What does victory look like? It is the defining question of this moment. Far more hangs on the answer than many appreciate.

For more than four decades since the 1979 revolution, Iran has vexed successive American presidents. The 444-day hostage crisis set the tone. The Iran-Iraq war entrenched hostility. Tehran’s underwriting of Assad prolonged Syria’s agony. Its sponsorship of proxy militias has destabilised Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and beyond. And hanging over everything has been the persistent shadow of a nuclear weapon.

Now Donald Trump has acted when every predecessor has hesitated. History will judge the wisdom of his decision to strike Iran by what happens next. Will he be remembered as the leader who helped Iran turn a corner after decades of theocratic rule, or as the one who lost control of a conflict that spread far beyond the Middle East?

Military action is the visible part. Strategy is the test. Supporting the use of overwhelming force by a superpower, particularly at a time when the global order is fragmenting, is not a decision to treat lightly. Nor should Britain confuse loyalty with silence.

The “special relationship” is  not sustained by applause or sycophancy. It is strengthened by candour. Forged in the furnace of the Second World War, it rests on a shared commitment to defend international norms and uphold a stable, rules-based order. That partnership has endured because Britain has never been a passive ally. We bring geopolitical insight shaped by centuries of engagement, global diplomatic reach, intelligence connectivity, military credibility and the experience to anticipate second and third-order consequences. At critical moments, we have offered a steadying hand. Those who demand blind loyalty misunderstand the nature of the relationship. A true ally asks the difficult question: what next?

No one disputes the malign character of the Iranian regime, its repression at home, its export of extremism abroad, its destabilising influence across the region. Nor should we underestimate the seriousness of preventing nuclear proliferation in one of the world’s most volatile theatres.

But bombing is the easy part. What follows is infinitely more complex. Afghanistan and Iraq stand as cautionary tales. In both cases, initial military success was not matched by political clarity. Objectives evolved. End states blurred. Interventions that may have been justified faltered because there was no agreed answer to the question of victory. The cost was measured in lives, resources and credibility.

So, we return to the essential point: what does victory look like in Iran? Is it the destruction of nuclear facilities?  Regime change? Or something more ambiguous, a degraded capability without a defined political settlement?

Without clarity, mission creep becomes inevitable. Escalation follows. Miscalculation thrives in ambiguity. Iran’s proxy network retains the capacity for retaliation. The Strait of Hormuz remains a global economic pressure point. Western assets in the region are already under threat. Cyber reprisals, including against the UK, should be expected. Whatever reservations some may have had about the strike, the reality is unavoidable: Britain is implicated. Our interests are engaged. Fence-sitting is no longer an option.

Public equivocation now serves little purpose. The Prime Minister was slow to recognise both the risks and the opportunity: to help shape the outcome. If this moment is to lead to something more than a tactical exchange of blows, it must be guided towards a defined political end state.

When the bombs eventually stop, three broad outcomes present themselves. They don’t include the late Shah’s son returning to lead the country.

First there is the “Venezuela” outcome. After weeks of strikes, a back-channel deal emerges. Iran limits aspects of its nuclear and missile programmes and reins in some proxy activity. The regime survives, wounded but intact. Sanctions adjust. Rhetoric cools. Washington claims deterrence restored; Tehran claims resilience. The underlying contest endures. The Iranian people see little change.

Second there is the prospect of regime collapse followed by civil war. Too many leaders are removed. Command structures fracture. Protests reignite. Jubilation gives way to fragmentation as monarchists, reformists, ethnic movements and hardliners compete for power. In the vacuum, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps consolidates control. A theocracy gives way to military authoritarianism. Instability deepens. Again, ordinary Iranians pay the price.

Third is the possibility of a managed transition. The regime falls and the armed forces remain in barracks, or are compelled to do so. International support underwrites a transitional authority. Essential services stabilise. A constitutional framework emerges. Economic reconstruction begins. Iran takes its first steps toward a more open future.

As things stand, the first scenario appears most likely. The third is clearly the most desirable, for Iran, the region and the wider world. But it is also the most demanding. It would require sustained American commitment, coordinated diplomacy and deliberate statecraft. That makes it the least probable.

This is where Britain must play its part. After initial hesitation, we are now engaged. Whatever one’s view of how this conflict began, it is firmly in our national interest to shape how it ends.

Britain retains important advantages: historic Gulf relationships, deep regional expertise, diplomatic credibility and genuine convening power. We are a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Our intelligence services are respected worldwide. Our Armed Forces remain capable and fully interoperable with America’s. And where Washington often defaults to hard power, Britain brings patient diplomacy, coalition-building and the ability to translate military success into political settlement.

