The UK Defence Review

This Year sees over 60 Elections around the world, The US Presidential Elections, Russian Presidential Elections, Local and National election in the UK - but can we trust what we’re told?

The Defence Review Podcast interviews Philip Ingram MBE to learn how we can safeguard ourselves against manipulation.

Or can we? - do you know whether you are seeing Information, Disinformation, Misinformation Propaganda, Deception or Fake News?

With over 60 elections across the world this year, do you know the difference between Information, Disinformation, Misinformation Propaganda, Deception and Fake News? These are being used as an effective weapon in war. These are all tools of war and are used by foreign actors influencing events in other countries.

If you don't know the difference, this podcast is essential listening. From the www.defencereview.uk series, Lt. Col Stuart Crawford interviews leading information experts, Philip Ingram M.B.E.

They discuss the shifting balance in the propaganda war in Ukraine with Russia's propaganda campaign, the propaganda wars surrounding the Israel-Hamas conflict and how the Sinn Fein party is using misleading statements about the road to a United Ireland. Disinformation campaigns are becoming increasingly prevalent in geopolitics.

What lies ahead in 2024?

The takeaway quote “in 40 years, as a serving member of the Armed Forces, I have never felt that the world is so close to World War 3”

This Podcast is hosted by Lt. Col Stuart Crawford with Guest, Philip Ingram, MBE, BSc, MA who review the global problems ahead for 2024. Based on what they’ve seen in 2023.

What is the role of Iran in conflicts already seen with: -

Hamas, Syria, Houthi Rebels, provision of weapon to Russia & the new shipping crisis.

What is Iran’s objective?

Wishes to become the one global caliphate.

Is in close contact with Russia, China, & North Korea

Wants a nuclear capability to become the global Islamic leader

No change in ambitions unless there is Western confrontation or regime change

Russia

Wants increase in oil prices and will support any regime causing problems to West

Able to provide Iran and China with cheap fuel

Iran can restrict oil supplies with the Houthis

All of these countries are used to planning in generational terms – unlike the West

What to watch in the US?

Election Year possibly bringing Trump

Trump is no fan of NATO

May see war as a way of MAGA – bringing munitions production to Republican heartlands

Help to grow American economy

UK

British Army in a parlous state

In the past, Light Infantry could be scrambled in 12 hours

Now unlikely to scramble within 2 weeks

The West is clearly battling a combined Alliance who plan in centuries rather than electoral cycles.

"Lt. Col Stuart Crawford's 2023 Global Conflict Review:Must-Watch Insights"

• Russia is a colony of China which is fighting a proxy war with the West.
• The Far East is now a joint venture between Russia and China.
• Russia gave a contested island to China – smaller than Germany and bigger than Poland
• the end of Siberia for the Russian Federation
• The loss of Siberia is reminiscent of the loss of Alaska (1867) for Russia

• Israel claims to have found some 1,500 bodies of Hamas terrorists inside its territory

• this is only the first phase of the Israeli reaction to the terrorist attacks on their territory
• IDF have have assembled some 35 battalions - beyond 20,000 troops
• conflict could spread in the region and beyond
• the USA is going to have to deal with Iran at some point, and a missile attack could possibly provide an appropriate casus belli.

Failing in the air, hemmed in at sea, pinned down on land, Putin’s war is now doomed

Putin's delusional special military operation was supposed to bring Ukraine to heel in three days - 535 days later, with Russian deaths running into the high tens of thousands, the Russian military now pinned down into defensive positions and the ruble close to collapse, it's surely just a matter of time, writes Lt Col Stuart Crawford.

We are now roughly 535 days into Vladimir Putin’s planned “three-day special military operation” that began back in February 2022. That statistic alone tells us that things have not panned out exactly as he was hoping.

What’s the state of play at the moment? Well, stalemate you may think, at least on the ground in Ukraine. But it’s actually worse than stalemate for Putin; he is losing in almost every domain in which he is engaged. Let’s have a look in detail.

In the field his armies have been rebuffed, ground to a halt, and transitioned mainly to the defensive. Their losses have been horrendous, both in equipment and personnel. So much so, in fact, that he has had to extend the age range for conscription to provide sufficient troops to keep his war going and bring ancient, 50-year old tanks out of storage to re-equip his regiments.

