There is growing pressure on the government to formally name an MI5 spy who operated at the heart of the IRA for decades.

Freddie Scappaticci, known by his codename “Stakeknife”, was outed in an investigation into the actions of Britain’s security services during the Troubles.

Scappaticci was recruited by the British Army in the 1970s, working until the 1990s as a mole within the IRA’s internal security unit tasked with identifying and killing informers. The West Belfast man, long suspected of being a British agent, was unmasked by the media in 2003, although he denied the allegations and went into hiding. He died in 2023.

Why is this coming out now?

Scappaticci’s alleged activities and the efforts of MI5 to protect his identity have been set out in the damning 160-page Kenova Final Report. It details the findings of a nine-year, £47.5 million investigation into Stakeknife’s alleged crimes.

The investigation revealed evidence of Stakeknife’s involvement in “serious and unjustifiable criminality, including kidnap, interrogation and murder”, said Kenova. He has been implicated in 14 murders and 15 abductions, while working in a notorious IRA unit known as the “nutting squad”, whose aim, ironically, was to flush out spies within its ranks.

An interim report last year found that Stakeknife’s actions probably “resulted in more lives being lost than saved”. Now the full report says he was “improperly protected by the British security services because they believed him to be a more valuable asset than he was”, said Max Jeffery in The Spectator.

It is “one of the Troubles’ most macabre twists that Scappaticci was secretly working for British security services and that his handlers allowed him to act as executioner to preserve his cover”, said The Guardian.

What did MI5 know?

In the past, MI5 has said its involvement with him was “peripheral” but the report clearly states the security services were “closely involved in his handling”.

“Everything done in respect of Stakeknife was done with MI5’s knowledge and consent; and MI5 had an influential role”, a member of the Army’s agent-handling unit told investigators. They concluded that “MI5 had automatic sight of all Stakeknife intelligence and therefore was aware of his involvement in serious criminality”.

Stakeknife submitted 3,517 intelligence reports during his time under cover. He was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds for his services and even had a dedicated phone line he could call at any time to contact his handlers. Senior Army figures treated him as the “crown jewel” of British intelligence, and he had a reputation as “the goose that laid the golden eggs”.

Yet the report says protecting his identity became “more important than protecting those who could and should have been saved”.

What have MI5 and the government said?

Despite Scappaticci being outed by the press in 2003 and even telling his family his true identity, the government has “stuck to its routine practice not to identify agents, a principle known as NCND, an acronym for Neither Confirm Nor Deny”, said the BBC.

Iain Livingstone, head of Operation Kenova, has said that Stakeknife should now be named. Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn told the Commons that he would respond to Livingstone’s call at the conclusion of an ongoing case in the Supreme Court, which, Benn said, had implications for NCND. “The government’s first duty is, of course, to protect national security and identifying agents risks jeopardising this.”

This stance was backed by Benn’s Tory counterpart Alex Burghart, who said guarantees would be needed that the naming of Stakeknife would not impact on current security operations.

While Burghart admitted “people within” MI5 and the Army had “absolutely crossed the line in a way that wasn’t acceptable”, ultimately, the murders carried out by Stakeknife would have been signed off by the IRA Army Council. “If one is going to start pointing fingers, the first finger should be pointed in that direction.”

Emmanuel Macron has said a new voluntary national service programme in France, announced today, is not about “sending our youth to Ukraine” to fight.

The growing realisation that Russian aggression could “easily spill into Europe” has put “intense pressure” on countries across the continent to “quickly expand the ranks of full-time soldiers and reservists that shrank during the post-Cold War peace”, said The New York Times.

“Yet the question of how to recruit hundreds of thousands of service members is prompting fierce and soul-searching debates.”

What did the commentators say?

France’s new national service plan “stops short” of full conscription, said France 24. Lasting 10 months, with volunteers paid for their service, it is “expected to start modestly”, recruiting 2,000 to 3,000 people in the first year, before “ramping up” with a long-term goal of 50,000 per year.

“Some countries in Europe already have a form of a conscription”, said The Times, notably those “closest to Russian borders” such as Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania. But the war in Ukraine, and the so-called “grey zone” activities carried out by the Kremlin such as drone incursions into Nato airspace, “have reignited the debate across the continent”.

In Poland, “plans are under way for every man to go through military training”, said The New York Times, as the government aims to more than double the size of its army to 500,000. In the hope of also growing its fighting force from 70,000 to 200,000 by 2030, Denmark recently expanded its military conscription programme to include women turning 18 who are entered into a conscription lottery. Croatia has gone further, voting in October to reintroduce compulsory military service, which was suspended in 2008.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, this month opted for a “new military service” made up initially of a volunteer force that mirrors a system used in Sweden, where a questionnaire is sent out to all 18-year-olds. Conscription, which ended in 2011, “is not compulsory under the new rules but this model does include the potential for that”, said DW.

It marks the “first unmistakable shift in German security policy for a generation”, said Henry Donovan in The Spectator. Far from being an “overreaction” as some claim, “it is the minimum a serious country does when confronted with the concrete possibility of war on its own continent”.

Britain should also “pay close attention”. Up to now the UK government has ruled out reintroducing conscription (which was abolished in 1960) to boost its number of military personnel, instead favouring a recruitment drive by the Ministry of Defence.

What next?

Security and defence analysts, as well as Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have warned that Russia could be ready to expand its war into Europe within the next five years.

Even with countries vowing to “do a better job of attracting volunteers to fulfil national targets and commitments to Nato”, the “outlook for meeting targets is dim”, said The New York Times. “Retention rates remain low in many countries, reserve schemes are uneven and recruitment has dwindled in ageing societies with low unemployment,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a European think tank, concluded in a recent report.

The problem is that less than a third of EU citizens appear willing to fight for their country in a war, according to a 2024 poll by Gallup.

“Even if conscription would help address issues with military recruitment, in many countries it could be socially and politically controversial to the point that it reinforces polarisation, leads to backlash or social/political unrest, and undermines the wider security benefits that could be gained from it,” Linda Slapakova, from research institute RAND Europe, told Euronews.

This view was summed up by France’s chief of the defence staff, General Fabien Mandon, last week. While France has the economic and demographic power to defeat Moscow, it lacked the “spirit” in society to stand up to the threat, he said. “If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept – let’s be honest – to lose its children, to suffer economically because defence production will take precedence, then we are at risk.”

Keir Starmer has finally unveiled his long-awaited Strategic Defence Review but there are already questions about how much it will really achieve, and when.

The 130-page report of the review, led by former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson, sets out the UK's defence strategy for the next decade. It calls for a move to a "war-fighting readiness" and the creation of a "defence dividend", using security investment to drive growth. Facilitating this will be a move to a "New Hybrid Navy", combining aircraft, drones, warships and 12 new nuclear-powered attack submarines, a "10-times more lethal army" and a "next generation RAF", among a host of other recommendations.

It is a "plan for transformation", Defence Secretary John Healey told MPs, but its critics are already asking where the money will be found to back up its lofty rhetoric.

What did the commentators say?

The review is "systematic and detailed, but it remains an exercise in tightly bounded ambition", said The Guardian's editorial board. "It speaks of daily cyberattacks and undersea sabotage but proposes no systemic institutional overhaul or acute surge in resilience."

Among its "provisos" are its "terms of reference, which were extraordinarily restrictive", said The Spectator. This meant that those leading the review "were not able to consider the future of the nuclear deterrent; the pre-eminence of Nato in the UK's defence policy planning; any aspect of military or financial assistance to Ukraine; the UK's commitments in the Indo-Pacific, the Gulf and the Middle East, or significant examination of spending levels and requirements". While "not a bad document", it is a "disappointing one" that fails to set out a "clear strategic purpose and narrative".

Given Britain's ever-growing security concerns, the review "should be about more than missiles and missions", said The Guardian. "It must also be about whether the country can keep the lights on, the gas flowing, the internet up and the truth intact. This review sees the threats, but not yet the system needed to confront them. In that gap lies the peril."

What next?

This is the first defence review since 1989 not to recommend a cut to the armed forces and it has already been "overshadowed by a row over money", said The Independent.

The government has committed to raising defence spending from 2.3% to 2.5% by 2027, with the "ambition" to go to 3% by the end of the next parliament. The failure of the PM and his defence secretary to commit fully to the 3% increase "is not only infuriating but disturbing", and raises serious questions about whether the review "is of any value at all", said The Times' editorial board.

The "problem with this evasion" is that it "does the opposite of deterring potential adversaries. The Russians know all about Potemkin villages and they can spot a Potemkin defence policy."

With Donald Trump already calling for member states to go beyond 3% of GDP spending on defence, the defence review will "not cut the mustard" when it comes to deterring Russian aggression, Richard Dannatt, the former head of the British Army, told Times Radio. "It's like saying to Adolf Hitler, 'Please don't attack us till 1946 because we're not going to be ready.'"

Defence Secretary John Healey and his predecessor Ben Wallace admit that Britain's Armed Forces have been "hollowed out" by years of underfunding. This has become an urgent problem since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; until then, few thought it plausible that UK forces might soon be involved in a land war in Europe.

Donald Trump's return to the White House has brought the issue into even sharper relief. His commitment to Nato is in doubt; his officials have stated that they do not see the protection of Europe as a priority, and that they resent Europe "freeloading" on US defence capabilities. This has led to a frantic re-evaluation of the continent's militaries, including Britain's.

What state are our Armed Forces in?

The British Army is forecast to fall below 70,000 this year, making it smaller than at any time since 1793. In total, UK regular forces now number about 136,000: 74,000 in the Army, 32,000 in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and 30,000 in the RAF. That is down from 192,000 in 2010, 321,000 in 1980, and over half a million in 1960.

Britain has tried to maintain a "full spectrum" of capabilities – from aircraft carriers and submarines to fast jets and cruise missiles, from tanks to cyber-operations – but has found itself stretched very thin. In the 1980s, the Army had more than 1,000 main battle tanks. It now has about 200, of which perhaps half are serviceable (for reference, Russia has lost about 3,900 in Ukraine). The RAF is short of fighter jets, because it is retiring 49 Eurofighter Typhoons, nearly a third of its total fleet; it also has a shortage of trained pilots. The Royal Navy is often said to have more admirals (40) than warships (technically it has 70 surface vessels, but these include patrol boats). Although its two aircraft carriers are designed for 36 fighter jets, neither has carried more than eight because of a shortage of suitable aircraft.

What does this mean in practice?

The UK has the world's sixth-largest defence budget, and the Global Firepower Index still ranks it as the world's sixth-most powerful military (below the US, Russia, China, India and South Korea, and above France and Japan). But though it has sophisticated weaponry, a hi-tech defence industry and well-trained servicemen, it faces a crisis of credibility – largely because it could not deploy a fully integrated force to fight for any length of time, or even a peacekeeping force with a serious deterrent effect.

In a recent simulation of a European war, the Army ran out of ammunition in just ten days. It would struggle to send a division (of 10,000 personnel or more) to Ukraine for any length of time. If it ever had to fight a war on the scale of Ukraine's, the Veterans Minister Alistair Carns warned last year, it'd be "exhausted" (wiped out) in as little as six months. The UK also has a series of other vulnerabilities. Its missile defences are poor. Until next year at the earliest, it will be wholly dependent on others for crucial satellite intelligence.

How did it come to this?

The post-Cold War "peace dividend" saw funding heavily reduced, and diverted elsewhere. In 1956, Britain spent just under 8% of its GDP on defence. In 1980, it was 4.1%; but since 2000, the proportion has remained around the 2% mark. By contrast, the health budget was about 3% in 1956, but had hit 12% by 2020. The squeeze was especially tight during austerity: real-terms defence spending fell by 22% between 2009/10 and 2016/17, before climbing again. The aim was to create a "leaner" military, but this has left it without crucial resources. The UK's inventory of artillery and shells, depleted by donations to Ukraine, is seriously inadequate. There is also a series of further weaknesses, such as in recruitment and procurement.

What problems are there in recruitment?

Both the Army and the Navy have failed to meet recruitment targets for each of the past five years. The Army, which outsourced its recruitment to Capita, has met only 63% of its target numbers. This is partly because service morale has fallen "to record lows", says Healey. Poor housing is a major issue here. The Defence Committee found in December that accommodation for service personnel and their families was "shocking".

What about procurement?

In 2022, Labour collated figures showing that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had wasted £13 billion between 2010 and 2021, including a £1bn overspend on four Astute-class submarines, and £4 billion on cancelled contracts – such as £595 million spent to extend the life of 1980s Warrior armoured vehicles. The troubled £5.5 billion contract for Ajax armoured vehicles, ordered in 2014, still has not been delivered.

In 2022/23, more than a third of MoD contracts (worth £13 billion) were awarded without competition. That said, defence procurement presents unique challenges: much equipment must be produced domestically, for national security reasons; and big programmes can take decades, making them vulnerable to changes of government or unforeseen financial circumstances.

Will things improve?

In February, Keir Starmer announced that defence spending would rise from 2.3% of GDP currently, to 2.5% by 2027 (achieved by reducing overseas aid) to meet what he called a "generational" challenge. This will mean approximately £13 billion extra to this year's budget of around £57 billion. Although welcome, much of the money will be needed just to plug gaps – low munition stocks, ageing equipment and so on – and to deal with recruitment (a new service is being launched).

At the same time, the MoD will have to contend with the revolution brought about by digital warfare, and particularly by drones. Most defence experts think much more money will be needed. The Strategic Defence Review, aided by the former Nato chief Lord Robertson, will have to make sense of all these issues. It is due within weeks.

Independence – and how to achieve it – is focusing the minds of European leaders, as they contemplate breaking away from their decades-long reliance on the US for security.

The once unshakeable belief that the US would honour its Nato commitments and come to the continent's collective defence has meant Britain, and other European nations, had become "increasingly dependent on the US to organise, manage and execute" military operations, said The Times. A taste of the second Trump presidency "leaves that expectation in tatters".

What did the commentators say?

In mere weeks, Donald Trump and Vice-President J.D. Vance have "spirited away confidence in the US defence umbrella that has sheltered Western Europe since 1945", said James Fennell at the US think-tank Center for European Policy Analysis, but the "US realignment" away from Europe and "towards the Asia-Pacific" has actually been "telegraphed for a decade". UK and EU political leaders have simply preferred "to disbelieve these signals because they could not bring themselves to contemplate the evaporation of the basic assumptions" to which "Nato's defences are anchored".

The UK's reliance on the US in both military and intelligence matters has opened it up to particular "vulnerabilities", said George Monbiot in The Guardian. The two countries work together on a "wide range of joint intelligence programmes" but, effectively, the much larger US National Security Agency uses Britain's GCHQ "as a subcontractor".

Likewise with the British Army, which will "dip below 70,000 this year" and, as such, "relies on the US for key enablers, such as communications, logistics, personnel, command, engineering and medical treatment", said The Times' Larisa Brown. On multinational exercises, it is "unable to communicate with its Nato counterparts without the US providing communications equipment", an army source told the paper.