The lesson of the past quarter century is stark: military power can open the door, but only political clarity determines what comes next. The question is no longer whether Iran’s behaviour warrants confrontation. That moment has passed. The question is whether the West can define success – and persuade America to sustain the course required to achieve it.

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First published in The Telegraph on 4th March 2026.

Some compare today to 1937: revisionist powers challenging the status quo, states re-arming, weak international institutions unable to hold aggressors to account, rising tension between blocs. But the truth is more sobering. But it is worse than 1937.

We now live in an age of weapons of mass destruction, hypersonic missiles, cyber warfare, space-based targeting systems and AI-enabled battle networks. Non-state actors can strike with strategic impact. Economic interdependence is weaponised. Energy, food, supply chains and data cables are now tools of coercion.

The Iran conflict has exposed precisely where we are limited. Our airbase in Cyprus came under attack, but we have only three ships in the entire navy able to defend against a drone attack like that. Now the Greek navy is being drafted in to help. 

By any measure, our world is becoming more dangerous – not less. So why has our defence posture barely shifted? Why are we still structured for peacetime when the evidence points to gathering storm clouds? It takes years to build ships, manufacture tanks and produce combat aircraft. We are short on all three.

In 1990 Britain had over fifty frigates and destroyers. Today we have barely half a dozen deployable at any one time. The Army could field five divisions; today we would struggle to assemble one credible war-fighting division. The RAF once boasted 36 fast jet squadrons. Now we are down to six. Yes, warfare has evolved since the Cold War. But a glance at the battlefields of Ukraine and the Middle East confirms a simple truth: high-intensity conflict still demands serious hardware, armour, artillery, air power and naval strength, integrated with cyber and space capabilities. And we are found wanting.

What we need is quite simple: more of what we already have. The Achilles heel of our defence is not quality, it is quantity.

The Government’s response? Grand rhetoric. Soundbites. Long-term pledges to increase defence spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2035! Unfortunately, serious conflict might not wait for us to prepare before heading our way. The irony is that the homework has already been done. Last year’s Strategic Defence Review, led independently by Lord Robertson, General Sir Richard Barrons and Fiona Hill, did not pull its punches. It detailed the threats, exposed the capability gaps and set out what must be done to secure the nation. Almost a year on, not a single major procurement decision has followed. The promised Defence Investment Plan has yet to see daylight. Delays between No 10 and the Treasury have left us in strategic limbo. No contracts signed. No expanded production lines. No surge in munitions. No acceleration in shipbuilding. Drift has become policy.

The Treasury insists that we can’t afford it. But this is where the logic collapses. Security and prosperity are symbiotic. Half of Britain’s GDP relies on international trade. If sea lanes are disrupted, if access to overseas markets is curtailed, as we are seeing in the Strait of Hormuz, energy prices spike, insurance costs rise and our economy absorbs the shock.Undersea cables carry trillions in financial transactions daily. They are now routinely probed. Cyber attacks against British businesses are relentless.

Russia already has Britain in its crosshairs. Grey-zone warfare is not theoretical; it is under way. Failing to invest in defence does not save money. It simply increases the bill later, economically and strategically. Consider the reality. London has no dedicated air defence shield. Our army would exhaust its ammunition stocks in days in a Ukraine-scale conflict. We have 147 Challenger 3 tanks on order, formidable machines - but no standing industrial capacity to replace losses.

Russia, by contrast, produces hundres of tanks annually and has placed its economy on a war footing. When our aircraft carriers deploy, we struggle to crew the full escort group. Our armed forces are stretched thin, yet there are no serious plans to increase overall personnel strength. When the Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Richard Knighton, tells Parliament that “we are not as ready as we need to be for the kind of full-scale conflict that we might face,” we should not treat it as routine testimony. It is a warning.

In 1990 Britain topped the European league table for defence spending. Today, at roughly 2.4 per cent of GDP, we have slipped down the rankings as others move faster in response to a deteriorating security environment. This ultimately comes down to political will. No government relishes cutting domestic programmes to fund defence when the danger still feels distant. Health, education and welfare always carry louder immediate demands. But history teaches a harsh lesson: the public mood shifts dramatically when the threat becomes tangible. The British people have never lacked resolve. What they lack is an honest conversation about the scale of the risk and the cost of mitigation.

