Defence – Wessex Regionalists

England Expects

Last week, we reviewed the Tories’ integrated defence and foreign policy review. This week, there’s a more specific document, Defence in a Competitive Age. As usual with this lot, what’s not said speaks louder than what is. As far as defence of the post-war rules-based order is concerned, the title’s a clue that the whiteContinueContinue reading “England Expects”

Weapons Of Mass Delusion

One of the party’s longest-standing members, Douglas Stuckey, whose interest in current affairs dates back to the Spanish Civil War, described Boris Johnson’s defence and foreign policy review as the worst he’d ever seen. Dove or hawk, there’s something in it to displease everyone but it’s more like chickens coming home to roost. Having BrexitedContinueContinue reading “Weapons Of Mass Delusion”

Let Them Eat K-rations

The government has announced a £24.1 billion investment in defence at a time when the rest of the economy is struggling due to the ongoing effects of Covid-19, and when the cliff-edge that is Brexit is fast approaching. The prime minister was vague at PMQs about what the money would be spent on, so don’tContinueContinue reading “Let Them Eat K-rations”

All Washed Up

Andrew Parker, the head of MI5, told BBC Radio 4 listeners today that the service could do with new surveillance powers to tackle the terrorist threat. That’s hardly surprising, according to the cynical view that you never let a good crisis go to waste. If necessary, you create one. We face a toxic combination. OnContinueContinue reading “All Washed Up”

Defence: Deceit & Denial

We’ve discussed before the centuries-old military occupation of Wessex by the UK’s armed services, and how this distorts both our economy and our objectivity in making moral judgments about foreign intervention or the ability to ‘project influence’ abroad. There’s also an environmental cost. Enter Tidworth from the north at present and you’ll find it aContinueContinue reading “Defence: Deceit & Denial”

Anchoring the Future

Popular history has it that the Royal Navy was founded by King Ælfred the Great. It’s not quite accurate – his father, King Æthelwulf also had a fleet of some sort – but the idea of England’s first sailor-king has maintained its powerful hold on the imagination. So if naval shipbuilding in England began inContinueContinue reading “Anchoring the Future”

Upping the Occupation

Nearly a quarter-century after the Cold War ended, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond this week announced detailed plans for the withdrawal of British forces from Germany (along with the £600 million annual injection into the German economy that they represent). The Army’s presence there dates from the Second World War, nearly 70 years ago. We mayContinueContinue reading “Upping the Occupation”

Blue Touch Paper

It’s an interesting possibility that those who want a kind of war, on terror, on non-growth, or whatever, are in fact aching for a real fight between countries. War is the dominant thought that occupies their waking moments. David Cameron and his party don’t do morality. The idea of a supposedly ethical foreign policy, with itsContinueContinue reading “Blue Touch Paper”

The Great Dictator

David Cameron told the CBI yesterday that he wants a war economy, with himself as Winston Churchill, to pull the country out of recession.Of course, it’s all ridiculous, prep school nonsense. The only real war is being fought by British troops in Afghanistan, despite public opposition. No-one in the UK is going to be shotContinueContinue reading “The Great Dictator”

Defending the Defensible

For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot.Rudyard Kipling, Tommy (1890)Never in the field of current affairs have there been so many unflattering headlines about the military as we have witnessed this weekend. Marines accused of murder. Retired topContinueContinue reading “Defending the Defensible”