Europe, as a whole, "lacks military transport and logistics chains", said Lorne Cook at The Associated Press. And, while "the continent's combined armies total around 2 million personnel", few "can be effectively deployed". Without US back-up, "Europe could need 300,000 troops" to deter Russia, according to estimates from the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank. The recent proposal of a peacekeeping force in Ukraine involved fewer than 30,000 European troops on the ground, backed by air and sea power, but "finding even that many poses a challenge".

What next?

European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has said that, at an emergency meeting of EU leaders on Thursday, she will present a "comprehensive plan" to urgently "re-arm Europe". She said member states must be given "more fiscal space to do a surge in defence spending".

Europe "can build up most of the critical defence enablers needed to deter or defeat Russia without US support within five years – provided the political will to invest is there", said Defense News, after a survey of security researchers and experts.

As for Britain – which now has an additional £6.5 billion a year to spend on the armed services – much will depend on the outcome of the government's strategic defence review, which expected in the spring or summer. In it, "there will be a clear focus" on "pouring more money into UK sovereign defence capabilities", said The Times.

"Disentangling from the US will be difficult and expensive", said The Guardian's Monbiot. But "failing to do so could carry a far higher price".

Leighann McCready didn't have a chance to see her 19-year-old daughter's bedroom, at Larkhill Camp in Wiltshire, when she was alive, said Katie Tarrant in The Sunday Times. But following Royal Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck's death by suicide in December 2021, McCready asked the Army if she could visit it.

Having initially refused, officials relented when she explained that she just wanted to spend time in the space where her child had lived. But once in, McCready found the piece of evidence that would help her secure a measure of justice for her daughter: a superior's letter of apology.

Battery Sgt Maj Michael Webber – who was 20 years older than Beck, five ranks above her and married – had allegedly pinned the teenager down at a drink-fuelled event during a training course, and tried to kiss her. The letter, in which he admitted to "absolutely unacceptable" behaviour, provided a vital piece of evidence, which was shared at Beck's inquest, to back up her family's belief that she had been sexually assaulted, and that the Army had covered it up.

Beck had been so scared by the incident, she had slept in her locked car, said Steven Morris in The Guardian. Yet when she reported Webber's actions, they were deemed merely "inappropriate contact" and he was let off with a minor sanction. So when Beck's line manager, Bombardier Ryan Mason, became fixated on her a few months later, sending her more than 4,600 messages in two months, Beck did not raise it, for fear of being branded a trouble-maker. At her inquest last week, the coroner found that, though there were other factors (including the breakup of a relationship), the mishandling of her complaint and Mason's harassment had contributed to her death.

The MoD claims that the Army has already changed, said Isabel Hardman in The i Paper. But during the inquest, more than 1,000 women wrote online about their experience of being sexually harassed and assaulted in the Army – many referencing recent incidents. If the MoD is serious about ending a toxic culture, it should start by insisting that allegations of harassment and assault are investigated by an independent body – not military officials whose instinct may be to play down incidents and give their accused comrades the benefit of the doubt.

The Army wants women to serve, said The Times, and at this "time of peril", it badly needs to boost its recruitment and retention rates. Women who join up must accept the possibility of coming under attack from the enemy. But they really shouldn't have to worry about being attacked by the man in the room next door.

Britain is "ready and willing" to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine, Keir Starmer has said, but experts have questioned whether the UK's military is prepared for such an undertaking.

Starmer stressed, in The Telegraph, that "securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term is essential" to deter Vladimir Putin from "further aggression".

Ahead of an emergency security meeting in Paris with European leaders today, Starmer has for the first time explicitly indicated the UK is ready to put British troops "in harm's way" in Ukraine.

What did the commentators say?

European leaders are considering deploying troops to Ukraine as a "reassurance force" behind a future ceasefire line, officials told the Financial Times.

Britain "would be expected to play a major role" in any peacekeeping force, said The Telegraph. Its military has experience in managing buffer zones in Cyprus and Bosnia, but former tank commander Hamish de Bretton-Gordon warned that Ukraine presents a greater challenge. There are "two heavily armed, heavily capable armies" and it would require "a viable organisation" to enforce a ceasefire along a potentially 800-mile-long buffer zone.

An effective peacekeeping force would need around 100,000 troops, said Lord Dannatt, former head of the British Army. The UK would have to supply "quite a proportion" of that number, he told the BBC, "and we really couldn't do it".

"Our military is so run down at the present moment, numerically and as far as capability and equipment is concerned, it would potentially be quite embarrassing," he said, speaking to BBC Radio 4's "The Week in Westminster". "If we were to deploy 10,000 troops, each rotation for six months, that would effectively tie up 30,000 or 40,000 troops and we just haven't got that number available."

Uncertainty remains over what shape US involvement would take, said the FT. Although Trump has ruled out boots on the ground, "European officials say the US has not excluded providing external support" to any peacekeeping force.

What next?

The British Army has consistently missed its recruitment targets since 2010-11, raising concerns about whether the UK has the capability for a major peacekeeping mission.

Nonetheless, Starmer will use the emergency summit in Paris today to urge Europe to shoulder more of the burden for the continent’s defence, in response to demands from the US. Europe, he said, will need to demonstrate that it is "truly serious about our own defence and bearing our own burden".

In Keir Starmer's "first appearance on the world stage" as Prime Minister, at the Nato summit in Washington last week, he was keen to proclaim Britain as a "major" military power, said Con Coughlin in The Daily Telegraph. 

Starmer declared that security was his "first priority"; reiterated his firm support for Ukraine; and called on all Nato nations to increase their spending on defence from a minimum 2% of GDP, the current commitment, to 2.5%. 

"The only problem" with Starmer's otherwise laudable ambitions is that Britain's Armed Forces are currently "small and under-equipped", and that he and his new Defence Secretary, John Healey, seem to have "little idea when, if ever" their own government will actually meet that 2.5% target. 

Furthermore, there will be no extra spending in the near future: Labour is insisting that, before decisions are made, there must be a full strategic defence review, a process that could mean no decisions are taken until next year at the earliest.

Dwindling force

In the meantime, it is widely accepted that Britain's Armed Forces are in "crisis", said Larisa Brown in The Times. General Sir Patrick Sanders, the recently retired chief of the general staff, warned that they are so worn down that they could not defend the country if the worst happened, or even fight "a small war" abroad for more than a month. 

UK forces lack essentials, from supply trucks to electronic warfare systems. The RAF and the Royal Navy have overspent on planes and ships, so the Army has had to cut back. It is now less than 73,000 strong, its smallest size since the Napoleonic era, and it is "considered deficient" in important areas such as artillery and air defence. 

Earlier this year, the MPs' Public Accounts Committee warned that the gap between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) budget and the cost of meeting the UK's desired military capabilities has grown to at least £16.9bn, its largest-ever deficit. 

'Reset' required

Still, demanding that the new Government raise spending "within days of taking office" is wrong and "pointless", said The Guardian. Budgets are limited. Providers of all essential public services are "lobbying the Government with the strongest cases they can muster". 

And the strategic defence review is badly needed, said Edward Stringer in The Daily Telegraph. The MoD is in "a downward spiral of paying more to get less". The Ukraine War has been a wake-up call. Our "bonsai" peacetime forces, based on small amounts of top-of-the-range military equipment, would be hopeless in a sustained conflict. We need to build up supplies of artillery shells and other munitions, and to adapt to drone warfare. 

If we want a military that "our allies and foes will respect", a "fundamental reset" is needed.

After 14 years of shambolic rule and one of the worst campaign launches ever, the Tories have played their "last moth-eaten card", said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian. Rishi Sunak has pledged that, if re-elected, he would bring back national service, last seen in 1960. 

This "decrepit" notion was beloved of the now long-departed "Sir Bufton Tuftons" in the Commons. "It's that never-ending Tory cry of youth hate: cut their hair, square-bash some discipline into them, bring back the lash!" 

Under Sunak's plans, all 18-year-olds would be forced to either serve for a year in the Armed Forces or UK Cyber Defence, or to spend one weekend a month volunteering for organisations such as the NHS and fire service. 

Most sensible people have seen this pledge for what it is, said Ryan Coogan in The Independent: a cynical ploy to try to claw back some of the elderly and right-wing voters who have ditched the Tories. What's next? "Bringing back hanging?" 

A good idea?

It is "a desperate, last-minute election gimmick", said Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. "But that does not make it a bad idea." 

Around 80 countries currently operate some form of national service, including progressive democracies such as France and Denmark. In an increasingly fragmented world where teens spend hours in a social media "bubble", civic schemes can help broaden young people's experiences, give them real-world skills and build camaraderie. 

As for the military part, it wouldn't be "the miserable existence imposed on all young men in conscription years past", said Elisabeth Braw in the Daily Mail. In Norway, which has operated a similar model for over three decades, only the keenest and most suitable 18-year-olds, fewer than 20%, are selected for military service. (In the UK, it will be under 5%.) 

That makes the process "hyper-competitive" – the equivalent of getting into Oxbridge. Many conscripts turn professional. Our Armed Forces are "overstretched and plagued by recruitment shortfalls". National service will ensure that they "get the best possible soldiers".

Or a 'fantasy'

Haven't young people like me sacrificed enough, asked Sam Bidwell in The Spectator. We've "already done our fair share of national service" – four years ago, when we gave up "the best years of our lives to protect the elderly from Covid". Today we still suffer with "sky-high house prices, crippling student debt, and a historically high tax burden". Now Sunak wants to conscript us into plugging the gaps in our public services? 

The whole plan is, "let's use a good 1950s word – cobblers", said Andrew Marr in The New Statesman. Not because it doesn't have merit, but because it was clearly designed to grab headlines and shore up the core vote. It hasn't been properly costed; Army chiefs are dubious; and the Tories can't answer basic questions like what sanctions there would be for refuseniks. 

Sadly, like stopping the boats and banning smoking, national service is a not a policy, it's a "fantasy".

As global tensions ratchet up defensive preparations, countries are beginning to reconsider whether conscripting only men into their armed forces will be enough. 

Ukraine should get rid of its "old-fashioned mentality" and start conscripting women into the army, the country's military adviser on gender issues has said. 

There are already about 65,000 women serving as volunteers in Ukraine's armed forces – an increase of about 40% on the year before Russia's invasion, but that represents a smaller percentage (7.3%) of female participation than most Nato states. But in the face of increasing Russian bombardment, dwindling supplies and heavy Ukrainian losses, "it is only right that women serve too", Oksana Grigorieva told The Times. 

Last month Denmark announced plans to become the 10th country to extend military conscription to women, in response to Russia's growing aggression on Nato's eastern front. "We do not rearm because we want war. We are rearming because we want to avoid it," said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. The government wants "full equality between the sexes", she added. 

What are attitudes towards conscripting women?

Military conscription, commonly known as the draft, means the government requires citizens to serve in the armed forces for a set period of time. 

Throughout history, conscription has predominantly targeted men, reflecting traditional gender roles, perceptions of physical strength and military duty. This has often excluded women, though they serve voluntarily in many armed forces around the world.

But as preoccupation grows with both gender equality and global insecurity, the picture is changing. The vast majority of the UK public (72%) now believe that women should be conscripted in the event of a draft, according to the latest YouGov poll in January. About 42% of respondents thought women should serve on the same basis as men, while 30% thought there should be some restrictions on the roles women could perform. 

Ira Shevchenko, who has volunteered in the Ukrainian military since 2021, told The Times that women should be conscripted on the grounds of gender equality. "Equal rights goes hand-in-hand with equal responsibilities," she said.

The US does not have mandatory military conscription for either men or women in peacetime. It does, however, require men to register with the Selective Service System within 30 days of turning 18, in case conscription is brought back.

Efforts to include women in this have been gaining traction in recent years, since the Defense Department opened up all military roles to women. Men's rights group have challenged the male-only military registration, and in 2019 a Texas federal judge ruled that it was unconstitutional.

Where are women conscripted?

In Ukraine, "an indication of a possible female draft" came last October, said The Times, when women with medical degrees were required to register with recruitment offices. 

"Our northern neighbour isn’t simply going to disappear," said Grigorieva. "For hundreds of years they have repeatedly attacked us. Like Israel, we have to be prepared for this and that means training up both men and women to be ready for war."

In Israel, female conscription has been in place since the country was established in 1948. All 18-year-olds must serve for up to two years, and about 40% of those drafted are women.

Danish women could already volunteer for military service, and in 2023 they made up about a quarter of the armed forces, according to Politico. But Denmark's defence department said it was forced to rethink its conscription model amid growing concerns over Russian aggression and Europe's lack of preparation. 

"Unfortunately, the security policy situation in Europe has become more and more serious," said defence minister Troels Lund Poulsen. A more robust conscription system is "absolutely crucial", The Guardian reported.

Denmark was the third European country in Europe to introduce female conscription, after Norway in 2015 and Sweden in 2017 – also over security concerns. But Norway and Sweden are still the only two countries in the world where men and women are conscripted under the same formal conditions.

North Korea has the longest mandatory female military involvement in the world, although not all women are conscripted. It is believed to have introduced mandatory service for women between the ages of 17 and 20, until the age of 23, in 2015. Some estimate that the active-duty North Korean military is 30% women, South Korean General I-B Chun said in a speech at Policy Exchange in 2018. 

The minister for veterans' affairs has been ordered to name sources who told him about alleged war crimes by British soldiers – or face a possible jail sentence.

Tory MP Johnny Mercer, a former soldier, has until 5 April to provide a witness statement to an independent inquiry that is "investigating whether British special forces killed civilians and unarmed people on night raids in Afghanistan", said the BBC. 

The inquiry, which opened in October, is looking into allegations that 80 Afghans were killed by members of three British SAS units between 2010 and 2013. Failure to comply with the order could result in Mercer facing a jail sentence or fine.

What did Mercer tell the inquiry?

Mercer last month gave an "extraordinary" witness statement to the inquiry that "reads like a treatment for a film", said Prospect magazine.

The MP for Plymouth Moor View "in effect" admitted that he believed members of the SAS had engaged in dozens of extrajudicial killings of Afghan civilians in the early 2010s, said The Guardian.

The former commando told the inquiry that he had become aware of the SAS allegations over time, starting with an "odour and pallor" that dated back to his last tour of Afghanistan in 2010.

The claims came to his attention again in 2017, after he became an MP, when two military colleagues warned him about the seriousness of the allegations. Mercer said that a senior officer detailed the scale of the official investigation into the alleged killings, while another former soldier said he had been asked to carry a "dropped weapon" – an untraceable weapon that could be used to falsely suggest an unarmed victim had posed a threat to British troops.

Mercer told the inquiry that he became increasingly alarmed by the allegations after internal investigations found there were no video recordings from a number of operations of concern, which Mercer considered to be "implausible".

Why could Mercer face jail?

Charles Haddon-Cave, who chairs the Afghanistan public inquiry, has issued Mercer with a Section 21 notice under the Inquiries Act 2005, compelling him to reveal the names of his sources, which the inquiry has said will be "treated in confidence".