If the country fully understood the widening gap between the threats we face and the capabilities we possess, there would be overwhelming support for decisive action. Waiting for a major incident before the penny drops is not strategy. It is negligence.

What is required is maturity across the political spectrum. Defence must cease to be a partisan football. A cross-party agreement to ring-fence a dedicated1 per cent increase in income tax, roughly the cost of a daily cappuccino, exclusively for defence would transform our trajectory. It would provide predictable funding, unlock industrial capacity, stimulate skilled jobs across the country and send a clear signal to allies and adversaries alike.

This is not militarism. Nor is it war mongering, it is prudence.

Britain’s economic model depends on global stability. Our diplomatic influence depends on credible hard power. Our deterrence depends on readiness, not rhetoric. We can choose to act now, calmly, deliberately and collectively, or we can relearn, the hard way, that preparedness is far cheaper than recovery.

The storm clouds are gathering. The question is not whether the world is becoming more dangerous. It is whether Britain intends to be ready.

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First published in The I Paper on 3rd March 2026.

Afghanistan is a country most of us would rather forget. I learnt that the hard way a couple of years ago when I returned there and suggested that the West should re-engage with the Taliban. Few wanted to listen. 

After two decades of war, enormous cost and profound human sacrifice, the prevailing view was simple: we failed, we left and it was time to move on. I returned from Afghanistan convinced a Kandahar–Kabul divide was emerging, between authority and administration, belief and reality. The BBC now confirms that this fault line is hardening and may soon come to a head.

The Taliban is not a single, unified Sharia authority, but a movement split between two competing visions for Afghanistan’s future. On one side stands the supreme leader, Akhundzada, ruling by decree from Kandahar. Remote, deeply distrustful of the modern world, and surrounded by hardline ideologues, he seeks isolation and ideological purity. He shut down the internet, seeing only Western corruption in global connection. His edicts, particularly those banning girls’ education and restricting women’s rights, dominate international headlines and harden global opposition.

On the other side are the Kabul-based ministers who, in practice, run the country day-to-day. They switched the internet back on. They manage the economy, keep basic services functioning, and attempt, cautiously, to engage with the outside world. Let’s be clear: they are still hardliners. But by Taliban standards, they are pragmatists. They have seen the world and understand Afghanistan cannot function without trade, connectivity, education, including for women, and economic growth. 

Their argument is simple. If Afghanistan is to endure, it must not retreat but engage and evolve – eventually towards something closer to a Gulf-style state than a sealed emirate. Isolation will deepen suffering, fracture the movement and push Afghanistan into dependency, most likely on China, while opening space for extremist groups to flourish.

That internal tension was visible on the ground. In some communities I saw cautious tolerance and local flexibility. In others, ruthless enforcement was accompanied by fear. There were two Afghanistans co-existing uneasily. But this balance will not hold. One vision will prevail. Wise engagement is not about legitimising the Taliban or abandoning our principles. It is about recognising where influence still exists and where it will disappear entirely if we continue to disengage. It is also about acknowledging a duty to the Afghan people, many of whom feel utterly betrayed by the West’s abrupt departure.

China is in Afghanistan for one reason: minerals. Vast reserves of lithium, copper and rare earths, critical to modern industry and military power, make the country strategically irresistible. Disengagement does not keep China out. It clears the way. With the West absent, Beijing faces little competition in turning Afghanistan into a resource rich vassal state.

The human cost of isolation is equally stark. Around half of children under 11 receive no formal education at all. Not because of ideology alone, but because in many areas the schools simply do not exist. Without international support, a generation is growing up illiterate, unskilled, and cut off from any economic future, fertile ground for extremist recruitment.

Then there is terrorism, the very reason we went to Afghanistan in the first place. Isis-K, the successor to al-Qaeda, already numbers in the thousands. It has not been defeated, only contained. If the Kandahar hardliners prevail and Afghanistan slides further into isolation, that containment will fail. Space will open. History will repeat.

That instability does not stop at Afghanistan’s borders. Around 70,000 Afghans have already arrived in the UK since the Taliban takeover, through a mix of resettlement schemes and asylum routes, reshaping the domestic debate. Even Nigel Farage has argued that engagement is necessary if Afghanistan is ever to become stable and less oppressive, allowing people to return home rather than flee. Should the Kandahar hardliners win this internal battle, those numbers will not fall. They will rise.

Our grasp of what is happening in Afghanistan remains poor. Not helped by a failure to reopen our embassy. Talking does not mean appeasement. It means understanding fault lines, supporting those who grasp the necessity of engagement and preventing the worst outcomes: economic collapse, renewed terrorism and a generation lost, especially women and girls whose futures are being traded in a power struggle they did not choose.

