Hard power is the world’s real currency once again – talking tough on defence won’t be enough
Remarkable – and relatively speaking a blessing – that the wake-up call for Britain to take defence seriously again did not come in the form of a military attack on UK soil, but instead was triggered by the verbal assault of Ukraine’s wartime leader by a sitting US president.
The lack of any physical destruction on British streets, though, should fool no one in government or wider society that the framework of security that has protected the country and its allies since the end of the Second World War is not at best cracked and at worst shattered.
Instead, check out one of the latest posts by Elon Musk, Donald Trump’s “disrupter-in-chief”.
He used his social media site X to say “I agree” with a call for the United States to leave NATO – a transatlantic alliance, and the bedrock of European security, that the new administration had until now continued to back at least in public.
It is yet another example of escalating hostility from the new Trump White House – which has sided with Russia against Ukraine, lashed out at its European partners over their values, and even suggested absorbing Canada as the 51st American state.
The alarming mood-change by a nation that is meant to be a friend surely demands an equally dramatic shift in approach by NATO’s 30 European allies and their Canadian partner.
Rather than stating the obvious – that American support can no longer be taken for granted – they should instead be actively adapting to a world in which it fundamentally no longer exists.
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When Starmer met Zelenskyy: What happened?
Make no mistake, this would be a daunting and humbling prospect – perhaps too awful even to contemplate, in particular for the UK, which has tied itself militarily so closely to the US for pretty much everything from intelligence sharing and technology to nuclear weapons.
Britain is not alone. All European militaries, as well as Canada, to a greater or lesser extent rely heavily on their more powerful American partners.
Breaking that dependency would require a rapid expansion in military capabilities and capacity across the continent, as well as a huge effort to build up the defence industrial base required to produce weapons at scale and exploit emerging technologies.
Sir Keir Starmer – who is hosting a Ukraine summit of allies on Sunday – has rightly adopted the UK’s natural position of leadership in Europe in the wake of Donald Trump’s extraordinary hostility towards Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He gave the embattled Ukrainian president a warm embrace on Saturday when the two met at Downing Street.
Britain is one of Europe’s two nuclear-armed states, a powerful voice within NATO, and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
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All the times Zelenskyy thanked the US
But talking tough on defence and the need to support Ukraine as the US steps back is no longer enough in a world where hard power is the only real currency once again.
A pledge by the prime minister to increase defence spending to 2.5% of national income by 2027 and to 3% in the next parliament is of course a step in the right direction.
Yet unless it is accompanied by much greater speed and urgency coupled with a genuinely generational shift in the entire country’s approach to national security then it will go down in history as the headline-grabbing but otherwise empty gesture of a government that has forgotten what it means to be ready to fight wars.
Anneliese Dodds, who quit as international development secretary on Thursday over the prime minister’s plan to fund his increase in defence spending with a raid on the overseas aid budget, summed up the challenge well in her resignation letter.
She wrote that she supported the plan to lift the defence budget but said even 3% “may only be the start, and it will be impossible to raise the substantial resources needed just through tactical cuts to public spending”.
She added: “These are unprecedented times, when strategic decisions for the sake of our country’s security cannot be ducked.”
Read more:
Starmer asks leaders to unite ahead of Ukraine summit
Israel agrees to Gaza ceasefire extension
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Ukrainians react to White House meeting
Ms Dodds is right.
It is no longer good enough to treat defence, deterrence and wider national resilience as a niche subject that is delivered by an increasingly small, professional military.
Rather, it should once again be at the heart of the thinking of all government departments – from the Treasury and business to health and education – led by the prime minister, his national security adviser and the cabinet secretary.
This is not something new. It was normal during the Cold War years when, after two world wars, the whole country was acutely aware of the need to maintain costly but credible armed forces and a population that was ready to play its part in a crisis.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Read more:
What is the possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal?
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
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The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
British surgeons on life in Gaza
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The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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