns, and national interests frequently limit cooperation in practice. Their relationships are therefore characterised as much by pragmatism as by solidarity.

Dr Stephen Nagy

Professor, International Christian University; Senior Fellow and China Project Lead, Macdonald-Laurier Institute; and Centre for Global Outreach Fellow, Japan Institute for International Affairs

Carney’s Davos speech pitched an attractive idea. In short, a coalition of middle powers would band together to survive the crossfire of great power rivalry. It sounds great on paper. However, assuming these nations are natural allies is a fundamental mistake.

Just because countries share a fear of weaponised trade and shrinking diplomatic space does not mean that they share a game plan. Advanced middle powers and developing countries might both hate being bullied by superpowers, but their actual goals rarely align. Developing nations are not looking at this through a ‘Western’ moral lens. More often than not, they want practical deliverables such as market access, technology transfers, and infrastructure.

Talk is cheap, and building a real coalition is a massive headache. Look at Canada’s own track record. The 2017 Trans-Pacific Partnership walkout mess in Da Nang is a perfect example of how countries do not get to claim leadership just by giving good speeches. Trust has to be earned through actual burden-sharing.

The world is now stuck in a rigid bipolar system, and countries cannot put off picking a side forever. Pretending that American unpredictability is exactly the same as Chinese revisionism is a massive strategic blunder. Middle powers are not magically going to unite just because the geopolitical climate is getting tense. If they want to survive, they need to drop the wishful thinking and start doing the hard, unsentimental work of building real frameworks and actual credibility.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

Whether middle powers are natural allies depends entirely on how the term ‘middle power’ is conceptualised. If it is defined strictly through a positional lens – merely as states that are neither superpowers (the US), or major powers (Britain, France, and the PRC) – middle powers do not make for natural allies of one another. Under this positional perspective, alignment is driven by national interests, regional security dynamics, and geopolitical convenience rather than shared status.

True, ‘middling countries’, such as Russia, Türkiye, Japan, India, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, and Canada share a structural classification, yet their strategic priorities are very different. Their relations remain transactional; they pursue sovereignty, or coalesce around greater powers (as Canada and the Nordic and Baltic states are with the UK through the Joint Expeditionary Force [JEF]).

If, however, the term ‘middle power’ is understood as a normative identity – defining states that embrace international law, multilateralism, and the so-called rules-based international system – a stronger case emerges for natural convergence. Under this classification, middle powers such as Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, and Sweden share a foundational interest in preventing greater powers from overriding their interests. They embrace multilateralism and pursue global governance structures in order to prevent geopolitical and geoeconomic revisionism.

Perhaps the real question is whether states should willingly embrace ‘middlepowerdom’ in this normative sense, as Carney recommends. For some, it is a strategic necessity, making them natural partners out of shared vulnerability.

Britain, however, has the luxury of playing both roles: it has close pre-existing relationships with many normative middle powers, but it also retains the raw strength, nuclear capability, and global reach to act as a geopolitical centre of gravity (e.g., through the JEF, AUKUS, and NATO). For the UK, the imperative is not to shrink into the middle tier, but to leverage its position to offer security and structure to those that do.

Gray Sergeant

Research Fellow (Indo-Pacific Geopolitics), Council on Geostrategy, and PhD Student, Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science

Shared interests make partnerships; shared values make them a natural fit. Despite Carney’s emphasis on pragmatism, he does acknowledge this. The two exemplars of ‘variable geometry’ that he holds up – the Coalition of the Willing and Security Action For Europe (SAFE) – are composed of democracies.

Among like-minded countries, ad hoc groupings and minilaterals make sense. In certain circumstances, their nimbleness may give them an edge over large, legacy arrangements. Indeed, they can enhance and complement the existing US-led alliance system. Yet, Carney appears to be presenting a different proposition: that ‘new networks and…pragmatic alliances’ provide an alternative to, or even a counterbalance against, American power.

Proponents of middle power coalitions argue there is no choice, given the US’ turn inward and against its allies. Yet, Trump is sui generis. Assuming his approach will permanently define American foreign policy would be premature. Traditional internationalist currents remain powerful in the Democratic and Republican parties, and among the American people.

It would be better for free and open nations to encourage these tendencies and collectively build frameworks to constrain any rash unilateralist impulses within Trump’s successors. They would be better placed to do so if they also address one of Trump’s major – and entirely legitimate – criticisms: their underspending on defence. Done properly, the US-led alliance system, more balanced than before, could emerge stronger.

Trying to obtain security and prosperity through middle power coalitions would be neither feasible nor desirable. The US is the world’s premier military power, its economy continues to outperform those of Europe, and American companies lead the global race in Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The only serious alternative to American pre-eminence is Communist Chinese pre-eminence. Yet, those who promote middle power coalitions appear to understate the stakes of this great power competition, while simultaneously bemoaning the breakdown of an order only made possible by Washington’s triumph in the Cold War.

In the late 1940s, Ernest Bevin, then Foreign Secretary, was able to prevent a war-weary US from abandoning European security – and consequently, NATO was born. This can be done again. Like-minded middle powers can form bespoke partnerships, but they should not write off nor dismiss the value of American leadership.

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In his first speech to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 22nd September, Andy Burnham, Prime Minister, announced the formation of a National Centre for Information Defence (NCID) to combat disinformation spread by the United Kingdom’s (UK) adversaries. With the prevalence of social media in the lives of British citizens and the expanding capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI), information warfare is an increasing challenge for the UK’s national security.

The NCID will bring together intelligence agencies, government departments, police, and social media companies, aiming to ‘detect, attribute and disrupt these kinds of hostile state information attacks…to support and defend our democracy’. This forms the crux of this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked six experts: What should the new National Centre for Information Defence look like?

Prof. David Betz

Professor of War in the Modern World, Department of War Studies, King’s College London

The NCID should not exist.

The UK does not lack institutions for supervising what the public may hear, say, and believe. It has too many of them. Online speech is already policed at a rate that would have embarrassed a late-Soviet censor: arrests for posts judged offensive, regulators and platforms enforcing approved language, and public broadcasters and advertisers managing the moral temperature of what passes for news and entertainment. The habit is no longer to argue. It is to administer opinion, in the vocabulary of compliance, cohesion, and harm. A National Centre for Information Defence is another office in that apparatus, not a defence of democracy.

The announcement gives the game away. The threat is described as an assault that ‘twists what people feel about their own country’ and produces a ‘narrative of decline’. Foreign information operations are a real, narrow problem, already covered by the intelligence services and the National Security Act. What is being built here is something else: a body entitled to treat discontent, pessimism, and unapproved accounts of the country as hostile activity.

This is the logic of a system that talks about democracy while narrowing the ground on which it can be practised. Hostile services amplify grievances. They do not create the conditions that make those grievances plausible. A centre charged with disrupting the feeling of decline will spend its time on the public, not on the Kremlin.

We have seen this film before. Late-stage systems cling on by managing appearances. They do not correct the causes of distrust; they police the expression of it, and call the policing defence. Adding a quango to detect, attribute, and disrupt ‘information attacks’, working with police and platforms and briefed on community cohesion, will not make Britain more secure. It will make the approved-news regime a little more explicit.

The democratic answer to a brittle information environment is competent government and open argument. It is not a further licence for the state to decide which accounts of the UK are safe to hold.

Prof. Rory Cormac

Professor of International Relations, University of Nottingham

A look through the history of British attempts to counter hostile information activity suggests three recommendations for the NCID and one thing to avoid.

Firstly, it should be a strategic decision hub determining when and how to intervene, but also – crucially – when not to intervene. Predecessors quickly learned that attribution and exposure could be counterproductive, especially if done by the wrong person, if the line was gaining little traction, or if it perhaps had too much of a kernel of truth for comfort. These are delicate decisions to be thought through carefully, rather than a reflexive response.

Secondly, the Centre should sit at the heart of a network bringing together wide expertise. Effectiveness of attribution and disruption depend heavily on local context and the credibility of the messenger on the target audiences. The Centre should build and sustain networks across academia, media, technologies companies, civil society, and international partners.

Thirdly, it should be part of a unified strategy. Convincing attribution sometimes depends on intelligence that cannot be fully disclosed, and disruption can involve counterattacks on hostile infrastructure at source. The Centre will therefore require a close relationship with other branches of His Majesty’s (HM) Government, not dissimilar perhaps to the relationship between the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the National Cyber Force.

And to avoid? It should not be – or be seen to be – some sort of public arbiter of truth, or even of what constitutes disinformation (and of who, domestically, is peddling it). This will lead to politicisation and exploitation, at best grinding the Centre to a halt, and at worst backfiring horribly.

Paul Mason

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The NCID should be modelled on the NCSC – a public facing and accountable body to protect British civil society from a range of hybrid and cognitive attacks. Although it should be strictly politically neutral, its aim should be to prevent, disrupt, and attribute acts of cognitive aggression.

Here, proactivity is key: the best defence against AI-driven disinformation campaigns is a population educated – and institutions trained – to identify and filter inauthentic online behaviour. This could include, for example, weekly bulletins to schools, universities, local authorities, and police forces identifying and pre-empting key themes of disinformation from the ‘CRINK’ nations (the People’s Republic of China [PRC], Russia, Iran, and North Korea); free online courses for public servants; and a public information campaign to establish the state’s right to conduct cognitive self-defence.

As with the NCSC, the new Centre should be backed by the coordinated and legitimate efforts of the UK’s intelligence community to protect the country’s populace from harm. The Centre should be explicit: it does not monitor UK citizens, we monitor attempts to manipulate their cognition. We do not transgress the information rights of fake accounts and disinformation swarms because machines do not have such rights.

Dr Lukasz Olejnik

Independent Technology Consultant, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Department of War Studies, King’s College London

Information influence, interference, and operations are a defining security challenge of our time. Russia’s activity targeting the UK is but one example of a broader and growing risk. AI increases that risk further.

HM Government is right to create an NCID. The Centre’s task should be continuous monitoring of the information environment for signs of malicious interference, including coordinated behaviour, artificial amplification, cross-platform activity, and supporting infrastructure. It should then act on the detected signal, understand and investigate the threat, and ultimately disrupt it.

Such analytical and practical actions should be considered primarily as a technology and security problem. Disinformation reduced to a media or journalistic framing will not succeed. The Centre needs strong technical and security expertise, supported by proper analytical systems, software, compute, and access to both frontier closed and open AI models.

AI changes conventional staffing assumptions. Capable teams can use it to combine technical, linguistic, communication, public relations, human science, and regional knowledge without requiring rigid divisions between backgrounds. This is the model that the Centre should adopt.

The analytical objective should be campaign-level attribution. The Centre should link incidents, malign activities, and the infrastructure used into coherent threat assessments that can inform policymakers and lead to warning society. Disruption should be handled by existing authorities, such as Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) for technical infrastructure and MI5 where hostile-state influence or malign influencer-for-hire activity is suspected.

AI-powered information operations are redefining the landscape, and will make the Centre’s mission challenging by lowering costs and enabling more persistent, adaptive campaigns – and this will be a quickly evolving field.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

In the words of Jonathan Swift in 1710: ‘Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect’.

Hostile CRINK states, especially Russia and the PRC, are waging political warfare against the UK. From coordinated flurries of tweets on X designed to inflate domestic division, to Facebook campaigns reinforcing narratives of national decline, these efforts are deliberately designed to turn Briton against Briton, ultimately weakening the country.

If the NCID becomes merely another reactive fact-checking body, it will fail. Misinformation will always outpace official corrections – which will be lost, in any case, in the drumbeat of the modern media.

Instead, the NCID must become an agile, proactive, and cross-sector entity – part of a broader transformation towards asymmetric statecraft. Rather than chasing individual lies, it should operate as an intelligence-led horizon-scanning unit – combining threat intelligence, behavioural science, discourse analysis, and technological expertise to map covert state campaigns, expose adversarial infrastructure, and build institutional resilience before hostile narratives take root.

Operationally, it should go on the offensive by championing critical thinking and cyber-literacy in schools, as well as public education campaigns targeting older people who may be more prone to nostalgia.

It should also focus on binding the nation together and regenerating national self-confidence. Hostile narratives prey on national self-doubt; a confident, unified British nation provides the strongest shield, ensuring that foreign deception and misinformation meet immediate scepticism and resistance.

Andrew Yeh

Executive Director of the China Strategic Risks Institute

Britain may not be the PRC’s prime target for information operations, but it is still firmly within its sights. Here, two objectives stand out.

The first is neutralising dissent within diaspora communities, particularly the UK’s large Hong Kong population – many of whom moved to Britain fleeing political repression. The second is weakening public support for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the transatlantic alliance more broadly.

Beijing pursues these through a broad toolkit, from state media such as China Global Television Network (CGTN) platforming anti-NATO voices to networks of directed social media accounts amplifying preferred narratives. Increasingly, it also uses AI to design and execute information operations. YouTube channels run by bots post AI-generated content praising the PRC’s rise, while UK-based Hong Kong activists have been targeted by deepfake videos. Leaked GoLaxy documents suggest that Chinese state-backed actors are seeking to automate the entire cycle of information operations: monitoring narratives, profiling targets, generating tailored content, and distributing it through humanised bot accounts.

To succeed, the new Centre must first engage directly with the diaspora communities most exposed to these operations. Much of this content circulates in Chinese-language spaces on platforms such as WeChat, Xiaohongshu, and Douyin, outside the view of mainstream monitoring. The Centre will only detect and attribute these campaigns if it builds trusted, regular channels with these communities, and integrates diaspora members into government working groups.

Secondly, Britain should engage with Taiwan. No country has faced Beijing’s information operations more intensely, and Taiwan has often been a testing ground for tactics later deployed elsewhere. Its government has pioneered rapid ‘pre-bunking’ techniques to dispel misinformation before it circulates widely, and numerous civil society groups have set up fact-checking and media literacy training at the community level.

Regular dialogue with the Taiwanese government and civil society would give the Centre an early warning of the type of tactics that may be deployed in the UK. Only by listening to those at the frontline of the PRC’s information operations – both at home and in Taiwan – can the new Centre succeed.

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Over the past year, drone incursions over European airspace have become increasingly common. What were major news stories in 2025 are now commonplace events, with Luxembourg and Berlin airports being the most recently affected by drone sightings. Despite its denials of responsibility, such probing of European and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) is typical of Russia’s sub-threshold hostilities against free and open nations.

As the Kremlin’s needling of the continent continues, the United Kingdom (UK) as an upholder of European security should send a clear message that such actions are intolerable. This necessity forms the basis for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked eight experts: How can Britain deter Russian aggression in Europe?

Dr Ruth Deyermond

Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security, Department of War Studies, King’s College London

As Russia continues its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, its aggression against the rest of Europe is growing. Sub-threshold attacks have been occurring for several years, and countries including the UK have been slow to respond. The current escalation seems to have several causes, including the weak response to earlier attacks, a misplaced perception of Russian strength and European weakness, and the Trump administration’s fracturing of NATO.

The British response needs to address all these issues, in cooperation with its allies. Deterrence relies on credibility, and the Kremlin needs to believe that further attacks – let alone escalation – will be met by a proportionate response, including a military response if necessary.

Most European states have been fearful of the consequences of this, but the real danger comes from letting Russia believe that the continent is too weak to impose any red lines. European countries need to demonstrate that they can and will act independently of the United States (US), now that Washington is prioritising detente with Russia over alignment with Europe.

European states, including the UK, need to stop sending mixed messages to the Kremlin. The European Union (EU) lifting sanctions on two oligarchs was a serious mistake. The statement made by Andy Burnham, Prime Minister, earlier this month that national security ‘can’t come at the expense of social security’ was deeply unhelpful in the signal it sent – domestically, to allies, and to Russia.

Lastly, all of Europe needs to recognise that the most effective way to deter Russian aggression is to help Ukraine to win.

Keir Giles

Director, Conflict Studies Research Centre, and Senior Consulting Fellow, Chatham House

Politics and military capabilities evolve, but the fundamental principles of deterring Russia remain constant. Potential victims of the Kremlin’s aggression need to demonstrate that they and their allies are both capable of inflicting costs on Russia that would be meaningful and personally threatening for its leadership, and are determined to do so if attacked.

