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  • UK National Resilience

    UK National Resilience
    Oct 24 2025
    The United Kingdom's national resilience is a critical pillar of its security in an increasingly volatile global environment. As geopolitical tensions rise, particularly with adversaries such as Russia, the UK faces multifaceted threats that target its centres of gravity: key societal, economic, and infrastructural elements that underpin national stability. These centres include critical national infrastructure (CNI) such as telecommunications, water, energy, and social cohesion, which are vital to the functioning of modern society. In response to these threats, defence primes have advocated for investments in ground-based air defence (GBAD) systems, often citing Israel's Iron Dome as a model for protecting against missile and drone attacks. However, the UK's geopolitical and geographical context differs significantly from Israel, rendering direct comparisons problematic.
    While GBAD systems have a role, they are not the primary solution to the UK's immediate threats, which are more likely to involve hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, and disruptions to CNI rather than conventional missile barrages. This essay examines the challenges to UK national resilience, the limitations of GBAD as a solution, recent events targeting UK vulnerabilities, and the broader strategies needed to bolster resilience within the NATO framework.
    Understanding Centres of Gravity and UK Vulnerabilities
    In military and strategic theory, centres of gravity are the critical capabilities or assets that, if disrupted, significantly weaken a nation's ability to function. For the UK, these include CNI (telecommunications, energy, water, and transport), economic stability, public trust, and social cohesion. Unlike traditional military targets such as bases or airfields, these centres are civilian in nature but essential to national security. Adversaries seeking to undermine the UK are increasingly likely to employ hybrid tactics - combining cyberattacks, disinformation, sabotage, and economic disruption - to destabilise these assets without resorting to direct military confrontation.
    Recent events underscore the vulnerability of these centres. In 2024, reports indicated that the UK faces approximately 90,000 cyberattacks daily, many attributed to Russia and its allies, targeting government systems, financial institutions (FSI), and critical national infrastructure (CNI). These attacks aim to disrupt digital infrastructure, steal sensitive data, or sow distrust in institutions. Additionally, suspected sabotage of undersea cables in the Baltic Sea in 2024 highlighted the fragility of the UK's international communications networks, which are critical for economic and security functions. Such incidents demonstrate that adversaries prioritise non-kinetic means to degrade the UK's resilience, exploiting its reliance on interconnected systems.

    The UK's population centres are also vulnerable to disruptions that do not involve missiles. Power cuts, for instance, could paralyse urban areas, disrupting healthcare, transport, and food supply chains. The 2019 UK power outages, though not attributed to hostile action, exposed how a single failure in the National Grid could affect millions, with hospitals and transport systems struggling to cope. Similarly, social media-inspired unrest, as seen in the 2011 London riots and more recently in Southport, illustrates how disinformation or orchestrated campaigns could amplify social tensions, undermining public order. These examples highlight that adversaries can achieve strategic goals by targeting civilian infrastructure and societal cohesion rather than military assets.
    Defence Primes and the Push for GBAD Systems
    Defence primes, such as MBDA and Northrop Grumman, have seized on the growing threat perception to advocate for enhanced air and missile defence systems, particularly GBAD. They point to Israel's Iron Dome, which has successfully intercepted short-range rockets and drones, as a case study for why the UK should invest i...
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    16 Min.
  • The Most Dangerous Invention: Gwynne Dyer and the History of War

    The Most Dangerous Invention: Gwynne Dyer and the History of War
    Oct 22 2025
    Why Short Histories Matter
    War has long been the domain of soldiers and scholars: studied by the few, practised by the fewer, but suffered by the many. In the absence of lived memory, the risk is that societies forget what war really means.
    This fading memory matters. The 20th century saw war reach its historical zenith through extreme industrialised conflict. It was a time of mass mobilisation, unprecedented global integration, and civilian populations on the front and rear lines like never before. But today, nearly a century later, no full generation left alive can truly compute the scale of destruction the first half of the 1900s wrought outside of study, media, or memory.
    Total war is often abstract. It is reduced to historical footage, elevated by academic study, rendered across film and games, or reflected through anecdotes by those who have experienced conflict in our lifetime. That makes public understanding not just desirable, but necessary. As Great Power Competition returns, we risk confronting future war without a logical and emotional foundation needed to respect its costs.
    That is the challenge Gwynne Dyer takes up in The Shortest History of War. If war must be made intelligible to the many and not just the few, then its complexity simplified is key. His message is clear: violence certainly exists in nature, and fighting is too common across the animal kingdom; but war is something distinctly human. It is an institutional practice born of hierarchy, sustained by coercion, and shaped by political purpose.
