This Means War

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

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

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

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

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

The disorderly arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to the battlefield foretells of what is to come. The similarities to the hype around cyber warfare in the 2010s is all too clear. Yet the promise of profound change to warfare because of AI (and autonomy) is to be found everywhere. What is the reality? What will battlefields feel like? When will AI (in all its forms) arrive)? How do we know it will work as promised? What guarantees are there? Who checks the delivery? How can we derisk some of the (existential) threats that AI poses? Who is leading, and who is in charge? Rob Wilson, defence tech guru, addresses just some of these issues. We end up cracking open a can of worms, or perhaps Pandora's box.

That the military is subordinate to political (civil) authority seems like a no brainer. Headlines are made when challenges to this norm occur (see Trump 47 as an example), but those challenges have been more frequent and more dangerous in American history. Indeed, General Washington's principles of military subordination have had a myriad of challengers over the last 250 years: but the institutions have come through and self-corrected where necessary. In talking about her new book "The State and The Soldier", Kori Schake provides a quite excellent riposte to Samual Huntington's essay "The Soldier and The State". Her analysis of US civil-military relations since the Founding Fathers is a compelling read, and one that should be required reading (especially for those prone to over-excitement and clickbait headlines).

In military circles, training can mean all things to different groups. Some think it is for making friends and building partnerships. Other parts of the national security community think it is for validation of value-for-money; other parts consider it an assurance exercise. Even within the military, training gets a bum rap: being seen as either a waste of time, or a rare moment to escape barracks or dockyard hassle (or HQ long screwdrivers) and get away from it all. There is also a significant proportion of HQ staff – especially those in strategic level HQs – who think it is a waste of cash: something European militaries have been short of for decades. Perhaps this is the reason that training budgets often get hit to pay for shiny new kit that promises much but has less utility than might be expected. Yet for adversaries, the amount a military train sums up its credibility. Smart intelligence officials can make correlations between the amount of time that units regularly spend training with the credibility, lethality and readiness of their forces. If an adversary trains more, you need to at least match that in order to prevail in a conflict: any conflict. When building training events for contemporary militaries, leaders now need to tackle both the problem of smaller forces – doing by the same commitments as their predecessors – and a wider array of skills across the combat echelon. All this makes time for training the most precious resource a military force has. In recovering from campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the British Army recognised that something was not right with it's training: it simply wasn't getting what it needed from Cold war scripts and training design. So it started from scratch. Major General Chris Barry is the man who changed it: and who is leading delivery of the new Land Training System. I went down to his HQ at Warminster for a chat.

The was much to like about the 2025 UK SDR: an uncomfortable but honest diagnosis of the state of Britain's military; a characterisation of the world order and future threats; and a vigour to addressing the challenges. Professor Paul Cornish from the University Of Exeter's Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security picks apart the issues in the document, as well as what was not in it. If 'Who was it for?' is perhaps the most revealing question and answer, then 'So what will Allies and adversaries make of it?' is the most worrying aspect. For those who think Paul and the team at CPUDS couldn't do better, the link below takes you to a series of essays that articulates a different take on the challenges and responses written over a couple of weeks during the Winter of 2024/2025. Writing a defence review is tough but not impossible. https://paulcornish.substack.com/p/uk-strategic-defence?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post

Given the way Russian military cheifs send their troops into combat without regard for rates of attrition and casualties, it seems to bamboozle many Western commentators that the Russian people are not rising up against their leaders. Why? Amelie Tolvin, a visiting scholar at the University of Helsinki's Aleksanteri Institute, provides some clear insight about why revolution is unlikely, but also why Russian troops fight in the way they do (war crimes and all). Over the past 3 years – since the start of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine - various military leaders, diplomats, military chiefs and commentators have been at pains to tell us all that the Russian military is on the verge of collapsing. They have quoted figures of dead and injured from that conflict that seem almost impossible for a Western audience to accept. Indeed, the loss rate of people on the Russian front has been so high that people suggest there are no more men in Russian to recruit or conscript. Amelie provides some important corrective evidence that needs to be better understood. You can read Amelie's article in Foreign Policy Magazine here: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/09/russia-soldiers-ukraine-war-crimes-meatgrinder-human-waves-brutal-violence-protest/

After more than 3 years of war in Ukraine, the Russian military is not a spent force: indeed, the combination of more flying hours for more aircrew, 3 years of combat experience in CAS, AI, CAP, Strike and ISR missions, a war economy supporting new airframes and weapons, and low pilot attrition rates has made the Russian Air Force capable of what it was supposed to do in 2022 – and then some. It now has the ability to outmatch European NATO states in capability, experience and fighting power for the next decade. Professor Justin Bronk, Senior Research Fellow for Air Power at RUSI in London, explains why a wholesale shift to drones isn't going to be the ubiquitous answer that the speeches from military and political leaders make out. As the IAMD system in NATO states matures (albeit at differing speeds), the Russian system is also a major factor in air power planning for the future. The impact on how NATO wants to fight, and how it will have to fight, is stark. And it's not going to be good enough to continue copying the US model: for the USAF and USN, the Pacific is requiring a drive towards a different force design, way of operating, C2, and basing options from those that would work for NATO in Europe. Context matters.