But Mercer has repeatedly refused to reveal the names and identities of the "multiple officers" whom he claims told him of the allegations.

If Mercer continues to defy the order, he could face prosecution by the inquiry in a magistrates' court or be found in contempt in the High Court. 

Sources speaking to The Telegraph reported that a conviction in the High Court "could lead to imprisonment of up to two years or an unlimited fine". If found guilty by magistrates, the MP could be given a criminal conviction and a possible prison sentence of up to six months.

Why won't Mercer reveal his sources? 

A friend of Mercer told The Telegraph that those who spoke to the minister about the allegations "are not people who are in any way suspects". Rather, they are "vulnerable soldiers and veterans who for their own legitimate reasons didn't want to engage with the inquiry".

"This is not about him protecting wrongdoers," said the unnamed source. "But Johnny has spent his entire political career protecting junior ranks, and he won't change that." 

Haddon-Cave cautioned the minister last month to "decide which side you are really on". The inquiry chair asked: " Is it assisting the inquiry fully and the public interest and the national interest in getting to the truth of these allegations quickly, for everyone's sake? Or ­being part of what is – in effect – an omertà, a wall of silence."

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the British Army has been infiltrated by a "woke" and "extremist culture", following reports of plans to relax security checks on overseas recruits to increase diversity.

According to The Sunday Telegraph, the military's 2023 Race Action Plan describes security clearance vetting as being "the primary barrier to non-UK personnel gaining a commission in the Army", and vows to "challenge" security clearance requirements.

Recruitment targets have been "consistently missed" by the British Armed Forces over the past decade, said GB News, with ethnic minorities making up only 14% of the regular army.

'Nothing short of dangerous madness'

In an open letter to the defence secretary published in The Telegraph, 12 former senior military officers said a relaxed vetting policy was "wicked" and, with Islamism and other extremism "rampant", "nothing short of dangerous madness". 

"The Russians, Iranians and Chinese will be observing our descent into self-hatred and obsessing over diversity and inclusion with glee," they wrote, adding that "woke" defence policies were leading to a "moral disarmament" in the Armed Forces.

"Nothing could be better calculated to destroy the esprit de corps of our Armed Forces than this poisonous farrago of nonsense," said the officers, who warned that the "obsessive racialising" would deter the type of people "most motivated and apt to our high calling".

Writing in the Daily Express, Shapps said yesterday that "over time, a woke culture has seeped into public life and it is poisoning common sense discourse". Although our country faces "serious issues" related to defence, he said, the "drumbeat of those who despise Britain, her proud history and the culture of her great people, is failing the Armed Services and the British public".

'Sending signals to voters'

Shapps has ordered a review of what he described as the "deeply unpopular and troubling" diversity and inclusion policies in the Armed Forces, such as gender neutral toilets.

He also took aim at a report published by the Army in 2022 that instructs soldiers to avoid religious elements in Acts of Remembrance on Armistice Day.

"No one should be offended by having religion as part of remembrance services," Shapps told The Telegraph. "You don't have to be Christian to appreciate and respect the history and traditions of the United Kingdom." 

His attempt to tie the "woke nonsense" infiltrating the Armed Forces to Labour was met with short shrift by the rival party's shadow defence secretary, however. John Healey said that national security must always be the "first priority for any government, and our Armed Forces must never relax security checks for recruits". But "from missing their own hiring targets every year to overseeing the terrible state of military housing, the forces' recruitment crisis has been caused by 14 years of Conservative failure", Healey added.

The British Army currently has around 76,000 regular full-time troops, down from nearly 103,000 in 2012. Government plans to cut the number of troops even further has "caused concern among US generals", said LBC. Yet "with recruitment proving difficult despite contracts worth more than a billion pounds awarded to a private company to oversee the process, army numbers could drop faster".

The newly leaked MoD report is fuel for critics who claim the Army is taking its diversity policies "too far", said Sky News's Nick Martin. But neither the backlash nor Shapps's "root and branch" review "solves the fact that ethnic minorities remain woefully underrepresented, because this is as much about sending signals to voters as it is about solving a problem".

The head of the British Army has said that the UK should train a "citizen army" ready to fight a future land war.

Highlighting the threat from Russia, and noting steps being taken by other European nations such as Sweden and Germany to put their populations on a "war footing", General Patrick Sanders said that "we must similarly prepare – and that is a whole-of-nation undertaking.

"Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars, citizen armies win them."

Who would be involved?

Sanders, who is chief of the general staff, was not advocating for conscription or for an imminent call-up of volunteers, but his speech at a military conference this week was intended to be "a wake-up call for the nation". 

He was "urging Britain to prepare for a mass mobilisation of tens of thousands of people, should war break out", said the BBC's defence correspondent Jonathan Beale. So a citizen army would almost certainly be comprised of individuals who are not career soldiers but rather civilians who can be called upon in times of need.

During the Second World War, the age range of those called up for service was 18 to 41, but in Ukraine, men aged 27 to 60, even without military experience, can currently be called up to fight. 

Women have been allowed to serve in all combat roles in the British Armed Forces since 2018, so it is likely that women would be called up.

Military experts hope that Sanders's call will help create a "second echelon" of reserve forces that could number up to half a million trained volunteers, said the London Evening Standard.

What would they do?

A Whitehall source told The Times that the British military’s role in training Ukrainian civilians and soldiers could act as a "mission rehearsal" for the UK. British troops have trained more than 30,000 Ukrainians, "many of them civilians who have never fired a weapon".

These Ukrainians, including "former lorry drivers and shopkeepers", were "put through an intensive five-week course" and Ministry of Defence officials believe there are "useful lessons" for preparing a future "citizen army" in the UK.

Those taking part should be "trained and equipped" to fight, said Sanders. But people in a citizen army would not be automatically sent to the frontlines, because there are now a "myriad of roles" that previously did not exist on the battlefield, said the Daily Mail.

These include "more specialised missions" by special forces, as well as drone pilots, vehicle technicians and emergency physicians, plus "high-tech" roles "far away from the frontlines".

Who would be exempt?

Although there are no plans for a mandatory call-up, the demography of people conscripted in the past gives a steer on the make-up of a possible citizen army. 

People who work in key industries that are regarded as vital to keeping the country running would probably be made exempt in the event of a war. In WWII, these included baking, farming, medicine, coal mining and engineering.

Based on current British armed forces rules, anyone who suffers from "deprivation of the senses", such as issues related to hearing or vision, would also probably be exempted, along with people suffering from psychiatric or cardiovascular issues, or from bone and joint problems, said LBC.

What has the reaction been?

Downing Street "does not seem keen" on the idea, said the BBC, after a spokesperson said that General Sanders' hypothetical scenarios were "not helpful". 

The plan is "unpopular and unaffordable", said The Guardian in an editorial.

According to a poll of 2,000 people reported in the Daily Mail, less than 10% of Britons would be willing to take up a combat role if the country faced a military threat. The researchers found just 27% would "unquestionably" join a war effort if the nation came under attack in a similar way to Ukraine.

Sanders said the Cold War peace dividend was over, noting that "over the last 30 years, the army has been halved in size" and that "in the last 12 years, we’ve absorbed a 28% reduction".

Military experts believe that "in the time of war", far more people would be motivated "to sign up to defend their nation", said The Times. 

General Nick Parker, a former Commander Land Forces, told Times Radio that the UK must "make sure that we are as resilient as we possibly can be, and to be prepared to question whether the forces that we have are the right ones for what may happen in the future".

The British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force as decades of spending cuts have left its ranks depleted and equipment obsolete, a senior US general has privately warned Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

Sky News reported “defence sources” as saying this decline in capability needed to be reversed faster than planned in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The news site added that Rishi Sunak risked failing in his role as “wartime prime minister” unless he took urgent action to counter the growing security threat posed by Vladimir Putin.

“Bottom line… it’s an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies for a decade,” one source told Sky News’ security and defence editor, Deborah Haynes.

What did the papers say?

The current state of the UK’s armed forces was laid bare last week when General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the British Army, said the decision to send 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine would leave the UK “temporarily weaker” and at risk of failing to meet its Nato obligations.

“Although the timing of Sanders’s intervention was controversial,” said The Times, “he is not alone in thinking that years of wasteful procurement and underfunding have left the British Army in such a ‘dire state’ that it would struggle to mobilise a division of 10,000 troops if forced to fight a European war.”

According to Haynes: “While the picture is bleak across the military, the army is in a particularly bad place.”

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a British Army officer from 1988 to 2012, told The Independent: “Our own situation has become rather bleak. I heard giving 14 tanks to Ukraine would be detrimental to our own forces when we had hundreds ten years ago. This should be a massive wake-up call.”

According to a Ministry of Defence report published in 2021, all but one of the UK’s 33 infantry battalions were dangerously short of combat-ready troops.

To compound matters, at the start of the year the Mail on Sunday revealed that one in four British troops have been officially classified as dangerously overweight or obese, with military chiefs “accused of a ‘failure of leadership’ over the Army’s expanding waistline”.

What next?

Sky News said plans to reverse the British Army’s decline “should include increasing the defence budget by at least £3bn a year; halting a plan to shrink the size of the army even further; and easing peacetime procurement rules that obstruct the UK’s ability to buy weapons and ammunition at speed”.

However, Sunak has so far resisted calls to follow his predecessor, Liz Truss, and lift defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030, up from just over 2% at present. On current plans and unless new money is found, the British Army is due to shrink to just 73,000 frontline troops. This is less than half the size it was in 1990 and the smallest it has been since Napoleonic times.

Yet while everyone agrees money is undoubtedly needed to help rebuild the armed forces and counteract the twin effects of inflation and a weaker pound, some have suggested the blame for the army’s lack of modern equipment lies with the army itself.

Francis Tusa, a military analyst, calculated that £14bn has been invested over the past decade and no new armoured capability has been provided, “leaving the troops with essentially the same kit as when they invaded Iraq in 2003”, said The Times. “Outdated weaponry and other legacies from decades of neglect leave the country vulnerable,” said the paper.

In light of the army’s recent experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, “it is difficult to avoid the painful conclusion that the British Army functions for the Americans as the Gurkhas do for the British Army: a highly motivated, loyal auxiliary force, incapable of prosecuting a campaign on its own, whose colourful traditions still carry the romance of an earlier, more glorious era”, said UnHerd’s foreign affairs editor Aris Roussinos.

“Today, however, even this limited role is now in doubt,” he concluded.

While it is true the armed forces “have been cut to the bone for years”, said The Spectator, the problem ultimately is one of “confidence”.

“France, as well as ambitious countries in Asia, seem to appreciate the value of their militaries”, the magazine said. “Given our global links and history, a booming Britain climbing up the world economy rankings would find it incumbent to retain its current (and adopt an even greater) geopolitical role, with a military budget to match.”

Britain must prepare “to fight in Europe once again”, the new head of the Army has warned.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, who took over as chief of the general staff last week, “issued a rallying cry to troops – telling them they need to be ready to face Russia on the battlefield”, said the BBC.

In an internal message, seen by the broadcaster, Sanders said the Ukraine war showed the need to “protect the UK and be ready to fight and win wars on land”. There is a “burning imperative to forge an Army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle”, he added.

Slashing troops

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and the continued conflict has “changed the outlook and context for the Army, which faces cuts to the workforce in the coming years”, said the BBC.

The invasion “sparked a major push for increased defence spending” in the UK after last year’s Integrated Review “slashed troop numbers by 10,000, bringing the Army to the smallest size in its history, at 72,500”, said The Telegraph.

The Daily Express said there were now “serious questions” about how Britain would “actually fare in warfare”, as the country, “along with the US, France and other Western powers, has, over time, whittled down its defensive and, of course, attacking capabilities”.

The paper pointed to comments from Alex Vershinin, a retired US lieutenant colonel and war-gaming expert, who has warned that the West also lacks the necessary manufacturing capacity to produce the ammunition required for a conflict with Russia. “The winner in a prolonged war between two near-peer powers is still based on which side has the strongest industrial base,” he wrote in a commentary for the Royal United Services Institute last week.

Vershinin noted that in a “recent war game involving US, UK and French forces, UK forces exhausted national stockpiles of critical ammunition after eight days”.

Steeling for a long war

In The Sunday Times yesterday, Boris Johnson said that “we need to steel ourselves for a long war” in Ukraine. The West must ensure Kyiv has enough equipment, funding and training so Ukrainians can defend their country, he said. “In so doing, we and our allies will be protecting our own security as much as Ukraine’s.”

It comes after Johnson paid a second “surprise visit” to Kyiv at the end of last week “in another strong show of support for Ukraine”, said Politico. The UK prime minister and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have become “firm” allies since the invasion, said the site.

Although the UK government has been clear that it will not be involved directly in the conflict, it has provided a range of economic, humanitarian and defensive military assistance. On Friday, Johnson extended the offer of an expanded training programme, in which British instructors plan to work with Ukrainian forces “with the potential to train up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days”.

The risk of escalation

Nato, of which the UK is a founding member, has echoed Johnson’s sentiment about a long war ahead. In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said: “We must prepare for the fact that it could take years. We must not let up in supporting Ukraine.”

But defence planners across Nato are also “reassessing Moscow’s military might in their contingency plans in the unlikely event of a conventional war between the alliance and Russia”, said Foreign Policy, citing multiple current and former defence officials.

Describing relations between Nato and Russia as the “most precarious” in the post-Cold War era, the magazine said some analysts “feel it is time to start drawing preliminary conclusions for what a Nato-Russia conflict might look like, in the event that the Ukraine conflict spills into alliance territory”.

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior US intelligence official now with the Center for a New American Security think tank, said this was “prudent” as the “risk of escalation still remains”.

Indeed, Gen Sanders told British troops he is the first chief of the general staff since 1941 to take command of the Army “in the shadow of a land war in Europe involving a continental power”. He said: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core purpose to protect the UK by being ready to fight and win wars on land.”

One defence source told the BBC that the tone of Sanders’ message was “unsurprising”, and that while all armies train to fight, the threat has clearly changed.

British troops could soon be trained in how to exploit Russia’s military weaknesses by troops currently defending Ukraine, the defence secretary has said.

Speaking to reporters while visiting British troops stationed in Finland, Ben Wallace said he believes “Ukrainians have a lot to teach us” and that “you could definitely foresee the Ukrainian experience being used to teach our forces”.

“Every day is a learning day for us and the Ukrainians,” he added, listing Ukraine’s “use of how to fight in built-up areas”, “their use of electronic warfare”, and “how to deploy anti-air” defences as “important to learn” for the UK.

Battle-hardened

In meeting Moscow’s troops on the battlefield, Ukraine has become the first Western nation to fight Russia in conventional warfare since the Second World War. That means they are well placed to teach allies how to “exploit Russia’s weaknesses”, The Times said.

Wallace told reporters that the British Army is “learning from Russia’s failures every day”, the paper added, explaining that the war in Ukraine has given a specific insight into shortcomings with Moscow’s “equipment and supply chains”.

