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Another very interesting long read on the Ukraine war, with important and urgent lessons for our defence procurement.

Is the Ukraine War an RMA?
https://www.chinatalk.media/p/ukraines-drone-war

While it’s true that you always arm to fight the next war than the last one, the war in Ukraine has torn up much of the playbook when it comes to how a land war is fought in the 21st century.

Both sides have used millions, millions of small drones, not to mention the longer-range large one-way drones currently taking out O&G facilities across Russia.

One good thing it has shown, is that current Western kit is considerably better than Soviet kit, although the Chinese are still pushing the innovation so we need to make sire we don’t fall behind.

The single most important lesson for me is that, given a severely constrained budget, we need to stop wasting money on legacy kit, especially the flawed stuff.
So truncate or terminate Ajax, and definitely terminate Challenger 3. An MBT is about the least urgent requirement for the UK, and Challenger 3 will be used by literally no one else in NATO.
And use the money saved build the army some serious artillery (with a year's worth of ammunition rather than a week's) and drone capacity.

The choices for the navy and airforce are a lot less clear (though again, all of their kit is useless without a far larger stock of munitions).
We need to make some choices, though, rather than trying to do a bit of everything, badly.

Agreed. I hope the military notice the point made about how the Ukrainians have been using helicopters very successfully to hit drones and are getting the Army Air Corps practicing on this - if it is a successful tactic then use the money from tanks on light, fast well armed helicopters.

I do think that the long term spending should be done on the basis of we will only be fighting in Arctic/Baltic/Eastern Europe on land and the North Sea, Arctic Sea, and North Atlantic in a defensive war. We should not be getting involved in Africa, Mid East or Pacific so should arm and prep purely for what would work in “our areas” and the conditions and enemy.

If the world is in such a shitshow that we need to be involved in a war elsewhere like a world war then we will have to adapt as best as we can with what we have but until then we really have one enemy - Russia, in a pretty specific physical environment that we can prepare for with allies.

Its all going to kick off again isn't it?

The nation needs to stop with the 'don't look back in anger'. We need to be livid, we need to be angry we need to show the inherent exceptionalism of British civilisation and express that anger to the institutions and the people that man them and their failure, not the individuals who shouldnt be here, or came because it was a rational choice for them to do so, but the people who let them in. Every politician needs to be afraid that the ballot box is coming for them. Every local government officer, every civil servant, every charity worker and activist who's charity is supping from the taxpayer and is complicit in how our nation has rapidly transformed over the last decade.
But it makes me feel a bit dirty that the change is through Farage and Reform.

It is not wrong to wonder why this violent thug was given asylum after one violent attack. Now up to 5, and not wrong to want him deported.

A few here would see him as a victim of racism.

https://x.com/bea_johanssen/status/1984574712266023361?s=61

It is quite unbelievable. Anyone coming here should have to survive on their own , no benefits of any kind whatsoever and any crimes means instant deportation.

I have a friend who has moved here from Canada. As I understand it, part of his conditions for being allowed to stay here is that he won't claim any benefits, he has had to take out insurance in case of having to be looked after by the NHS, and he agrees not to commit any crimes on pain of deportation. Of course, he's perfectly able to support himself and there's no reason to believe he's going to commit any crimes. But it's baffling that we can apply conditions like this to the 'good' immigrants that we want while spending so much on the 'bad' immigrants that we do not.

I see it COP30 this week in Brazil. There’s been little fanfare about it in the lead up to it. A few years ago it would have had significant coverage.

Main countries aren’t bothering. Hard to see what it can achieve aside from the regular demand for ‘climate reparations’.

And, yet, the problem is more serious than ever.

It just goes to show how fickle and shallow much opinion is on this.

Musk has spoken quite a bit in the last 48 hours about climate change. I think his view is correct. This doesn’t need to be solved at the cost of all else in the next 5 years, but it needs to have been addressed roughly by the time the century is out.

In truth, man made climate change is rather low down the list for likely causes of civilisational collapse.

That's not really how climate change works though, is it?

It's going to be exceptionally difficult to reverse and, while there is enormous uncertainty about the severity and nature of the ongoing damage, it's almost certainly better value to reduce emissions now than spend billions on flood defences and deal with mass migration from Africa, crop blight etc etc. Or at least it is if you are younger or care about the next few generations.

The same people who were denying climate change existed have now reached a final, late stage of denialism where they insist it's not worth doing anything about. It's pathetic and transparent.

1) Most remaining civilians have not fled El Fasher - likely trapped or dead
2) RSF continues mass killings
3) Displaced people visible in Garni, location of reported gross human rights abuses.
https://x.com/HRL_YaleSPH/status/1984438122369659362

Hundreds of thousands are at risk of murder in Sudan.
Or already dead.

I've been banging on about the shameful lack of media interest in the war in Sudan (and the DRC and Myanmar) for a few years. Wall-to-wall Gaza news (which is also a horrific situation, don't get me wrong) but .. that's it. Mono-focus. They got bored of Ukraine, so onto Gaza for a while. Now they're beginning to get bored of Gaza.

Now I expect lots of reports about Sudan, hand-wringing podcasts with media people asking media people some moderately difficult questions to which they already know the answers,

I remember - many years ago - and been reminded by a comment up-thread about the World Service. It really was a marvel. News from deeply involved correspondents across the globe. Now their main news programme is just a copy'n'paste from various other BBC show snippets.

All to save the money it'd cost for an episode or two of "Celebrity Bake-Off". Though I guess training and allowing journalists to flourish costs almost 3-4 episodes.