He then suffered the embarrassment of the mutiny of his erstwhile friend Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group, which took over Russian headquarters in Rostov-on-Don and started marching up the motorway to Moscow. This was defused by Putin’s ally President Lukashenko of Belarus and the Wagner Group was effectively disarmed and sent into exile, but the blow to Putin’s prestige has been considerable.

The UkrAF are now battering away at Russian defence lines along a 1,000 kilometre front line. Neither side is making much progress in a slogging match reminiscent of the First World War. Gains are measured in hundreds of metres, casualties in their thousands. Putin’s armies are stuck.

At sea things have gone just as badly. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is now basically bottled up in its ports, hemmed in by increasingly effective Ukrainian attacks based largely on their innovative sea drones and anti-ship missiles donated by the West.

Putin's war was doomed from the very start

Things started badly for Putin with the loss of the Black Sea flagship, the Moskva, to drone attack, and have just got worse since. Not only has the strategic Kerch bridge been attacked successfully at least twice by sea drones, but so too have an increasing number of Russian naval ships despite increased defensive measures. Much of the Black Sea is now denied to his ships.

And in the air things are hardly better. An early indication of how things might develop occurred at Hostomel airport just outside Kyiv, when the Russian coup de main operation to capture it from the air failed miserably with several of their helicopters shot down.

The Russian air force, primarily designed to counter NATO operations by defeating western aircraft in the air, has found trying to tackle the extensive Ukrainian ground-based air defences hard going, to the extent that they now seldom venture further forward than the front line of their own troops. When they do they incur heavy losses.

Meanwhile Russia has proved vulnerable to Ukrainian drone attacks from the air. Russian Crimean military bases such as Sevastopol and nearby airbases have been struck many times, while Moscow itself has been subjected to multiple attacks. While damage to the Russian capital to date has been slight, the propaganda value of these strikes should not be underestimated.

On top of all this, Putin is also losing the information war. Helped by NATO intelligence and information assets, the Ukrainians have presented their cause to the world with much greater skill and effect than have the Russians.

As far as NATO is concerned, I think there are three main points to be made: the first is that Sweden's accession to NATO, which I think will happen at some point despite Turkey's reluctance, will be yet another blow to Putin's prestige and his desire to prevent further NATO expansion. His policy has had in fact the opposite effect and made NATO stronger.

The second is that Sweden has significant and modern armed forces; a navy of nearly 400 ships of all sorts and sizes, including 4 submarines and a number of minesweepers and patrol boats; an army equipped with 120 Leopard 2A5 tanks, 2,100 armoured fighting vehicles, and 170 assorted modern artillery pieces and mortars; and an air force of 200 plus aircraft. This will be an important addition to NATO's strength.

And the third, and perhaps the most important, is that when Sweden finally joins NATO it will mean that the Baltic Sea will be totally surrounded by Alliance member countries, with the exception of the limited Russian access at St Petersburg and Kaliningrad. In effect it will turn the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

There were extraordinary developments in Russia this week when Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of “Putin’s private army” the Wagner Group, turned on the Russian military hierarchy.

The Wagner Group has been fighting alongside the regular Russian army in Ukraine, most noticeably in Bakhmut where it has suffered severe casualties.

Prigozhin’s criticism of the Russian military high command has escalated over recent months, accusing it, inter alia, of failing to supply his fighters with sufficient ammunition and supplies. He has repeatedly accused Russia's defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and the head of the army in Ukraine, Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence .

Ukraine's counter-offensive against the Russian invasion is upon us. Here are the best options for the killer blow against Putin's men, writes Stuart Crawford.

It feels like we have all been waiting with bated breath for months for the long-trailed Ukrainian counter-offensive to commence.

What was hailed as the “spring offensive” has now morphed into the summer offensive, and yet there are still no firm signs that it is about to begin.

Sure, there have been indications that preparations are underway. Long range strikes into Russian forces rear areas, some with the UK-supplied Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missile, may indicate that some “shaping of the battlefield” is underway.

Recent speculation in the world’s media on when the long-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive against their Russian invaders will begin has now reached almost hysterical proportions. When is it coming, they ask? And, quite rightly, the UkrAF remain tight-lipped. There’s no point in forewarning your enemy after all. Surprise is key to most successful military operations.