This means that since current and previous British administrations have declined to join European allies in reinvesting in conventional capabilities, His Majesty’s (HM) Government must resort to asymmetric means of challenging the Kremlin, and more convincing displays of the will to use them.

Russia will not challenge a NATO ally until it is fully convinced that the US will not come to its aid. However, it will also not challenge a country where a sufficiently powerful coalition of European states has made it clear that aggression will be answered assertively. When that challenge comes, there is unlikely to be much time available to create an ad hoc coalition of the able – and a purely performative ‘coalition of the willing’ will be of little relevance. The balance between making sufficient preparations for a non-NATO response to Russia, and overcompensating in a way that hastens erosion of faith in the alliance itself, is delicate but vital.

The UK has already squandered much of its leadership capital through defence delinquency, leading to active discussion even of its status as the framework nation of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF). If Britain wants to play a more significant role in European deterrence, the first and essential step is to overcome its own reluctance to regenerate the capabilities to do so.

Della Heptinstall

Defence Sector Lead, Walker Morris LLP, and Army Reserve Officer

Russia’s increasing use of drone incursions, cyber activity, and other forms of sub-threshold coercion reflects a deliberate effort to probe European vulnerabilities without crossing into open conflict. These incidents are not merely acts of provocation; they are attempts to test response times, expose weaknesses, and assess political resolve. The UK’s task is therefore not simply to respond to individual incidents, but to convince the Kremlin that such efforts will fail.

This begins with deterrence by denial. Britain should continue to strengthen air and missile defence, counter-drone capabilities, and persistent surveillance alongside its NATO allies. Recent experience in Ukraine has demonstrated how relatively inexpensive uncrewed systems can impose disproportionate costs on defenders. The UK should help to lead efforts to reverse that equation by better integrating intelligence, detection, and response capabilities across Europe.

Yet, military capability alone is insufficient. Russia has adapted its economy for sustained confrontation with free and open nations, and European countries must demonstrate greater staying power. Deterrence rests not only on immediate military strength, but also on perceptions of endurance. Faster procurement, resilient supply chains, and a defence industrial base capable of scaling production during crises are therefore strategic necessities rather than economic ambitions.

Ultimately, the UK can best deter Russian aggression by helping to build a Europe that is resilient, technologically advanced, and industrially prepared. A continent that can absorb pressure, sustain competition, and deny strategic gains is one that the Kremlin will be far less inclined to challenge.

Tomas Jermalavičius

Head of Studies, International Centre for Defence and Security

Britain is already a major pillar for deterring Russian aggression. It leads NATO’s’s forward land presence in Estonia, serves as the framework nation for the JEF, and contributes in myriad other ways – conventional, unconventional, and, of course, nuclear. Its military aid to Kyiv – its main and most effective instrument for imposing costs on the Kremlin and coercing it into peace – dwarfs that of some other key powers in NATO.

The problem, therefore, is not a lack of willingness to demonstrate resolve and take action. Effective deterrence requires sustained investment in capability, rebuilding mass and reserves wherever relevant and necessary; expediting the integration of Ukraine’s lessons from drone warfare; and fortifying British society against coercion by adversaries.

The British Armed Forces have been losing mass across all services for years, and have struggled to secure the investment required to bring both their existing and emerging capabilities to the necessary scale and readiness levels that would properly impress Russia. The UK’s industry and society are woefully exposed and unprepared for the disruptions and hardships that fighting a large-scale peer conflict would inevitably impose.

Fixing this is not only about reaching the formal NATO commitment of spending 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence and defence-related matters – a commitment that nonetheless keeps slipping out of HM Government’s reach. Just as importantly, it is about moving at the speed and scale required, with the requisite sense of urgency, and as a whole-of-society endeavour. The credibility of NATO’s Article 5 rests on, and indeed starts with, the robustness of Article 3 – something that Britain needs to place back at the heart of its deterrence posture without further delay.

Dr Eoin McNamara

Postdoctoral Fellow, Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)

Deterrence policy in Europe is multifaceted. The UK has a key role leading evolution in nuclear and conventional deterrence as well as in resilience against sub-threshold threats. British leadership on deterrence in Northern Europe is longstanding, but the French-led nuclear ‘forward deterrence’ initiative is currently a major talking point in Nordic and Baltic capitals.

Supplementing NATO’s extended nuclear deterrence, strength in French proposals will still be seen through Paris’ bilateral partnership with London – centred on the Lancaster House Treaties and refreshed in 2025 to prioritise technological cooperation on nuclear stockpiles. The UK’s leadership of NATO’s forward land forces in Estonia, and of the JEF to ensure it remains militarily effective, are key priorities in conventional deterrence.

Resilience against sub-threshold ‘hybrid’ threats more closely concerns Britain’s maritime hinterland and the protection of CNI. The UK sits strategically at Europe’s transatlantic frontier, generating and facilitating critical data and energy connectivity linking its closest neighbours. Critical undersea infrastructure and important air corridors need to be protected from any sub-threshold manoeuvres that the Kremlin may contemplate.

To avoid difficult defence resourcing choices between protecting domestic supply flows and maximising deterrence commitments elsewhere in Europe, investment in Britain’s defence technological innovation is necessary in tandem with solutions for its military’s recruitment and retention problems. A closer partnership with the Republic of Ireland, focused more on common strategic realities and less on historical precedents, will mutually benefit both countries’ resilience against sub-threshold activities in the Atlantic and the Irish Sea, helping to secure important supply lines linking the UK, Ireland, and the wider EU.

Matthew Palmer

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The first, obvious point is that Britain cannot deter Russian aggression alone – it has to be a coordinated effort alongside European allies. This can be done through a combination of groupings – NATO remains the bedrock of European security, but alternative structures like the JEF or bilateral agreements can add flexibility and complicate matters for the Russian adversary. The UK should work closely with European allies to develop contingency plans for deterring Russia, with clear agreements on responsibility and effort.

Russian sub-threshold and political warfare should be robustly countered, ideally in a planned, coordinated fashion to ensure that the Kremlin feels pain for attacking Europe. Seizing ‘shadow fleet’ vessels, injections of funding to Ukraine, and countering Russian influence through covert action are examples of tools in Europe’s arsenal that can be wielded against the Kremlin.

Britain can also add significant heft through its status as a European nuclear power. While carefree nuclear ‘sabre-rattling’ should be strictly avoided, there should be serious consideration of how Russian threats might be managed through deliberate strategic messaging, using both conventional and nuclear means.

Of course, to do so, the UK has to have the capability and capacity to match its rhetoric, or it will be increasingly seen as a paper bulldog by both adversaries and allies. In both the long and short term, the clearest strategy that HM Government can take is to rearm seriously, credibly, and sustainably. Britain’s bark must be backed up with serious bite.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

To deter Russian aggression in Europe more effectively, HM Government should combine domestic resilience, credible military capabilities, and proactive regional leadership.

First, the UK needs to harden its domestic information space to prevent the Kremlin from exploiting British political openness. By developing the new National Centre for Information Defence and legislating to compel social media companies to remove or hide anonymous accounts, HM Government can close off the primary vectors through which Russian political warfare operates.

Second, the UK should initiate a large boost to defence spending while generating a sub-strategic nuclear capability. As dramatised in The Wargame this week, relying solely on conventional forces or the Royal Navy’s strategic Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD) leaves a dangerous operational gap. Russian doctrine is engineered to exploit structural ambiguity; establishing a credible sub-strategic nuclear option would eliminate this vulnerability and reinforce Britain’s ability to deter, even if the US was unable to assist.

Third, the UK should transform the JEF into a high-readiness vanguard for NATO while simultaneously deepening its military assistance to Ukraine. Rather than adopting a passive or reactive posture, Britain should show decisive leadership by coaxing European allies into accepting, and fully resourcing, a joint plan for Ukrainian victory.

By countering sub-threshold ‘grey zone’ actions, bridging critical force posture gaps, and rallying European strategic resolve, the UK can project the strength required to deter the Kremlin from attempting to revise the Euro-Atlantic order any further.

Dr Victoria Vdovychenko

Programme Director for Security Studies, Centre for Defence Strategies, and Joint Programme Leader, Future of Ukraine Programme, Centre for Geopolitics, University of Cambridge

Britain can deter Russian aggression by making hostile action harder to conduct, less useful when attempted, and more costly once attributed. That means affordable counter-drone defences, resilient CNI, credible collective consequences, and a permanent security partnership with Ukraine.

The Kremlin’s drone campaign against Europe is not a series of isolated provocations. They will become more evident each month as Russia tests Article 5 and expands non-kinetic actions with kinetic ones. Britain cannot deter by matching each incursion with a fighter sortie, but it can deter by making denial cheap, punishment predictable, and Ukraine’s battlefield expertise a permanent part of European defence.

Consider Leipzig/Halle Airport. In August, an explosive-laden drone was found beside a Ukrainian An-124, at a hub serving both NATO airlift and Ukrainian supply; Berlin attributed it to Russia four weeks later. Probing has moved from surveillance to sabotage, and its target is European support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, NATO allies still answer cheap drones with expensive jets.

The UK already builds Ukraine’s Octopus-100 interceptor, which hunts Shahed-type drones at a fraction of their cost. Yet, this remains the exception: beyond it, few Ukrainian firms have opened British offices, and government-to-government delivery at scale has not followed. The UK should match Octopus’ contribution to European defence by pre-announcing the costs of attributed attacks.

Ukraine must be central to this effort. Its armed forces and defence industry have accumulated unmatched experience in drone interception, Electronic Warfare (EW), rapid innovation, dispersed logistics, and infrastructure protection under attack. Britain should elaborate on implementation plans for both the 100-year partnership and its role within the EW coalition, covering joint training, testing, lessons learned, research and development, and co-production. The UK brings capital, industrial capacity, training infrastructure, and NATO interoperability; Ukraine brings battlefield knowledge and a proven culture of rapid adaptation.

Deterrence also demands consequences. Britain and its allies should pre-agree proportionate responses to attributed drone incursions, sabotage, and attacks on CNI: diplomatic action, targeted sanctions, intelligence exposure, lawful cyber measures, and increased military support for Kyiv. The Kremlin must understand that deniable coercion will not remain cost-free.

Finally, the UK must communicate this strategy clearly to the public. Citizens need confidence that HM Government recognises the threat, protects essential services, and makes sure it is in balance with other budget lines. It is becoming increasingly necessary to explain that support for Ukraine, counter-drone investment, and infrastructure resilience are not distant foreign policy choices.

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In recent weeks, multiple actors have questioned the sovereignty of particular British territories. Argentina has renewed its spurious claims over the Falkland Islands; the Maldives has asked His Majesty’s (HM) Government to reopen discussions about the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) – with Andy Burnham, Prime Minister, announcing that his administration will move forward with the planned deal with Mauritius – and the first ministers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland met in Cardiff to sign an agreement calling for independence referendums in their respective constituent countries.

Great powers have also become embroiled in the debates over the United Kingdom’s (UK) territory. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a close ally of Mauritius and supports its claim to the BIOT, while Donald Trump, President of the United States (US), has suggested that Washington may not support London over a new Falklands conflict, as well as stating that a united Ireland would be a ‘fantastic thing’. Considering these developments, and the inevitability of adversaries taking advantage of them, this week’s Big Ask poses the following question to five experts: How should Britain respond to those with designs on its sovereign territory?

Prof. Jamie Gaskarth

Professor of Foreign Policy and International Relations, The Open University, Associate Fellow, Chatham House, and Associate Commissioning Editor, International Affairs

The UK faces multiple challenges to its sovereignty, both domestically and abroad. Its response will vary according to the case, but should be based on the following five ‘D’s:

Firstly: Deny rival claims. This comes in two parts, denying the facts of the claim, and denying the oxygen of publicity to those looking to provoke a spat. A simple restatement of the British position is often preferable. Claims can be evoked in bad faith for populist electoral reasons (as with the sudden interest in the Falklands expressed by Javier Milei, President of Argentina, as his net disapproval rating nears -30).

Secondly: Discredit rival claimants. Many threats to the UK’s territory are overtly or covertly nurtured by authoritarian governments or populist politicians. Diplomacy and information warfare could be deployed to undermine their legitimacy, such as by drawing attention to corruption, human rights abuses, and domestic social or economic problems. ‘Whataboutism’ can be a useful technique to highlight hypocrisy.

Thirdly: Deter hostile states. Where a military threat exists, Britain must ensure that it has sufficient resources to respond if attacked to deter an adversary from trying in the first place.

Fourthly: Distract adversaries. Many states have boundary disputes with neighbours, civil and ethnic tensions, and internal political divisions. If rival governments are looking to subvert British sovereignty, the UK has the option of responding robustly in turn, either overtly or covertly. Funding can be diverted to opposition groups and separatist movements. International legal cases over their sovereignty can be supported. Problematic histories can be resurrected and disseminated.

Lastly: Demonstrate British commitment to its sovereign integrity. Government policy initiatives and good news stories should be announced with visits to all four nations, not just England. Commitment to overseas territories and dependencies should be demonstrated with ministerial visits and military rotations. A minimal approach to deterrence may be efficient, but it is not always effective (a Royal Navy presence off Cyprus, for example, may not have added much to the defence of Akrotiri in early 2026, but it would have shown that the UK was fully committed to its sovereignty).

Many of these five ‘D’s would benefit from the asymmetric approach recently advocated by the Council on Geostrategy. Above all, Britain should be clear that it will defend its sovereign territory, using the full spectrum of its means of influence, from now on.

Dr Robert Johnson

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy; Author of the podcast The Wargame; and Director of the Changing Character of War Centre, Oxford University

The notion of sovereignty has been so long established, it is easy to forget the struggles of its origins and how much blood has been shed to establish and preserve it. It is a concept; not of territory, but of a people and their inheritance. It is, in essence, not simply a question of interests, but of our very nature. Attacking sovereignty, in whatever form, is an intolerable infringement of our being.

In 1945, after the world’s bloodiest conflict, there was a conscious effort to minimise conflicts over borders by the intervention of the United Nations (UN). The principle of self-determination, established in 1917 concurrently in the UK and the US, was enshrined in the spirit of the UN Charter, and was to be upheld by the permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Today, three members of that grouping are in breach of the charter: Russia, by its aggression against Ukraine and regional states; the PRC, by its coercion and threats towards Taiwan, the Philippines, and Japan; and even America, with its demands for sovereignty over Canada and Greenland, and some undiplomatic remarks about Britain with regards to Northern Ireland and the Falklands.

The response should be the quiet but firm diplomacy for which the UK has a considerable reputation and long experience. An advisory word, delivered off the record, can save hours of official talks and avoid embarrassment for all concerned.

We can dismiss absurdities. Buenos Aires does not have the armed forces capable of defeating the British garrison in the Falklands, nor its nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs), Carrier Strike Group, and the Royal Air Force (RAF). Washington has absolutely no intention of enforcing the unification of Ireland or carrying out an illegal attack on an ally. The Kremlin is not about to commit national suicide by launching an armed attack that would bring the entirety of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) against it. Beijing knows that an attack on Taiwan would cause economic retaliation that would cost a catastrophic 7% loss to its economy – some US$1.46 trillion (£1.09 trillion) worth of damage, and potentially more.

The bigger threat to sovereignty is, in fact, domestic. Nationalists and separatists see political mileage in pushing their independence agendas, hoping to use the European Union (EU) as leverage against London, even though they must realise that Brussels would be reluctant to take on the costs that England willingly meets in the Barnett formula.

This requires a different approach: a reiteration and remembrance of how, whole and entire, the British Isles left behind the old conflicts and united against the tyrannies of the world. That is the sovereign inheritance that should not, through ignorance and absent-mindedness, be given up.

Dr Alexander Lanoszka

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

Milei appears to have ratcheted up his country’s claims on the Falkland Islands out of the sense that the UK cannot do much about them. The Royal Navy is much smaller in 2026 than it was in 1982, and Britain is lurching from one domestic crisis to another amid a merry-go-round of prime ministers and deeply unpopular mainstream political parties. Worsening matters is that Trump has suggested he might review the US’ policy of supporting the British position on the disputed territory.