He also said that Operation Orbital, the British Army’s training mission in Ukraine, has only been “paused”, suggesting it could resume once hostilities are over. The “training task”, put in place after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea, has previously “provided support to about 22,000 of Kyiv’s troops”, The Telegraph reported.

Wallace gave “no indication” of how training for British troops from Ukrainian soldiers would work or whether it would begin “before or after the war has ended”, The Times said.

Case study

The defence secretary also gave no insight into what Britain could learn from Ukraine’s experience. But “the image of a Russian military as one that other countries should fear, let alone emulate, has been shattered” by the invasion, The New York Times reported.

With each day that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy “holds out” against the invading force, European officials become more confident in stating that “they are not as intimidated by Russian ground forces as they were in the past”.

General Mark A. Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the paper: “We’ve seen a large, combined-arms, multi-axis invasion of the second-largest country in Europe, Ukraine, by Russian air, ground, special forces, intelligence forces.

“It’s a little bit early to draw any definitive lessons learned,” he added. “But one of the lessons that’s clearly evident is that the will of the people, the will of the Ukrainian people, and the importance of national leadership and the fighting skills of the Ukrainian army has come through loud and clear.”

It is likely that Britain would want to learn how to best take advantage of what Paul Dibb, the former director of the Joint Intelligence Organisation of Australia, called Russia’s “abysmally poor attitude to tactical coordination”, as well as how “authoritarian countries like Russia run militaries where personal initiative is denied”.

The conflict has provided the West with a case study in how “young, inexperienced conscripted soldiers who have not been empowered to make on-the-spot decisions” during Russia’s invasion of its eastern European neighbour, The New York Times reported.

The ”mediocre performance of many of Russia’s tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and missile brigades” is also an area of interest, Dibb said in an opinion piece for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, describing how “critical components” have either never been installed or “stolen for sale on the black market”.

Wallace’s reference to “electronic warfare” may refer to Ukraine’s success in disrupting Russian radio communication.

‘Problem of corruption’

Journalist David Volodzko told NPR that the conflict has revealed Moscow’s “somewhat surprising” reliance on “unencrypted high-frequency radio and even mobile phones”, technology that he described as “somewhat dated”.

“The communication situation is much like some of the other problems they’ve faced, which is simply a problem of corruption,” he said, explaining that the conflict as a whole has shown how corruption has “left Putin and his army out in the open” and “exposed”.

Western forces could also learn from the increasing number of examples in which “Russian forces have made tactical errors that the Ukrainians have been able to capitalise on”, The New York Times reported.

“It looks like the Ukrainians have been most successful when ambushing Russian troops,” Thomas Bullock, an analyst from Janes, a defence intelligence firm, said.

“The way the Russians have advanced, which is that they have stuck to main roads so that they can move quickly,” he added. “But they are advancing on winding roads and their flanks and supply routes are overly exposed to Ukrainian attacks.”

An intruder was welcomed into an army barracks close to Windsor Castle in an “extraordinary breach of security” last week.

A man pretending to be a priest was reportedly allowed into the Coldstream Guards’ barracks without showing any identification after claiming to be a friend of the base’s padre, or military chaplain, in what the Daily Mail called “one of the most shocking security blunders at a UK military base in years”.

The fake priest spent the evening of 26 April eating and drinking with officers in their mess before reportedly being offered a bed for the night. He “was not rumbled even after telling officers he had trained as an ejector seat test pilot” or that he had received transplants of internal organs “resistant to G-forces”, The Sun reported.

The intruder also “bragged of having received a medal for bravery in the Iraq War”, said the paper.

Speaking to TalkTV, a source called the incident an “extraordinary breach of security” and said that the man “turned up at the gate in the evening and said his name was Father Cruise and claimed to be a friend of the battalion’s Padre Rev Matt Coles”.

The intruder, who the source said was known to local police, was said to have enjoyed “banter” with the officers in the bar as he regaled them with made-up tales of serving in Iraq.

The Coldstream Guards are “recognised by their red jackets and black bearskin hats and have a ceremonial role as protectors of Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace”, explained Sky News.

The Queen, who spent Easter at her Norfolk residence of Sandringham, is thought to have returned to Windsor just hours after Thames Valley Police were called to escort the man from the barracks. The breach comes as the police and military gear up for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, which will be celebrated next month.

A spokesperson for Thames Valley Police said they received a report of an intruder at Victoria Barracks in Sheet Street, Windsor, on Wednesday morning. They confirmed that “officers attended and removed the intruder from the barracks” and that “no further action was required”. The Ministry of Defence also said it has launched an urgent investigation into the security breach.

An Army spokesperson said: “The Army takes this breach of security extremely seriously and it will be thoroughly investigated as a matter of priority.”

The Coldstream Guards is the “oldest continuously serving regiment” in the British Army, said the Daily Mail, and has a “hard-won reputation” as an “elite fighting force” that is tasked with defending the Queen. But on this occasion, it seems that “their guard was down”, said the paper.

Britain is planning to work with the US and Australia to develop nuclear-capable hypersonic weapons.

A statement from Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced an expansion of the Aukus trilateral security pact in the form of “cooperation on hypersonics and counter-hypersonic” weapons, The Guardian reported.

How do they work?

Hypersonic missiles can reach up to five times the speed of sound, or 3,850mph. In comparison, US Tomahawk cruise missiles travel at around 550mph, according to military systems company PartYard Military.

Hypersonic missiles do not follow a predetermined, arched trajectory. Instead they are able to use the air to move in flight.

There are two main types of the missile, the first of which are “glide vehicles”, said The Times. These are “launched into space on a rocket before gliding to their target”.

The second variety are “cruise missiles”, the paper added, which “have engines that use the air’s oxygen and produce thrust during their flight” allowing them to “cruise at a steady speed and altitude”.

How much do they cost?

US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Defense News that they could cost anywhere from $50m (£38.1m) to $100m (£76.3m) each, though the hope is to get the unit price down to $10m (£7.6m).

Pentagon officials calculated that, in coming years, hypersonic weapons will add $21.5bn (£16.4bn) to the navy’s budget and $7bn to the army’s. However, these estimates are “tentative as the technology emerges”, The Guardian said.

Who else has them?

Tthe US, China and Russia have “the most advanced capabilities”, said The Times. The US “quietly tested its own hypersonic missile last month”, The Guardian added.

Australia, France and Germany are, like the UK, investigating the technology.

Why does the UK want them?

Announcing the plan, Stephen Lovegrove, the UK’s national security adviser, referenced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying it made it “more important now than ever that allies work together to defend democracy, international law and freedom around the world”.

The Ukraine conflict has pushed the missiles up the priority list of many nations. Before Russia invaded Ukraine, it test-fired about 10 new Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missiles from a frigate and two more from a submarine.

Joe Biden said last month that Russia had used its Kinzhal hypersonic missile in Ukraine, describing it as “a consequential weapon” that was “almost impossible to stop”.

Russia confirmed it had used them twice against targets near Mykolaiv and elsewhere in the west of Ukraine. Western analysts said that this was the first time hypersonic missiles had been used in combat.

As Russia brings war to Europe, the number of troops serving in the UK is being reduced to its “lowest since the Napoleonic wars”, a Tory MP has warned.

Boris Johnson was yesterday asked by the Commons Liaison Committee whether he might reconsider the planned defence cuts in the current “era of insecurity”.

Speaking on behalf of his fellow Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, Tom Tugendhat highlighted cuts to the RAF’s F-35, Typhoon and Hercules fleets, the Army’s tank and fighting vehicle numbers, and the 10,000 reduction in Army troops to 72,500 by 2025. He asked if the government planned to look again at the landmark Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy published last March amid the new “looming threats”.

However, Johnson answered that the review, which laid out plans for defence cuts and transformations, was “pretty much spot on in the priorities it set out for the country”.

Ellwood, chair of the Commons Defence Select Committee, had previously warned that the suggested improvements in cyber defences laid out in the review came at a “huge price to our conventional defence posture with dramatic cuts to our troop numbers, tanks, armoured fighting vehicles”. For instance, the review suggested cutting the strength of the British Army’s infantry to 19,400 soldiers by 2024-25.

Last week Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement ruled out any additional support for the military, despite pressure for an increase in defence funding and predictions that this would be included. The chancellor “rejected calls from Cabinet colleagues and others to revisit the autumn spending review and sink more money into the military,” noted the i news site.

Labour’s shadow defence secretary John Healey said that, despite the Ukraine war, Sunak’s statement “had no halt to army cuts, no review of defence spending, no reform of military procurement and no change to the real cut in day-to-day MoD spending”.

The latest Ministry of Defence figures for the Armed Forces, which includes the Army, RAF, Navy and Marines, shows that there were 137,070 full-time trained troops in January. Around 14,160 people left the UK Armed Forces in 2021, an increase of 11.5% on the previous 12 months.

Reductions in military personnel are nothing new. In 2010, the Strategic Defence and Security Review recommended that all three of Britain’s armed forces would take cuts in numbers.

Also, as Statista pointed out, Britain is involved in “far fewer conventional military conflicts today than it was in the past” and “as the size of Britain’s empire declined rapidly after 1945, so too did its global military commitments”.

However, in response to the conflict in Ukraine, calls are growing for troop numbers to be increased, said Forces.net.

During a debate on defence spending in the House of Commons earlier this month, Tory MP Bob Stewart said: “The one thing the Russians are showing is that in order to take territory, you’ve got to put boots on it, and guess what – we’re chucking our boots out. It’s appalling, we’ve got to reverse that decision.”

The Ministry of Defence is facing calls to investigate allegations that a British soldier was responsible for the brutal murder of a 21-year-old Kenyan woman almost a decade ago.

The battered body of Agnes Wanjiru was discovered in the septic tank of a hotel in the town of Nanyuki in central Kenya in June 2012. She had last been seen two months earlier leaving the hotel bar with one of the dozens of British soldiers who were there drinking and dancing with local women.

Wanjiru was a hairdresser but had recently turned to sex work to provide for her five-month-old daughter, according to The Sunday Times, which has spearheaded the investigation into her death.

She “loved music and dancing”, and lived with her sister, Rose, in a single room in Nanyuki’s Majengo ghetto.

“Agnes was a cheerful and friendly girl, just like her daughter, Stacy,” Rose told the newspaper. “On the day she disappeared, she was just as happy as ever.”

Murder suspects

When Wanjiru’s badly injured body was discovered, she was naked “except for a white bra with an unopened condom packet shoved down one of the bra cups”, The Sunday Times reported. She had a 2cm stab womb in her abdomen, a blunt force injury to her chest and collapsed lungs.

Her body had decomposed and “was almost unrecognisable”, the paper said. Her sister identified Wanjiru but said: “The only way I knew it was her was because of her hair braids.”

However, after examining Wanjiru’s remains, a pathologist concluded that her injuries might not have been enough to have killed her – meaning she could have still been alive when her murderer dumped her in the septic tank.

A local police investigation into her death was launched, led by Corporal Ramadhan Jabali, who established that at least four witnesses had seen Wanjiru leave the hotel bar with a British soldier and go to a bedroom.

After going to the British army base in Nanyuki to ask for assistance, Jabali – who has since died – obtained a list of the names of the nine soldiers who had paid for a hotel room that evening. They were all from the same regiment and had returned to the UK within six days of the murder.

Jabali then wrote to the Royal Military Police asking for the nine soldiers to be questioned and to have DNA samples taken from them. But no such samples were provided and three of the nine soldiers confirmed to The Sunday Times that they had never been questioned about the case. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) denied receiving the request.

Fresh inquiry plea

The murder case was lost for years in what the paper described as “Kenya’s bloated bureaucracy” before an inquest into Wanjiru’s killing finally began in 2018. By then, the hotel was under new ownership, records weren’t available and key witnesses couldn’t be found.

The inquest concluded that “one or two” British soldiers were responsible for Wanjiru’s death. The judge demanded a new police inquiry into Wanjiru’s murder and another into the alleged cover-up.

But the British Army has yet to launch an investigation into Wanjiru’s death or to take any other action to seek justice for her family. One soldier told The Sunday Times that he was told to keep quiet by his superiors after trying to reveal what really happened.

The unnamed man, referred to only as Soldier Y, claimed to know the identity of Wanjiru’s murderer – and that the killer had shown him her body in the septic tank. “I told the proper people,” he said. “Everyone. All the lads, all the senior command that were there. I went to higher up, hierarchy, people that should have dealt with it. I got called a liar. They basically just said, ‘Shut up and get out.’”

Three other soldiers from the same unit also gave the same name for the alleged killer, referred to by The Sunday Times as Soldier X.

Soldier X did not feature on the original list of nine possible suspects. “In reality, dozens of soldiers from the regiment had been there using the bar, and had access to the rooms,” the paper added.

In light of the recent claims, a new murder inquiry has been launched by the Royal Military Police, and pressure is growing for the MoD to investigate both the murder and ensuing cover-up claims. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is thought to be communicating with the Kenyan authorities over the matter.

Labour shadow defence secretary John Healey said in a statement that “justice must now be done for Agnes and her family”. He added that Wallace “should pledge the fullest cooperation to Kenyan detectives and launch an inquiry into any possible cover-up from commanding officers, military police or the MoD”.

A spokeperson for the MoD told The Sunday Times that the department is “currently in discussions with the Kenyan authorities to determine what support is needed”, but that it would “be inappropriate to comment further” while the investigation into Wanjiru’s murder is ongoing.

The UK would “almost certainly” be unable to recapture the Falklands if swingeing planned cuts to troop numbers go ahead, a former chief of the defence staff has warned.

Retired general and crossbench peer Lord Richards insisted that “mass still matters”, as the government prepares to publish its Defence Command Paper later today outlining major changes to the country’s Armed Forces.

Under the plans, the size of the regular Army is expected to be reduced from the current target of 82,000 to 72,000 troops, which would be “its smallest in 200 years”, reports The Times.

In an interview on Times Radio, Richards said that while “we need to get more into hi-tech, cyber, drone technology and so on”, that shift must not be “at the expense of conventional capabilities and key to that is numbers”.

The planned cuts mean “we would not be able to recapture the Falklands, almost certainly,” he continued, “but the strategy in respect to the Falklands is to continue to occupy it and not allow them to be captured. Now, if that goes wrong, we have got a problem.”

Slashing the forces would prove “an asymmetric attraction to one’s opponents”, Richards added, with the UK also unable to fight another Gulf War or Iraq War.

Such fears have been downplayed by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, who is outlining the plans to MPs in the Commons today.

Wallace yesterday told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the UK will “have an Armed Forces that is the right size to meet the threat and the right size to meet the government’s ambition of having a global Britain that uphold values and support its allies”.

There will also be “extra money to fight in the new domains of space and cyber, and for robots and drones”, according to Jonathan Beale, defence correspondent for the BBC.

And The Guardian suggests that the Royal Marines will receive an extra £200m and that the special forces will increase in size.

Britain must expand its influence in the Indo-Pacific region in order to counterbalance the growing threat of China, a newly published government report warns.