What might be holding it up is the other question. There are a number of factors which might explain the delay. First there is the weather at this time of year. We all knew that the manoeuvrability of ground forces is seriously compromised by the spring mud season – the Ukrainians call it “bezdorizhzhya”, the Russians “rasputitsa” – that follows the thaw, and so it has proved to be.

I'd almost feel a bit sorry for Scotland’s new First Minister and leader of the Scottish National Party, Humza Yousaf.

The prize that he won but a few weeks ago has withered and turned to dust in his hands. The rest of us have watched on, agog, as disaster after disaster has befallen him. He has become a bit of a disaster magnet, poor chap.

We can’t even say it all started well either. Elevated to positions well above his competence level – his performance in his previously held ministerial posts were disastrous also – by the p

UK Defence Review interviews George Alison - Editor UK Defence Journal

Poland announced that it is to send four of its MiG-29 Soviet-era fighter jets to Ukraine, with the hint that more may follow them. This has been replicated by Slovakia pledging to do the same, saying it will send thirteen of its now redundant fleet (three without engines apparently). This is good news for the Ukrainians, who are already familiar with the aircraft and have some already in their inventory. A minimum of pilot training will be required before they are ready for action.

The MiG-29 is known to NATO as “Fulcrum”, and is a fourth generation twin-engine aircraft that first came into service with the Soviet Union in 1983. Designed at the outset to counter the US F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft, it has been updated over time to keep it broadly competitive.

The Ukrainians may have had as many as 30-40 MiGs operational at the time of the Russian invasion of February 2022 but exact numbers are hard to gauge. Be that as it may, the influx of additional airframes from Poland and Slovakia will be most welcome. To date the west has proved reluctant to provide aircraft to Ukraine for fear of escalation.

Whether this donation opens the floodgates to other nations sending jet fighters to Ukraine, rather like the UK sending 14 Challenger 2s did for tanks, remains to be seen.

Wars are sometimes started on the flimsiest of excuses. The War of Jenkins’ Ear, for example, took place between 1739 and 1748 between Britain and the Spanish Empire. I was named so as the casus belli was the alleged severing of the ear of one Robert Jenkins, captain of the British brig “Rebecca”, by Spanish coastguards while they were searching his ship for contraband in 1731.   This one was a bit of a slow burner, but it was used as an excuse by the British to start a war against Spain years later. It was a convenient cover for Britain to try to improve its trade in the Caribbean, which incidentally included the supply of slaves to the Spanish colonies in America. These matters are never straightforward.   Now we are looking at the circumstances and implications of the downing of a US MQ-9 Reaper drone operating over the Black Sea by Russian SU-27 fighter jets. By all accounts the Russian aircraft tried to disrupt the drone’s mission by dumping fuel over it before one of them appears to have clipped the drone’s propeller and sent it spiralling downwards.

listen to m,ore on the podcast

I have been commenting on the progress of the Russo-Ukraine warn for over a year now, getting about eighty per cent of it right and the rest of it wrong. Which is a pretty good result although I say it myself, because predicting the course of a war is fraught with difficulty. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, as we military types are wont to say.

The resignation of Nicola Sturgeon as First Minister has hardly come as a surprise to those of us who follow the political scene north of the Border. Far from it being a shock as some commentators have been saying, it has been debated both privately and publically for some time. Now it has come to pass. The only thing that has surprised me is that she held out for so long; it has been clear for some time that her star has been on the wane.

The discovery of a high-flying Chinese observation balloon over the USA caused a few red faces in Washington last week. Eventually it was shot down by a F-22 Raptor fighter into the Atlantic off the coast of Carolina, where recovery operations are underway, but to get there it obviously transited across the whole of the continental USA.

What’s going on here? Well, either the appropriate authorities in the USA, Canada, and elsewhere have hitherto been unaware of these transgressions, which would be worrying, or that they have known all along but have allowed them to continue for some other purposes. Perhaps we will find out which it is in due course.

See more at https://peoplematter.tv/2023/02/14/neunundneunzig-luftballons/

Despite my earlier predictions that the Ukrainians might be the first out of the traps, it now looks as if the Russians may well attack first. In fact according to some observers they have started already with an upsurge of attacks in the Donbas. It may be that instead of a sudden explosion in offensive operations their Spring offensives will be more of a ramping up of operations that have been underway for some time.