Indeed, the UK’s allies are under no obligation to render assistance if Argentina were to launch a military campaign against the islands, for they fall well outside the geographical scope defined by the North Atlantic Treaty. London can count on receiving verbal affirmations about the territorial status quo, the inviolability of borders, and peaceful conflict resolution from its allies and partners. However, such niceties would not deter a resolved and armed Argentina.

The best that HM Government can probably do is to convince Trump and his administration that they could go without a new foreign policy crisis which would unsettle markets and divert scarce policy attention. Trump may very well come around to the British position, but the sooner the better, so that Milei does not risk making the same miscalculation as Leopoldo Galtieri and his junta did in 1982.

Dr Danielle Reeder

Law, Defence, and Geopolitical Affairs Researcher

The territorial sovereignty quandaries that currently besiege the UK are not entirely uniform, but share a common thread: an imperial past. Under the provisions of the UN Charter, territorial integrity remains a fundamental right of states, albeit with definitive prohibitions. How territory is obtained or secured in an ostensibly post-colonial era continues to pose moral and legal questions for all nations.

What continues to pang the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland though is the poorly addressed aftermath of that changing order. Like the recent meeting of the devolved nations named specifically, this is Westminster’s problem above all else.

The heart of the issue is self-determination. This holds for the question of devolution, the BIOT, and the Falkland Islands. Argentina’s arguments against the UK – based on colonial grounds – disregard modern realities, administration, and history (and paradoxically simply advance colonialisation by Argentina). As the International Court of Justice adjudged, however, the Chagos issue is a matter of decolonisation, which cannot be viewed without respect to the unjust displacement of the Chagossians themselves.

At the same time, Britain’s primary defence, legally and politically, would be in representing the contemporary wishes of the Chagossian people. Yet, doing so in name but not in action weakens the UK’s right as an administrator, and responsible power. It should be clear that it is not Trump’s comments about a united Ireland which threaten Britain, it is the failure to appreciate that the UK is not England.

The recent Cardiff meeting illuminated the hubris of Brexit, which pulled the smaller nations out of a deeply needed customs union. Westminster cannot continue to take its position for granted. As is often the case, if the UK is concerned about remarks or ‘designs’ on its territorial integrity, it must first secure matters at home.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

The response to this question should be short and simple. Competitors and adversaries with designs on a foreign power’s sovereign territory grow bolder when they smell weakness. Until Britain reasserts strength – by regenerating the Union, rebuilding its armed forces, and prioritising national interests over international law – those with designs on its sovereign territory will only grow louder.

At this stage, it is not about responding to every transgression. The UK needs to reassert itself more generally: firstly, by ceasing with ‘own goals’ such as the peculiar decision to surrender overseas territories for no good reason; secondly, by regenerating civic nationalism at the British level to overcome regional secessionist forces; and, thirdly, by promoting the great feats of British ingenuity – from the steam engine and penicillin to the eradication of chattel slavery and the creation of parliamentary democracy – that have immeasurably improved the human condition.

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15th September 2026 marks five years since the announcement of the AUKUS trilateral defence partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US). Initially designed to provide Australia with a fleet of next-generation nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) and update the Royal Navy’s SSN fleet, AUKUS has since expanded to encompass further defence innovation – including uncrewed systems, quantum technology, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) integration.

Since its inception, AUKUS has achieved major milestones, such as the establishment of the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) in July 2023 and the announcement of the first Signature Project under Pillar II in May 2026. This week’s Big Ask builds on these successes, asking ten experts: What has been the most significant achievement of AUKUS in the past five years?

Prof. Basil Germond

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

AUKUS’ most significant achievement has been to institutionalise ‘collective seapower’ among Australia, the UK, and the US, turning strategic alignment into an enduring framework for practical cooperation. Its importance lies less in the capabilities delivered so far than in establishing the political, technological, and industrial foundations from which seapower can collectively be generated over several decades.

AUKUS goes beyond interoperability among three navies. It progressively connects defence industrial bases, technological ecosystems, maintenance arrangements, skilled workforces, and strategic planning. This represents a new model of forward-looking alliance: advanced military capability is produced collectively, rather than developed nationally and coordinated afterwards. Such managed interdependence does not diminish sovereignty; it gives each partner capabilities, resilience, and strategic reach that could hardly be generated alone.

The submarine programme is central, but its significance is also institutional. Its long timescale binds the partners across electoral cycles and makes sustained cooperation strategically necessary. Pillar II reinforces this whole-system logic by connecting submarines with AI, autonomy, cyber, quantum technologies, and undersea systems. AUKUS thereby translates the idea of a free and open Indo-Pacific into an enduring capacity for the collective upholding of the maritime order in the longer term.

This achievement should not be overstated. Political ambition has advanced faster than shipyard capacity, workforce development, and submarine production. Yet, judging AUKUS only by platforms already delivered misses its novelty. Its real test is whether these collective arrangements become credible, resilient, and, most importantly, durable. The three nations are not there yet, but AUKUS has already begun transforming allied maritime cooperation into the collective production of enduring seapower.

Dr Euan Graham

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Expert Associate, Australian National Security College

The biggest achievement of AUKUS since its formation in September 2021 has been to integrate the defence industrial and technology bases of Australia, the UK, and the US in an ambitious, long-term, and strategically relevant capability development project. This alone was worth the effort, despite the associated stresses and the frustratingly long timeline before AUKUS will start delivering a new class of SSNs for the Australian and British navies, as well as other common military capabilities for all three partners.

As a counterbalancing measure principally in reaction to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) breathtaking military buildup, AUKUS was overdue even five years ago. Since then, the axis of cooperation between the PRC, Russia, and other revisionist powers has only tightened. The fact that AUKUS has survived changes of government in all three partner countries is its greatest political achievement.

In today’s more politically disaggregated environment, among the US and allies it would be difficult – if not impossible – to get an initiative like AUKUS off the ground. Its survival shows that it has passed the national interest test in all three capitals, despite encountering partisan frictions in America and Australia, although markedly less so in the UK.

AUKUS strongly supports the logic that alliances are and will remain force multipliers, notwithstanding significant differences in scale and strategic circumstances among the tripartite partners.

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

In Dune: Part One, the film adaptation of the first of Frank Herbert’s book series, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam says ‘our plans are measured in centuries’. While AUKUS’ time horizon is markedly shorter than that of the Bene Gesserit, viewing its successes requires a much broader perspective than merely its first five years.

AUKUS is a framework for long-term strategic cooperation that will reshape the Indo-Pacific and cooperation among Canberra, London, and Washington. AUKUS survived reviews in all three countries, each of which had markedly different political environments, thus demonstrating the allied commitment to this framework.

This commitment will likely continue given the importance of AUKUS to the interests of each country individually and all three collectively, regardless of changes in government. It cannot be taken for granted, and further political capital is needed, but the auguries are positive.

Practically, AUKUS has seen considerable investment in Australia’s naval infrastructure, laying the foundation for hosting, maintenance, and berthing of SSNs via Pillar I. In parallel, it has seen significant upgrades to Canberra’s ability to operate nuclear reactors – itself a long-term investment. This will enable nuclear-powered submarines from all three navies to operate much further and longer across the Indo-Pacific and challenge the PRC’s maritime and territorial ambitions.

Less headline-grabbing, yet arguably as important, the reduction of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) barriers has dramatically improved defence industrial cooperation and interaction. These rules, while necessary in broad practice, have stood in the way of cooperation among allies (who already share the most sensitive information and intelligence bilaterally and as part of the Five Eyes) and are now steadily being removed. Additional progress and momentum are necessary, but the trajectory is positive.

Work is now needed for better operationalising of Pillar II – technological cooperation and development. Pillar II was initially a bit of a catch-all for future technologies, with little clarity on what it was designed to develop. Now though, the transition towards the development of desired effects is driving the acquisition of and investment in key technologies, and marks a positive development.

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 most significant achievement of AUKUS over the past five years has been its political resilience. Despite the ambition, cost, and risks associated with the partnership, AUKUS remains largely on track, particularly its main effort under Pillar I: Australia’s acquisition of SSNs.

That resilience is significant because all three countries have experienced substantial political change since AUKUS was announced in September 2021. Eight months after the announcement, Australia changed government from the Coalition to Labour. Yet, the government of Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia, not only retained AUKUS, but has made it central to Australian defence policy.

The US has also undergone a significant political shift. Donald Trump’s return to the presidency in 2025 brought a much more transactional approach to alliances and renewed scrutiny of American commitments. However, its review of AUKUS reaffirmed support for the partnership, with the administration declaring it ‘full steam ahead’.

The UK has moved from a Conservative to a Labour government and has had five prime ministers since AUKUS was announced. Despite political instability, serious pressures on defence spending, and challenges within its submarine industrial base, successive governments have continued to support AUKUS.

AUKUS’ greatest achievement, then, is that political support has endured across three very different political systems and significant changes of government. That suggests something important: each country increasingly sees AUKUS not simply as a partnership that harks back to old relationships, but as being firmly in its own national interest. That political foundation makes AUKUS more likely to withstand the considerable challenges still ahead.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

While AUKUS is frequently understood to be a submarine pact or technological accelerator – Pillar I and Pillar II – its most important initial achievement has been conceptual. Over the last five years, it has redefined the mental map through which we see the world. It does this in several ways: firstly, it binds the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific together in a way that did not exist prior to the agreement; secondly, it scotches the narrative of Britain’s decline after Brexit; and thirdly, it re-centres Australia in British and American strategic discourse.

By binding Canberra, London, and Washington into a shared defence industrial and geopolitical ecosystem, AUKUS dismantled the idea that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific exist in isolation – even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine drew Indo-Pacific actors (the PRC, Iran, and North Korea) into a war on European soil. As AUKUS will provide the Royal Navy with more nuclear submarines, it also becomes central to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) position in the Euro-Atlantic.

Moreover, AUKUS came at the right time: it undermined the inaccurate narrative of the UK’s decline that emerged after Brexit. It proved that the UK was not turning inward – or isolationist – but was undergoing a period of strategic renewal. Those critics who foresaw a diminished and regionally bound Britain could not overlook the fact that London was now co-leading the most consequential defence framework of the 21st century.

More than that, it has created a stronger alignment between the UK and Australia. This relationship had been undergoing a renaissance since the 2013 defence and security treaty between the two nations, as well as the Australian decision to procure Type 26 frigates. Yet, AUKUS takes the relationship to new heights: Australia is becoming part of, and strengthening, Britain’s defence-industrial base. It therefore becomes evermore central to the UK’s interests.

True, it will take many more years for pillars I and II to come to fruition. However, the intellectual marker has been laid down. AUKUS has already reshaped the geopolitical imaginary, ended the notion that the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are distinct, and affirmed that Britain remains a premier guarantor of international security.

Dr Edward Salo

Professor of History, Chair of the History Department, and Director of the Heritage Studies PhD Programme, Arkansas State University

Looking at the AUKUS agreement from the US Navy’s perspective, one of the most important achievements was the development of forward submarine access and basing in Western Australia. This will allow for better naval force projection in the Pacific though quicker sustainment turnaround and deterrence posture.

In November 2025, the Virginia class attack submarine USS Vermont completed the second submarine maintenance period at HMAS Stirling. This operation showed that the US Navy could sustain a forward-deployed nuclear attack boat on Australian soil. Building on this success, the three nations of AUKUS finalised an agreement to establish Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-West) at HMAS Stirling by 2027.

In May 2026, the partners also set the deployment framework for American Virginia class submarines in Western Australia and streamlined Australia’s path to acquiring three Virginia class boats, which will boost the Royal Australian Navy’s abilities in the region. For the US Navy, this new base is not primarily about helping to develop the Royal Australian Navy, it is about a new forward-basing node much closer to contested Indo-Pacific waters than Guam or Hawaii.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, Chief of Naval Operations of the US Navy, called AUKUS ‘one of the most significant strategic undertakings in the history of the submarine force’. However, one caveat to this new plan is the lag in US Navy production of submarines. Virginia class production will need to be nearly doubled to 2.33 boats per year to cover both American and Australian requirements, but pace has slowed to 1.1 per year, resulting in unfulfilled promises for AUKUS.

H. I. Sutton

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy; and independent defence analyst, writer, and illustrator

AUKUS leads the way to a stronger and more interoperable force, bringing the UK’s ally and trusted friend Australia into the privileged and advantaged nuclear submarine community. The AUKUS submarines, constructed in British yards, will advance the country’s tradition of building top-tier naval capabilities.

Yet, while headlines and politics largely focus on large submarines, a huge part of the promise resides under Pillar II. Solid investment in quantum navigation and communication, uncrewed underwater platforms, cyber, and other key technologies is a clear net positive for British industry. These capabilities are vital for the three partner countries’ shared future.

As with any major initiative, there are areas that warrant close attention. Much of the discussion has understandably focused on timelines and uncertainties, but there is a less visible strategic risk worth highlighting. The momentum and priority attached to Pillar II should not inadvertently crowd out smaller, promising projects that have merit in their own right, and which may be important to pursue regardless of how the wider initiative develops. As the UK looks ahead, it should ensure that the scale of the investment agenda does not mean that it loses sight of the ‘defence’ in defence investment.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Minister of State for the Indo-Pacific (2022-2024), and Minister of State for the Armed Forces (2019-2020)

During the Covid-19 pandemic, calls took place between British and Australian naval and defence department leaders to test whether the UK would be up for the greatest giant of a challenge – to allow Australia to join the family of two (Britain and America) in their nuclear-powered submarine enterprise.

The world was changing. Australian perspectives on its responsibilities to protect and maintain open waterways was increasing, and major powers were not playing nice anymore. Maritime freedom of navigation, the lifeblood of global trade and for all our economic security, was starting to be under strain.

Remember that the AUKUS project was begun before Russia invaded Ukraine. Prescient, perhaps.

So, is this vision and grand ask working out today? Well, the most complex web of new Australian nuclear-capable legislation has been achieved, the US has unlocked vast swathes of historic ITAR limitations, and the UK has committed vast resources to the renewal and growth of its existing nuclear enterprise in order to underpin Australia’s new long-term boat programme.

The social licence to turn Australia into a nuclear nation seemed like one of the greatest hurdles, but as global stability teeters, the Australians have demonstrated their usual pragmatism for standing up to threats. Britons and Americans have leaned in, altruistically as well as with clear-eyed effort, to strengthen their own enterprises and create resilience for the existing SSN fleets.

The investment numbers seem vast, but they stretch over decades, and bring the deepest and most effective deterrent to those who would wish to disrupt or stop maritime freedom of navigation. A resilient maritime environment is vital to economic security.

The AUKUS vision those forward-thinking naval leaders presented is now operational reality across two lines of effort: Pillar I (the submarines) and Pillar II (bringing together naval and industrial innovators to work easily together on project designs to provide asymmetric advantage to the UK and its allies).

Let us be under no illusion how difficult it is to work across three nations and to trust and intertwine beyond even historic wartime efforts – at industrial, doctrinal, financial, and skills development levels and depth beyond even what those determined military leaders could imagine.

The AUKUS trilateral commitment has survived changes of government and political colour across all three countries. Allies and neighbours initially nervous now quietly champion the resilience and protections that they will benefit from, and those who would wish democratic nations determined to protect freedom for their citizens harm are clearer than ever that the AUKUS nations stand firmly together.

Patrick Triglavcanin

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Research Assistant, University of Western Australia Defence and Security Institute

One of the most significant achievements of AUKUS in the past five years is the progress made towards the operationalisation of SRF-West through the upgrading of HMAS Stirling in Perth and upskilling of Royal Australian Navy personnel there. AUKUS’ first five years have not been without adjustment, controversy, and the perennial need for media firefighting. However, since the announcement of the Optimal Pathway in March 2023, developments at HMAS Stirling have occurred at pace and, importantly, more or less on schedule.