    What the Book Gets Right: The Impressive Scope
    Dyer's narrative unfolds in broad chronological arcs, but its power lies in rejecting determinism. War, he argues, has never been inevitable and has always been enabled. Elites choose it, institutions entrench it, and ideologies justify it.
    Going as far back as historically plausible for a self-respecting scholar, Dyer systematically dismantles romantic myths of honourable violence and the noble savage. Instead, he traces how conflict has been shaped by degrees of industrialisation across millennia, various forms of nationalism before and after Westphalia was even a thing, evolving methods of bureaucracy long before Mandarins, and even game theory as a thought experiment.
    These are forces, Dyer outlines, which rhyme across history, reinforcing the institutional logic of violence and escalating its lethality. War is not some immutable condition of humanity - it is a social technology. A political invention, forged in the surplus of early agriculture and sustained by organised power ever since.
    One of the book's most striking passages illustrates the intense changes in just the last few centuries. Outlining the use of phalanx-style tactics, Dyer observes that a well-trained army from 1500 BCE (if rearmed with iron instead of bronze) could plausibly hold its own against one from 1500 CE. Yet within just a century of that, the military revolutions of the 17th century made such continuity impossible. The accelerating pace of change, particularly in our lifetime, has transformed war's destructiveness beyond recognition. Where war once meant hours of bloody attrition with swords or muskets, today it can mean a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile capable of erasing cities in minutes. The gap between what war was and what it could become has never been wider.
    Nowhere is this institutional absurdity clearer than in Dyer's analysis of Cold War nuclear doctrines. Mutually assured destruction (MAD), he writes, was not strategic brilliance but a global suicide pact rationalised into orthodoxy. What began as deterrence hardened into doctrine - a logic so widely accepted that he says its contradictions became invisible. But The Shortest History of War is not a book about tactics, doctrines, or battlefield dynamics. It is not concerned with how wars are fought, but why war became possible at all.
    Dyer is philosophical as any other scholar of war, but he nonetheless br...
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    12 Min.
  • The Challenges Of Littoral Warfare For The UK: A Critical Perpective

    The Challenges Of Littoral Warfare For The UK: A Critical Perpective
    Oct 17 2025
    The views expressed in this Paper are the authors', and do not represent those of MOD, the Royal Navy, RNSSC, or any other institution.
    The transformation of the UK's Commando Forces (CF), anchored in the Littoral Response Groups (LRGs) and the CF concept, represents an ambitious shift in British expeditionary warfare. However, its viability is undermined by structural and doctrinal disjoints that question its ability to operate effectively in contested littoral environments. Chief among these issues are: the persistent disconnect between the British Army and Royal Navy (RN); inconsistencies between UK Joint Theatre Entry Doctrine and emergent CF operational concepts; and the historical realities of military operations in littorals - especially the Baltic - which highlight the need for mass and endurance over rapid raiding.
    The Army-Navy Disconnect: An Enduring Structural Weakness
    CF transformation seeks to create an agile, distributed force capable of operating in complex littoral zones. However, its success is constrained by the systemic disconnect between the RN and Army. Despite their transformation into a high-readiness raiding force, the CF remains reliant on 17 Port and Maritime Regiment RLC (17P&M) for strategic lift and sustainment. Recent analysis underscores 17P&M's indispensable role in enabling amphibious operations, yet it is a relatively misunderstood, under-resourced, and neglected capability within the broader amphibious force structure, and one that remains firmly under an Army Op Order.1
    The Army's focus on land-centric deterrence in Europe - particularly through the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps and recently deployed Allied Reaction Force - suggests limited institutional buy-in for amphibious operations beyond logistical support. Ironically, it is the Army's reliance on 'red carpet' port-to-port transfer of forces that underpins its continental strategy, as evidenced in the seaborne deployment of 1UK Div to Romania via Greece2 and the recent signing of a 'strategic agreement' with Associated British Ports to expand staging options beyond Marchwood military port.3 This absence of a unified Army-Navy vision for expeditionary warfare leaves the UK in a precarious position: a CF designed for high-intensity littoral raiding, but dependent on an Army-enabled logistics structure that remains geared towards continental land warfare.
