Defence
The Gulf War’s Economic Front Has Opened
The war in the Gulf is no longer a scenario to be modelled. It is underway, and its first strategic theatre is not only the battlefield but the Strait of Hormuz. As tankers hesitate…
Category: Defence
Older reports
Defence
America’s Missile Defences May Decide This War : After the Opening Strikes, Endurance Becomes the Central Variable
United States
The Assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Has Opened a Sacred War Logic That May Reshape the Middle East
Defence
America Has Entered a War It May Not Be Able to Control
Defence
US and Israeli Strikes on Iran Target Senior Leadership; Tehran Vows Retaliation as Missiles Hit Israel and Gulf Bases
In the early hours before dawn, United States and Israeli forces struck deep inside Iran in what Tehran…
Defence
Why USS Gerald Ford in the Eastern Mediterranean Turns Deterrence Into a Test of Missile Endurance
The USS Gerald R. Ford has entered the Eastern Mediterranean, shifting deterrence into a confined missile environment where…
Iran
Iran Enrichment, Regional Bases, and the Strait of Hormuz: A Crisis Moving From Diplomacy to Deterrence
Three strikes in June 2025, a renewed zero enrichment demand in Washington, and open warnings from Tehran about…
Further reporting
Defence
Indicators of Intent: How Converging U.S. Military Posture Around Iran Has Changed the Strategic Equation
Defence
The Blueprint on Iran Was Written in 2009 And It Still Shapes U.S. Policy
Defence
A War With Iran Would Begin Easily and End Beyond Washington’s Control
Defence
Britain Left Its ISIS Detainees including Shamima Begum in Kurdish Camps. Now Those Camps Are Collapsing
More from the archive
Defence
Ukraine’s Donbas Army Faces a Choice Between Withdrawal and Collapse
Russia now controls most of Donbas. What remains is a fortified Ukrainian army compressed into Kramatorsk and Sloviansk and sustained by just two vulnerable…
Defence
Sanae Takaichi’s Taiwan Doctrine Has Escalated Tensions With China
Sanae Takaichi’s decision to describe a Taiwan contingency as a “survival-threatening situation” has pushed Japan–China tensions into legal and economic…
Defence
China Will Not Let Iran Fall
China is not preparing to fight for Iran. It is doing something more consequential: managing the Iran file as part…
In depth
Defence
The Iran War Did Not End the Nuclear Crisis. It Broke the System That Contained It
The June 2025 war did not eliminate Iran’s nuclear risk or restore stable deterrence. It damaged the verification framework that made coercion credible, replacing a manageable threshold problem with enduring strategic ambiguity. In doing…
Defence
Israel’s Draft Crisis Is Not About Religion: Under War and Legal Pressure, the Army Adapts While Politics Preserves Exemptions
Defence
How Ukraine Shattered Western Assumptions About Russia’s Military Power
Defence
Why There Is No Middle East Security Architecture and Why Iran Is Forced to Negotiate Deterrence Bilaterally Instead
Defence
War With Iran Would Be Decided by Time, Not Power
Telegraph Online long read A war with Iran would not be decided by intent or rhetoric, but by…
Defence
War with Iran: Does Anyone Still Have the Power to Stop a Process Already in Motion?
Military deployments, diplomatic signalling, and regional positioning around Iran are no longer isolated acts of deterrence. They are…
Defence
At America’s Middle East Air Hub, the Machinery of Escalation Is Quietly Assembling
At Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest American military installation in the Middle East, subtle changes…
Background reading
Diplomacy
Europe Without a Guarantor: Why Britain Is Reopening the China Question
American protection is no longer automatic. Europe is exposed, China is unavoidable but risky, and Britain is rebuilding optionality. Keir Starmer’s Beijing visit reflects…
Across the section
Defence
Luohe and the Escort Screen That Turns China’s Catapult Carriers Into Real Power
Defence
NATO Did Not Fail in Ukraine. Ukraine Exposed Why NATO No Longer Works
Technology
China and the Ukraine War, Where Drone Components Are Bought and Sourced
Defence
The Perimeter Problem: How America’s Shows of Force Are Expanding Risk Instead of Control
Ukraine
Putin Wants NATO Pushed Back to 1998. Ukraine Is How He Is Forcing the Issue
As Ukraine’s cities go dark, Vladimir Putin has hardened Russia’s war aims. Moscow now ties any peace in Ukraine to…
Defence
Greenland Is Not the Prize. The Arctic Corridor Is
As Arctic ice retreats, the High North is being transformed from a frozen periphery into a strategic corridor. This chapter…
The wider report
Iran
When Iran Went Dark, the Protests Lost Their Oxygen
When Iran shut down the internet in January, it did more than silence social media. It severed coordination, visibility, and momentum. This analysis explains how information control, Starlink disruption, and force on the ground…
Also in the paper
Defence
Ukraine in 2026: Is the War Entering Its Endgame
Defence
If You Want to See What Comes Next in 2026, Watch the Insurance Market
Defence
The Seabed Is Now a Battlefield. Europe Is Still Prosecuting It Like the 1980s
Defence
Jiutian and the Geometry of Reach: China’s High Altitude Drone Carrier Across the Himalayas and the Pacific
From the files
Russia
Akhmat At The Front: What Apti Alaudinov Reveals About Russian War Doctrine
Lieutenant General Apti Alaudinov, a Chechen commander at the heart of Moscow’s war machine, says Russia is winning a deliberate slow grind in Ukraine…
History
How Rome Bought Loyalty: Inside the Pay System of the Imperial Legions
Measured in silver, the Roman soldier seemed poorly paid. But once we map his lifetime income by social…
World
Ticking Clock: Will Israel Strike Iran Before Winter Closes In?
Is war with Iran Approaching. The choreography of logistics, diplomacy, and rhetoric suggests a narrowing path to confrontation…
World
The Next War: Why Israel May Strike Iran Before Winter.
Israel faces a narrowing window for war with Iran as U.S. naval forces and refuelling tankers reposition across…
Defence
India is in the middle of a strategic balancing act between Washington and Moscow
NEW DELHI — The four-day war began before breakfast. On a pale May morning, Indian Air Force fighters rose from…
Defence
The Contest for the “Sacred” Arctic
On a late summer day in Murmansk, the Russian nuclear icebreaker Arktika noses out of its berth, a slab of…