The significance of this stems firstly from Western Australia’s expanded defence ecosystem and architecture. Australian personnel have now assisted in the maintenance of both a British and American SSN at HMAS Stirling, a demonstration of both the technical expertise acquired by Royal Australian Navy personnel and enhanced capacity of the base through AUKUS-related investment. In June 2026, Washington re-established US Submarine Squadron 3, which will operate out of HMAS Stirling, and the Naval Support Activity Stirling, which will support American servicepeople, their families, and contractors rotating through Perth. Indeed, US personnel are already migrating to Western Australia and beginning work at HMAS Stirling.

SRF-West operations are set to commence in December 2027, with the original estimate being ‘as early as 2027’. This relatively consistent timeline for operations, and probable fulfilment of it points to the other significant factor of HMAS Stirling developments: the likely completion and operationalisation of a significant AUKUS landmark as scheduled.

The ability for such a large, cross-hemisphere defence industrial partnership to run into delays is a drum regularly beat by critics, and is indeed a complication with a project of this scale. However, the developments at HMAS Stirling point to the timely fulfilment of one of the more significant steps for Australia in acquiring and operating SSNs – arguably the trilateral’s main goal.

Lord Walney

Member, House of Lords, and Officer, AUKUS All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG)

Five years ago, the AUKUS agreement was received with surprise, hope, and scepticism in equal measure. While there is still much to do to realise the full potential of the landmark trilateral, nobody can doubt the determination of the AUKUS nations to deliver a step-change in the collective national security of free and open nations.

Next year in Barrow-in-Furness, workers will cut steel on the first SSN-AUKUS submarine. That is a formidable achievement. In five years, three governments have agreed on a common design; aligned export controls and nuclear stewardship rules; committed billions to shipyards in Barrow, Derby, and Adelaide; and begun building reactors for a class of boat that did not exist on paper in 2021. This programme is on schedule to begin construction on the timetable set out at the start. Nobody should underestimate what that represents.

Yet, the submarines are the bedrock in AUKUS’ biggest achievement – the fact of binding together three democracies, spanning the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, in a commitment that will outlast the administrations that signed it and those that have succeeded them. It has survived changes of leadership in all three capitals. It has created the deepest technology sharing arrangement between allies since the Second World War. Above all, it has restored a sense that liberal democracies with shared values are capable of acting together, at scale and over decades, to deter those who would coerce them.

Authoritarian states are rising and testing the resolve of the free world. AUKUS is part of the answer to this. It may yet define the geopolitics of the century ahead.

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Both the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) place Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) closer to the centre of British defence planning than at any point since the end of the Cold War. The reasoning is straightforward. If operational requirements now change in weeks rather than years, the United Kingdom (UK) needs a supplier base able to adapt at that tempo, and the majority of the firms capable of doing so are small.

His Majesty’s (HM) Government has begun to act on this. On 21st July 2026, at the Farnborough International Airshow, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) published its SME Action Plan, committing to raise annual spending with SMEs by £2.5 billion to £7.5 billion by summer 2028, a 50% uplift on the current baseline. It builds on the Defence Office for Small Business Growth, which opened in January 2026. The plan is candid about the scepticism it will meet, conceding that similar undertakings have been made before without much changing.

Two days later, the Council on Geostrategy convened a Defence Talks Live panel at the airshow, in partnership with ADS Group and hosted by BAE Systems, to examine what government, industry, and academia would each need to do differently for those commitments to translate into deployable capability.

For this special edition of the Big Ask, Britain’s World has departed from the usual format. Rather than putting a single question to a group of experts, we asked three of the Defence Talks Live panellists a different question, each drawn from where they sit in the system: the trade association representing industry, the SME and former end user, and the prime contractor.

Samira Braund

Defence Director, ADS Group

If you could change one thing in the system tomorrow to make defence more accessible to SMEs, what would it be?

There is no doubt that the last few months have been challenging for SMEs across the defence sector. As the trade association representing industry, where more than 95% of our members are SMEs, ADS understands the barriers these businesses face. Whether accessing finance, navigating procurement processes, or dealing with regulatory complexities, the underlying challenge remains the same: companies need greater certainty about where future opportunities will come from. Defence procurement must become faster, more transparent, more predictable, and easier to navigate.

The SME Action Plan, launched at Farnborough International Airshow, was a welcome step forward because it acknowledges many of the issues that industry has been raising for years. However, the true test will be in its delivery. SMEs do not need another list of good intentions; they need clear evidence that real change is coming.

At present, the plan does not yet provide the level of detail or measurables needed to demonstrate adequately just how these ambitions will be achieved. There is limited information on delivery mechanisms, measurable outcomes, resource allocation, or how some of the longstanding structural and cultural barriers within defence procurement will be addressed, including the continued increase of single source procurement.

If greater clarity can be provided, the opportunity is significant. Faster procurement, clearer pathways into defence, and the removal of unnecessary barriers would help some of the most innovative companies in the sector to bring their technologies to market more quickly. Industry has consistently shown its willingness to support this agenda. The challenge now is to turn what is a positive and welcomed policy intent into practical outcomes that strengthen sovereign capability, accelerate innovation, and deliver operational advantage for the UK and its allies.

Stuart Olden

Founder and Chief Executive, SDO Associates

What practical steps can SMEs take now if they want to be credible partners in delivering capability at pace?

To become credible partners in delivering defence capability at pace, SMEs must demonstrate more than technical innovation. They need to show that they are commercially prepared, operationally relevant, and capable of reducing risk for the MOD, prime contractors, and supply chain partners.

This begins with clearly defining the defence problem being solved. SMEs should translate technical features into operational outcomes; identify the likely user or capability owner; and explain how the solution could be trialled, integrated, scaled, and supported. A concise capability statement, relevant case studies, test results, and evidence of technology maturity will carry considerably more weight than broad claims about innovation.

Organisational assurance is equally important. Proportionate quality, cyber security, information management, insurance, and governance arrangements help to demonstrate that the business will not introduce unacceptable programmes or supply chain risk. Depending on the opportunity, Cyber Essentials, ISO 9001, and Joint Supply Chain Accreditation Register (JOSCAR) registration may strengthen credibility with larger defence organisations.

SMEs should also engage before formal tenders appear, monitoring requests for information, prior information notices, acquisition pipelines, and contract awards. This provides time to understand emerging requirements, build relationships, and determine whether the best route is through the MOD, a prime, a systems integrator, a framework, or an innovation pathway. Partnerships can add integration, manufacturing, testing, and through-life support capability, but responsibilities, liabilities, and Intellectual Property (IP) should be agreed early.

Ultimately, delivering at pace starts with preparation. The SMEs most likely to succeed will be assured, visible, commercially realistic, and ready to scale.

Rob Merryweather

Group Technology Director, BAE Systems

How do you address SME concerns around IP while still enabling meaningful collaboration across the defence ecosystem?

In a rapidly changing and increasingly contested world, strong and resilient partnerships across the defence ecosystem have never been more important. If we are going to accelerate new technologies into service and build the industrial capacity needed to respond to future threats, HM Government and both large and small businesses need to work together effectively.

SMEs play a vital role in that ecosystem. Innovation exists across the defence sector, but SMEs often bring specialist expertise, agility, and, in some cases, exciting new capabilities with the potential to transform current operational capabilities. To unlock that potential, SMEs must have confidence that both their intellectual property and their fledgling business will be respected, protected, and valued.

Building that confidence starts with openness and trust. From the outset, honest conversations are needed about what matters most to each SME, the rest of the supply chain, and the government customer; how ideas and technologies may be applied; and the safeguards that will be in place.

Joining the defence supply chain offers big opportunities to SMEs. Large defence companies like BAE Systems play an important role helping them to navigate complex military procurement processes, while giving customers the assurance they need. By integrating startup technologies into complex programmes at scale, SME expertise can be connected with the capabilities that customers need.

Building that successful collaboration requires a focused approach, which is at the heart of the SME Action Plan. This simplifies onboarding, improves visibility of future opportunities, and provides mentoring and specialist support. It builds on BAE Systems’ longstanding relationships with more than 2,000 British SMEs and annual investment of more than £900 million across its UK supply chain.

When partnerships are built on trust, everyone benefits. SMEs are better able to grow and innovate, and established organisations gain access to new ideas and capabilities. Together, we can strengthen the resilience, competitiveness, and long-term capability of the British defence industrial base.

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The publication of the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) last month – and perhaps more strikingly the resignations of John Healey and Al Carns as Secretary of State for Defence and Minister for the Armed Forces, respectively – has brought discussions of defence into the limelight in the United Kingdom (UK). Among Ministry of Defence (MOD) and British Armed Forces personnel – both serving and retired – there is a consensus that a national conversation on defence is a necessity.

Despite this recognition, however, there has been little progress made in communicating the cruciality of defence to the British population. Although there is increasing public knowledge of and support for defence, a gulf separates defence experts and the political class from the UK’s population at large when discussing the topic. As such, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked four experts: What does a national conversation on defence look like?

Richard Ballett

Council on Geostrategy

In short, a national conversation on defence looks hell of a lot more than some brief guidance note on gov.uk, which no one reads! It should leverage every information instrument His Majesty’s (HM) Government has, and build on what has worked before.

During the Cold War, HM Government distributed bright orange leaflets across the nation listing essential items every household should stock up on for when conflict erupted. This campaign was backed up by regular radio broadcasts, TV commercials, and public advertisements advising the population on what to do in case of war. A similar campaign could be delivered today to ensure the public is fully aware of the growing risk of conflict, the imperative of defence, and what every individual needs to do to prepare.

Focus groups have found that people are more persuaded by the case for international development spending when it comes from a senior military officer. The reverse is probably also true. HM Government needs other voices, beyond the military chiefs, to make the case publicly for increased defence spending and national resilience. It should co-opt leaders from, say, the International Red Cross, the Confederation of British Industry, or the Church of England to help communicate the rising risk of conflict and the role our military plays in keeping the nation safe.

At a time when people’s finances are being squeezed by sluggish growth and inflation, the case for the UK’s defence needs to explain how it protects people’s wallets too: very simply, a strong British military means less war, and less war means more peace and more prosperity.

Dr Anisa Heritage

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

A national conversation starts by unpacking British society’s understanding of defence and how British society contributes to the nation’s defence.

Defence is fundamentally about protecting the state, including its people, against threats. As cyber attacks, online disinformation, and interference with undersea cables increasingly impact UK citizens’ daily lives, the understanding of ‘defence’ needs to evolve to include community resilience.

A starting point could be a conversation on what ‘keep calm and carry on’ means in 21st century Britain. How would British society adapt if a crisis or conflict were to begin tomorrow? Equally, how might it adapt to sub-threshold attacks on Critical National Infrastructure (CNI)? How long could British society function if critical systems failed, or if digital services went offline for an extended period? This requires building societal awareness and preparedness, and the ability to adjust to changing conditions.

The UK could learn from the approach taken by Nordic countries, where security and defence are viewed as symbiotic, and where security thinking focuses on societal resilience. Defence is a societal effort involving the armed forces, working alongside government, business, CNI, civil society, and citizens to ensure that society continues to function regardless of the challenge.

The 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and National Security Strategy (NSS) identified the need for wider British society to support defence and play a greater role in protecting society. Despite this, only 26% of the UK’s public believes that building national resilience across all sectors, including civil society, is important.

Britain needs greater interaction between the military and society to build a better understanding of how one supports the other. Therefore, a national conversation on defence starts by engaging with and empowering British society to recognise its shared responsibilities in defending its way of life.

Dr Robert Johnson

Author of the podcast The Wargame; Director of the Changing Character of War Centre, Oxford University; and Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Who defends the nation? How much should the UK allocate of its national resources to defence and security? Who will scrutinise the decision-makers and those charged with implementation so that we can be sure there is maximum efficiency and minimal waste? How should Britain ensure that no state uses nuclear weapons against it?

A national conversation about defence depends on raising the consciousness of the issue in the everyday lives of citizens. Sallust, the Roman writer of the 1st century BC, was concerned that prosperity corrupts states more effectively than adversity. He was anxious that affluent societies, ones that indulged in their sporting events rather than their defence, were the ones that would face decline and defeat. By contrast, Livy, a contemporary of Sallust, believed that defence was dependent upon the resilience of the population. Their civic virtues, expressed as a willingness to sacrifice, and unity in a crisis, were the means to ensure security and success.

Tacitus, of the 1st century AD, carried a warning for 21st century Britain. He observed that the more corrupt the state, the more numerous its laws, and he noted that states collapse internally, not militarily. A century later, Marcus Aurelius commented that: ‘The impediment to action advances inaction. What stands in the way becomes the way.’ Vegetius of the 4th century AD reminded us in his Epitoma Rei Militaris that peacetime was the time for preparation if wars were to be avoided.

Ancient wisdom is not some distant academic irrelevance. It is a signal from the past, offering advice that was bought by defeat, humiliation, and blood. Too often, throughout history, governments have turned their backs on defence. Lord Hankey, writing in 1945 at the end of the two most costly wars, believed that too many lives had been lost through a lack of preparedness. He stated:

...it is the old, old story…Risks were run deliberately in pursuit of the aim of permanent peace...carried this time to the verge of risk and beyond. Not only were our forces too small for safety, not only were they inadequately supplied, but the armaments industry, on which they depended, the nucleus on which the war supply arrangements had to be founded, had been gravely impaired by lack of orders from home and abroad.

Peter Watkins CB CBE

Former Director General for Security Policy, Ministry of Defence (2014-2018); Visiting Professor, King’s College London; and Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The SDR said that the national conversation on defence and security ‘…should be centred on a two-year series of public outreach events across the UK, explaining current threats and future trends…’ My view is that the conversation should be situated in the here and now. Britain is no longer facing just ‘threats’ – which, in the dictionary definition, are unpleasant things that ‘will’ or ‘might’ happen – but an active campaign of state-sponsored hostile activities short of war.

This includes disinformation, cyber attacks, arson, drone flights, etc., which are increasingly disruptive and costly for society and citizens. HM Government needs to be more open with the public on what it knows about such activities (and who is behind them), helping people to ‘join the dots’ and understand the need for greater economic and societal resilience. Effective defence in this new age of war will depend upon it.

The conversation could, as the SDR said, entail set-piece public outreach events. However, it could be more informal and online, with information provided via social media. Crucially, at its heart, it should consist of structured conversations with civic and business leaders, senior academics, etc., sharing the information that will help them to make their own entities more resilient and enabling them to ‘spread the word’ in their communities.

At a national level, this conversation could take the form of a variant of Finland’s acclaimed National Defence Course – curated by the College for National Security with support from the Defence Academy. Regional versions could be hosted by universities. The costs would be low, and the multiplier effect would be high.

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On Monday, Andy Burnham became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (UK) and announced his new Cabinet. Acknowledging the political shortcomings of His Majesty’s (HM) Government, he used his first speech to lay out his vision for reindustrialisation, welfare reform, and building ‘a new sense of national unity’.

While Britain looks ahead to a new administration, the challenges faced by Sir Keir Starmer, former Prime Minister, still exist. With these issues demanding the attention of the new Cabinet, this week’s Big Ask poses the following question to eight experts: What should the new Prime Minister prioritise for the rest of 2026?

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 new Prime Minister and Wes Streeting, his Defence Secretary, have inherited a Royal Navy that, despite chronic underfunding, remains a vital enabler of the national interest. The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated that the UK’s security and prosperity continue to depend on the stability of the global maritime supply chain and freedom of navigation.

In an increasingly volatile strategic and operating environment, the swift and efficient delivery of the Hybrid Navy proposed by Gen. Sir Gwyn Jenkins, First Sea Lord, and costed in the Defence Investment Plan (DIP) is essential. Combining crewed platforms and autonomous systems will strengthen the Royal Navy’s flexibility, versatility, resilience, and attritable mass. This will enhance its capacity to shape the global maritime order and exercise seapower in support of British interests, from protecting undersea infrastructure in home waters to conducting high-intensity operations in distant maritime theatres.

