Mark Urban

4 days ago | markurban.substack.com | Mark Urban

Anybody who has worried about the hollowed-out state of the UK armed forces in an age of global crises should welcome the ambition and intent of this Strategic Defence Review. After decades of decline and pretence, it marks the beginning of meaningful change. It is driven by adversity. “For the first time since the end of the Cold War”, it notes, ‘the UK faces multiple, direct threats to its security, prosperity, and democratic values”.

6 days ago | thetimes.com | Mark Urban

When he was invited to a demonstration of a new secret weapon at Hatfield Park, Hertfordshire, in February 1916, the secretary of state for war was distinctly underwhelmed. Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, having watched the prototype tanks chugging along at walking pace, left early, dismissing what he had seen as “a pretty mechanical toy, but without serious military value”. To its advocates this new machine was an answer to the prayers of those fighting and dying in the trenches.

1 week ago | markurban.substack.com | Mark Urban

The UK will publish its Strategic Defence Review or SDR next week and those who follow the topic have been waiting the best part of a year for this. It will be a weighty work, designed to reverse decades of post-Cold War military decline, while getting the country to think seriously again about possible conflict with other states – a big change requiring an equally seismic shift in the national mentality.

1 week ago | markurban.substack.com | Mark Urban

On Thursday (22nd May), lawyers fighting a case for a former Afghan commando seeking to come to Britain obtained papers that showed, among other things, that a single officer in UK Special Forces HQ vetoed 1,585 Afghan applicants coming to this country. These Afghan soldiers faced torture and death at the hands of the Taliban if the British authorities refused them asylum.

2 weeks ago | markurban.substack.com | Mark Urban

Earlier this week the UK hosted a summit with leaders of the European Union in London. Among the headline items was a new defence pact, something nearly everyone has agreed would be a good idea post-Brexit. Why not get closer working ties in our democratic neighbourhood when we have not just Putin but Trump to worry about now? After all fear of Russia and that the US security guarantee may not be reliable are spurring a big defence spending splurge across Europe.