The UK is among a diminishing minority of countries that recruit children to their armed forces. It does so despite ethical considerations, higher costs, lower outcomes of training, and the inability to deploy under-18s operationally. Jim Patrick Wyke makes the case for a more efficient all-adult military. The UN Convention on the Rights of the … Continue reading Minor Problems: The benefits of an all-adult recruitment model for the British Armed Forces
Europe needs a new Nuclear Forces Reduction Treaty rather than a Eurobomb
With huge uncertainties in the relationship between the United States, Russia and NATO, Europe is awash with proposals to share, ‘extend’ or procure nuclear weapons. To avoid further proliferation and the inevitable catastrophic failure of ‘deterrence’, Ian Davis and Paul Ingram argue for an urgent revival of nuclear disarmament between Europe and Russia.
The Lucas Plan Showed the Way to an Alternative Security Strategy
With political commitment to increase military spending, military production is thriving in the UK. But do these heavily subsidised industries meet the British people’s security needs, or the state’s desire to dominate abroad? Khem Rogaly argues for a new approach to industrial strategy that centres the needs of workers, people and planet.
Security Sector Reform: Rethinking state-society relations for long-lasting peace
Security Sector Reform is a necessary but complex part of most post-war transitions that often fails. Nadine Ansorg and Sabine Kurtenbach reflect on the challenges of such reforms and how the UK can contribute to building more sustainable, accountable, and effective security institutions in conflict-affected states.
A Crisis of Exceptionalism: UK military spending and the next election
As elections loom, both the main British political parties have set their sights on another major boost to the UK's military spending. Richard Reeve analyses what capabilities this aims to fund and what it might mean for the UK's already exceptional global role.
Hypnotized by ‘Deterrence’, or Just Spellbound by the Bomb?
2024 has begun with top-level calls to prepare our society and stock our arsenals for coming war. Sean Howard sees such hyperbole as paranoid and paradoxical if nuclear deterrence really does work. But what if it doesn’t?
UK Denies Toxic Nuclear Legacy in Kiribati
The second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is underway in New York. Absent (again) is the British government. Ben Donaldson of Spoiler Alert reports on how the UK is refusing to face up to the toxic legacy of nuclear testing in its former colony, Kiribati.
Why do we not know if US nuclear weapons are returning to Lakenheath?
Why do we not know if US nuclear weapons are about to return to the UK? Because British sovereignty over military-decision making has been surrendered to the United States and NATO, argues Ian Davis.
Monarchy, the Military and Democracy
The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth was a carefully choreographed reminder of the symbolic unity of the British monarchy, militarism, Church and empire. Diana Francis reflects on how these linkages both determine and distract from the crisis of our deeply flawed democracy and undermine the interests of ordinary people.
Stranded Assets: Climate, collusion and the geopolitics of a green transition
Mounting evidence of the accelerated breakdown of our climate and its human and economic consequences surely means that the game is up for fossil carbon. So why is the UK backtracking on its commitment to a green energy transition? Paul Rogers and Richard Reeve explain how elite interests are simply too entwined with militarised post-imperial geopolitics to challenge fossil fuel interests.
The MOD’s Accidental Roadmap to Peace: A radical reading of the Integrated Operating Framework
The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD) has been doing some rethinking about how it operates in peacetime, wartime and somewhere in-between. ‘Cassandra’ looks at the MOD’s Integrated Operating Concept and finds an unexpected roadmap for building peace in a world already at war, but only when read from back to front.
Heavy lift human security: The UK military and fragile states
In this essay, first published in a new volume by the Foreign Policy Centre and Peaceful Change Initiative, Richard Reeve analyses whether, after an era of catastrophic foreign military interventions and amidst talk of ever wider deployments and campaigns, there are still positive internationalist roles that the British Armed Forces could be fulfilling.