The 100-page defence, security and foreign policy review - titled Global Britain in a Competitive Age - says that the Asian superpower is the “biggest state-based threat” to the UK’s economic security and presents a “systemic challenge” to Britain.

Despite the need to pursue “deeper trade links and more Chinese investment”, the UK will “not hesitate” to stand against China when necessary, the report continues.

The review is being presented to MPs by Boris Johnson today and has been “billed as the most radical reassessment of Britain’s place in the world since the end of the Cold War”, says The Times, which saw a leaked copy prior to its publication.

Sky News suggests that the “systemic challenge” mentioned in the report refers to “China’s authoritarian system versus the democratic system favoured by the UK and its allies”. The Times adds that “China’s military modernisation and growing international assertiveness in the Pacific region” also pose a growing threat.

Come to that, the wide-ranging defence review presents a “doom-laden vision of the world by 2030” in general, says The Sun. The government report also focuses on the dangers posed by Russia and on the threat of terrorism, “whether Islamist-inspired, Northern Ireland-related or driven by other motivations”.

But China is clearly the biggest concern, with the review outlining plans to expand the UK’s influence among countries in the Indo-Pacific region in an attempt to moderate China’s global dominance.

The government’s stance towards Beijing is “likely to attract Tory backbench criticism”, says The Guardian says, with critics pointing out that the “call for closer trade and economic links” directly contradicts “the report’s claim that China represents the biggest state-based threat to UK security”.

Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “China represents the generational threat”.

“The reason for that is that the idea that China will become more like us as it gets richer or as its economy matured is clearly for the birds,” he added.

MPs investigating alleged abuses of power in the UK’s armed forces have been hit with a barrage of evidence from female personnel and veterans.

An “unprecedented” total of more than 4,100 current and former servicewomen have submitted written evidence to the defence sub-committee some of which detailed claims of “bullying, harassment, discrimination, sexual abuse and rape”, The Times reports.

Around 40% of the testimonies, submitted via an anonymous survey, are from serving members of the military. The inquiry is being led by Army veteran Sarah Atherton, “who is the only sitting female MP with a regular military background”, the paper adds.

As the inquiry prepared to hear the first oral evidence today, Atheron said that the “weight of evidence” was “compelling” and included numerous complaints of “endemic low-grade sexism”.

Serving members of the Armed Forces were allowed to submit evidence after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace lifted a gagging order last year.

Wallace said this week that he was “grateful to all our servicewomen who shared their stories”, which are “providing valuable insights for this review”.

The inquiry - formally known as Women in the Armed Forces: from Recruitment to Civilian Life - has also received written submissions from charities and other organisations.

Lieutenant Colonel Diane Allen, who resigned in February 2020, will be the first to give spoken evidence. Allen hit the spotlight last May when she “revealed she was part of a private outpouring of grievances aired by female officers in a closed online forum” following the abuse allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, as Sky News reported at the time.

She told the broadcaster that she “would certainly love for the army to have its #MeToo moment and just acknowledge what happened and move on”.

Royal Marine commandos are to be sent on covert missions overseas with the aim of disrupting enemy activity, according to a top military chief.

The commanding officer of 40 Commando said that small groups of marines will carry out “special operations” in sensitive places where a conventional deployment would have increased political risk.

The missions could include sending “fake electronic transmissions to confuse adversaries”, efforts to “disrupt online systems” and attempting to “deceive enemy forces by making them think UK troops are positioned elsewhere”, The Times reports.

Lieutenant Colonel Simon Rogers said commandos will take on the role of special forces so that the “highest end troops” are free to focus on the most demanding operations. The strategy of operating between “peace and war” is aimed at “prevent[ing] such activities leading to all-out conflict”, the paper adds.

Speaking at a conference at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, Rogers added that “terrorist threats and hostile state activity are overlapping and they are on a global scale”, so “special operations are now no longer the preserve of special forces”.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Royal Marines were braving minus 30C temperatures in the Arctic during a challenging training exercise. 45 Commando battalion was deployed to northern Norway at the end of January to undergo a gruelling training exercise in “one of the most of inhospitable places on Earth”, the Daily Mail says.

Marine Stuart Bryant told the paper: “I learnt a lot this week and I am actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it.” He admitted that “it takes a while to get used to the cold”, but added that “keeping busy and active takes your mind off it”.

The British Army’s chief of the general staff was declared “missing in action” yesterday after a helicopter delivered him to the wrong field on Salisbury Plain.

General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith had hitched a lift on a Wildcat Helicopter to observe an MoD field exercise. But rather than the pre-agreed spot in the 150-square-mile training area, he was dropped off in a field about 600 metres away - triggering a “manhunt” for the “lost” ex-special forces commander, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, The Telegraph reports.

The Sun reports that “desperate” soldiers tried to reach Carleton-Smith and his aides by mobile phone, “but they were stuck in a mobile blackspot”.

“There was an ‘Oh shit moment’ when they realised they had lost the head of the army,” a defence source told the Forces Compare website. “His visit was a really big deal, and they had everything planned out.”

According to The Times, “frantic Whatsapp messages” were exchanged between the 56-year-old general’s staff and aides in the welcoming party “as the visit threatened to unravel”.

The mishap quickly became the talk of the barracks, with some soldiers creating memes inspired by their lost boss. The newspaper’s defence editor, Lucy Fisher, tweeted some of their efforts, including a poster for the TV show Lost with Carleton-Smith’s face superimposed onto that of one of the lead characters.

Others compared his disappearance to the events in Blackadder Goes Forth, the final series of Rowan Atkinson’s hit BBC comedy.

After Carleton-Smith was finally tracked down by the welcoming party, a fellow general, who “asked not to be named”, told The Sun that “these things happen more than you might realise”.

“Mark is a highly accomplished Special Forces operator,” the general added. “He can just look at the stars and navigate to where he needs to be. He is steeped in escape and evasion skills. I am sure he will see the funny side.”

Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.

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In this week’s episode, we discuss:

Afghan attack

An assault on Kabul University earlier this week went largely unreported, but it helps to shed light on more widely covered attacks in France and Austria. What connects them - apart from the inspiration they take from the Islamic State group - is the weight they add to the idea that there’s a limit to the extent to which Western countries can explain Islamic extremism by examining their own cultures.

Mafia vs. lockdown

With Italy heading back into lockdown, concerns are growing about struggling businesses and rising unemployment. So where do you go when you need a favour? For a rising number of Italians, the mafia. Calls to extortion hotlines have doubled during the pandemic, with reports of crime families orchestrating violent anti-lockdown rallies. So are desperate Italians falling victim to offers they cannot refuse?

Military mindfulness

British troops are being taught to meditate as part of a Ministry of Defence push to use mindfulness to improve combat performance and manage stress in the military. So does the so-called Op Smart programme mark a healthier approach to tackling mental health issues - or a new low in the West’s “McMindfulness” take on Buddhist teachings?

You can subscribe to The Week Unwrapped on the Global Player, Spotify, Apple podcasts, SoundCloud or wherever you get you get your podcasts

An army major who has faced eight separate investigations spanning 17 years over the death of an Iraqi teenager has been cleared by a senior judge who concluded that witnesses conspired against the war veteran.

Major Robert Campbell, 47, last night voiced anger over the “witch-hunt” that he has endured, saying: “It finished me, it finished my career.”

Bomb disposal expert Campbell, along with two junior colleagues, was accused of forcing Said Shabram into a river in Basra in May 2003 and leaving the 19-year-old to drown.

But former Court of Appeal judge Baroness Hallett has concluded that Campbell jumped in to try to save the teen, but then became the victim of a conspiracy which “likely began on the day Shabram died”.

Her Iraq Fatality Investigations (IFI) report says that “a number of civilian witnesses” who came forward to give evidence against Campbell were “inherently unreliable”, and the military was aware witnesses “had colluded and were dishonest” as long ago as 2006.

The findings “raise serious questions over why the major’s ordeal lasted a further 14 years”, says The Telegraph.

The 88-page IFI report concludes that it was “most likely” that Shabram “jumped or fell” into the river while trying to escape what he believed would be “dire punishment for looting” electric cables.

The verdict follows previous investigations by “the Royal Military Police twice, the Army Prosecuting Authority, the Aitken Report inquiry, the Iraq Historic Allegations Team and the director of service prosecutions”, The Times reports.

Campbell said yesterday that he felt “cautiously optimistic that it’s over” - despite, as the paper points out, “having been told that numerous times in the past”.

Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer, a former army officer, has also welcomed the verdict, saying: “I hope these findings will bring some closure and reassurance to the family and veterans involved in this process. Nobody wants to see service personnel or veterans facing extensive reinvestigations into the same incident.”

Dominic Cummings is to tour five of the UK’s most highly classified military sites in preparation for a major shake-up of the country’s defence and intelligence services.

The prime minister’s chief advisor has requested to visit the Porton Down military research labs, the Special Boat Service at Poole in Dorset and SAS quarters in Hereford, according to emails seen by the Sydney Morning Herald.

The Rapid Capabilities Office in Farnborough and the defence intelligence unit stationed at RAF Wyton are also on Cumming’s tour itinerary. And Boris Johnson’s right-hand man has already visited MI6 and MI5 in London, the Australian newspaper reports.

Cummings’s central role in an “integrated review” of Britain’s foreign policy, defence and security policies, to be published in the autumn, prompted an invitation from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to tour the sites, says The Times.

“The idea is to showcase some of the MoD’s flagship operations to an adviser who has complained that military procurement ‘has continued to squander billions of pounds’ and who has written in his personal blog of the potential for drone warfare,” The Guardian adds.

The leaked emails suggest that the upcoming tour “was deemed sufficiently important by Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, that he and his special adviser wanted to arrange its outline themselves before handing over to officials”, the newspaper reports.

“The secretary of state explicitly does not wish anyone to engage No. 10 or Dominic Cummings on this,” one email said. “It is for [Ben Wallace’s special adviser] and the secretary of state to engage in the first instance before delegating to officials.”

Cummings’ involvement has raised eyebrows in both military and political circles.

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran told Daily Mirror that “it is utterly unprecedented that the unelected chief adviser to the prime minister is visiting some the UK most secret bases and establishments.”

But Downing Street has hit back at criticism of Cummings and his “green” pass clearance, which allows the aide access to top-secret military intelligence.

“He is the prime minister’s senior adviser,” a spokesperson said. “You would expect he regularly visits government sites and meets ministers.”

The London NHS Nightingale Hospital is to be placed “on standby” due to limited demand for its services, Downing Street has confirmed.

The prime minister’s official spokesperson said that it is “not likely” that patients will need to be admitted in the coming days “while coronavirus in the capital remains under control”.

“That’s obviously a very positive thing,” the spokesperson said - and “absolutely not” a sign that the hospitals were a waste of money.

How were the Nightingale hospitals built?

The Ministry of Defence and the NHS worked together to create the new hospitals from scratch in an effort to accommodate rising numbers of Covid-19 patients.

Images shared by 10 Downing Street show a combination of tradespeople and military personnel – including the Royal Anglian Regiment and Royal Gurkha Rifles – working to adapt the ExCel Centre’s 7,328 square metres of double exhibition halls into the London Nightingale Hospital.

Graphic via BBC News

James Hepburn, principal at BDP, the firm that helped convert the centre, said the size and timescale for its construction were unlike any previous healthcare projects, with architects finalising plans even as construction was beginning.

Conference centres in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Bristol and Harrogate have been adapted into NHS Nightingale hospitals to help patients across the country.

Belfast City Hospital’s tower block was transformed into Northern Ireland’s 230-bed Nightingale hospital, staffed by a team drawn from across Northern Ireland.

Cardiff’s Principality Stadium was transformed into Dragon’s Heart Hospital, “after a mammoth effort to convert it into a field hospital”, says The Independent.

What were the challenges involved?

According to experts, speaking to Wired, the two primary challenges when launching an emergency medical facility are location and cleanliness.

Martin Bricknell, professor of conflict, health and military medicine at King’s College London and an expert in the design and function of field hospitals, told the magazine: “It’s probably one of the biggest covered spaces in London and therefore as a location that gives you maximum flexibility for how you might use it. It’s probably one of the best in London.”

This is echoed by Eric Pitts, a logistician with Doctors Without Borders, who said: “You’ll have a large open space, and different levels of circulation where you can control the flow of people coming in and out.”

“ExCeL's existing electrical infrastructure has been modified to ensure the power supply can cope with demand - and not cut out. Temporary generators and oxygen tanks, to supply the beds, have also been installed,” says the BBC.

One of the main clinical challenges is hygiene, which Wired notes is a particular challenge with coronavirus as the virus has “been shown to last long on surfaces in the form of droplets”.

Pitts told the magazine: “You need to look at how to properly lay out the patient flow to guarantee infection flow, and how to design the walls and floors so they’re easy to clean. The main challenge in adapting an existing structure is how the existing structure is set out.”

The London Nightingale is led by a team of eight senior staff, drawn from local hospitals and trusts.

At capacity, the hospital would need 16,000 staff to keep it running, including thousands of doctors, nurses and volunteers. So far, it has not come close to capacity.

“The numbers are scary,” chief operating officer Natalie Forrest said. “To run one ward, including all of our ancillary staff, we need 200 members of staff.”

Cabin crew from Easyjet and Virgin Atlantic - many of whom have security clearance and are first aid-trained - were approached to help out with tasks like changing beds and performing other non-clinical tasks in support of doctors and nurses on the wards.

A British soldier is among three people who have died in a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq - the first British serviceperson killed by enemy fire since the UK joined the operation against Islamic State in 2014.

An American soldier and an American contractor were also killed, and at least 12 people were injured, in the attack on Wednesday on Camp Taji, north of Baghdad.

Coalition and Iraqi officials say 18 Katyusha rockets struck the base, with a “rocket-rigged truck” later discovered a few miles away, reports Sky News.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has described the attack as “deplorable”, while Defence Secretary Ben Wallace condemned the “cowardly and retrograde act”.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence said that an investigation was under way.

CNN reports that the US will also “go after the perpetrators”, citing an unnamed defence official who said that Iranian-backed fighters or Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp were believed to be responsible.

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There here have been multiple rocket attacks in Iraq in recent weeks, but Wednesday’s incident was the first to result in a coalition death since December, when a US contractor was killed.

However, tension has been high since the US killed senior Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in January.

A retaliatory Iranian strike on a base hosting US troops left more than 100 soldiers injured.

A total of four British service personnel have now died while taking part in Operation Shader, the UK’s military operation against Isis in Iraq and Syria.

The previous three fatalities - in Iraq, at a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus, and in Syria - were the results of an accidental shooting, a traffic accident and so-called friendly fire respectively.

Britain is to step up its military support of the UN mission in the Sahel, the semi-arid region south of the Sahara Desert that is being described as the “new frontline” in the war against Islamist terror.

In Senegal over the past month, 30 UK soldiers and Royal Marines have been training special forces from several West African countries, and later this year 250 troops will assist a mission in Mali alongside French, UN and local forces.

The aim is to combat the spread of groups linked to Islamic State and al-Qa’eda, and has been described as “the most dangerous peacekeeping operation in the world”, says the BBC.