Alongside a sustained commitment to naval investment, two priorities stand out for 2026. Firstly, enduring investment in seapower requires greater ocean literacy across Whitehall, Westminster, and wider society. Burnham can play a central role by consistently emphasising the country’s dependence on the sea for both its security and prosperity, and by embracing the narrative of the UK as a maritime nation from the outset of his premiership.

Secondly, HM Government must be prepared to respond swiftly and decisively to increasingly overt and covert Russian provocations at sea, including within or near British waters. This requires an open-minded discussion about whether existing doctrines, rules of engagement, and decision-making processes are suited to sub-threshold activities in the maritime ‘grey zone’.

In the longer term, defending freedom of navigation, including in the Strait of Hormuz, will place service personnel at greater risk. Credible maritime leadership will therefore require not only investment, but political preparedness to make difficult decisions when deterrence fails.

Dr Timothy Less

Senior Adviser for Geopolitics, Centre for Risk Studies, University of Cambridge

HM Government’s starting point is years of national stagnation. To achieve its geopolitical goals, it must focus as much on means as on ends. There is no point in having a foreign policy if Britain lacks the power to realise it.

The task begins with greater spending on a military that has been badly degraded by years of underinvestment. Allies have noticed the gap between the UK’s international ambitions and its capacity to fulfil them. The new Prime Minister should therefore publish an accelerated, fully funded timetable for substantially higher defence expenditure. This depends on restoring economic growth, which in turn depends on removing the myriad obstacles erected by previous governments – from higher taxes and excessive regulation to industrial electricity prices that remain among the highest in the developed world.

Yet, material capability is not enough. Realising Britain’s national priorities depends on the confidence and willingness to pursue them. HM Government must be able to define the country’s interests, and not allow abstract values to substitute for strategy.

It must also foster a stronger sense of patriotism. HM Government may not be able to manufacture this by decree, but it can stop treating it with embarrassment. People will not make sacrifices for the national interest unless they feel committed to the nation.

Whether the new administration will do what is necessary remains to be seen. John Healey’s appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer may indicate greater seriousness about defence, but I remain unconvinced of HM Government’s ability to revive the economy, or of the willingness of Ed Miliband, Foreign Secretary, to prioritise the national interest over demonstrations of virtue.

The litmus test will be Chagos.

Paul Mason

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Short answer: narrative. Every action should tell a story – and while that story might have subplots, side quests, and soliloquies, it has to have a clear plot and desired ending.

That is what was missing in the Starmer era. The protagonist is the British people; the antagonist is their enemies. That of course can include Russia, Iran, and their proxies, but also rip-off landlords, scammers, and mobile phone thieves.

I say this as someone focused on national security, but without a compelling story of who we are, where we come from, and where we are headed, nothing else coheres. All the trade-offs become identity battles. Avoiding that through narrative clarity has to be the focus.

Jack Pardoe

Head of Policy, Octopus Energy, and Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Burnham should give a top down order on energy strategy to Whitehall: ‘maximum production; electrification’. Or, more colloquially: ‘do a Norway’.

Norway produces oil and gas but also has the highest per capita penetration of electric cars and heat pumps. It flogs fuels to the UK and the rest of Europe while reaping the rewards of electrification at home. There is no good reason – whether environmental, economic, jobs, or security – not to produce more oil and gas from the North Sea. Britain should go ahead with more home production.

Realistically, though, the UK is more dependent on oil and gas than is good for it, especially now that serious alternatives exist for consumer uses. That has inflicted severe economic damage and hinders rearmament. Electrifying transport and heating – the biggest sources of demand for oil and gas respectively – creates options for providing important energy services.

A nuclear power plant, a gas-fired plant, or renewables all fuel electric cars. Likewise with a heat pump. Petrol cars and gas boilers are limited to oil and gas and lock in dependency on those fuels – which are lacking – for what is now relatively inefficient use.

All things being equal, electrification would free up more fuel for the British industrial base, which desperately needs revitalising, or for improving our balance of payments. The priority should therefore change from the current ‘build offshore wind at any cost’ to ‘cut electricity prices’ to improve the economics of electrification.

This means not overcapitalising the electricity grid as now, removing more electricity taxes and levies, introducing nodal pricing to cut waste and unfair windfall rents in the electricity market, and reopening unaffordable grid upgrade plans to do them more cheaply.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

While throwing trinkets and baubles to the public to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis may prove tempting, the new Prime Minister should hold his nerve. Short-term, populist fixes deliver nothing of tangible value; rather, they merely expand national debt without long-term gain. Instead, Burnham needs to place supply-side economic reforms at the heart of his agenda for the nation.

After two decades of sustained population growth and underinvestment, the UK’s infrastructure is creaking. The country desperately lacks reservoirs and power stations, while its roads, railways, housing, schools, and hospitals are severely strained. Streamlining planning regulations, building new homes, and upgrading the transport network are essential to lowering costs for businesses and households alike. Defence should also be leveraged: new military facilities would help to level up peripheral regions, while Britain’s defence industrial base could provide numerous new jobs.

Crucially, physical renewal must extend to public spaces, where broken window theory applies. Widespread litter, fly tipping, and high levels of petty crime leave high streets, highways, and local parks looking dilapidated and run-down, reinforcing a pervasive feeling of national decay. A coordinated effort is needed to clear up the litter – especially along highways controlled by National Highways and Transport for London – resurface roads, and bedeck town centres with new street furniture and well-maintained flower gardens.

By ensuring that public spaces are tidied up, Burnham’s new administration can demonstrate that the state can make a positive difference. This could instil renewed confidence in the British public, driving higher productivity and economic growth – a truly virtuous circle of national regeneration.

Grace Theodoulou

International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

While not much is known about the new Prime Minister’s foreign policies, when it comes to Beijing, it is unlikely that he will veer away from Sir Keir’s trajectory of increased contact with the UK’s ‘most complex bilateral relationship’.

Starmer and his cabinet saw the complexities of adhering to Labour’s ‘three Cs’ policy on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) – ‘cooperate, challenge, compete’. A good place for Burnham to start may be to do a mini ‘China Audit’ of his own, to see what role – if any – Beijing should play in his principal aims of building more public housing, improving infrastructure, and reducing energy costs.

As with many of Burnham’s predecessors, Beijing will be waiting in the wings to provide cheaper materials to enable these policies. The PRC views the bilateral relationship with a pragmatic lens, but at what cost? And with what small print?

Among a series of unenviable tasks that the Prime Minister will inherit from Sir Keir’s departure is the British Steel saga. When British Steel’s expropriation from Jingye was completed, only last week, the Chinese former owner demanded compensation, citing Article 5 of the UK-China Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) – a legally binding agreement signed 40 years ago last May. Article 5 permits nationalisation if it is for a ‘public purpose related to the internal needs’ of the other contracting party, accompanied by ‘reasonable compensation’.

Whether ties are currently strong or strained, it is clear that the PRC is not going anywhere. Alongside conducting his own mini China Audit, perhaps Burnham could order a review of the UK’s current investment treaties with the PRC, to consider closing any major gaps that might allow for further fallouts as Whitehall grapples with the circular question of how to achieve green and affordable growth without compromising national security.

Dr Mann Virdee

Head of Science and Technology, The Entrepreneurs Network, and Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The new Prime Minister should prioritise clarity and stability.

Entrepreneurs are a pretty resilient bunch; they know how to weather a storm if they can plan for it. What they find difficult is not knowing where they stand with HM Government. When Sir Keir took office, some entrepreneurs were relieved – not necessarily because they agreed with all his policies, but simply because there was a feeling that, at last, there would be some continuity for at least five years. Two years in though, it is time for change again.

The science and technology ecosystem had come to like the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT). It was not perfect (being itself the product of an overnight reshuffle) but, once settled, there was a clarity and logic to it. It was a single front door and a dedicated champion for the whole sector at the Cabinet table. Now it is being folded into a new business super-department, with no standalone science and technology secretary. Where the different parts of its portfolio will end up remains unconfirmed. The risk is that the community which cohered around DSIT will fragment too – to the detriment of Britain’s effort to secure advantage in areas such as quantum and biotech.

This is the latest in a series of machinery-of-government changes where sector leaders learnt about them from media reports instead of being consulted. That disconnect erodes trust. If they abolish the department without speaking to the people it is there to support, what else might they do? Burnham has refused to rule out an ‘exit tax’ which has unsettled founders. It is also less clear where and how the country’s research and development budget will now be spent.

The UK’s propensity for playing with the machinery of government is, as James Wilsdon observed this week, a displacement activity – or, as I have previously argued, a case of politician’s syllogism. It is hard to move forward if you are continually going around in circles.

Prof. James Woudhuysen

Visiting Professor, London South Bank University

The most urgent priority must be to rebuild Britain’s defence. At the moment, the country has very little at all, making it difficult to achieve any civilian priorities.

One part of defence must be a much more stringent attitude to illegal immigration; another must be to strengthen capabilities in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and in nuclear fusion. Energy remains a key weakness of the UK’s economy and resilience. The grid needs serious attention, and the Net Zero obsession with intermittent sources of energy needs extinguishing.

To avoid social upheaval, Britain needs a programme of mass housebuilding. That will not happen until the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act is abolished, so that residential construction and new towns are possible in much wider areas of the country. A relaxed planning regime will make it possible for wholly or partly manufactured homes to have a guarantee of sales, making their success more likely.

A neglected area for action is to anticipate and ward off floods. Many homes and, even more damagingly, many small businesses are still regularly destroyed in the UK through resorting to sandbags rather than proper flood defences.

Under new management, the High Speed 2 (HS2) railway should be extended to Scotland. Speed limits on roads should be lifted, and output targets for Electric Vehicle (EV) manufacturers abandoned.

Above all, the country must organise for more real engineers and fewer social ones. Lack of technical knowledge should be a bar to recruitment to the civil service – enough with Politics, Philosophy, and Economics (PPE)!

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On 7th and 8th July, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) held its annual summit, hosted this year in Ankara. Notable pronouncements included commitments to collective defence; the creation of the Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB), led by Canada; pledges to increase defence investment and expand defence industrial capabilities; and support for Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Within the alliance, the United States (US) under President Donald Trump is continuing to signal a reduction in military presence across Europe to focus on the Indo-Pacific and Western Hemisphere, with the expectation that European allies will assume a greater share of the defence burden. Being one of European NATO’s two largest defence spenders, the United Kingdom (UK) is ideally positioned to lead in doing so. As such, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked eight experts: How can Britain construct a European pillar within NATO?

Hugo Barker

Chief of Staff, Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB) Development Group, and Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Ankara showed that the question for European rearmament has moved from intent to delivery. European allies and Canada added more than US$139 billion (£103.6 billion) to core defence budgets last year. What European nations still lack is the architecture to turn that spending into sustained capability.

Europe has multilateral banks for reconstruction, development, and infrastructure, but none for defence. As argued in Project Syndicate this month, higher spending alone will not deliver capability: NATO needs a defence market built on sovereign-backed finance that lowers the cost of industrial expansion and crowds in private capital.

That is what the DSRB is designed to create. At the summit itself, nine nations led by Canada signed a joint declaration supporting its establishment. The UK was not among them. It should be.

The debate in London is live: Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, called during summit week for the DSRB and Britain’s own Multilateral Defence Mechanism to merge, even as ministers told Parliament that the two do different things. Either way, the UK can only shape the outcome from inside.

With a new Prime Minister imminent, joining the DSRB as a founding member would be an early, concrete signal of intent, and one that fits the incoming administration’s agenda: defence-industrial finance flows to the regions where Britain builds ships, submarines, and munitions – exactly where a government promising industrial renewal must deliver.

A European pillar built on budget lines alone will not last. One built on a durable market and durable institutions will. The UK should help to build both.

Prof. James Bergeron*

Political Adviser to the Commander, NATO MARCOM, and International Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The European pillar of NATO is not Britain’s to construct alone. The UK would not even be the central actor, but it would be a critical one, along with France and Germany.

Why? First, as so many say, the land matters most, and the vast bulk of European territory threatened by Russia is not British. That will always place the centre of gravity on the continent’s mainland. The UK’s army and navy have downsized to the point that the country can no longer leverage the outsized role it had in the Cold War or even the post-Cold War era.

That said, an effective European pillar of NATO – one that could deliver the conventional defence of Europe – is not possible without Britain as a key participant. The UK can leverage its nuclear deterrent commitment to the alliance, along with new nuclear arrangements with France, to bolster Europe’s own nuclear umbrella. Britain leads in technology, avionics, space, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and quantum capabilities, and can play an enabling role for European defence. The City of London can help to finance that defence. The Royal Navy and Royal Air Force (RAF) continue to play irreplicable roles in the security of the North Atlantic, while the British Army’s Enhanced Vigilance Activities (EVA) deployment in Estonia has an important deterrence role. Leadership of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is also a useful complement to NATO structures.

Two geopolitical dynamics underpin such a role for the UK. Firstly, that London keeps Washington onboard. Secondly, and in tension with the first to a degree, is to deepen economic and political ties with continental NATO and the European Union (EU), the underpinning of defence solidarity. The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is an excellent example. Other cooperative defence initiatives should follow.

*This response is written in a personal capacity, and does not necessarily reflect any official national views, nor those of NATO.

Prof. Klaus Dodds

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

Britain’s strategic position has shifted in the Trump era. Recognising implicitly that the US is a volatile security partner, His Majesty’s (HM) Government has pivoted towards Norway and other JEF members, Finland, and Poland. Additionally, Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has decisively shaped the European security landscape.

A European pillar within NATO allows the UK (and potential JEF members such as Canada) to showcase how NATO and EU/broader European priorities can and should be aligned. It foregrounds collective responsibility for continental security, and responds directly to Trump’s complaints that alliance members are ‘not doing enough’, as he told participants at the Ankara summit. Finally, it highlights the importance of aligning EU-level initiatives such as the European Defence Fund with a NATO-first mindset. All of this requires a cross-party political consensus in Britain – and elsewhere in Europe – regarding defence investment, political leadership, and NATO-European complementarity.

The UK should help to support and clarify a division of labour. NATO must remain the primary collective defence organisation, and the EU should focus on developing a defence industrial policy and investment package that responds to NATO’s operational requirements. European capacity building in toto signals to Washington that the continent is taking its responsibility for its own security seriously. The US turning away from NATO would be a disaster for Britain and European allies.

A European pillar would help to make those collective European defence efforts more coherent and signal to America, both now and in a post-Trump era, that burden sharing is mutually beneficial. While Trump will continue to amplify grievances and demands, including purchasing Greenland, the best response from Europeans is to demonstrate determination to buttress a NATO-first posture. The harsh reality remains; Russia is an ongoing threat to the UK and its European allies.

Artur Honich

Senior Defence Analyst, RAND Europe

In June, the Pentagon announced a six-month review of American military posture and basing in Europe. As the US clarifies its future footprint, burden shifting should produce ‘a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO’ (as set out in the Ankara Summit Declaration), rather than a stronger Europe in a weaker NATO.

British leadership will be important across several areas as European NATO members prepare to assume primary responsibility for the alliance’s conventional defence and deterrence. The first element of this is to implement the capability targets apportioned to the UK and deliver a fully deployable and enabled Strategic Reserve Corps.

Second, Britain’s investment in airpower, the development of ballistic and cruise missile capabilities in the 300-2,000+ kilometre (km) range, and its return to NATO’s nuclear sharing arrangements will provide significant opportunities to strengthen deterrence and develop new concepts for escalation management.

Third, the UK should further increase its role in planning and executing exercises within NATO and complementary multinational frameworks such as the JEF. If burden shifting leads to reduced American participation, European allies will need to sustain exercise patterns that signal credible deterrence by visibly demonstrating the capacity for high-intensity warfighting.

Fourth, Britain should further strengthen its representation in NATO’s command structure, leveraging the deep experience of its officers in defence planning, doctrine development, and operations.

Finally, the UK must overcome fiscal pressures to meet the agreed 3.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) defence spending target by 2035. This would require an additional £25 billion every year by that date beyond the commitments made in the Defence Investment Plan. Without a credible roadmap towards this, important capability areas and allies’ confidence in British leadership could be put at risk.