    Similarly, the CF's raiding focus risks confusing the amphibious shipping requirement by ignoring the Army's need for logistical mass, as well as other doctrinally recognised amphibious operations such as Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief.[not
    Doctrinal Incoherence: Joint Theatre Entry vs. Commando Force Operations
    The UK's Joint Theatre Entry Doctrine emphasizes securing lodgements to facilitate force build-up and follow-on operations. Historically, this has required large-scale amphibious capabilities, pre-positioned logistics, and joint enablers. Yet, the emergent CF concept of operations prioritizes distributed, small-unit raiding without a clear pathway to sustained presence or operational endurance. This is accentuated by naval-centric command and control; the CF is a maritime force element composed of naval platforms and personnel optimised to support a maritime - rather than land - campaign plan.
    Critiques of raiding highlights its fundamental limitations: it is resource-intensive, difficult to sustain, and often a tactic of operational necessity rather than strategic advantage.4 While raiding can disrupt adversary activity, it cannot replace force projection or control of key maritime terrain, both of which require relative mass and sustainment. By orienting the CF around raiding without a credible joint force integration plan, the UK risks investing in a force that is tactically innovative but strategically irrelevant.
    Moreover, this raises a crucial question: if the UK's future amphibious posture is designed for raiding rather than securing and holding terrain, how d...
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    8 Min.
  • Small Powers, Big Impact: Asymmetric Warfare in the Age of Tech

    Small Powers, Big Impact: Asymmetric Warfare in the Age of Tech
    Oct 15 2025
    Incremental adaptation in modern warfare has astonished military observers globally. Ukraine's meticulously planned Operation Spider Web stands as a stark reminder of how bottom-up innovation combined with hi-tech solutions can prove their mettle on the battlefield. It has also exposed the recurring flaw in the strategic mindsets of the great powers: undermining small powers, their propensity for defence, and their will to resist. Having large-scale conventional militaries and legacy battle systems, great powers are generally guided by a hubris of technological preeminence and expectations of fighting large-scale industrial wars. In contrast, small powers don't fight in the same paradigm; they innovate from the bottom up, leveraging terrain advantage by repurposing dual-use tech, turning the asymmetries to their favour.
    History offers notable instances of great power failures in asymmetric conflicts. From the French Peninsular War to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, these conflicts demonstrate the great powers' failure to adapt to the opponent's asymmetric strategies. This is partly due to their infatuation with the homogeneity of military thought, overwhelming firepower and opponents' strategic circumspection to avoid symmetric confrontation with the great powers.
    On the contrary, small powers possess limited means and objectives when confronting a great power. They simply avoid fighting in the opponent's favoured paradigm. Instead, they employ an indirect strategy of attrition, foster bottom-up high-tech innovation and leverage terrain knowledge to increase attritional cost and exhaust opponents' political will to fight. Similarly, small powers are often more resilient, which is manifested by their higher threshold of pain to incur losses, an aspect notably absent in great powers' war calculus.
    In the Operation Spider Web, Ukraine employed a fusion of drone technology with human intelligence (HUMINT) to attack Russia's strategic aviation mainstays. Eighteen months before the attack, Ukraine's Security Services (SBU) covertly smuggled small drones and modular launch systems compartmentalised inside cargo trucks. These drones were later transported close to Russian airbases. Utilising an open-source software called ArduPilot, these drones struck a handful of Russia's rear defences, including Olenya, Ivanovo, Dyagilevo and Belaya airbases. Among these bases, Olenya is home to the 40th Composite Aviation Regiment - a guardian of Russia's strategic bomber fleet capable of conducting long-range strikes.
    The operation not only damaged Russia's second-strike capability but also caught the Russian military off guard in anticipating such a coordinated strike in its strategic depth. Russia's rugged terrain, vast geography and harsh climate realities shielded its rear defences from foreign incursions. Nonetheless, Ukraine's bottom-up innovation in hi-tech solutions, coupled with a robust HUMINT network, enabled it to hit the strategic nerve centres, which remained geographically insulated for centuries.
    Since the offset of hostilities, Ukraine has adopted a whole-of-society approach to enhance its defence and technological ecosystem. By leveraging creativity, Ukraine meticulously developed, tested and repurposed the dual-use technologies to maximise its warfighting potential. From sinking Russia's flagship Moskva to hitting its aviation backbones, Ukraine abridged the loop between prototyping, testing, and fielding drones in its force structures.
    Another underrated aspect of Ukraine's success is the innovate or perish mindset. Russia's preponderant technology and overwhelming firepower prompted Ukrainians to find a rapid solution to defence production. Most of Ukraine's defence industrial base is located in Eastern Ukraine, which sustained millions of dollars' worth of damage from Russia's relentless assaults. Therefore, the Ukrainian government made incremental changes in Military Equipment and Weaponry (MEW) requirements by outs...
