Remembrance Day comes at a time when the UK is not ready for war – and the US is not as reliable as it once was

Published

5 months ago

November 10, 2024

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Britain’s annual Remembrance Day has a special dimension this year because it is the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

The speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, and the Imperial War Museum are arranging for images of the men and women who took part in the Normandy campaign to be projected on the Elizabeth Tower below Big Ben.

Political leaders past and present will be on parade to lay wreaths at the Cenotaph, which commemorates “Our Glorious Dead” from two world wars and other military conflicts. Those assembled see no contradiction in the fact they are all bound to have been involved in cuts to the UK’s defence capabilities.

D-Day, when British and American troops fought on to the beaches to liberate Europe, is the defining moment of the UK’s patriotic pride to this day – which is why it was a big mistake by Rishi Sunak in the summer to duck out early from France and the international commemorations of 6 June 1944.

Ever since then Britain and Europe have nestled in the security umbrella extended by the United States.

The Americans came, belatedly, to the rescue in both world wars and we assume that it would do so again. The North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) is explicit that an attack on one member is an attack on all, and the US is the dominant contributor to NATO in both cash and military might.

There was already fresh uneasiness among British politicians about how safe we really are as tensions grow around the world from Ukraine to the Middle East to China. A recent House of Commons report was entitled “Ready For War?”.

The re-election of Donald Trump and his “America First” priorities have increased those pressures.

Russia’s territorial aggression against Ukraine has brought bloody confrontation between nation states back on to our continent.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump, the US president-elect, has said he feels no obligation to defend European countries who do not spend as much as he thinks they should.

Given the enthusiasm of successive governments to cash a peace dividend by cutting back defence spending, there are real doubts as to whether the UK would be able to defend itself if it came to another war, according to General Sir Roly Walker, who has taken over as the head of UK armed forces.

This summer he set himself the task of readying “to deter or fight a war in three years”.

He is aiming to double the “lethality” of the army in the face of threats from Russia, China, Iran and North Korea which may be separate or co-ordinated.

The recent BRICS summit in Russia and the deployment of North Korean troops to fight with Vladimir Putin’s forces in Ukraine both show their willingness to internationalise local conflicts. George Robertson, the former defence secretary and NATO general secretary heading a defence review for the government, has also identified the threat from this “deadly quartet”.

General Walker says he can increase lethality within existing spending by smarter use of technology such as drones and AI.

The problem is that this will still require diverting resources from existing capabilities, when deployable fighting manpower is already at its lowest for 200 years.

British politicians are increasingly aware of the need to strengthen capability and a number of overlapping inquiries are under way.

But given the overall pressures on the national budget, they have been reluctant to focus on the full financial implications.

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, the new leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch challenged Sir Kier Starmer to say when the UK will spend 2.5% of GDP on defence; he retorted that it remains an unspecified commitment but that the last Labour government was the last to spend as much. From Mr Cameron to Mr Sunak, the Conservatives never did.

This sparring ignores the reality that for effective security, spending will need to rocket to 3% and beyond, and that Mr Trump may well be the one making that demand.

The US spends 3.5% of its national wealth – matching 68% of the defence spending of all the other members on its own.

They have not all yet hit the official NATO target of 2%, designed in part to “Trump proof” the alliance against the possibility of an American pullout.

The US currently has 100,000 troops based in Europe, increased by 20,000 since Mr Putin’s attack in 2022.

The next Trump administration will certainly want to reduce that number. But a slow reduction of the US commitment is happening in any case.

This week, Professor Malcom Chalmers told MPs on the Defence Select Committee: “The most plausible planning assumption for the UK right now is that America will provide a progressively smaller proportion of NATO’s overall capability and we are going to have to fill those gaps.”

Given the likelihood that Mr Trump’s proposed new tariffs will slow the global economy, Sir Keir and the Labour government will have even less to spend on public services than it is proposing. It seems inconceivable that the UK would willingly go beyond 2.5%, whatever the current defence review says is necessary for the defence of the realm.

