On Monday, June 1, 2015 the Project for Study of the 21 st Century (PS21) held a discussion on "Defence of the Realm" with former UK Director Special Forces and Commander Field Army Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb. Here are some of the key points he made.

"It's not the strongest or most intelligent species that survives, it's the one that adapts. My experience is that those who wish us harm are adapting very quickly."

Traditional military capability is no longer enough. Potential adversaries - both non-state groups like Islamic State and rival powers such as Russia, China and Iran - are innovating fast in this space.

"We left the last century where the United States absolutely got to the finish line. Capability dominance -- they nailed it. What do we see now in those who test us today? They are now in fact capable of "capability avoidance". What will be the next step?

"There's a great line "if you don't like change, you'll like irrelevance even less". The danger is that we'll find that we've got into "capability irrelevance"

Read more...

Europe's strategy has been largely reminiscent of the Appeasement policy of Lloyd George before the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, which has once again failed to prevent the escalation of conflict, writes Cory Turner. A new strategy must be adopted, and it must overcome three hurdles: The capability of EU Member States to project 'hard power', European unity, and willingness to utilise this power.

EU Member States faced severe economic constraints in their Defence budgets. The UK government plans to continually cut its own, despite short term pretences, among others, threatening its capabilities to project power abroad. In an age of quickly changing methods of projecting power with the rise of terror groups and conflicts mainly being only localised, as with the Russian separatists (though not Russia itself), and so the need for large standing armies as Russia has for each Member State appears unnecessary for many. New, innovative methods for Defence are necessary to maintain Defence capabilities.

Read more...