The road to this moment has been long and painful. After 9/11, Britain joined America to dismantle al-Qaeda and deny terrorists a safe haven. That mission evolved into years of fighting the Taliban itself, at immense cost in lives, treasure, and national resolve. The eventual withdrawal, and the sight of Afghanistan handed back to the very insurgents we had spent two decades trying to defeat, was a humiliation that still cuts deep.

That history explains why many would rather look away. But however painful it is to confront, ignoring what is now unfolding in Afghanistan carries its own risks. The past cannot be undone, but the future can still be shaped. Britain once excelled at spotting threats before they exploded. Afghanistan is one of them again. Silence is not a strategy. Disengagement is not neutrality. It is a choice, and one we may yet come to regret.

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First published in The Telegraph on 16th January 2026.

Trump no longer sees the world as something to shape; but something to monetise, even at the expense of global security

Let’s be honest. Trump is Marmite.

His style, personality, and grand plans for America were always going to divide opinion. Yet just one year into office, this single individual has altered the direction of the world more profoundly than any other. Even some die-hard supporters, who argued for fresh, robust leadership in response to a deteriorating global order, are now beginning to ask questions.

Through the fog of global turmoil, Trumpism is increasingly clear. It is a style of power, transactional, theatrical, and profoundly impatient with complexity, shaped by the instincts of the President but larger than the man himself. At its core lies the belief that strength comes from dominance rather than cooperation. Relationships, whether with allies, institutions, or democratic norms, matter only so long as they deliver immediate personal or political gain.

Under Trumpism, the world is no longer something to shape; it is something to monetise, even at the expense of global security. We see this in tariffs fired at allies with abandon, disengagement from Europe, and the courting of its clearest adversary, Putin. It is through this ideological prism that Trump’s baffling proposal to build new battleships comes into focus.

You do not need to be an armchair admiral to understand how vulnerable large surface ships are today. Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea demonstrates this. Our own aircraft carriers dare not venture out without a ring of steel in the form of destroyers, frigates and submarines around them. Alone thanks swarm drones, hypersonic missiles and precision strike systems they are sitting ducks. So, what exactly is a battleship — and why revive it now?

Think Under Siege, the Hollywood blockbuster in which Steven Seagal plays the ‘cook’ aboard USS Missouri. Forty-five thousand tons of steel, armed with 16-inch guns capable of hurling shells twenty miles inland: the embodiment of brute-force naval supremacy. But Missouri was built in 1944 and decommissioned in 1992.

Battleships existed to fight other battleships and dominate the seas. In a world without satellites, long-range aircraft, or precision-guided weapons, the biggest gun often won. That world has gone. By 1945 their fate was sealed. Aircraft carriers, submarines, and missile technology rendered them obsolete.

Modern naval warfare is not about steel on steel. It is about sensors, networks, missiles, and information dominance. Today, a far smaller destroyer can unleash devastating firepower or cue strikes from aircraft, submarines, and space-based systems - all woven into a multi-domain kill web that dominates sea, air, and the electromagnetic spectrum. Against this backdrop, the idea of a new battleship is not bold. It is nostalgic. It mistakes size for strength and theatre for strategy.

Yet Trump proposes building around twenty such ships, each costing roughly $10 billion. In any serious conflict against a capable adversary, these vessels would be tracked from the moment they left port and likely neutralised in the opening hours. Hypersonic missiles do not care how thick your armour is.

So what is Trump really up to? Once again, the answer lies in Trumpism itself. China now fields the world’s largest navy, approaching 400 ships, while the United States struggles to maintain a fleet of under 300. More damning still is industrial capacity. China accounts for over half of global shipbuilding output; the U.S. just one hundredth.

At a time when grey-zone warfare is intensifying, maritime presence matters more than ever. Protecting sea lanes, trade routes, supply chains, and undersea cables requires a large, nimble, and persistent force, increasingly integrating autonomous and unmanned systems, not a handful of gargantuan, costly, obsolete prestige ships.

Unless, of course, you have quietly written off challenging China’s threat to the rules-based order. In that case, battleships make sense — not for deterrence, but for coercion. For intimidating weaker states where overwhelming force substitutes for diplomacy. This is not deterrence; it is intimidation.

Seen this way, there is method in Trump’s battleship madness: it is the equivalent of a loaded gun left on the table, visible, ready, and tempting to use.