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    6 Min.
  • What Makes a Good Military Coalition Partner?

    What Makes a Good Military Coalition Partner?
    Oct 10 2025
    The United States Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, recently commented that the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, which existed between 2001-2014, colloquially stood for 'I saw Americans fighting' at a recent Capitol hearing.1 Hegseth was giving evidence in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee when he made the comment, which complements the current Trump Administration's of America-First foreign policy,2 in that European countries should not rely on American military support and that Europe should be pulling its weight more in support of collective defence.
    Hegseth further added that, 'what ultimately was a lot of flags, was not a lot of ground capability, you're not a real coalition unless you have real defense capabilities and real armies can bring those to bear and that's a reality Europe is waking up to quickly'.3 Senator Chris Coon, a Democrat who sat on the Committee, was quick to clarify that other military partners served and died within Afghanistan.4 In an unpredictable world this exchange provoked a key thought, what makes a good military coalition partner, seen from a Western perspective?
    Brief History of Military Coalitions
    Forming military coalitions based on shared strategic goals is not a new concept. Pragmatically, it makes sense to form military coalitions to share capabilities/equipment, to act as a deterrence, and to form international legitimacy against any action against a common adversary. Even the mighty Spartan Army fought alongside a military alliance with other Greek soldiers when threatened by the Persian Empire in the 5th Century BCE. According to Herodotus, there were only 300 Spartan Royal bodyguards in comparison to thousands of other Greeks who fought against the Persians.5 However, these Spartans were portrayed as warriors who were disciplined and highly trained in comparison to other Greek soldiers.6 Facing a force of a hundred thousand Persian soldiers, the odds were against the Greeks.
    Were the Spartans a better coalition partner than the other Greeks as they had alleged quality over quantity, or was mass required? The eventual defeat of the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae and sacking of Athens, perhaps for this specific battle, meant that simply more Greeks were needed to match the Persians.
    Moving forward to the 21st Century, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was created in 1949. ISAF was formed after the events of 9/11, when Article 5 was triggered, but it was in 2003 when NATO took the lead of the UN mission in Afghanistan. At the height of the mission, 51 NATO and partner nations provided troops.7 With six different ISAF objectives and the whole of Afghanistan divided into five (later six in 2010) Regional Commands, ISAF members held various roles and responsibilities. For example, Regional Command North was commanded by Germany with troops from Sweden, Hungary, and Norway supporting the various missions.8 Troop numbers and equipment supplied varied across ISAF, with the United States contributing the most significant number of troops by some margin.
    This tragically resulted in greater deaths, with the United States losing nearly 2500 military personnel in comparison to a country like Georgia, in which 29 military personnel were killed.9 When compared against the population size of Georgia (a non-NATO country), the deaths experienced in Afghanistan resulted in a death per million rating of 8.42, higher than the United States at 7.96. However, it is ethically challenging to compare the number of casualties experienced by each partner. As such, measuring casualty figures by each coalition partner is not an efficient way to determine if each country is 'pulling its weight'.
    Another significant military coalition was formed in 2014. The Global Coalition against Daesh originally had 13 members, but today has 87 partners and is designed to degrade and ensure Daesh's enduring defeat.10 In September 2014, President Obama commented in a majo...
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    11 Min.
  • Principle-Based Close-Combat Training

    Principle-Based Close-Combat Training
    Oct 8 2025
    Europe's NATO members can gain an operational advantage by reframing close-combat training. However, with the current Combatives models, this change would add burden to both time-in-training and financial resources. Seizing this opportunity would require replacing the current technique/MMA-based models with a leaner model. To this end, alternative options offer increased functional expertise and substantial reductions in time and cost allocations.
    To demonstrate this, we can use "time-in-training" to compare costs-and-time allotments against the achieved level of functional expertise.
    The technique-based models:
    For this comparison, the U.S. Army's current MMA-based Combatives training-model is a well-documented program. Here, 40-hours of training produces a "questionable" level-1 proficiency. An additional 80-hours produces a Level 2 proficiency. A combined total of 440-hours achieves the top level-4 proficiency. However, the average U.S. soldier only holds a level-1 or level-2 rating.