Liberty Hunter

Project Manager and Researcher, Ax:son Johnson Institute, and Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

As the host of maritime command architecture, the UK occupies a credible position as the organiser of a European pillar within NATO that holds a focus on maritime security. The alliance’s Maritime Command (MARCOM) and the JEF Standing Joint Force Headquarters both sit at Northwood, meaning maritime planning and European coalition building in Britain is well practised. Geography offers other strengths: the UK, as host to His Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Clyde, the closest submarine base to the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) gap, and Devonport, Western Europe’s largest naval base, can commit assets in days rather than weeks.

The JEF’s members already coordinate on the same threats that a maritime pillar would need to address: Russian activity in the GIUK gap, undersea cable and pipeline security, and the Kremlin’s ‘shadow fleet’. Britain’s leadership of NATO’s Standing Naval Maritime Group 1, and the recently selected command of Joint Force Command Norfolk, only boosts its institutional strength within this pillar.

The strategic importance of a maritime European pillar is interesting. Such a pillar allows the UK to demonstrate real European leadership as the US reorients its threat assessment toward the Indo-Pacific, while not displacing American capability elsewhere. While a European land forces pillar could be seen as duplication, a maritime pillar becomes complementary – a response to the ‘burden shifting’ that Washington demands. It reflects an alliance-wide paucity of maritime resources, such as in escort fleets, which necessitates pooling and burden sharing.

A British-led European pillar in NATO, coordinating maritime security in the North Atlantic, Baltic, and Mediterranean (all Eurocentric security concerns), is a plausible and useful model for strategists to consider.

James Langan

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The UK is well placed to lead the development of a stronger European pillar within NATO by leveraging its position at the centre of several NATO-adjacent minilateral and multilateral frameworks, most notably the JEF. Comprising ten Northern European nations, the JEF provides a ready-made mechanism for coordinating regional deterrence, enhancing interoperability, and responding rapidly to emerging security challenges across the High North and Baltic regions.

Historically, Britain has been most successful when acting as the balancer of European security. The enduring foundations of the UK’s grand strategy rested on three principles: securing Europe’s sea lines of communication, safeguarding commercial trade, and building flexible coalitions of smaller states capable of resisting aspiring hegemons. This approach enabled Britain to aggregate collective power while avoiding unsustainable continental commitments. It also helped to sustain a favourable European balance of power that endures today, despite the UK lacking many of the conventional foundations of great power status – most notably a large standing army.

A contemporary European pillar within NATO should therefore be built around British convening power rather than British primacy. By strengthening the JEF, deepening defence cooperation with Nordic and Baltic allies, and integrating complementary initiatives such as the Combined Joint Expeditionary Force and Weimar+, the UK can help to aggregate European military capabilities within a coherent strategic framework.

In doing so, it would reinforce the alliance’s collective deterrence, promote more equitable burden sharing, and reduce European dependence on direct American military engagement, thereby strengthening the resilience and credibility of the Euro-Atlantic security architecture.

Matthew Palmer

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Greater Europeanisation of NATO is an urgent requirement as the US becomes a more structurally unreliable ally with diverging priorities.

Britain has already proved successful in establishing an American-free European framework in the JEF, now a notable ‘pillar’ of Northern European security. This puts it in a good position to encourage the Europeanisation of NATO itself. Both within and without the alliance and the JEF, the UK should prioritise exercises with European allies to improve interoperability, ideally in contexts where US support is absent or not guaranteed.

Britain should also reduce its reliance on American weaponry and technology and replace them with European alternatives. This includes continuing to strengthen defence industrial ties both bilaterally with European nations and with the EU.

However, the UK’s influence will be constrained if it does not adequately resource its defences and show actual leadership on broadening military capacity. Britain currently holds significant structural power within NATO, but this is not guaranteed to continue. The customary holding of the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) posting may not be tenable in the future, especially considering the growing power and strategic importance of Germany and Poland. Likewise, the UK’s leadership of MARCOM may also be questioned if the Royal Navy’s readiness cannot be improved.

British power – soft and hard – continues to decline due to the unwillingness to resource either defence or broader foreign policy commitments, and to make bold strategic choices. If the UK wants to remain influential in NATO, it will have to start putting its money where its mouth is.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

To construct a credible European pillar within NATO, Britain must establish itself as the centre of gravity – a strategic hub around which other European allies can rotate. To avoid duplicating capabilities though, HM Government should focus resources on two essential lines of effort.

First, the UK should enhance its high-end conventional capabilities. This involves co-investing with France in critical enablers, such as strategic lift, air-to-air refuelling, and force projection platforms – including deep strike, orbital systems, and the New Hybrid Navy – to allow European forces to deploy power without the US. Simultaneously, Britain should work with Germany and Poland to build up a robust conventional deterrent on the alliance’s eastern front. From Finland to Bulgaria, the UK should forward-deploy around 300 troops to each ally, backed by force multipliers such as autonomous combat systems, to signal its geopolitical intent and compound the extension of its nuclear deterrent.

Second, Britain should re-establish a sub-strategic nuclear capability. Currently, the Royal Navy’s Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD) offers only a strategic, all-or-nothing response. Reintroducing a lower-yield option would fill a critical escalatory gap, which is vital for addressing Russian non-strategic nuclear coercion. This sovereign capability would reassure eastern allies and provide NATO with flexible response options to the Kremlin’s provocation.

Ultimately, a European pillar cannot be built on institutional frameworks or political rhetoric; it demands a militarily capable core. By binding together key regional powers and restoring a full spectrum of deterrence, the UK can secure its continent and draw European allies into its defence industrial ecosystem – with all the positive implications this would have for the British economy.

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Last week, His Majesty’s (HM) Government published the long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) – the follow-up to 2025’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Backed by almost £300 billion, the DIP lays out how funding will be allocated to the British Armed Forces over the next four years.

However, the DIP has proved contentious within HM Government, having led to the resignations of John Healey and Al Carns as Secretary of State for Defence and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces respectively over its shortfalls in defence funding. As Sir Keir Starmer has also announced his resignation as Prime Minister, this week’s Big Ask posits the following question to five experts: Should the next Prime Minister reopen the Defence Investment Plan?

Samira Braund

Defence Director, ADS Group

The publication of the DIP provides long-awaited clarity for the United Kingdom’s (UK) defence sector after an extended period without a comprehensive equipment plan. While there is still more to do to meet the ambitions set out in the SDR fully, the DIP establishes an important foundation from which HM Government and industry can now build.

For industry, the priority should not be reopening the DIP, but delivering it. Stability and clarity are essential to enable businesses to invest in skills, facilities, innovation, and resilient supply chains that underpin sovereign capability. Frequent revisions to strategic priorities or funding allocations risk delaying programmes, increasing costs, and weakening industry confidence at a time when the global security environment demands greater pace.

The next Prime Minister should therefore ensure the full delivery of the DIP while building out a credible, fully funded roadmap to increase defence spending to 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035, consistent with Britain’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) commitments. Such a roadmap should provide clear milestones, sustained investment profiles, and confidence that today’s commitments will translate into tomorrow’s capabilities.

The focus should now shift from debating the settlement to accelerating delivery. Converting investment decisions into contracts, reforming procurement, strengthening export potential, and building long-term industrial capacity will ensure that the UK maximises the return on every pound invested. Industry stands ready to partner with HM Government to turn strategic ambition into enduring military capability and economic growth.

William Freer

Research Fellow (National Security), Council on Geostrategy

The answer is both no and yes.

No, because it has taken over two years of defence, national security, and investment reviewing and planning to get to the point that the DIP could be published in the first place. A reopening of the entire process risks months of delay, where major contracts might be pushed back at a time when British defence requirements and defence firms are desperate for movement from Whitehall. Starting from scratch, tempting as it may be, could cause another several-month period of drip-feeding investment.

With that said, it is evident that the DIP as it stands is below what is needed to meet the threat environment and the UK’s commitments to NATO, with many of the key investment decisions delayed to the 2030s. The next Prime Minister should overrule Treasury objections and force through – ideally with cross-partisan support – a clear and appropriate financial settlement. A year-on-year incremental increase in percentage of GDP from now to 2035, roughly 0.14 percentage points each year, should be agreed to deliver certainty.

With this agreed to, a ‘bolt-on’ to the DIP can be worked towards. This should be far more concise, plainer in language, and simply outline additional investments planned with this further uplift in spending. The air and maritime domains should be the focus, to complement the growing land domain capabilities of European allies and backfill the presumed withdrawal of American air and naval assets needed for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.

Dr Mike Martin MP

Member, Defence Committee

Should the next Prime Minister reopen the DIP? Indisputably. Two-thirds of the DIP is unfunded, the remaining third is insufficient, and together they sign the Royal Navy’s death warrant.

The DIP fails HM Government’s threat assessment. Sir Keir says that Russia could attack NATO by 2030, yet the funded third of the plan expires that year. It requires finding £4.7 billion at the Budget and £10.7 billion in ‘efficiencies’ on a scale that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has never achieved. Two-thirds of the investment falls after 2030 and is unallocated, subject to next year’s spending review.

Worst of all, the DIP kills the Royal Navy as we know it. The UK will end this year with five frigates, and the DIP accelerates their retirement to 2033. Their replacements will arrive after 2030, meaning the country’s frigates retire on a fixed schedule while their replacements arrive on an unfunded one. By my maths, Britain will have three frigates in 2030 – the moment of peak danger.

The UK’s destroyers will retire from 2035, and their replacement is the Common Combat Vessel (CCV), alongside other uncrewed ships. A hybrid fleet is admirable, but it only exists on PowerPoint and is unfunded, with the money coming after 2030. Expecting to get ships from PowerPoint to projecting power in nine years is implausible.

The intelligence is unequivocal: Britain must be ready for war by 2030. The new Prime Minister should scrap the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) to invest £8.6 billion in the fleet, fund the entire plan at the Budget, and pull every timeline to this side of 2030. Anything else would be negligent.

Paul Mason

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

The DIP was designed to be ‘scalable’. Like the classic Greek family villa, you can build the first storey and leave the second as a bunch of iron rods protruding from the concrete until you find enough money to complete it.

So, the general design of the DIP should not be reopened. By going for a hybrid navy; a Ukraine-style uncrewed systems taskforce; and backing AUKUS, GCAP, and the Continuous At-Sea Deterrent (CASD), plus nearly £2 billion for a digital targeting web, HM Government has made the right choices.

However, there is an obvious missing piece with Integrated Air and Missile Defence (IAMD), and that is the ‘second storey’ I would build if the money becomes available. The critical milestone is now the 2027 Spending Review. The defence sector needs to win the argument with politicians, the public, and HM Treasury that a verbal commitment to spending 3.5% of GDP by 2035, backed by a fiscal commitment to just 3%, is not sustainable.

Rob Murray

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Yes. Reopen the DIP. Then throw away the thinking behind it.

The SDR answered the first question: What threats does the UK face, and what capabilities does it need? The DIP tried to answer the second: How does Britain pay for them? In this, it failed.

The DIP did not fail because HM Treasury cannot count. Rather, it is because the UK is trying to prepare to fight a 21st century war with a 20th century financing model. Britain made the strategic mistake every successful organisation fears: it put the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in charge.

HM Treasury should not decide how much security the UK can afford. It should figure out how to afford the security that the country needs. Stop asking what drones will be needed in 2035. Nobody knows. Ask one question instead: what outcomes must Britain always deliver?

The objectives laid out by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – i.e., the Prime Minister – to the defence chiefs should be: deter war, win if deterrence fails, out-build the UK’s adversaries, and adapt faster than they can.

The next step is to finance those outcomes. Britain has already committed to spending up to 5% of GDP on defence and security. The issue is not whether it spends more. It is whether it mobilises capital intelligently.

No great company finances transformation from cash flow alone. It mobilises capital. Nations should too. This is not financial engineering. It is how every successful multilateral bank creates fiscal space. Defence should not be the exception.

Wars are not won by defence budgets. They are won by financing systems that can out-build the other side. Capital has become a weapon of national power. The UK should start treating it like one.

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On 6th July 2016, Her Majesty’s Government published The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – the ‘Chilcot Inquiry’. Led by Sir John Chilcot, the investigation into the United Kingdom’s (UK) participation in the Iraq War found that it began before all diplomatic avenues had been exhausted, that the threat of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) was presented with unjustified certainty, and that the legal basis for British military action was ‘far from satisfactory’.

The UK’s entry into the Iraq War occurred during the period in which the Ministry of Defence (MOD) prioritised Counter-Insurgency (COIN) capabilities over those designed for peer conflict. As the global geopolitical stage becomes increasingly volatile, however, there are still valuable insights to be gained from examining Britain’s involvement in the Iraq War. Therefore, for this week’s Big Ask, we asked six experts – as well as Gemini, Google’s Large Language Model (LLM): What are the lessons from the Chilcot Inquiry?

Richard Ballett

Council on Geostrategy

The publication of the Chilcot Inquiry was an important moment in British history. The document showed that Her Majesty’s Government exhibited deeply entrenched bureaucratic qualities that contributed to strategic blunders, such as informal, sofa government with a small group of like-minded and ill-informed individuals, poor information flows, and a culture of ‘winging it’ rather than conducting serious planning or analysis.

The key lessons are thus the importance of serious deliberation and sourcing alternative perspectives; the imperative of rigorous, impartial assessments that provide policymakers and elected leaders with an unvarnished picture of the truth; and the need to foster a culture of challenge where officials feel empowered to speak truth to those in power.

In my own civil service career, which started shortly after the Inquiry’s publication, I saw a lot of progress in rooting out these inimical pathologies. The UK’s intelligence assessment community has significantly improved its processes and capabilities over the last decade.

The creation of the Secretary of State’s Office of Net Assessment and Challenge (SONAC) at the MOD also played an important role, by providing leaders alternative perspectives and rigorous analysis to support some of the most consequential resource and budgetary prioritisation choices made in defence in recent years. Particularly from 2022 to 2024, SONAC acted as a lightning rod of challenge, empowered voices across the department, and forced leaders in defence to question their assumptions. The external appointment of Prof. John Bew as the Prime Minister’s Foreign Policy Adviser had the same impact on other matters of national security and diplomacy. These are just three examples of where things improved.

Ten years on, the real lesson from the Chilcot Inquiry is that Britain can never take for granted the positive changes that have been gained. Multiple and overlapping initiatives like those mentioned above can become self-reinforcing when sustained over long timeframes. However, momentum can also be lost when concurrent crises hit, when the wrong people are appointed to senior advisory positions, and when the memories of strategic blunders fade, causing bureaucracies to slip back into bad habits.

The challenges that the UK will face in the years ahead will be far more serious, complex, and numerous than those faced in the early 21st century. Adversaries today are far more powerful and dangerous than the tiny rogue states and terrorists that British leaders had to contend with in the 2000s. Consequently, the UK’s rivals will be able to exploit strategic blunders in ways that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein could only have dreamed of.

Ten years after the publication of the Chilcot Inquiry, and with Britain about to see its seventh Prime Minister enter 10 Downing Street in less than a decade, it is more important than ever before that the UK’s leaders heed its lessons.

Brig. (rtd.) Rory Copinger-Symes CBE

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

The Chilcot Inquiry’s main lessons, as I see them from a military perspective, are as follows:

Intelligence: WMD judgements were presented with unjustified certainty, the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) failed to maintain analytical distance, and ministers were not given sufficiently caveated assessments – the 45-minute claim being the obvious example. The lesson is not ‘do not trust intelligence’, but ‘do not let policy eagerness convert probabilistic intelligence into public certainty’.

Post-war planning: Planning assumed a well-executed United States (US)-led and United Nations (UN)-authorised operation in a relatively benign security environment. Phase 4 (Stabilisation) got a fraction of the attention that Phase 3 (Combat Operations) did – it was an afterthought.

Endstate definition: Commanders lacked clear direction on what ‘winning’ looked like post-Phase 3: warfighting, peacekeeping, COIN operations, or nation building? Objectives need explicit redefinition at phase transition, with commanders pushing back when that has not happened.