An America that withdraws from alliances, hollows out soft power, and chases isolationist symbolism creates dangerous space for others to step in. While Washington indulges in nostalgia, Beijing and Moscow are studying the present. They are playing the long game.

We must learn from 2025. And 2026 must be the year we speak out rather than cow-tow to a foreign policy that weakens the very order it once upheld. America remains our closest security ally — but allies must be honest. If we stay silent, America’s isolation will harden, and our adversaries will enjoy the space gifted to them.

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First published in The Telegraph on 29th December 2025.

Tobias Ellwood joins BBC's Any Questions along with Sir Jake Berry, Josh Simons and Sonia Sodha.

Topics discussed were:

• How the UK is unprepared for a wider European Conflict
• Copying Australia in limiting Children's internet access
• The BMA's strike as flu cases surge testing the NHS

Listen here: BBC Sounds.

The President of Argentina is in the building! Don’t mention the war! Such is our embedded perspective of this country our minds immediately associate that country name with the Falklands. 

For a generation of Britons, memories of that war remain stark. The islands seized out of the blue, Thatcher’s decision to fight back, the departure of a formidable naval fleet, the ships going down, the landing and march across the islands and then the final Argentine surrender. Our victory shaped national identity, cemented Britain’s military reputation as a force to be reckoned with and upgrade our status on the international stage. 

Other than a few games of international rugby and an unwise visit by Top Gear, Argentina has featured little in Britain’s psyche and still seem through the prism of that 1982 military encounter. 

More than forty years on its time to update our views and President  Javier Gerardo Milei’s visit to Britain allows us to do just that.  Argentina is no longer governed by a military junta but by a democracy wrestling with profound economic challenges. Let’s deterred by any referencing to reclaim the Malvinas. All Presidents peddle these lines for domestic reasons. The threat is not there. But it could return if we fail to grasp the bigger picture. 

To confirm Britain’s position is immovable: the Falklands remain a British Overseas Territory, and as long as the islanders wish to remain so this status will not change. A poll in 2013 confirmed 99% of the population – are content with the status quo. Visit the islands today and the air land and sea  (including sub-surface) defences are impressive – more than enough to hold back a land incursion before back arrived. 

The President invites us to look beyond old reflexes. Argentina is seeking investment, stability, and new trading partnerships -including in defence. And this is where Britain faces a strategic choice. Maintaining our blanket ban on defence exports to Argentina may satisfy a certain patriotic sentiment, but it increasingly works against our broader geopolitical interests which get lost in populist noise of Falklands support. If the West steps back, we leave a vacuum, and China is ready to pounce. Its already active all over Latin America with financing, technology, and political influence that will shape the continent for decades. 

Argentina is openly weighing the purchase of Chinese fast jets and other platforms. When these deals are signed an army of Chinese ground support moves in providing infrastructure, training pipelines and upgrade development – ensnaring the military into reliance on China for its defence. Beijing would then seek a maritime base from which to patrol the Southern Atlantic in return for providing vital  ISTAR intelligence required to retake the islands. Worst case – one of the islands is gifted to China – to become a new military fortress, copying its Spratly islands playbook.  

Venezuela stands as a vivid example of what unfolds when Western nations disengage, and China fills the strategic void. It’s on  a serious mission to deepen economic, political and military ties throughout the region,  

As Chair of the Defence Committee, I recall in, March 2023, a telling moment during a visit to Washington. Our embassy there urged me to lobby our own Government to lift its objections to the United States selling F-16s to Argentina. The sticking point? The aircraft used a British-made Martin-Baker ejection seat. We refused. The sale proceeded anyway - simply with a non-British replacement. We protected nothing while forfeiting influence. 

This highlights a wider truth: the old, populist instinct to block arms exports  to Argentina misunderstands the modern landscape. Operationally, today’s advanced platforms incorporate monitoring systems (nick named kill switch) and, where necessary, safeguards that can limit or disable capability. 

 Engagement  with our old foe no longer carries the same risks it once did. But disengagement carries far greater ones: pushing states toward China, forfeiting leverage, and weakening the rule-of-law-based international system we claim to support. 

South America is entering a new geopolitical chapter. If Argentina is looking outward again, we should not push it further into Beijing’s orbit. The Falklands are settled - by international law and by the will of the islanders. The strategic question now is different: will Britain choose to shape Argentina’s future relationship with the West, or simply watch others do so in our place? 

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First Published by GB News on 11th December 2025.

America's new National Security Strategy confirms - Europe is alone.