    The statement of "questionable" proficiency is founded in the comparison of four scientific points;
    1. Developing functional expertise: Functional expertise in MMA techniques require extensive repetition.
    2500 to 3000 repetitions of technique are required to create the most basic mental-map (muscle-memory). This requirement increases with complexity. MMA techniques are complex. For example - Level 1 has a minimum of 8 phases, each with multiple individual techniques. Achieving basic functionality in any one phase equals 2500 times the number of techniques it contains.
    1. Situational Awareness and Avoidance
    2. Stress Management and Decision Making
    3. Dominant Body Positions, range & range transitions, and body control, (a key principle)
    4. Basic striking and defensive techniques
    5. Grappling, throws, takedowns, clinch, chokes, and knee defense
    6. Introductory rifle/knife based Combatives
    7. Techniques for creating distance and disengaging from an opponent
    8. Realistic Training and Application
    2. Retention of functional expertise: Retention of functional expertise in complex techniques is low.
    Retention of a complex movements (effective expertise) depends on repetitions and the time since last practiced. The factors listed below negatively affect retention.
    1. How natural the movement is - Generally MMA techniques are not natural movements.
    2. The complexity of the movement - Generally MMA techniques are complex.
    3. The frequency between initial-training and recurrent training - MMA requires high frequencies.
    3. The deterioration of fine movement under stress: MMA methods include fine-motor techniques.
    High psychological/physiological stresses cause fine-motor deterioration. Deterioration begins at 145 heart-rate (BPM). The more complex a movement is, the more it deteriorates.
    4. Somatic-markers: Somatic-markers determine access to mental-maps (techniques).
    "Somatic-markers" store, sort, and select physical movement. Somatic-markers use rapid-sorting to determine selection. The most practised mental-maps are the quickest; lesser used maps are slower.
    As counter-point, I am well versed in W.E. Fairbairn's "Gutter Fighting", so I will speak from that as an alternate option. In comparison with the MMA model, Gutter Fighting's battle-proven model achieves a higher-than-average functionality in less than 40- hours.
    Completing the U.S.'s level-1 and 2 models will require 120-hours; completing the Gutter Fighting model will require 40-hours. 80-hours is a massive time/cost reduction. These savings will repeat every time the program is run. These are time/cost saving that can be reallocated to greater advantage elsewhere. Conversely, the MMA model repeats their double-rate-loss every time its program is run.
    The Gutter Fighting Variant:
    1. Developing functional expertise: Principle-based, Gutter Fighting is very natural.
    Training installs a small toolbox of techniques that personally fit the user. This natural ease-of-execution accelerates efficiency,...
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    14 Min.
  • Bullshit & Botshit: Digital Sycophancy & Analogue Deference in Defence

    Bullshit & Botshit: Digital Sycophancy & Analogue Deference in Defence
    Oct 3 2025
    The recently published Strategic Defence Review (SDR)1 and National Security Strategy (NSS)2 both place accelerating development and adoption of automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the heart of their bold new vision for Defence.
    I've written elsewhere3 about the broader ethical implications,4 but want here to turn attention to the 'so what?', and particularly the 'now what?' Specifically, I'd like to explore a question SDR itself raises, of "Artificial Intelligence and autonomy reach[ing] the necessary levels of capability and trust" (emphasis added). What do we actually mean by this, what is the risk, and how might we go about addressing it?
    The proliferation of AI, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), promises a revolution in efficiency and analytical capability.5 For Defence, the allure of leveraging AI to accelerate the 'OODA loop' (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) and maintain decision advantage is undeniable.
    Yet, as the use of these tools becomes more widespread, a peculiar and potentially hazardous flaw is becoming increasingly and undeniably apparent: their propensity to 'hallucinate' - to generate plausible, confident, yet entirely fabricated and, importantly, false information.6 The resulting 'botshit'7 presents a novel technical, and ethical, challenge.
    It also finds a powerful and troubling analogue in a problem that has long plagued hierarchical organisations, and which UK Defence has particularly wrestled with: the human tendency for subordinates to tell their superiors what they believe those superiors want to hear.8 Of particular concern in this context, this latter does not necessarily trouble itself with whether that report is true or not, merely that it is what is felt to be required; such 'bullshit'9 10 is thus subtly but importantly
    different from 'lying', and seemingly more akin therefore to its digital cousin.
    I argue however that while 'botshit' and 'bullshit' produce deceptively similar outputs - confidently delivered, seemingly authoritative falsehoods, that arise not from aversion to the truth, but (relative) indifference to it, and that may corrupt judgement - their underlying causes, and therefore their respective treatments, are fundamentally different. Indeed, this distinction was demonstrated with startling clarity during the research for this very paper.