Where is the Sahel?

The Sahel spreads across the width of Africa on the southern border of the Sahara Desert, from northern Senegal and Mauritania on the Atlantic coast, through parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and into Sudan and Eritrea. The countries principally affected by the spread of Islamist violence in the region, and those whose forces are working together to combat it – Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad – are known as the G5 Sahel group.

The stretch of semi-desert is sparsely populated and over the past decade it has become a target for jihadist groups, who have expanded their reach beyond strongholds in northern Mali.

What is going on?

The “security crisis” in the Sahel started in 2012, said Al Jazeera, “when an alliance of separatists and armed groups took hold of northern Mali”. France, the former colonial power, moved in troops to halt their advance and prevent a collapse of the Malian state.

There are several local jihadist groups fighting in the Sahel, principally the al-Qa’eda-linked Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), the Isis-affiliated Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), and Ansar ul Islam in Burkina Faso, said The Daily Telegraph. They work by deliberately stirring existing ethnic and religious animosities in the region, particularly in Mali.

Forces led by France, the UN and the G5 Sahel group have been trying to stop the spread of jihadism in the region for the past seven years, but the efforts have so far widely been seen as unsuccessful.

In 2019, 5,366 people were killed across the five countries, says The Telegraph, and 1,214 more have lost their lives so far this year. The paper adds that 208 UN peacekeepers have died in Mali since 2013. The death toll in 2019 rose by 600% in Burkina Faso alone, where the UN says 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the past 12 months.

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What is the UK’s role?

The UK’s 250 troops may seem like a small contribution to the UN’s Sahel mission, officially known as Minusma, which consists of 11,620 troops stationed in Mali. There are also 4,500 French troops on the ground across the Sahel already.

But while most troops are participating in a traditional peacekeeping mission, with UN troops stationed in bases near important towns, the British contingent is being assigned to spearhead a new, more risky operation.

They will carry out long-range reconnaissance patrols of up to 30 days, deep into jihadist territory, and be on stand-by for “rapid deployment”. The tactics of the jihadist groups in the Sahel, for example the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) or roadside bombs, are similar to those that British forces have faced in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years.

The Telegraph reports that Lt Gen Dennis Gyllensporre, Minusma’s Swedish commanding officer, said: “With a manoeuvrable force, we can be more proactive in anticipating attacks, projecting force and deterring and going in where there are confrontations.”

The UK is to “overhaul its approach to foreign policy” as part of a major government review into the nation’s defence and security.

Downing Street says that it will challenge “traditional Whitehall assumptions” and will include internal and external insights.

The BBC reports that the full remit of the “Integrated Review”, described as the biggest since the “end of the Cold War”, is:

• To define the government’s ambition for the UK’s role in the world
• Set out how the UK will be a “problem-solving” and “burden-sharing” nation
• Decide on the capabilities needed for the next decade to “pursue objectives and address threats”
• Identify the reforms to government systems and structures needed to achieve these goals

So what changes could the review introduce?

Defence spending increase

PoliticsHome says the new plans are likely to include “a spending boost” for the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The Conservative manifesto commits the government to exceeding the Nato target of spending 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence.

City AM notes that the review has signalled the first big increase in defence spending for more than five years, with the budget “likely to increase to more than £38bn per year”.

This is echoed by The Times, which reports that the review will not be “cost-neutral”, with the MoD in line for a spending boost as part of the plans.

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Changes to procurement methods

British military news site Forces.net reports that the government-wide overhaul will also assess the Armed Forces’ procurement processes and its “strength in the face of hostility” will be a focus point.

PoliticsHome notes that defence procurement is a “major target for reform by the Prime Minister’s most senior adviser Dominic Cummings”.

However, the MoD’s “multibillion-pound funding black hole” in its ten-year equipment plan will have to be addressed, The Times adds.

Reduction in the number of troops

Cuts are expected in order to fill this budget gap, with cutting the size of the Army being considered as a way to achieve savings, a government source told the Times.

Conservative commitments to retain the Army at a minimum of 82,000 personnel were notably dropped from its manifesto last year, with the service currently about 9,000 soldiers short of that target.

The review will be led by Professor John Bew, the PM’s foreign policy adviser and an expert in conflict and security, history and politics at King’s College London.

Focus on technology

The Times reports that some of the increase in the MoD’s budget is “likely to fund investment in cutting-edge weapons, cybercapabilities and space technology”.

Launching the review, Johnson said: “As the world changes we must move with it – harnessing new technologies and ways of thinking to ensure British foreign policy is rooted firmly in our national interests, now and in the decades ahead.”

According to The Sun, experts have been instructed to look at how technology and big data can be used to protect the country against threats ranging from “cyber attacks to fake news and malicious propaganda”.

The focus on technology and data comes as “the prospect of an all-out land war recedes”, the Times adds, while “hostile states continue to invest in information operations, cyberwarfare and other hybrid capabilities”.

Replacing UK’s nuclear warheads

Yesterday Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, announced the programme to replace the UK’s Trident nuclear warheads.

As Defense News reports, his written statement to parliament caused annoyance among MPs as the House of Commons had not been consulted or had a chance to conduct scrutiny.

The announcement was not expected to be made prior to publication of the Integrated Review, but the government’s hand was forced when US officials revealed last week that the programme was up and running.

Kate Hudson, general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, said: “This deal has been agreed in secret with the United States, and the government has admitted it only after Pentagon officials let the cat out of the bag... This is a dangerous and anti-democratic development and must be rolled back,” the Mirror reports.

Deciding the UK’s role in the world

At the review’s launch, the PM noted that “the UK’s institutions, expertise, leadership and values are renowned around the world”, adding: “But we cannot rest on our laurels. We must do more to adapt. We will be judged by how we respond to the opportunities ahead.”

With Brexit on the horizon, part of this response includes deciding on Britain’s role in the world – and its obligations to “sharing burdens with allies”.

The Times adds that the overhaul will consider “the UK’s diplomatic footprint, international aid and the role of the intelligence agencies” in working with its allies against global threats.

Foreign policy objectives “setting out Britain’s role in the world” will be agreed, before departments including the MoD, Foreign Office, Department for International Development and the Home Office are consulted, the paper says.

Defence chiefs are considering plans to slash the size of the British army and lend out one of the Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carriers amid fears they could be forced into further spending cuts.

The Conservative manifesto unveiled yesterday ditched a promise made in 2017 by Theresa May to “maintain the overall size of the armed forces”.

The party's 2015 manifesto pledge to keep the army’s strength above 82,000 has already been dropped, with the number of fighting personnel currently standing at just 73,000.

Despite a future Tory government vowing to maintain defence spending at more than 2% of GDP, The Sunday Times says service chiefs “are already in conflict over plans that would refocus Britain’s war-fighting capability and cut the number of personnel”.

The paper says senior officers are discussing an army of between 60,000 and 65,000, the smallest for centuries, and “in a move that will cause uproar in the navy, army chiefs are pressing to mothball one of Britain’s new aircraft carriers — or lease it to the Americans”.

One source told the newspaper: “The army hates the aircraft carriers, which they have always seen as white elephants, but the Americans love them. They’re cutting-edge because they can operate with far fewer crew than the US carriers.

“The army can’t recruit or retain the people it needs. Both the army and the navy think that the job of the RAF will soon be done by drones”, they added.

Last year, the former commander of the UK's Maritime Forces, Rear Admiral Alex Burton told the BBC that Britain was in danger of losing its status as a “credible military power”.

Budget cuts and rising military threats meant the ability to “fight and win on the front line” was being affected and if fresh spending was not announced, the UK would be morally poorer on the world stage, Burton warned.

The Daily Mail reports that Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has secured a further £2.2bn for the military but has said he would prefer to cut capabilities and do a smaller number of things better, prioritising improved kit rather than an expanded fighting force.

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Boris Johnson has pledged to change the law to protect forces veterans from legal action if the Tories win the general election.

The prime minister says the Tories would legislate to ensure that peacetime laws are not applied to service personnel on military operations.

They would update the Human Rights Act so it does not apply to issues that took place before it came into force in October 2000, such as deaths during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

The Times reports that veterans’ groups claim that many of the allegations are “vexatious” and that “the law is being abused to hound retired servicemen years after the events in question took place”.

However, the proposed move would be in contravention with the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires nations to carry out effective official investigation into deaths where lethal force had been used against individuals by agents of the state.

Several veterans of Northern Ireland are expected to face trial, including Soldier F, an ex-paratrooper who is charged with two murders and four attempted murders during the Bloody Sunday incident in 1972.

Johnson’s proposal is not new, the BBC points out, as “the plans to exempt British troops from human rights laws during combat were first announced in 2016 by Mr Johnson's predecessor as prime minister, Theresa May”.

Former Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, welcomed the move to put it into law. “It really is important that they do something about this vexatious process,” he said.

However, human rights lawyers have condemned the plan.

Philippe Sands says that the Good Friday agreement commits Britain to “human rights for all, not just some”. He said: “Amending the act in the way proposed appears to raise serious concerns about compatibility with the Good Friday agreement, and it cannot affect the application of the ECHR as such.”

Mark Stephens, a human rights and media law specialist, told The Times the move “sounds like clickbait for Tory voters”.

He added: “The UK has been a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights since 1958 and if we want to remain part of that convention any amendment of domestic legislation will have to be compliant with it.”

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Boris Johnson has said the UK’s commitment to Nato is “rock solid” as leaders of the military alliance met today to celebrate its 70th anniversary.

He and US President Donald Trump were among the dignitaries to meet in Watford today to discuss cyber-attacks, the strategic threat posed by China, and Russia.

The gathering has been marred by rows over Turkey’s military action in Syria, comments by French President Emmanuel Macron that the alliance is “brain dead”, and a video showing Princess Anne and world leaders appearing to mock Donald Trump.

It has also put defence spending in the spotlight. Here is where the UK’s money goes.

How much does the UK spend on defence?

The Government says that the UK currently spends 2.1% of the UK’s GDP on defence.

But a report by the Defence Select Committee, published in July, claims that on a like-for-like basis defence spending actually dropped below 2% in 2014/15 and hasn’t recovered since.

“While the UK continues to meet its Nato commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence, this is only because in recent years it has included several items of expenditure which it had not counted previously, such as pensions and contributions to UN Peacekeeping Missions,” explained the committee chair Julian Lewis.

Without these new inclusions, defence spending was just 1.8% of GDP in 2017/18, marking a continued proportional decline from around 6% in the 1960s, 4.5% in the 1980s and 3% in the mid-1990s, he said.

How does UK defence spending compare to other countries?

The UK is among the top four defence spenders in Nato by share of GDP, reports the UK Defence Journal.

According to this analysis, Estonia and the UK both spend 2.13% of GDP on defence, while Greece spends 2.24% and the US spends 3.42%.

The UK is the second biggest overall spender in Nato, putting nearly £50bn into defence annually compared to Germany’s £45bn, France’s £42bn and Italy’s £20bn.

However, the US dwarfs its Nato allies, spending £604bn ($730bn) a year on defence. In 2018, the US spent almost as much on its military as the next eight top-spending countries combined.

China is the second largest spender in the world, increasing its defence spending to £207bn in 2018.

World military defence spending grew to £1.49trn in 2018, a 2.6% increase on 2017 according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).

Where does our defence budget go?

The biggest spending is on service personnel, followed by equipment support and then specialist military equipment.

MoD service personnel and civilians are deployed across the world, from missions against Isis in Iraq and Syria to Nato sorties in Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria.

The MoD supplies troops and equipment to African countries including Mali, Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia.

British troops take part in UK peacekeeping and aid missions around the globe, but also provide assistance at home - hundreds of personnel were deployed in response to the attempted tube bombing at Parsons Green, the Salisbury chemical attack, and the Manchester Arena bombing.

In 2018, the MoD committed to spending £179.6bn on its equipment plan over the next 10 years, £165m on its cyber plan and £50m on a five-year space programme.

Why do we spend so much on defence?

The Ministry of Defence funds the Army, Navy and Air Force, as well as civilian personnel.

It has eight defence tasks:

• defence, security and resilience of the UK and its overseas territories
• nuclear deterrence and the defence nuclear enterprise
• contribute to improved understanding of the world through strategic intelligence and the global defence network
• influence through international defence engagement
• overseas defence activity
• promote UK prosperity and civil society
• direct defence
• strategic base and enabling functions

As well as spending a lot of money, the UK defence industry also brings in a lot. It is the second largest defence exporter in the world, and in 2016/17 MoD direct expenditure with industry supported 123,000 jobs.

What are the min parties pledging on defence?

Under a new Conservative government, the Ministry of Defence would receive a 2.6% spending increase, equivalent to £2.2bn. The UK would renew Trident and would continue to exceed the Nato target of spending 2% of GDP on defence.

Labour has pledged to maintain the UK commitment to Nato and spend at least 2% of GDP on defence, and would also renew Trident. However, it would stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia immediately and back a new law that prevents a prime minister from going to war without the permission of Parliament.

The Lib Dems would also maintain the 2% of GDP spending commitment, and maintain a nuclear deterrent. However, the party would scrap one of the four submarines that make up the Trident system. Graduates in STEM subjects would also receive £10,000 one-off payments to become Armed Forces engineers.

Iran has fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Iraqi military bases housing American and British forces as tensions escalate following the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani last week.

Tehran is demanding the withdrawal of US troops from the region and has warned that any further aggression against Iran “will be met with a more painful and crushing response”.

Iranian state television has claimed that 80 “American terrorists” were killed or injured during the attack, at 1.30am local time (0.30pm GMT) on Wednesday, reports The Independent. But both US and Iraqi officials insist there were no casualties.

The targeted military bases, in Irbil and Al Asad, west of Baghdad, are believed to also host UK personnel. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office told the BBC: “We are urgently working to establish the facts on the ground. Our first priority is the security of British personnel.”

What has the UK said?

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said that the UK “condemn[s] this attack on Iraqi military bases hosting Coalition – including British – forces”.

“We are concerned by reports of casualties and use of ballistic missiles,” he said in a statement. “We urge Iran not to repeat these reckless and dangerous attacks, and instead to pursue urgent de-escalation.”

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said that the head of UK counterterror policing, Neil Basu, had been in discussions with security agencies and government agencies about how the UK might be affected by the crisis.

“We’re extremely alert to what this could possibly lead to [in London], but it’s a very complex situation,” said Dick. “We are very, very adept at seeing what’s happening around the world, reaching out into communities and looking at the possible threats and risks that might come. That's what we're doing on a day by day basis, and in response to this.”

Prior to the Iranian missile strikes, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that General Soleimani had played a “leading role [in] the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians and Western personnel”, adding: “We will not lament his death”.

Around 400 British troops are stationed in Iraq, where Soleimani was killed. Amid fears of further reprisal attacks, HMS Montrose and HMS Defender are set to accompany UK-flagged ships through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf, where a tanker was seized by Iran last July, reports the BBC.

How has Iran responded?

Following the retaliation strikes, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said: “We do not seek escalation or war, but will defend ourselves against any aggression.”