How should Europe work with Trump? European leaders have slipped into a dangerous playbook in how to ‘manage’ the volatile and unpredictable President. Stroke the ego, flatter the man, praise his leadership - and hopefully avoid vilification and an avalanche of tariffs. 

Reality check: it’s not working. The more we bow to Trump, the more we are taken for granted and the more he wields American power to divide us. Yet so normalised has our behaviour become, state visits to the Oval Office now resemble scenes from The Godfather. Leaders shuffling in, offering praise, taking a knee, desperately hoping any live press questions don’t send the President off-script. By indulging one man’s impulses, we’ve allowed our collective voice to shrink, our strategic clarity to fade, and Western resolve to erode. 

It’s time to end the subservience - tiptoeing around Trump not out of admiration but out of fear: fear he’ll walk away from NATO, fear of retaliation, fear of being blamed should the US disengage from Europe altogether. In this climate of hesitation, the transatlantic relationship has become dangerously one-sided. 

Last week’s release of Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) sadly confirms how pointless and indeed humiliating our collective kowtowing has been. The 33-page document reads like an isolationist’s manifesto, presenting a seismic ideological shift in global engagement. New priority: power, interest, and control. Economic nationalism. No global leadership for its own sake. Primacy of nations over international institutions. And a deliberate disengagement from Europe while seeking improved relations with Russia. 

This foreign policy upheaval, upending decades of American commitment to defending global order, comes at a time when the world has not been this dangerous since World War II. Yet it’s not entirely unexpected. Reflect on Trump’s approach to ending the war in Ukraine and it’s clear that the ‘Trump doctrine’, now formally published, has been driving Washington’s thinking since he came into office. 

He returned to the White House promising fresh resolve in bringing peace to Ukraine. Europe showed extraordinary patience, giving him space to wield American clout to end the war. What’s clear today, confirmed in the NSS, is how Washington and Europe differ in interpreting Moscow and its imperialist ambitions in Europe. Driven by his transactional, nationalist worldview, old alliances are questioned, commitments diluted, and statecraft replaced with deals. Ending the war in Ukraine is not about standing up to tyranny but about bringing fast peace to secure post-war resource deals with Russia. 

It’s now official: European security is not a priority. We can no longer remain blind to Trump’s increasingly pro-Moscow pattern of behaviour. From the very public belittling of President Zelensky in the Oval Office back in February to the regular pauses in delivery of American military kit and the insistence that Europe now foot the bill - not forgetting the optics of that Alaska summit, bringing Putin back in from the diplomatic cold even as Ukraine fights for survival. 

This all places in perspective just how amateurish and crass the US–Russia 28-point plan for peace turned out to be. Written without Ukrainian or European input, it read more like a Russian wish list than a credible attempt at peace: sweeping territorial concessions, a halved Ukrainian military, and a commitment never to join NATO — proposals unacceptable to Kyiv and to Europe alike. So why even promote the plan - unless it was part of a higher strategy to re-engage with Russia. 

Meanwhile, each month of delay has given Putin strategic space to evolve his faltering 2022 invasion into a sustained war machine. Slow Western decision-making (by Biden and Trump) has allowed the Kremlin to adapt, mobilise and escalate in ways that would have been impossible had we acted earlier. Russia now runs a full wartime economy, a 40% surge in defence spending, round-the-clock weapons production, and sanction-busting supply lines from China, Iran and North Korea. It produces more ammunition each month than the US and Europe combined. It continues to seize territory, at enormous human cost, while we debate peace terms. 

And Ukraine is not the only alarm flashing red on the global dashboard. The world has changed more in five years than in the previous thirty. The next five will determine the direction of the international order for decades. 

Beyond Ukraine, Russia has escalated grey-zone attacks, including against the UK: cyber operations targeting institutions and parliamentarians; maritime probing near undersea cables and North Sea infrastructure; disinformation and political interference designed to weaken Britain’s resolve. Left unchecked, these will escalate further — likely culminating in a major deniable attack on critical UK infrastructure. 

America is stepping back from global leadership and aligning with Europe’s chief adversary. No longer can we outsource our security to Washington, leaving us vulnerable. In short, the world has entered a new era on security, and we have been dithering to Washington’s tune for too long. 

It is time to break from this flawed approach and re-write our own security strategy. It’s time to give Ukraine the full capability required to reclaim its territory. And to prevent an emboldened Russia from dragging Europe into a wider conflict. Anything less is abdication. 

-END-

First Published in The Telegraph 9th December 2025.