Just in current defence spending, John Healey, the new defence secretary, claimed he had inherited a £17bn “black hole” of unfunded planned spending from the Conservatives.

Ukraine is likely to be the first flashpoint.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s supporters want the US to increase its military aid when the US wants Europe to take more of the burden of defending itself as the US “pivots” to the greater threat it sees to itself from China.

Mr Trump has said he plans to end the Ukraine conflict in 24 hours.

In essence, Mr Putin would keep some of his territorial claims in Donbas and NATO would not extend its security guarantee to what remains of an independent Ukraine.

Mr Trump has already said that NATO’s longstanding and vague offer of eventual membership was “a mistake”.

Anxious not to alienate the US further and hard-pressed financially, some leading European nations including Germany appear ready to go along with such a sell-out.

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A number of security experts, including former acting deputy prime minister Sir David Lidington, say this deal would be “Donald Trump’s Munich”.

This is a reference to the “peace in our time” deal agreed by prime minister Neville Chamberlain with Adolf Hitler, which failed to halt further aggression by Nazi Germany before the Second World War.

Then, as previously with the First World War, “America First” instincts were to leave the Europeans to sort out their own mess. But American forces ended up shedding their blood decisively in both conflicts.

Once again, the UK and Europe are not ready for war, and relying on an increasingly unreliable US. The politicians, prime ministers and generals gathering at the Cenotaph to honour the war dead should have much on their minds.

Politics

EU could fine Elon Musk’s X $1B over illicit content, disinformation

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5 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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EU could fine Elon Musk’s X B over illicit content, disinformation

European Union regulators are reportedly mulling a $1 billion fine against Elon Musk’s X, taking into account revenue from his other ventures, including Tesla and SpaceX, according to The New York Times.

EU regulators allege that X has violated the Digital Services Act and will use a section of the act to calculate a fine based on revenue that includes other companies Musk controls, according to an April 3 report by the newspaper, which cited four people with knowledge of the plan.

Under the Digital Services Act, which came into law in October 2022 to police social media companies and “prevent illegal and harmful activities online,” companies can be fined up to 6% of global revenue for violations.

A spokesman for the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, declined to comment on this case to The New York Times but did say it would “continue to enforce our laws fairly and without discrimination toward all companies operating in the EU.”

In a statement, X’s Global Government Affairs team said that if the reports about the EU’s plans are accurate, it “represents an unprecedented act of political censorship and an attack on free speech.”

“X has gone above and beyond to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, and we will use every option at our disposal to defend our business, keep our users safe, and protect freedom of speech in Europe,” X’s global government affairs team said.

European Union, Elon Musk — *Source:* *Global Government Affairs*

Along with the fine, the EU regulators could reportedly demand product changes at X, with the full scope of any penalties to be announced in the coming months.

Still, a settlement could be reached if the social media platform agrees to changes that satisfy regulators, according to the Times.

One of the officials who spoke to the Times also said that X is facing a second investigation alleging the platform’s approach to policing user-generated content has made it a hub of illegal hate speech and disinformation, which could result in more penalties.

X EU investigation ongoing since 2023

The EU investigation began in 2023. A preliminary ruling in July 2024 found X had violated the Digital Services Act by refusing to provide data to outside researchers, provide adequate transparency about advertisers, or verify the authenticity of users who have a verified account.

X responded to the ruling with hundreds of points of dispute, and Musk said at the time he was offered a deal, alleging that EU regulators told him if he secretly suppressed certain content, X would escape fines.

Thierry Breton, the former EU commissioner for internal market, said in a July 12 X post in 2024 that there was no secret deal and that X’s team had asked for the “Commission to explain the process for settlement and to clarify our concerns,” and its response was in line with “established regulatory procedures.”

Musk replied he was looking “forward to a very public battle in court so that the people of Europe can know the truth.”

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Coinbase Institutional files for XRP futures trading with CFTC

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5 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Coinbase Institutional files for XRP futures trading with CFTC

US crypto exchange Coinbase has filed with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to launch futures contracts for Ripple’s XRP token.