The West has not deterred Russia from destabilising Europe, the Caucasus, North and Sub Saharan Africa, or the Middle East. Moscow has undertaken war-like activity in NATO states since the 1990s: from assassination, subterfuge and sabotage to attacks on critical national infrastructure, political interference and industrial espionage. Russian expert Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House in London, explains what Russia wants, how the West misunderstands Russian societal desires, the Russian way of war, measures of success, and why economics and prosperity just aren't important to them. Keir finishes with a discussion on what it takes to deter Russia: this has been done before and could be done again. It just takes political will. Whether European leaders have that is a completely different question.

President Trump might have shocked some European leaders but the writing has been on the wall for decades: European states will have to take responsibility for their own security. Despite Russian aggression in Europe since Georgia (2008), and the promises made by NATO states in Wales 2014, there are only a few NATO states that can provide a degree of credible assurance on national security to their populations as the US withdraws. RUSI's Ed Arnold delves into the implications for national and regional security for individual states and multilateral bodies: from leadership and the consequences for NATO, to EU and EC funding mechanisms. Critically, the timeline for US withdrawal and European rearmament might not align: the resulting window when Russia could unpick the credibility of NATO arrives rapidly.

If the relationship between a government, the military, and industry is to really change from a transactional one towards a sincere partnership it must be underpinned by a new era of honesty and clarity. Simon Kings, Exec BD Director of Raytheon UK, talks about what has changed for industry since 2022, and what the threat picture looks like for the DIB. The discussion covers procurement and acquisition, processes and modernisation, challenges to delivery, and what the reality of 'sovereignty' as a political ambition statement looks like. Foundational to all of this is Simon's description of the way industry (and shareholders) make investment decisions: yet another set of political speeches and promises, policies and transformations, doesn't cut it. Clarity about which bits of national security are not going to be funded are as important as the revelations of what is to be renewed. That honesty and clarity seems to have been missing for several decades. Will this be the moment it changes?

The politics of a review of a national security strategy are huge. What is the appetite for change? What is the appetite to deliver? What is the political reference and timeframe for decisions? How to balance domestic pressures and foreign threats? Former UK Minister of the Armed Forces, military veteran, and ex-MP, The Rt Hon James Heappey talks about the tensions and challenges of putting national security on the political agenda, getting it funded, delivering change, and why it doesn't always work as planned. A fascinating insight into how politics at this level works, with all the implications on industry, society, voter, and banking. No mincing of words here.

The continual changes to British defence acquisition and procurement processes, frameworks, doctrines, strategies and plans have wreaked havoc with the military equipment plan for decades. Various – and sometimes radical – reforms have been tried to evolve a system that is ubiquitously criticised from everyone inside (and outside) the national security community. No one is happy, yet most people actually involved in it are trying very hard to make it work. This is not a uniquely British problem however: There is nowhere in the world that people are content with their procurement system - each one could be faster, buy better kit, deliver imporved value-for-money and quality, pleasing taxpayers as well as the people who use the kit. Given that the on-going UK SDR must try and come up with some recommendations to make it 'better' (hopefully in a different way than every other one has promised to do since 1997), what are the opportunities and risks this time around? Dr Andrew Curtis helps us think thus through with some sage advice: how about starting by implementing all the bits of some previous attempts at reform?

Successive reports from the UK parliament since 2022 have highlight the inadequacies of air and missile defences in the UK against a growing threat envelope. Like many European states, missile defence – from UAVs, conventional, ballistic or hypersonic missiles – has been an area that successive governments have underinvested in. Events in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen and Israel make those points with rather startling clarity. Part of the remit that the UK SDR has been charged with is a 'so what' moment on missile defence. What would good look like? What would it cost? Are we (in the UK and other European states) starting from scratch or is there an existing baseline to build on? One of the global IAMD experts and gurus in such matters is Tom Karako from CSIS in Washington DC. His pragmatism on what can be delivered, what must be defended against, and success looks like is noteworthy. As a finale, Tom offers some metrics of success of any UK announcement of a missile defence capability for the UK that is announced over the coming year.

National security risk registers capture a large number of potential threats to societies. So should any review of national security or national defence. The impacts of these risks are often more severe than predicted, and we are due a few more (according to pattern analysis over the history of the planet). Professor Peter Frankopan, global best-selling author and world renowned historian, talks through some of the big issues that should be on the agenda of any threat-based national security review including food, health, fuel, water, and raw materials. The UK has a sound record of identifying these threats - even if successsive governments are poor at preparing for them. It is somewhat puzzling that any review of national security, like the one that the UK is currently undertaking, should be focused solely on military, geopolitical and technology risks and not those that might prove a much greater challenge to the safety and security of the state.

National security is an all-encompassing, cross-society endeavour: Any national security strategy must be that too, or it will miss critical elements and levers. In conversation with Maria de Goeij Reid from the Changing Character of War programme at Oxford University, the often-ignored aspects of resilience and economics within SDRs is brought starkly to the fore. By relying on convenient threats (ie those that have a military and foreign policy solution), policymakers, military and political leaders return to their comfortable intellectual spaces of known-knowns and simply reprioritise some policy and military capability: the result is a series of surprises (that have previously been predicted by other arms of government), for which the state is ill-prepared or not equipped to respond to. At the heart of all this lies an inability to understand adversaries, or our own decision-making. Maria makes a compelling case for putting more emphasis on strategic empathy using the lessons from advances in complexity economics.