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has described the missile strikes as a “slap in the face” for the US, and is demanding that Washington withdraw its troops from the region.

President Hassan Rouhani added that the US may have “cut off Soleimani’s arm”, but Iran would respond by “cutting off your leg”.

Who opposed the Soleimani assassination?

Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has called the killing “an extremely serious and dangerous escalation of conflict”.

The Labour boss later tweeted that the strike was “reckless and lawless” and said that Johnson’s sympathy for the action was “craven and dangerous”.

Echoing that view, Labour leadership candidate Keir Starmer accused Johnson and Raab of “blindly following the Americans”, adding: “We have done this before and it is the wrong place to go.”

Speaking on the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show, Starmer added that he would support legislation that ensured military action could only be taken if a lawful case for it had been made and a viable objective given, and if the Government had the consent of the House of Commons.

Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry told Sky News that the crisis was “a major lurch towards war” and warned that British interests in the region are “now vulnerable”.

What is the precedent for US-UK military intervention?

The UK has a history of following the US into conflict. In 2003, the UK joined a US-led invasion of Iraq with the primary goals of finding weapons of mass destruction and deposing Saddam Hussein.

Then-PM Tony Blair later admitted the invasion had been based on unchallenged and flawed intelligence. Following the publication of the highly critical Chilcot Inquiry, Blair released a statement acknowledging those failings with “more sorrow, regret and apology and in greater measure than you can know or may believe”.

The UK also joined an international coalition that supported US military action after Washington in 2001 ordered bombing attacks on Afghanistan - notionally in response to the 9/11 terror attacks.

A total of 454 British forces personnel or government civilians were killed in Afghanistan. During the Iraq campaign, 179 British service personnel and three UK government civilian staff lost their lives.

The Ministry of Defence has launched an investigation after a video emerged on social media showing members of the parachute regiment firing at a poster of Jeremy Corbyn at a target range in Kabul.

The leaked video shows four soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, firing simulation weapons at an image of the Labour leader, which is studded with bullet marks. Its emergence has provoked safety fears from Labour and other politicians, at a time when feelings are running high over the Brexit debate.

The behaviour in the video has been widely condemned. An Army spokesman said: “We are aware of a video circulating on social media. This behaviour is totally unacceptable and falls well below the high standards the Army expects. A full investigation has been launched.”

A spokesman for the Labour party said the soldiers’ behaviour is “alarming and unacceptable”. Dan Jarvis, a Labour MP and former army major, tweeted that the video “goes against the values and standards” of the army.

Also on Twitter, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said he commends the “prompt and clear leadership shown by the Army in investigating this troubling video”.

The Brexit minister, Robin Walker, told BBC Radio Five live that the video was “extremely distasteful”.

He added: “We might have strong views on one another in parliament, but clearly that kind of violence is unacceptable in any context about a democratically elected representative.”

The army chief Brigadier Nick Perry said the military was taking the matter “extremely seriously" and that the video shows “totally unacceptable behaviour”.

However, the former British soldier Trevor Coult, who had earlier circulated the video, has since claimed it was fake. Coult shared the video on Twitter with the message: “Not looking good for a Labour leader.”

But he has subsequently claimed the video had been "photoshopped".

The number of personnel in frontline British army units is down by as much as third, new figures have revealed, prompting serious concerns about their readiness for action.

Data from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has shown a number of battalions with hundreds fewer troops than their requirements state.

“While publicly available government figures show an overall deficit of 8%, the new data showed a much larger deficit in infantry groups on the frontline,” says The Guardian.

Separate figures out last month “paint a devastating picture of the army’s failure to retain demoralised, sceptical and under-utilised troops - and recruit enough new ones to replace them”, says the Daily Express.

“There are a myriad of factors at play, and it’s true that some are just beyond the Army’s control,” says the paper, but overall army numbers dropped for the eighth year in a row in January to 75,880.

With the British Army on course to miss its targets for the number of recruits it should have by 2020, the figures will pile more pressure on the government over its decision to outsource recruitment to a private company.

The MoD signed a decade-long £495m contract with Capita back in 2012 to manage recruitment to the armed forces. However, the National Audit Office found in December that Capita had consistently missed the army’s targets, with the shortfall ranging from 21% to 45% each year.

A 2017 report published by Tory MP Mark Francois, who also sits on the defence select committee and has called the Capita contract a “calamity”, attributed the fall in recruits to low unemployment, an ageing population, the increase in people taking up post-16 education and the ending of the deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.

However, the shadow defence secretary, Nia Griffith, had little doubt where blame lies.

“Ministers are guilty of appalling complacency as personnel numbers fall month after month. There is now nothing short of a crisis in recruitment and retention to the army. The decision to outsource recruitment to a private company, Capita, has been a total failure. It is high time to scrap that bad deal and bring the service back in house.”

There are, however, signs Capita is starting to get its act together. The company said the Recruiting Partnering Project was showing signs of improvement after it began working more closely with the Army.

“We fundamentally changed the working relationship,” said chief executive Jon Lewis. “It’s creating a common sense of ownership rather than dare I say it the master and servant relationship that was the picture of old. We’ve got to be in it together.”

The London Evening Standard said “the campaign was criticised in the media for its provocative approach to recruits”, which which targets ‘snowflakes’, ‘selfie addicts’ and ‘me, me, me millennials’.

Yet it appears to be bearing fruit, with applications for the British army at a five-year high and the ad campaign leading to a 78% rise in website visits.

British Army veterans will be protected from prosecution for alleged historical abuses under plans to introduce a ten-year limit on new cases.

The Times reports the Defence Secretary, Gavin Williamson, will bring forward legislation in this year’s Queen’s Speech “after growing pressure on the government to address the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland”.

Next week, four army veterans are expected to be charged with murder for their part in Bloody Sunday, where 14 people we killed when British soldiers opened fire on a crowd of civil rights demonstrators in Derry, Northern Ireland in 1972.

A 12-year inquiry into the shooting, which is seen as one of the defining moments of the 30-year conflict, concluded paratroopers “lost control” and that none of those shot were “posing any threat of causing death or serious injury”.

Following the publication of the Saville report in 2010, then-prime minister David Cameron apologised for the army’s actions, branding them “unjustified and unjustifiable”.

However, the issue has resurfaced again after The Daily Telegraph first reported that a number of paratroopers in service that day could face charges including murder, attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and perjury.

The prospect of British soldiers going on trial for actions they committed while on duty has deeply divided public opinion.

“Families will be devastated if no murder charges are brought” says the Telegraph, “while the prospect of dragging Army veterans, some in their late 70s, into the dock will provoke a furious reaction and accusations of a betrayal of troops”.

Williamson, who has repeatedly decried what he calls a “witch hunt” against ex-servicemen, has said the case relating to Bloody Sunday “completely turns the stomach of the British people”.

Meanwhile, the ex-head of the British Army, Lord Dannatt, said it was “part of a wider Sinn Fein agenda to rewrite history to create the narrative that Crown Forces were oppressive and that people were fighting for their rights”.

“It rather overlooks the fact that the vast majority of deaths that occurred in the Troubles were criminal acts carried out by terrorists,” he told the Daily Mail.

There is also outcry at what many see as a double standard in the law.

If convicted of murder, army veterans could face life in jail. By contrast, under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement terrorists subsequently convicted of atrocities committed during the Troubles can be jailed for a maximum of two years.

Many argue a statute of limitations should be introduced, with the 1998 peace agreement as a cut-off date.

Whitehall sources last week confirmed to the Daily Express, “there was still no appetite for a statute of limitations, with ministers preferring instead to hold investigations in which witnesses are protected by prosecution amnesties”.

However, Williamson has now said the government “has to do something to make sure our soldiers and veterans have the protection they deserve”.

The UK must be ready to use “hard power” to avoid being seen as a “paper tiger” by the likes of Russia and China, the defence secretary has claimed.

Gavin Williamson has made the case for Britain to take a more military-led interventionist foreign policy, and to use Brexit to “redefine” its position on the international stage.

He announced his intention to send the UK’s new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth carrying two squadrons of new F35 fighter jets into the Pacific “in a move likely to spark alarm in Beijing”, says the Daily Telegraph.

Tensions in the South China Sea flared again on Monday, after US warships sailed near islands claimed by China.

The operation was the latest attempt to counter what Washington sees as Beijing's efforts to limit freedom of navigation in the strategic waters, where Chinese, Japanese and some Southeast Asian navies operate.

Detailing plans to modernise the armed forces, Williamson attempted to present Brexit as an opportunity “when we must strengthen our global presence, enhance our lethality and increase our mass”.

He revealed plans for two ships that could be deployed for crisis support as well as military operations and a swarm of drones theoretically capable of jamming enemy air defences.

The Guardian described the speech as “bellicose” and “designed to bolster his position on the Tory party’s right” but its tone and detail have been widely ridiculed.

The former shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, said:

“The idea that our membership of the European Union restricts us is the purest nonsense. You don’t have to know much history to know why Europe is and will remain central to our military posture or that co-operation and peace in Europe is what allows us to invest in global strength. In fact the economic damage that Brexit threatens is what will most quickly weaken our forces.”

Labour’s shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith, also criticised Williamson’s “sabre-rattling”, and argued the UK's ability to play a more global role had been “completely undermined by eight years of Tory defence cuts”.

Taking apart Williamson’s pledges, Simon Jenkins in The Guardian writes: “His budget was last week said to be £7bn adrift of reality. The Queen Elizabeth cannot sail until 2021. It has no business whatsoever in the South China Sea, where such a vast and unwieldy ship would be a sitting target. The Chinese could sink it in an hour. As for new military bases in the Caribbean and east of Suez, they would cost billions and be an invitation to terrorists.”

“Seven months on from his controversial appointment as defence secretary,” his latest comments have “reignited the questions over whether he is up to the job,” says Emily Ashton for Buzzfeed.

Speaking to MPs, ministerial aides, Conservative staffers, and former officials about Williamson’s dramatic shift into the limelight, she says “insiders at the Ministry of Defence raised serious doubts about his performance so far – some say he fails to take on board policy ideas from colleagues, and that he is more comfortable running to the newspapers with gossip than getting stuck into the detail of his brief”.

UKIP has urged people considering joining the British Army not to sign up until after Brexit to avoid being put “under a foreign military command”.

Gerard Batten, the party’s leader, reacted with fury to images which have been circulated on pro-Brexit Facebooks group of UK soldiers on operations in Bosnia wearing the European Union flag on their uniforms.

Ministers announced in June that around 40 military personnel from Britain would be sent to the country with other EU troops in a bid to combat Russian meddling in a presidential election in October.

They form part of the 600-strong European Union Force under the direction of Nato, which has operated a multinational command structure since it was formed in 1949.

“Our ancestors, the heroes of the Armada, Waterloo, Trafalgar, Passchendaele, El-Alamein, and others too numerous to mention, did not fight so that their descendants could serve under the flag of a foreign power,” Batten said, claiming that British soldiers “are no longer fighting for Queen and Country but under a foreign military command”.

He urged no one to join the British Army “until we have left the EU and this has all been reversed”, after which “we will be able to rebuild our military into a force which serves the interests of our nation first and foremost”.

In a dig at the prime minister and her compromise Chequers plan, Batten falsely claimed that Theresa May had "already stated her intention to tie us into the EU’s military ambitions even if we nominally leave under her plan", reports The New European.

His comments were labelled “ridiculous” by Lib Dem leader Vince Cable, and “bizzare” by The Sun.

Defence sources also ridiculed UKIP’s claim, pointing out that Britain has been part of the EU-led force in Bosnia for 14 years.

They also said UK troops routinely carry the flag of multi-national organisations such as Nato or the UN on their uniform.

In 2016, it was announced that a French general would command a division of British soldiers for the first time, while a British officer took up a similar role in the French army, as part of an exchange to strengthen military ties across the Channel. Yet Eurosceptic fears of a single European army have so far proven unfounded.

At the time, The Daily Telegraph reported that UK generals “say Britain is unlikely to go to war on its own in the future and any large military operations will be with coalitions of allies, such as during the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns”.

Preparations are reportedly underway for the British army to help distribute food, medicine and fuel in case of shortages if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal in place.

The military will be called in to assist civilian authorities if they run out of such supplies, with helicopters and army trucks being used to shuttle aid to people around the country, The Sunday Times reports.

An unnamed minister told the newspaper: “There is a lot of civil contingency planning around the prospect of no deal. That’s not frightening the horses, that’s just being utterly realistic.”

The impact of a ‘no deal’ Brexit on the NHS has already been reported, with the health service potentially moving to a year-round “winter crisis footing”.

Some fear that supermarkets and hospitals will run out of food and medicine “in a matter of days”, Business Insider reports.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab promised last week to make sure food supplies remained “adequate”.

Prime Minister Theresa May told 5 News: “Far from being worried about preparations that we are making, I would say that people should take reassurance and comfort from the fact that the government is saying we are in a negotiation, we are working for a good deal – I believe we can get a good deal – but... because we don’t know what the outcome is going to be... let’s prepare for every eventuality.

“This is not just about stockpiling. That concept, what it is, is about making sure that we will be able to continue to do the things that are necessary once we have left the European Union, if we leave without a deal.”

Chancellor Philip Hammond, who agreed with the Prime Minister about stockpiling, said: “That’s a sensible and responsible thing for a Government to do and large businesses who are importing or exporting large volumes of products or produce will be making contingency plans, and we would encourage them to do so and work closely with them as they are putting those plans together.”

The British government is under renewed calls to ban the recruitment of under-18s into the Armed Forces.

In an editorial published in the British Medical Journal, co-authors Guddi Singh, a paediatrician, and Reem Abu-Hayyeh, of public health charity Medact, cite past studies showing that “military service during adolescence causes specific health harms during this critical period of development”.

Specifically, a 2016 study by Medact indicated that teenaged military personnel suffer mental health problems at a higher rate than their civilian peers, and are more likely to abuse alcohol, self-harm or commit suicide.

They also claim that young recruits are at greater risk of physical injury than their older colleagues, and are more likely to end up being assigned to high-risk frontline roles after turning 18.

The joint editorial called on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to “end its practice of recruiting adolescents to the Armed Forces”.

The UK has one of the lowest minimum enlistment ages in the developed world, and is the only country in Europe to recruit 16-year-olds to the Army, Navy and RAF.

Teenagers can begin the enlistment process from the age of 15 and seven months, which would enable them to begin training shortly after their 16th birthday.

However, the Army points out that under-18s must have parental consent to enlist and cannot serve on the frontline in combat roles.

The minimum age limit for officers, who traditionally come from more middle- to upper-class backgrounds, is 18.

According to the figures in the new report, one in five new Army recruits are under the age of 18.

The practice has long been scrutinised, with critics claiming that under-18s are too young to meaningfully consent to military service, and that recruiters capitalise on their vulnerability, especially in underprivileged communities.

In June last year, The Guardian revealed how the British Army had used targeted Facebook ads to reach teenagers awaiting their GCSE results.

