The loss of the submarine Kursk in August 2000 exposed the fragile condition of Russia's navy at the start of the century. Ageing equipment, maintenance shortcomings and limited rescue capability combined to reveal how far the fleet had declined since the Soviet collapse. The disaster did not in itself trigger reform, but it became a powerful symbol of neglect and reinforced the political case for reinvestment in maritime power.

During the following decade, Russia's naval trajectory began to shift. Increased defence spending, supported by rising state revenues, enabled a gradual move away from the numerical mass of the Soviet fleet towards a smaller but more capable force. Submarine capability became the central pillar of this modernisation. The Borei class strengthened the survivability of the sea-based nuclear deterrent, while the Yasen class introduced a new generation of attack submarines designed for strike, intelligence and anti-submarine roles. In this structure, the Northern Fleet retained its position as the centre of gravity, hosting the majority of Russia's nuclear-powered submarines and remaining central to strategic planning.

Read more...

Strategy changes gradually before it changes suddenly. Geography, including oceans, does not change; the political weather, and responses to it, do.

The disappearance of the Soviet Union removed the organising threat around which NATO maritime planning had revolved. Russia in the 1990s faced economic collapse, institutional turmoil and a navy struggling to keep vessels seaworthy. Patrol rates fell sharply, maintenance backlogs accumulated, and Western attention shifted towards expeditionary operations elsewhere. Force structures contracted across the Alliance. Escort numbers fell, and maritime focus drifted away from the North Atlantic.

The arithmetic of presence became increasingly stark. Modern warships are far more capable than their predecessors, yet a warship can only be in one place at one time, however sophisticated its sensors or weapons. The operational canvas itself never shrank: the core waters of the Greenland-Iceland-UK corridor cover on the order of six hundred thousand square miles — an area larger than France and Germany combined — far beyond the reach of continuous physical presence by even a substantial escort fleet.

Read more...

If you travel on the London Underground you will hear the familiar instruction: "Mind the gap."
It is not theatrical. It is not alarmist. It is a reminder that space exists between platform and carriage, and that inattention carries consequences.
In the North Atlantic there is another gap — between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom — that shaped Cold War strategy and continues to shape European security.
This article sets the historical baseline for a series examining that maritime corridor: how it functioned during the Cold War; how attention to it diminished after 1991; and why it has re-emerged as a strategic concern in an era of renewed great power competition and climate change.
To understand current debate about NATO's northern flank, one must begin when the GIUK Gap was treated not as cartography, but as a strategic fulcrum.

Read more...

When Democratic Decline Comes Through the Post Room, Not the Barricades, Recognition and Reaction are Vital

When people imagine a democracy being undermined, they often picture something dramatic—soldiers in the streets, a leader refusing to leave office, or a sudden suspension of elections. But democracy rarely collapses in a single dramatic moment. More often, it is worn down slowly, through legal changes, administrative pressure, and the reshaping of public perception.
The Brennan Center for Justice, a respected non-partisan institute based at New York University School of Law, has documented this process in the United States since the last Presidential election with unusual clarity. Its Timeline of the Trump Administration's Efforts to Undermine Elections traces a series of actions—rule changes, personnel pressure, centralisation, and the rewarding of those who cast doubt on elections—that together show how democratic norms can be bent long before they break.

Read more...

The Geopolitical impact today of Lincoln's 1862 Template for Indian Dispossession
By Joseph E Fallon
(with additional material by Robin Ashby)

Introduction

In the annals of history, the American Civil War is often remembered for its seismic confrontation over slavery — but its lesser-examined social template for Indigenous policy has left a long shadow on global governance norms.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln and his administration sanctioned a pattern of territorial coercion, legal dispossession, and forced relocation of Native American populations in the Minnesota and elsewhere. Though couched in the language of "civilisation" and "security," the policies established a precedent of state power to redraw human boundaries in pursuit of strategic aims. The furore over Greenland raises similar concerns.

Read more...

By: Dr Agostinho Paiva da Cunha

The United States, under the aegis of Donald Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, have inaugurated a new era of conflict that compares to a state of war. This is not a war based on kinetic force, even though its military power remains an ever-present shadow. It is, rather, a Cognitive War. This strategy has been widely used both internally and in relations with allies and international partners, aiming for hegemony through the colonization of thought.

Read more...

Executive Summary — Arctic Security & Environmental Change, 2025

Read more...

Crossroads:
The 1862 Great Sioux Uprising and its geopolitical implications for today

A two part series by Joseph E. Fallon

Part 1
Lincoln's template for the dispossession of American Indians

One of the first Indian treaties to be broken by the United States was a colonial treaty with the Wea tribe. In 1751, "the Wea and the Piankashaw signed a treaty with the British and accepted an alliance with the Pennsylvania colony." With the outbreak of the American Revolution, the Wea allied themselves with the British. It was a fateful decision. As the war ended, the Wea wrote to London. "In endeavoring to assist you, it seems we have wrought our own destruction."

By a series of new treaties with the new republic, the Wea were forced further and further West. The process of dispossessing the Wea took seventy years. In 1862, Lincoln created a template to expediate dispossession of American Indians in months instead of decades.

Read more...