That’s the primary reason why Zelensky’s tour of European capitals took place last week. His pleas for additional long range precision artillery and missile systems, plus Ukraine’s need for modern fast jet fighter aircraft, is precisely so they can contemplate taking the offensive against their invaders. Without the means to achieve at least local air superiority their task becomes much more difficult.

Read more at https://peoplematter.tv/2023/02/14/ukraine-spring-offensives/

There has been much rejoicing mixed with a sense of relief that the USA and Germany have agreed to send main battle tanks (MBTs) to Ukraine. Although the numbers are relatively small – about 14 Leopards from the Germans initially with the promise of more to come, plus 31 M1 Abrams from the USA – together with the 14 Challenger 2s already promised by the UK, they will be a welcome addition to Ukraine’s tank fleet. The hope is, of course, that other countries will now feel enabled to join in. Whether the USA will mirror Germany’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks and allow the transfer of F-16s and ATACMS to Ukraine remains to be seen, but they would undoubtedly help bolster UK RAF capabilities ahead of the expected spring offensive.

The West is providing more weaponry - but what about power in the air?

China's strategic expansion continues with alliance with Argentina!

Was it right to send Challenger Tanks to Ukraine

Just last week the world watched agog as Russian forces abandoned Kherson city and withdrew to the eastern bank of the Dnipro river, destroying the bridges behind them to prevent any pursuit. From the announcement of the planned withdrawal by the Russian authorities on the ninth of the month, until their declaration that they had abandoned the city, only three days passed. Current speculation is that they had in fact started their move well beforehand.

It increasingly appears that the war in Ukraine is grinding into a stalemate. The maps of gains and losses have changed little over the past few weeks; a small gain here, a modest retreat there, but nothing like the large advances and withdrawals experienced by both sides earlier in the conflict.

The weather hasn’t helped much, of course. The autumn rains bring with them the infamous rasputitsa, the Russian word for the seasons of the year when travel on unpaved roads or across country becomes difficult, owing to muddy conditions from rain or melting snow. Even tracked vehicles can get bogged off the relatively few metalled roads, and it tends to bring the mobility of armed forces almost to a standstill.

Whilst the eyes of the world are on the continuing war in Ukraine, we sometimes have to remind ourselves that there are other areas of the world where there are continuing conflicts. Much of Africa is blighted by armed struggles, the Middle East is far from settled – think of Syria and Iraq –  and then there’s Cyprus. Whilst this island at the eastern end of the Mediterranean has been peaceful for a while, simmering tensions are never far from the surface.

As winter fast approaches and land operations in the Ukraine war stall in the autumn rains and mud, it is perhaps timely to review where we are after just over eight months of conflict. We appear to be at a natural pause in proceedings with little change in the front lines, although combat continues with marked ferocity in places.

From the Russian point of view things aren’t looking too good. After early reverses in Kyiv and Kharkiv they’re now increasingly under pressure from Ukrainian forces in the Donbas and Kherson. In the east Ukrainelooks like it will continue making ground and recapturing settlements lost only a few months ago to the Russians. In the south, around Kherson city itself, Putin looks in danger of having his forces cut off and isolated.

US to unleash secret space weapons if Putin plays nuclear card, says STUART CRAWFORD
As the war in Ukraine grinds on relentlessly with no end in sight, what are we to make of the nuclear drills which Russia has just carried out on her own territory? Is this yet another sign that Putin is threatening nuclear retaliation for lack of success on the battlefield?

No sooner had the military community rejoiced at the pledge by former PM Liz Truss to raise the UK’s defence budget to 3% of GDP by 2030 than all hopes were dashed by Kwasi Kwarteng’s (remember him?) disastrous mini-budget and rampant inflation and rise in cost of living costs.

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has raised fears, without evidence, that Ukraine plans to use a dirty bomb in the Russo-Ukraine conflict. This he has explicitly stated, apparently, to the UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and also to other defence ministers in the USA, France, and Turkey. This unfounded allegation has been rejected by all.

First there was the presumed sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, to which nobody has owned up to yet by the way, although Russia is strongly suspected. Then there was the disruption to undersea cables to Shetland which shut everything down, including bank ATMs which meant that for a short while IOUs became the currency of those islands. This time the reason seems to have been more innocent, probably caused by fishing gear or a dragging anchor.