Civil-military integration: The split between MOD-led combat operations and a separate, under-resourced stabilisation effort meant security gains were not converted into governance gains. This fed directly into the establishment of the Stabilisation Unit and its associated doctrine, but the underlying lesson is that the military can win the fight and still lose the follow-through if civilian capacity is not resourced and integrated from day one.

Resourcing: The British Armed Forces spread themselves too thin between Iraq and Afghanistan, and were sharply criticised for their slow response to the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) threat, with the Snatch Land Rover being inadequate for the environment. Urgent operational requirements need to move fast, and admit that pre-war equipment assumptions were wrong.

The overarching lesson from the Chilcot Inquiry is: do not go to war on uncertain evidence, weak process, or without a credible plan for what comes next. Reforms alone will not fix this without genuinely challenging prevailing culture. However, the real question is whether any of this has actually been learned.

Prof. Beatrice Heuser

Distinguished Professor, Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy, Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The most popular definition of ‘strategy’ seems to be that of Arthur Lykke: it is simply about ends, ways, and means. There is an equally simple – nay, a simplistic – assumption that this describes a process; that strategy is about first defining ends (what did the US want to achieve?), then identifying the means that are needed (assumption: the means exist or can be procured in time), and finally thinking about ways to apply them.

Reality is different, as the findings of the Chilcot Enquiry emphasise: ‘[Her Majesty’s] Government should not commit to a firm political objective [i.e., identify ends] before it is clear that it can be achieved [i.e., the means exist and ways align]’. Her Majesty’s Government was criticised for having accepted military responsibilities ‘without a robust analysis...of the military’s capacity to support the UK’s potential obligations in [Iraq]’, and whether ‘a step of such magnitude should [have been] taken…having considered the wider strategic and resource implications and contingent liabilities.’

Even key American strategist-practitioners recognise that this is the more realistic approach: Donald Rumsfeld, who listened to British-American strategist Colin S. Gray, famously noted that one goes to war with the armed forces one has, rather than the armed forces one wished one had. Lykke’s definition of strategy also does not mention the crucial dialectic with the enemy…

The lesson of the Chilcot Inquiry is that the ends, ways, and means approach should be laid to rest.

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

Thematically, several of the most significant lessons woven throughout the Chilcot Inquiry (and the Butler Review) relate to the risks associated with the use and misuse of strategic intelligence in politics. A central failing of the Iraq War was the use of intelligence without its necessary caveats and acceptance of its limitations.

Much as intelligence professionals and politicians alike would wish to have an unfailing crystal ball, providing a palantír-like (the JRR Tolkien, not Alex Karp version) window into the thinking of adversaries, it simply does not exist. Raw intelligence is incomplete, muddled, and often contradictory. Absent its context and its origin (which often cannot be disclosed due to the risks to sources and methods), it offers only one piece of a much broader jigsaw puzzle; one for which there is no image on the box.

Moreover, as the Iraq War demonstrated, the desire to make a compelling case to justify a chosen course of action led to the manipulation and cherry-picking of intelligence to fit predetermined narratives. There was far too much twisting of data to support theories, not theories to fit data. Today, and consequently, the British intelligence community is a much-changed entity using a single common language for interpretation, providing analysis and not raw intelligence to politicians, and internally stress testing assumptions and analysis.

The run-up to Russia’s expanded offensive in Ukraine was a much different affair. Washington and London used (declassified) strategic intelligence, seeking to signal publicly that both capitals knew what the Kremlin was planning and to communicate the imminent threat to sceptical allies across Europe, as well as into Ukraine.

While the selective use of strategic intelligence (which certainly benefited from open-source intelligence) neither deterred Russia, nor convinced even Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine, of the risk to his country, it was nonetheless used with far more aplomb in 2022 than in 2003.

Dr Robert Johnson

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Director, Oxford Strategy, Statecraft, and Technology (Changing Character of War) Centre

Much of the commentary on the anniversary of the Chilcot Inquiry will focus on the extent to which His Majesty’s (HM) Government has adhered to the principle that all policy decisions should be subject to ‘constructive challenge’ – that is, that subordinates should be willing to offer a critical review and test assumptions without fear of accusations of disloyalty. The imperative was to avoid hasty, ill-thought through, and erroneous decisions.

The track record of British governments has not lived up to that expectation. Ministerial dependence on Special Advisers (SpAds), a focus on spin or ‘narratives’, and a lack of specialisms or incentives in the civil service are the chief problems. However, the idea of accountability upwards is only part of the story.

In one respect, the failure of accountability downwards also remains. In Iraq, many soldiers were wrongly accused of war crimes by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) inquiry. Not a single case led to a conviction, and the investigation revealed that the lawyers responsible were inventing accusations for profit. The same approach is being taken against British veterans deployed in Northern Ireland in the so-called Troubles Bill.

It is a reminder that loyalty goes in both directions. Regrettably, that lesson has not been learned.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

The Chilcot Inquiry provided a damning indictment of the 2003 Iraq War, offering enduring lessons on flawed intelligence, institutional groupthink, and the erosion of Cabinet scrutiny. One of its core conclusions – that HM Government must adhere to international law – rightly sought to curb erratic, badly planned interventions. Yet, subsequent British foreign policy has suffered from a severe overcorrection. The lesson of legality has morphed into a dogmatic legalism that blindfolds strategic realism.

Nowhere is this paralysis more evident than in the decision (now failed) to cede sovereignty of British Indian Ocean Territory, including the vital joint UK-US military facility at Diego Garcia, to Mauritius. Driven by a desire to conform to non-binding international decisions, HM Government attempted to trade away one of Britain’s geopolitical crown jewels. In an era defined by a fracturing international order and growing alignment between the CRINK – the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – such compliance does not project moral authority; rather, it weakens the UK and invites others to make claims on British interests.

Per Chilcot, this is not to say that the UK should ignore international law. While poorly planned interventions should be resisted, a mature foreign policy – underpinned by the pursuit of strategic and asymmetric advantage, as per the 2025 National Security Strategy – demands a balance between legal frameworks and cold strategic realities. If HM Government fails to maintain this equilibrium, rigid adherence to international law will cease to be a shield, becoming instead an open invitation for geopolitical adversaries. Even Chilcot’s lessons should not go unchallenged.

Gemini

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

The Chilcot Inquiry remains the definitive critique of British strategic decision-making, offering enduring lessons for contemporary British statecraft as it navigates an increasingly contested Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific landscape.

First, it exposed the dangers of insular thinking. The Inquiry revealed how intelligence was presented with unwarranted certainty and left unchallenged. For modern policymakers, fostering a culture of rigorous, adversarial debate – where alternative assessments and dissenting views are integrated – is paramount to avoiding critical blind spots.

Second, it underscored that formal cabinet governance is non-negotiable. The informal style of the era bypassed established bureaucratic mechanisms, undermining collective ministerial responsibility and reducing vital scrutiny. Effective geostrategy requires robust, institutionalised decision-making, a lesson that later informed the creation of the National Security Council (NSC).

Finally, its most damning indictment was the failure of post-conflict planning. The UK committed to military intervention without a coherent, fully resourced strategy for stabilisation and reconstruction. It proved that military force is merely an instrument; without a clear endgame, tactical operational successes quickly dissolve into long-term strategic failures.

Ultimately, the Chilcot Inquiry’s core lesson is that successful statecraft demands intellectual humility, institutional rigour, and a realistic alignment of military means with sustainable political ends.

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Ten years ago, on 23rd June 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) voted to leave the European Union (EU) – the first and currently only nation-state to do so. Since then, debate has raged over how Brexit affected both British and EU economic performance. Additionally, while the relationships between the UK and its European counterparts have been turbulent, they have improved in recent years in the face of Russian aggression towards Ukraine.

To mark the tenth anniversary of the referendum, this week’s Big Ask asks ten experts: How has Brexit affected Britain’s global standing?

Dr Edward Hunter Christie

Chief Analyst, Economic Security Forum

The 2016 Brexit vote delivered an unpleasant shock to global foreign policy elites. Yet, the messy, protracted Brexit negotiations up to 2020 arguably inflicted deeper damage on the UK’s international standing than the vote itself, exposing raw domestic divisions to European decision-makers.

However, Britain’s standing rebounded decisively in early 2022. By leading on aid to Ukraine, the UK reasserted its geopolitical relevance. This turnaround demonstrated that Brexit need not structurally undermine the UK’s foreign policy: where alignment with the EU makes sense – such as on Russian sanctions – Britain coordinates seamlessly from the outside.

Ultimately, defence capabilities remain national prerogatives. While EU members like Poland and Germany accelerate their defence spending, the UK is falling behind. This is not a direct consequence of Brexit – although a lower Gross Domestic Product (GDP) trajectory restricts fiscal space – but rather a failure to challenge entrenched domestic assumptions around tax and spending.

Jean-Claude Juncker, a frequent target of Brexiter fixation, famously noted that politicians know what to do, but not how to get re-elected after doing it. This political paralysis is today’s true threat to Britain’s global standing. In a deteriorating threat environment, lifting the defence budget to 4-4.5% of GDP, as recently advocated in a RUSI guest contribution, requires exactly the sort of political courage that the UK’s leaders currently lack.

Prof. David Galbreath

Professor of War and Technology, Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies, University of Bath

In 2016, Her Majesty’s Government declared that it would leave the EU after losing a non-binding referendum by 52%. The subsequent negotiations with the European Commission, the Republic of Ireland, and the UK’s North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies ground along. There were no good solutions to the problem of Brexit, which made both Britain and the EU poorer.

The impact of Brexit on the UK’s global standing has evolved in several ways. The first is that it showed other EU members, many of which had their own Eurosceptic governments, that the cost of leaving the union was not worth it. If Britain could not do it well, then what chance did any other state have? From Estonia to Greece, the domestic politics of the EU changed.

Secondly, in the United States (US), Brexit was either championed or lampooned, depending on Trumpian Republican or Democrat leanings. However, for the rest of the world, it seems like the UK has done considerable self-harm, and that it has done so for no considerable benefit: no ideological victory, no economic benefits, no political settlements. As a result, for countries who have been largely subject to a tough, competitive trade relationship with the EU, Britain looks to have shifted into obscurity.

Of course, living in the UK, it does not feel that way. We are still here. We are still trying to sort out the post-Brexit economic, diplomatic, and political mess. Yet, with a second Trump administration, a conflict in Ukraine, a rising People’s Republic of China (PRC), and more generally the rise of multipolarity, Britain appears to be set adrift with no safe ports ahead.

Prof. Amelia Hadfield

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

Brexit arguably inflicted immediate and tangible damage on UK-EU defence cooperation: before Brexit, Britain accounted for about 20% of all military capabilities within the EU.

Yet, the UK’s chosen form of hard Brexit placed it demonstratively outside any EU rulemaking or adjudication, including outside the €7.3 billion (£6.3 billion) European Defence Fund, from which third-country companies can only benefit under restrictive conditions, and if they operate on EU soil. Britain’s self-exclusion was not only entirely of its own making, but singlehandedly nixed any opportunity to develop even a rudimentary foreign, security, and defence relationship with the EU.

However, the threats made by Donald Trump, President of the US, to abdicate from NATO and the protection of NATO allies, and Russia’s continuing full-scale invasion of Ukraine dramatically changed the calculus for both sides. The desperate necessity facing European countries of collective rearming, and scaling up defence spending together created a powerful strategic incentive for the UK and EU to set aside post-Brexit frictions in the defence sphere. The British-French-led Coalition of the Willing emerged as a vehicle for this closer cooperation, with the UK arguing for deeper defence financing cooperation.

A central prize for Britain has been access to the EU’s proposed €150 billion (£129.4 billion) Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan programme for military procurement, which the EU made contingent on signing a defence and security pact. The continent’s own defence industry is supportive of the plan, and with annual defence exports of roughly £9.5 billion – with a third already going to the EU – there are benefits for the UK. Unfortunately, while a rudimentary defence agreement was agreed, SAFE has proved a bridge too far.

The irony is that although many in European nations now regard Britain as closer than ever to the continent and the EU in everything from sanctions to defence, the UK remains firmly on the outside looking in. All is not lost, however. Brussels seems broadly warm to the use of concepts like ‘dynamic alignment’, and in practice, Britain generally matches the EU on sanctions and remains keen on sector-specific integration including defence. As with everything, it is down to the political will on one side, and the coordination required on the other, to move the post-Brexit dial.

Dr Catarina Liberato

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

Ten years on, Brexit has produced a UK global standing that is asymmetric, uneven, and ultimately unstable – reinforced in select security domains, structurally weakened economically, and normatively compromised by a persistent inconsistency between the vision of a truly ‘Global Britain’ and demonstrated foreign policy choices.

In security terms, the UK has performed credibly. Its early and politically significant commitment to Ukraine, the AUKUS partnership, and sustained engagement in NATO frameworks confirmed that it retains meaningful diplomatic agency and institutional capacity where political will has been mobilised. The international reception in both cases confirmed that British leadership still carries weight when applied consistently.

The economic dimension tells a different story. The trade agreements pursued in the Indo-Pacific, while symbolically significant, have not compensated for the structural costs of reduced market access in Europe, and it is economic weight that ultimately conditions the credibility of foreign policy ambition. Global standing is contingent on the alignment between declared ambition, available capabilities, and the degree to which external actors receive that ambition as credible – a tension that the ‘Global Britain’ narrative consistently obscured but never resolved.

That credibility has been further eroded by normative inconsistency. A state whose international identity is premised on principled engagement with the rules-based international order cannot absorb the reputational costs of applying that commitment selectively – as the prolonged ambiguity over Palestine illustrated.

In this respect, Brexit’s deepest impact on the UK’s global standing may be less about institutional architecture than about the coherence – or absence of it – between the values that Britain claims to champion and the foreign policy choices it has proved willing to make.

Dr Eoin McNamara

Postdoctoral Fellow, Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA)

Brexit has moderately weakened the UK’s ‘soft power’ with the Nordic and Baltic countries. Additional regulations on trade and travel have disappointed citizens.

In the Baltic states, Brexit is often viewed with bewilderment. Britain voluntarily dispensed with many benefits of EU membership that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania worked extremely hard to obtain after restoring independence in 1991, eventually gaining EU accession in 2004.

Nevertheless, from a ‘hard power’ perspective, Brexit’s effects on Northern European security remain limited. The UK has kept its promise that while leaving the EU, it remains a guarantor of European security. After 2022, Britain supported the US by providing security guarantees that bridged the NATO application-to-accession periods of Finland and Sweden. The British Armed Forces participate in NATO’s main military exercises in Northern Europe. The UK leads NATO’s Forward Land Forces (FLF) in Estonia and the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).

However, the consequences of Brexit still contribute to Britain’s lacklustre economic outlook. Northern European governments are concerned that financial constraints will eventually weaken the UK’s commitment to NATO’s collective defence. Brexit’s effects are also causing constant domestic political instability. After the announcement that Sir Keir Starmer is resigning as Prime Minister, His Majesty’s (HM) Government stands precariously.

Security debates in Northern European capitals are already focusing on the impact that further domestic uncertainties might have on Britain’s reliability as a security partner. While the UK has been a leading power in Northern Europe since Brexit, domestic political and economic problems currently risk its continuing ability to perform this role.

Ed Owen

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

Brexit has had a defining and catastrophic impact on British politics with deep and lasting consequences for the UK’s standing in the world. The fact that it is about to welcome its seventh Prime Minister in the ten years since the referendum is a stark illustration of the continuing shockwaves caused by the decision to leave the EU.

The economic hit – stalling living standards, productivity growth, and investment – has made the task of delivering much-needed prosperity and improving cash-strapped public services in health, education, and the criminal justice system much harder. Paradoxically, this economic gloom has only increased public support for hard right populists like Nigel Farage, a cheerleader for Brexit. If current opinion polls were reflected in a future general election, Farage would more than likely be handed the keys to 10 Downing Street.