    Mistaking one for the other, and thereby applying the wrong corrective measures, poses a significant threat to strategic thinking and direction, and Operational Effectiveness. By understanding the distinct origins of machine-generated 'botshit' and human-generated 'bullshit', we can develop more robust and effective approaches to the envisioned future of hybrid human-machine decision-making.
    A familiar flaw: human deference and organisational culture
    The Chilcot Inquiry11 served as a stark reminder of how easily institutional culture can undermine sound policy.
    In his introductory statement to the report,12 Sir Chilcot noted that "policy […] was made on the basis of flawed intelligence and assessments", but more to the point that "judgements […] were presented with a certainty that was not justified" and that "they were not challenged, and they should have been." He further emphasised "the importance of […] discussion which encourages frank and informed debate and challenge" and that "above all, the lesson is that all aspects […] need to be calculated,
    debated and challenged with the utmost rigour." He was saying, very clearly and repeatedly, that this was not simply a failure of intelligence collection or strategic calculation; it was a failure of culture.
    The decision-making process exposed an environment where prevailing assumptions went untested and the conviction of senior leaders created a gravitational pull, warping the information presented to them to fit a desired narrative.
    Chilcot highlights how an environment in which decisions are based on eminence (also eloquence and vehemence) rather than evidence13 encourages t...
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    15 Min.
  • What a British-Led Military Contingent in Ukraine Could Look Like

    What a British-Led Military Contingent in Ukraine Could Look Like
    Oct 1 2025
    The Russian invasion of Ukraine, in its full-scale war for the third year with level overall years of conflict, is reaching a critical moment where both Kyiv's and Moscow's will to fight comes down to attrition. Under the second Trump Administration, peace talks and proposals of frozen lines have taken place with NATO members, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksy, and Russian President and longtime autocrat Vladimir Putin.
    The United Kingdom and other continental heavyweights such as France and Germany have discussed a major European peacekeeping contingent if the Russian invasion of Ukraine mirrors the Korean War conclusion with frozen lines. Nevertheless, challenges will remain regarding the deployment of a British-led contingent.
    Substantial safeguards will be necessary for deployed European forces in Ukraine, who will have different rules of engagement compared to those in prior combat deployments in Mali, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Furthermore, questions will remain regarding the adequate allocation of rotational force among each contributing country, the stability of Ukraine, and the support from the United States for the peacekeeping proposals.
    Potential Peacekeeping Operations in Ukraine
    On March 15, 2025, during a high-level virtual meeting in London, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed plans to potentially send 10,000 peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, which would be led by British forces. The 10,000 is the official estimate of the overall number of European soldiers proposed to be sent, with the majority being British and French, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated to The Sunday Times.
    Several days later, France also committed to the proposal as French President Emmanuel Macron had previously proposed sending troops to Ukraine as Russia's wartime capabilities continue to grow. Other countries that could potentially join the 'coalition of the willing' include Finland, Sweden, Turkey, Estonia, Lithuania, and others.
    Deployments in Ukraine would have to be based in and around the contact lines, which are currently unknown. Despite the substantial casualties, the Russian military has advanced - albeit through increments - particularly in the Donetsk oblast.
    In case of further Russian aggression after a ceasefire, putting Western troops on potential contact points could not only deter Russian military action but free up Ukrainian forces tied down in former combat zones such as Northern Ukraine.
    If the lines were to be frozen under diplomatic pressure with both exhausted Ukrainian and Russian forces, the British-led contingent could be deployed in key sectors. Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, the left bank of Kherson, and the border with Belarus would need to be manned to deter further Russian aggression with command-and-control centers in Kyiv and Odesa.
    Hurdles Over the Deployment and Rotational Abilities of European Forces
    The implementation of a peacekeeping contingent will need to be considered several factors, including the rotational capabilities of each participating nation, the number of troops allocated by each country, and the potential political ramifications at home.
    The United Kingdom and France can provide sizable contingents of troops that would not affect mission readiness for other areas of operations. However, other European countries may struggle to rotate their own. Furthermore, questions remain over the length of the mission, such as how long the commitment of British and allied forces will be and whether it will fall under NATO command or a task force solely allocated for Ukraine.
    Each deployment would be about 3-6 months, and other countries would need to step up. Finland, despite having the continent's largest reserve army, has a small full-time defense force.
    Other countries that are staunch supporters of Ukraine, such as Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, also have small militaries and would need to balance out the small contingents each country would...
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    8 Min.