“We’re excited to announce that Coinbase Derivatives has filed with the CFTC to self-certify XRP futures — bringing a regulated, capital-efficient way to gain exposure to one of the most liquid digital assets,” stated Coinbase Institutional on April 3.

The firm added that it anticipates the contract going live on April 21.

According to the certification filing, the XRP (XRP) futures contract will be a monthly cash-settled and margined contract trading under the symbol XRL.

The contract tracks XRP’s price and is settled in US dollars. Each contract represents 10,000 XRP, currently worth about $20,000 at $2 per token.

Contracts can be traded for the current month and two months ahead, and trading will be paused as a safety measure if spot XRP prices move more than 10% in an hour.

“The exchange has spoken with FCMs (Futures Commission Merchants) and market participants who support the decision to launch a XRP contract,” the firm stated.

Coinbase is not the first to launch XRP futures in the United States. In March, Chicago-based crypto exchange Bitnomial announced the launch of the “first-ever CFTC-regulated XRP futures in the US.”

XRP futures trading is available on many of the world’s leading centralized crypto exchanges, such as Binance, OKX, Bybit and BitMEX.

Funding rates remain negative

In late March, Cointelegraph reported that XRP derivatives’ funding rates had flipped negative as investor sentiment turned bearish.

Funding rates are periodic payments between traders in perpetual futures markets that help keep the futures price aligned with the spot price. Positive funding rates mean that long traders (buyers) pay short traders, while negative funding rates mean short traders (sellers) pay long traders.

When funding rates go negative, it means short traders are willing to pay a premium to maintain their positions, indicating strong conviction from bearish derivatives traders.

XRP funding rates remained negative on major derivatives exchanges as of April 4, according to CoinGlass.

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Politics

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao to advise Kyrgyzstan on blockchain tech

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9 hours ago

April 4, 2025

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Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao to advise Kyrgyzstan on blockchain tech

Former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao will begin advising the Kyrgyz Republic on blockchain and crypto-related regulation and tech after signing a memorandum of understanding with the country’s foreign investment agency.

“I officially and unofficially advise a few governments on their crypto regulatory frameworks and blockchain solutions for gov efficiency, expanding blockchain to more than trading,” the crypto entrepreneur said in an April 3 X post, adding that he finds this work “extremely meaningful.”

His comments came in response to an earlier X post from Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Zhaparov announcing that Kyrgyzstan’s National Investment Agency (NIA) had signed a memorandum with CZ to provide technical expertise and consulting services for the Central Asian country.

The NIA is responsible for promoting foreign investments and assisting international companies in identifying business opportunities within the country.

“This cooperation marks an important step towards strengthening technological infrastructure, implementing innovative solutions, and preparing highly qualified specialists in blockchain technologies, virtual asset management, and cybersecurity,” Zhaparov said.

The Kyrgyzstan president added: “such initiatives are crucial for the sustainable growth of the economy and the security of virtual assets, ultimately generating new opportunities for businesses and society as a whole.”

Kyrgyzstan, which officially changed its name from the Republic of Kyrgyzstan to the Kyrgyz Republic in 1993, is a mountainous, land-locked country.

It is considered well-suited for crypto mining operations due to its abundant renewable energy resources, much of which is underutilized.

Over 30% of Kyrgyzstan’s total energy supply comes from hydroelectric power plants, but only 10% of the country’s potential hydropower has been developed, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

CZ has met with several other state officials in Asia

Malaysia also recently tapped CZ for guidance on crypto-related matters, with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim meeting him personally in January.

CZ has also met with officials in the UAE and Bitcoin-stacking country Bhutan — however, it isn’t clear what those meetings entailed.

CZ’s latest pursuits come a little over six months after he was released from a four-month prison sentence in the US for violating several anti-money laundering laws.

Since being released, CZ has made investments in blockchain tech, artificial intelligence and biotechnology companies.

CZ also recently donated 1,000 BNB (BNB) — worth almost $600,000 — to support earthquake relief efforts in Thailand and Myanmar after the natural disaster in late April.

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