The rise of Reform UK, largely at the expense of the traditional centre-right Conservative Party, coupled with the governing Labour Party’s loss of support to the Greens, appears to demonstrate that the old two-party system in Britain has broken down. Long lauded for its stability and predictability, the UK post-Brexit is now marked by political fragmentation and polarisation. Already weakened by its status outside the EU, this has further reduced Britain’s standing in the world at a time when its alliances have become more important than ever.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

The assertion that leaving the EU would permanently diminish the UK’s global standing has not been borne out by events. Instead, Brexit has had a limited impact on the nation’s international influence, and it may have even enhanced Britain’s strategic autonomy by forcing the political establishment to think independently for the country for the first time in many decades.

Free from the constraints of upholding an EU consensus, the UK has demonstrated an ability to act with agility and leadership on the world stage. This independent focus was most visible during Russia’s preparations for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The British response was swift, forceful, and decisive, effectively setting the benchmark for other European nations to follow. By providing advanced military aid ahead of its EU neighbours, who were disoriented by the Kremlin’s actions, London cemented its position as a critical guarantor of European security.

Furthermore, this geopolitical agility facilitated the creation of new, flexible security arrangements that would have been far more difficult to forge as an EU member state. It is highly probable that the UK would not have worked so closely with Australia and the US to form the AUKUS security partnership in 2021 had it remained bound by the collective, often slow-moving, foreign policy framework of Brussels. By enabling a deeper ‘tilt’ towards the Indo-Pacific, Brexit allowed the UK to forge minilateral alliances that will eventually reinforce European security.

Ultimately, while Brexit led to short term chaos as the country withdrew from the EU, Britain’s global standing remains robust – driven by an independent foreign policy that prioritises agility, swift action, and sovereign partnerships.

Dr Jan Ruzicka

Lecturer in Security Studies and Director of David Davies Institute of International Studies, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University

The world in which the 2016 vote took place looks almost unrecognisable. It feels not ten but more like a hundred years ago. The massive change reveals the real cautionary tale of the Brexit referendum, namely the grand geopolitical delusion on which it was premised.

The core of this delusion had little to do with the specific beliefs on either side of the issue. At the heart of the fallacy was the assumption that change would only happen to the UK, while the world as a whole would remain largely the same – predictable and stable.

In short, Britain, one of the staunchest defenders of a rules-based international order, had decided to stake its future on a bit of freeriding. What could possibly go wrong?

We now know that the answer is a lot. The particulars may not have always been entirely foreseeable, but the post-Cold War international order exists no longer. A prudent course of action would have taken such a possibility into account.

From the UK’s perspective, the change has been most pronounced when it comes to European security. Russian hostility and aggression, American detachment, and Chinese assertiveness all mean that the foundations of British and European security will have to change. Alas, the UK now finds it much harder to shape foreign and defence policies on the wider European level, and cannot institutionally do so (including accessing funds) within the EU.

Yet, if the UK-EU relationship is to continue improving, the best bet might be that this will be spurred on by security concerns. After all, there is no virtue like necessity.

Gesine Weber

Senior Researcher, Centre for Security Studies, ETH Zürich

Brexit has done less damage to security and defence cooperation in Europe and the UK-European/UK-EU defence relationship than to other policy areas. Britain’s standing in Europe as a security and defence partner has suffered from Brexit because Brexit obviously makes it more challenging for the UK to tap into or participate in the EU’s instruments.

At the same time, NATO membership and Britain’s involvement in different minilateral formats of defence cooperation has allowed HM Government to maintain defence diplomatic ties with other European states. Perhaps the most critical point for the UK-European defence relationship was the publication of the 2021 Integrated Review, which prioritised ‘Global Britain’ while leaving many questions about the UK’s cooperation with European partners unaddressed. Ultimately, however, Britain’s steadfast support for Ukraine and leadership among European powers has wiped out many of these concerns.

Brexit may have been a structural shock for UK-European defence relations, but the shocks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the policy of the second Trump administration towards the continent push Britain closer towards its European partners. Ultimately, they cannot escape the imperatives of geography.

Prof. Stefan Wolff

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

Brexit severed critical links between Britain and the EU’s defence architecture, which have yet to be restored in a meaningful way. Without any administrative arrangement with the European Defence Agency, the UK is in a worse position than Norway, Switzerland, the US, Serbia, and Ukraine. This anomaly constrains the British ability to participate in joint procurement efforts and shape EU defence standards.

Trump’s return to the White House sharply accelerated UK-EU rapprochement, producing the May 2025 Security and Defence Partnership. Considered at the time an important symbolic and structural step, the partnership soon hit a wall when talks on British participation in the SAFE programme collapsed in November 2025 and prevented the UK from bidding in the loan facility for defence investment.

The European Parliament has called for talks to resume, and HM Government has signalled openness to this idea, but with a government in transition and the July 2026 summit likely to be postponed, the deadlock remains.

Not all is doom and gloom, however. The conflict in Ukraine has provided Britain with an opportunity to reassert some of its traditional European defence leadership, albeit outside EU structures. Co-chairing the Coalition of the Willing with France – now 34 nations strong and planning for a potential multinational peacekeeping force in Ukraine – has given the UK some of its former clout back, not least because British hard power credibility has remained, even if its soft power has declined in the wake of Brexit.

The bottom line is that the UK is too large, too capable, and too important to be treated as a peripheral third country orbiting around the EU defence core. If this persists, Britain’s exclusion from EU defence industrial cooperation would be a genuine long-term cost for European security, not just EU security.

The deeper post-Brexit institutional estrangement between the UK and the continent that underpins the mismatch between what is needed and what is currently possible is a problem beyond security and defence. However, the urgency of security and defence could be the trigger for a proper reset under the country’s next government.

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After his resignation as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces last week, Al Carns said in an interview with BBC News that the inadequate increase in defence spending proposed in the upcoming Defence Investment Plan (DIP) could be bolstered by reforming welfare spending – clarifying that he supports a ‘hand up, not a hand out’ approach.

An unnamed His Majesty’s (HM) Treasury official reacted to Carns’ thoughts on the DIP – as well as those that caused John Healey, former Secretary of State for Defence, to resign – by stating: ‘let’s be clear what John is asking for: cuts to schools and hospitals’. Such an attitude is not unique among HM Government, nor the British public at large. This debate over funding provides the basis for this week’s Big Ask, in which we asked six experts – as well as Gemini, Google’s Large Language Model (LLM): Would increasing defence spending result in ‘cuts to schools and hospitals’?

Chris Hague

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy, and Senior Policy and Communications Manager, Make UK Defence

Ultimately, the British population will not be sending its children to school if deterrence fails and Russia invades a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) country by 2030, which is what the military and intelligence community are clearly warning is a real possibility. However, this is not the first lever to pull, and there are creative ways to boost defence spending without taking an axe to the budgets for the National Health Service (NHS) and schools.

The United Kingdom (UK) can finally join Canada and lead global efforts to kickstart a new multinational defence bank with the Defence, Security, and Resilience Bank (DSRB) to boost global defence spending with allies. Backed by major banks such as JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank, the DSRB will unlock significant multinational finance for defence with a AAA credit rating, and provide a credit loan guarantee to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) to help them scale up.

Britain can also take inspiration from its history and sell defence bonds, which allowed the UK to raise over £200 billion in today’s money during the Second World War. Ringfenced for high-growth activities in defence such as research and development, innovation, and procuring high-export potential capabilities, it can drive economic growth, generate significant spillovers for the economy, and strengthen collective deterrence.

Ministers can also avoid damaging ‘salami slicing’ of capital budgets by reallocating wasteful government spending – such as the £1.88 billion spent each year from the Patent Box tax relief scheme by making the scheme available to SMEs only.

HM Government knows there are other choices out there. Taking them, however, requires political leaders to remove themselves from complacent Treasury thinking which has only delivered economic stagnation since 2008, and instead deliver new ideas to boost defence.

Dr Ksenia Kirkham

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

Facing a fiscal gap of £28 billion on top of its huge structural budget deficit, there is little doubt that HM Government’s ambitious defence spending plans will put substantial pressure on other budgets, including education and healthcare. Instead of taking meaningful measures to resolve its fiscal problems, however, it is trying to financialise its way out.

The discussions around the issue of ‘war bonds’ and the increasing reliance on venture capital signal a deeper shift: defence is no longer seen as a public good and a core state responsibility, but as something to be engineered through markets. Unlike traditional economic logic, when supply responds to organic demand, war bonds are created first and then demand is engineered through policy and institutional pressures to ensure they are absorbed by investors.

Proponents’ assurances that this spending will not come at public expense will quickly collapse once risks become evident. Capital markets do not think strategically; they follow incentives. While this may unlock some funding at speed, it conceals a series of grave risks that HM Government will be unwilling to acknowledge. As the structure of financing shapes production outcomes, the resulting defence posture is likely to reflect business logic rather than military necessity.

Strategic priorities may become distorted as investment flows favour scalable, high‑return technologies rather than the most appropriate defence capabilities. This is particularly evident in venture capital, where short investment horizons and high return expectations encourage rapid scaling and speculation, increasing the risk of failure rather than supporting stable defence capacity.

Threat narratives may become institutionalised, as sustained capital inflows depend on expectations of continued insecurity, creating incentives to maintain or amplify perceptions of risk.

The deeper integration of financial actors into defence decision‑making risks weakening democratic accountability, as priorities are shaped through opaque interactions between governments, investors, and large contractors rather than open political debate.

Finally, risk‑averse financial institutions willing to fund defence become constrained by expanding compliance regimes. Sanctions turn into a source of systemic uncertainty, deterring investment through higher costs and unpredictable enforcement. Legal concerns about this are often marginalised as they challenge dominant war‑making narratives.

So, while increasing defence spending and rebuilding infrastructure are necessary, the key risk is not overspending, but the subordination of security policy to financial imperatives, embedding escalation pressures, and structural biases into the system itself.

Paul Mason

Adjunct Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Increased defence spending does not have to lead to welfare cuts. Labour plunged itself into a defence spending crisis by trying to meet its 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030 pledge purely through departmental reallocation. Yet, no state in history has rearmed in this way.

The most viable route is hypothecated borrowing, as in the 1930s, allowing defence borrowing to be temporarily exempt from the fiscal rules while keeping a tight lid on everything else. HM Government should borrow to invest only in the capital expenditure and research and development aspects of the defence budget, and back that by repurposing the National Wealth Fund, with £28 billion allocated, as a Defence and Resilience Fund.

Once the defence boom is under way – with trillions set to be spent globally – the defence sector may be windfall taxed. Finally, the 1.5% of GDP by 2030 NATO resilience spending pledge could fund both schools and hospitals, giving them deep basements and secure energy backups to harden them against contingencies.

Rob Murray

Honorary Fellow, Council on Geostrategy

Would higher defence spending mean cuts to schools and hospitals? Only if the UK insists on solving a 21st century problem with a 20th century playbook.

The debate in Westminster usually begins and ends with four options: raise taxes, cut spending elsewhere, borrow more, or grow the economy. All are valid. None are sufficient.

The uncomfortable truth is that Britain is trying to rearm using a budgeting model designed for peacetime. That worked when defence was a predictable line item in a government spreadsheet. It does not work when the challenge is rebuilding industrial capacity, scaling production, and keeping pace with rapidly evolving technology.

There is a fifth option: change the system.

This means creating larger allied defence markets, mobilising private capital alongside public money, and using institutions such as the DSRB to unlock investment at scale. The goal is not simply to spend more. It is to get more security for every pound spent.

Just as importantly, the UK needs to change how defence buys capability. More money poured into slow procurement systems will not produce better outcomes.

Here is the key point: the next war will not be won by the country with the best technology. It will be won by the country with the most agile bureaucracy. The victor will be the nation that can identify, test, procure, field, and scale new capabilities faster than its competitors.

For too long, Britain has treated defence as a budgeting problem. It is actually a productivity problem. The countries that figure this out will not only be safer – they will be richer too.

Prof. Harry Pitts

Head, Humanities and Social Sciences, and Associate Professor, Political Economy and the Future of Work, University of Exeter

Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister, came into power posing security as the ‘first duty’ of government; Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, even cited Bernard Williams in suggesting that how a government secures the country is the ‘first political question’.

Something called ‘securonomics’ was the answer to this question, capturing how security and resilience spans multiple areas of social and industrial policy in an age of ‘hybrid’ threats. However, by skirting around the centrality of defence itself as the strongest guarantee of security, the past week has highlighted how securonomics may have acted as something of a sleight of hand.

This agenda enabled a party constitutionally incapable of establishing a clear order of priorities to have its cake and eat it, presenting what social democrats are comfortable spending money on – welfare, Net Zero, infrastructure – not as complements to defence, but as substitutes for what keeps the UK militarily safe in the last instance. This displacement activity defies the reality of physical geography, with the British Isles vulnerable to the actions of an aggressive adversary located close by.

The contradictions of securonomics exposed, there have been two responses from those keen to resist the implications of the security situation by arguing for limiting defence spending. The first approach has been to set up a false choice; Treasury sources briefing newspapers that the DIP would necessitate reduced investment in schools, hospitals, and the vague category of ‘growth’. Setting aside that the UK would not have any of these without its safety and integrity intact, this steers clear of where HM Government could restrain spending were its authority with backbenchers sufficient to do so – such as in welfare reform.

The second approach has been to problematise defence spending altogether. It is painfully true that procurement requires improvement to keep pace with innovation, but the familiar refrains about waste and excess are too often a convenient alibi for those who would rather not spend more on defence at all. The key question now is whether a new Labour leadership is capable of staging a conversation with the party that, clear-sighted about what is at stake, can provide a stronger and better answer to the first political question of security.

James Rogers

Co-President (Research), Council on Geostrategy

From 2010 to 2025, Britain spent just under £200 billion on Official Development Assistance (ODA) – otherwise known as foreign aid. £200 billion is comparable to about 15 extra large regional hospitals, 800 new high schools, 200 miles of additional high-speed railway line, or 2,500 miles of new motorway. All of these figures include whole-life costs, i.e., both the initial capital investment and the subsequent costs for upkeep and maintenance.

In terms of combat power, £200 billion would buy around 30 extra Astute class submarines or 70 new Type 26 class frigates for the Royal Navy, or well over 350 additional F-35B Lightning II Joint Combat Aircraft for the Royal Air Force (RAF). It would allow the British Army to invest in several new armoured brigades.

To put this into perspective, the UK currently has six frigates, five Astute class submarines, about 45 F-35B Lightning II aircraft, and two armoured brigades – all of which suffer from varying states of readiness.

True, foreign aid spending has been cut by successive governments in recent years, most recently by Sir Keir, to help fund defence. But even with the reductions, Britain plans to spend over £25 billion on ODA over the next three years – although some of that will be spent within the UK to look after refugees.

Equally, some aid spending may well enhance national security, although altruistic intent remains its primary objective. For example, between 2010 and 2021, the UK spent less than 0.2% of its ODA budget in Ukraine, despite the country’s growing geostrategic significance to British interests.

So, Treasury officials should not pit defence against schools and hospitals. Rather, they should ask prying questions as to whether the UK needs to spend so much on ODA when there are other pressing priorities, and when the nation’s adversaries are growing in strength.

Gemini

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

The assertion that funding the British Armed Forces adequately necessitates cuts to schools and hospitals is a false dichotomy, long favoured by a Treasury that treats national security as a discretionary cost rather than the paramount duty of the state.

As Carns underscored following his resignation, the machinery of government is failing to adapt to a fundamentally altered geopolitical landscape. When HM Treasury claims that increasing the defence budget threatens health and education, it deliberately ignores other vast areas of state expenditure. Carns rightly pointed out that choices exist beyond this narrow framing, explicitly questioning the size of the welfare budget and advocating for a ‘hand up, not a hand out’ approach to free up necessary capital for defence.

To pit the NHS against national security is a political choice, not an ironclad fiscal law. Fundamentally, without security, all other public goods are rendered highly vulnerable. Schools, hospitals, and economic growth require a safe, sovereign nation in which to operate.

If the UK is to meet the severe, compounding threats of the coming decade, HM Government should abandon bureaucratic zero-sum excuses. It should fund the military that the threat environment dictates, rather than the one that HM Treasury feels comfortable containing.

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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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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 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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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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