Rachel Taylor, the director of programmes at Child Soldiers International, said at the time that the story was further proof that the MoD is “deliberately targeting children at the lowest limit of the legal recruitment age to fill the lowest qualified, least popular and hardest-to-recruit army roles”.

Most recently, “the decision by the British army to place a glossy supplement inside the plastic wrap for the February 2019 issues of both the official Xbox and PlayStation magazines in the UK… created an overwhelmingly hostile reaction”, writes Nick Robinson, an associate professor in politics at the University of Leeds, for The Conversation.

A survey published in July last year indicated that three-quarters of Britons believe that 18 should be the minimum age to join the Armed Forces.

Afghan interpreters who served alongside the British army have been granted the right to resettle in the UK.

Under the government’s previous relocation scheme, only interpreters who served with the British army in Afghanistan’s Helmand province from 2012 and for at least a year were eligible to resettle in the UK.

Now, following years of lobbying and legal uncertainty, the government has announced that around 50 interpreters who served on the frontline alongside British soldiers as far back as 2006 will be granted five-year visas to Britain as part of new qualifying measures. They will also be able to bring their wives and children, taking the figure to an estimated 200.

The move comes at a time when the British government has faced “severe criticism for its treatment of immigrants and Afghan interpreters” reports CNN.

Despite the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, as recently as April a government policy review insisted it remained a safe country for Afghans who had assisted the British army during the nearly two decades-long conflict.

Last month more than 150 interpreters signed a joint letter to the Home Secretary Sajid Javid saying they'd been told to pay thousands of pounds in visa application fees.

The government’s decision to extend the scheme has been hailed by the Daily Mail as a “huge victory” for the paper’s three-year Betrayal of the Brave campaign, which revealed how interpreters left behind in Afghanistan were shot at, issued with death threats and even executed on their doorsteps.

Writing for the Mail, the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson praised interpreters as the “unsung heroes” who served with “dazzling distinction” following the 2001 US-led military invasion.

He admitted the existing policy “failed to take account of the immense sacrifice and service of many who had left before that time [2012]”.

Yet despite welcoming the change in policy, campaigners believe the proposed changes could help some interpreters who served, “but would still leave a large number who are being removed at risk” says CNN.

A British Army major who has faced seven separate inquiries over the death of an Iraqi teenager 15 years ago is being investigated again.

Major Robert Campbell told The Daily Telegraph that he feels “broken” after being told he faces an eighth probe into the May 2003 incident. He vehemently denies allegations that, along with two colleagues from the Royal Engineers, he forced 19-year-old Said Shabram into a river in Basra.

Campbell, a bomb disposal expert, and his two comrades was cleared of wrongdoing soon after the alleged incident. Military prosecutors declined to bring charges in 2006 following a detailed investigation by the Royal Military Police.

The three men, two of whom are still serving, “faced a three-year inquiry by the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat), a unit investigating claims against British forces that was wound up last year after the solicitor whose firm brought most of its cases was struck off for corruption and dishonesty”, says The Times.

“This sordid process has broken me. I was assured it was finally over and shortly after that I received a long service and good conduct medal,” Campbell told the Telegraph.

“Last week I received an email telling me they are starting another investigation, which after seven investigations seemed unspeakably cruel and vindictive. It has been 15 years and there have been no fewer than seven investigations and inquiries. No other army I know of treats its soldiers as political fodder like this.”

Conservative MP Johnny Mercer, a former army officer who led a parliamentary inquiry into Ihat, urged ministers to bring the investigations to an end.

The Ministry of Defence said: “The welfare of our personnel is of the utmost importance and we have a legal obligation to ensure the full facts of alleged incidents are known.”

A group of British Army soldiers has become the first all-female expedition to trek across Antarctica on foot.

Major Nicola Wetherill, Major Natalie Taylor, Captain Zanna Baker, Lieutenant Jenni Stephenson and reservists Major Sandy Hennis and Lance Sergeant Sophie Montagne arrived at Hercules Inlet on Saturday morning, 62 days after setting out.

The six “Ice Maidens” had battled their way across 1,056 miles of icy plains in 60mph winds and temperatures as low as -40C, using only skis and their own muscle power to drag sledges of equipment weighing up to 176lb each.

The two months on the march meant that the Ice Maidens spent Christmas and New Year far from their loved ones - but they still managed to enjoy some festive cheer. In the team’s blog, Lieutenant Stephenson described spending Christmas Day in a tent “eating crisps (a real treat) and drinking small amounts of rum”.

“I'm just so incredibly proud of the team,” Major Wetherill told the BBC. “I can't believe how far we've come.”

“This journey has had good times, bad times and great times for all concerned, and each of them, I know, has made us better people.”

The six Ice Maidens were selected out of more than 250 female soldiers who applied for the expedition. They then underwent almost two years of training for the gruelling trek - where they came up with some unusual ways to pass the hours.

Before the expedition, Wetherill told The Daily Telegraph that she and Taylor were fans of BBC Radio 4 soap The Archers and “planned to make up for missing the show while in Antarctica by imagining their own storylines”.

The team’s motivational tactics clearly worked - the Ice Maidens crossed the finish line in 62 days, well under the 75 to 90 days they had allowed for the trek.

“We set what was an impossible challenge and achieved it, so anything is possible,” Major Hennis told the BBC. “I really want to inspire other women, specifically women, to get out there and do things they wouldn't normally be doing, or think would be possible.”

Army Sergeant Major Glenn Houghton, the senior non-commissioned officer in the army, was among those who commended the Ice Maidens on their success, saying there could be “no finer display of the values of the British Army”.

The number of British soldiers fit for action has fallen to just 60,000, with one in five troops unable to undertake full combat duties due to illness or injury.

A total of 18,000 soldiers currently suffer from physical or mental illness, lack of fitness or could only be deployed on certain operations, new figures show.

The Ministry of Defence says there are 78,407 full-time and fully trained troops, which is less than the Government’s 82,000 target. The revelation that there could be even fewer than that comes at a time when there is already unease at the impact of cutbacks on military expenditure.

Former naval officer and Tory MP Andrew Bowie, who uncovered the figures through a parliamentary question, said the “worrying” staffing gap could be heaping undue stress on serving soldiers.

Speaking to The Independent, Bowie said: “A decision has to be made. Do we fund and man our armed forces properly and ask them to do all we ask them, or do we continue to underfund and undermine, leading to overstretched and undue stress on our serving soldiers?”

Last week, new Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson was warned there would be a “substantial” revolt by Tory MPs in the event of more cuts to army numbers and diminishment of naval capability.

Hammond calls for cuts

According to The Sun, Chancellor Philip Hammond has told the Prime Minister the British Army only needs 50,000 troops, less than half the number when the Tories came to power in 2010.

During what the paper described as a “heated debate”, Hammond said cutting around 30,000 full-time and fully-trained soldiers would still allow the British Army to carry out its core task of being able to send a division to fight a war.

“Enraged Army chiefs said the much-reduced quota would leave the UK only able to sustain a war for around six months”, says The Sun. It would also rule out any large-scale peace-keeping mission or invasion like the 2003 Iraq War, says the paper.

The International Business Times says “the Government has controversially been trying to close gaps in defence spending by increasing the number of reservists, with the goal of recruiting 30,000 Army reservists by 2020”.

Following seven years of austerity cutbacks and an alleged £2bn black hole, the MoD is reportedly bracing itself for further cuts to spending as part of a Cabinet Office review of the UK’s national security next year.

According to series of leaks by senior military officials published in The Times over recent months, the MoD faces a funding shortfall of a least £20bn over the next decade, though this could be as large as £30bn.

During her tour of the Middle East last week, Prime Minister Theresa May repeatedly refused to guarantee that the number of troops in the army would not fall below 70,000 as part of the review, prompting Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood to threaten to quit if a series of cost-saving proposals to cut the armed forces went ahead.

He could be joined by as many as 30 other Conservatives, after ex-army officer Tory MP Johnny Mercer, who has led a campaign to boost resources, said a sizeable number of backbenchers were prepared to “hold the Government’s feet to the fire” on defence spending.

Labour has sought to directly link austerity with cuts to the military. The party’s shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith said reducing the size of the army to 70,000, “would seriously put our international credibility at risk” and accused the Tories of being in “open rebellion” over the issue.

A British special forces dog was awarded the highest military medal an animal can receive for saving the lives of Special Boat Service troops during their 2012 operation to remove armed Taliban forces from a multi-storey building in Afghanistan.

Mali, a Belgian Malinois, received the PDSA Dickin medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross which is the UK’s highest honour for gallantry, reports The Guardian.

After being wounded by three grenade blasts, Mali still managed to find the locations of enemy fighters. This gave British troops the time they needed to react during eight hours of close-quarters combat.

The eight-year-old dog was sent through direct fire twice and hoisted up the outside of the building to provide the assault force with a foothold. He sustained injuries to his chest, ear, front and rear legs and lost a front tooth after three explosions went off near him.

“Despite sustaining quite horrendous injuries, he absolutely stayed by his handler’s side and forged forward with them to help them carry out their duty,” Jan McLoughlin, director of the PDSA veterinary charity told the Telegraph. “It’s that gallantry and devotion to duty that we are recognising.”

Cpl Daniel Hatley trained Mali when he was a puppy. He told the Guardian, “I am extremely proud of Mali. The way he conducted himself when it mattered most enabled my colleagues to achieve success in close combat.”

Mali’s handler during the raid, who cannot be identified for security reasons, was also awarded a gallantry medal.

He said that Mali saved the lives of British and Afghan troops as they fought up floor by floor of the building. The dog went ahead to see if he could a find a safe route and stopped soldiers from entering an area filled with booby traps.

“By the time we launched on to this operation we really felt that we had a guardian angel amongst us, nothing was going to happen to us,” he told the Telegraph.

Mali becomes the 69th recipient of the award recognising animal bravery, since it was introduced in 1943. Previous winners were 32 dogs, 32 world war messenger pigeons, four horses and a cat.

During a visit to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mali was caught chewing his prestigious award, proving he’s not letting the fame go to his head just yet.

Russia says the arrival of thousands of American troops in Poland is a threat to its national security, as the US carries out its biggest military build-up on the continent since the Cold War.

The mission, agreed at a Nato summit last year, is part of the Obama administration's attempt to ease fears among its Baltic allies following the Russian annexation of Crimea. It has taken on new significance since the election of Donald Trump, who has raised doubts about US commitments to defending eastern Europe.

The first of 3,000 soldiers and hundreds of armoured vehicles began crossing the German border into Poland yesterday, where they received a warm welcome.

"It fulfils a dream some Poles have had since the fall of Communism – to have US troops on their soil as a deterrent against Russia," says ABC News.

But while Warsaw celebrated, Moscow issued a strongly worded statement against the deployment.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, said: "We interpret this as a threat to us and as actions that endanger our interests and security."

Over the next few weeks, the combat teams will be spread across several eastern European states, including Estonia and Bulgaria.

The military operation was initially intended to begin later this month, but was brought forward at the last minute. "[It's] possibly a move by Barack Obama before he leaves office to try and lock president-elect Donald Trump into the strategy," says The Guardian.

"Trump's election raises questions as to whether this heightened US military posturing will continue," says the BBC.

The businessman, who takes office next week, has repeatedly vowed to improve relations with Russia. He has also said he would not necessarily honour the US's Nato commitment to protect fellow member states.

However, his views on Russia appear to be at odds with those of his most senior defence and intelligence nominees.

Speaking at their senate congressional hearings last night, Mike Pompeo, Trump's choice to lead the CIA, and defence secretary nominee General James Mattis both took direct aim at the Kremlin.

Mattis put Russia at the top of his "principle threat list", while Pompeo accused it of "aggressive" behaviour in Ukraine.

"While these views could reflect the nominees' desire to court favour from congressional Russia hawks, it may also set up tension between Mr Trump and his top advisers in the days and months ahead," says the BBC's Anthony Zurcher.

Nato accuses Russia of 'aggressive military posturing'

23 November 2016

Tensions between Russia and Nato have intensified following Moscow's deployment of state-of-the-art missiles in its Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania.

"The Bastion system fires Oniks cruise missiles, which have a range of up to 280 miles (450km)," says the BBC. Russia has already used the system in Syria.

Nato accused Moscow of "aggressive military posturing" and said the move "does not help to lower tensions or restore predictability to our relations". It called on the country to provide more information about its military activities to avoid "incidents and the risk of misunderstandings".

Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the deployment was "a logical response to a hostile West", highlighting the construction of a US missile defence shield across Europe and a build-up of Nato troops near Russia's borders.

"Russia is doing everything necessary to ensure its security in the face of expansion by Nato towards its borders," he said.

The Kremlin says the aim of the US missile shield is "to neutralise Moscow's nuclear arsenal long enough for the United States to strike Russia in the event of war", reports Al Jazeera, something both Washington and Nato deny.

The increasing tension between Moscow and Nato comes as members of the EU move to strengthen military ties. On Tuesday, the European Parliament voted 369 to 255 to deepen defence coordination between member states.

'Worried' EU leaders to warn Trump over Russian sanctions

18 November

Prime Minister Theresa May and other European leaders will urge US president-elect Donald Trump to keep in place sanctions on Russia.

Downing Street said May hoped to secure an agreement to maintain the sanctions during talks with outgoing US President Barack Obama, which will address a range of issues including the threat of Islamic State and Moscow's role in the Ukraine conflict, reports the BBC.

It was Russia's intervention in eastern Ukraine that prompted Washington and Brussels to impose the sanctions in 2014.

But, during his election campaign, Trump called into question the security shield for US allies under Nato that has existed for nearly 70 years and expressed hopes for more cordial relations between Washington and Moscow.

"Trump's election upset has rattled European nerves," says the Luxemburger Wort, leaving "worried" European leaders looking to Obama for clues about the course Trump might take, "given the populist mogul's pledges to shake up the world order".

During a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday, Obama urged his successor to stand up to Russia if it deviated from US "values and international norms".

He said Moscow was a military superpower with "influence around the world" but encouraged Trump to resist the temptation to "cut some deals with Russia" that damage smaller countries just because it may seem "convenient at the time".

In a bid to soothe European nerves, Obama also expressed guarded optimism that Trump could change his position once he takes over at the White House.

"There's something about the solemn responsibilities of that office... that forces you to focus, that demands seriousness," he said. "And if you're not serious about the job, then you probably won't be there very long. Because it will expose problems."

However, Lithuania believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin may test Nato in the weeks before Trump takes office. Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius said he was "very afraid" for the Baltics and the Syrian city of Aleppo.

Nato fires warning shot at Donald Trump

14 November

Nato has warned US president-elect Donald Trump that going it alone is not an option for Europe or the United States.

Writing in The Observer, secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the West is facing the greatest security challenge of a generation. Acknowledging that some member states need to make bigger financial contributions, he said: "In these uncertain times we need strong American leadership and we need Europeans to shoulder their fair share of the burden."

He added: "It is all too easy to take the freedoms, security and prosperity we enjoy for granted."

During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly attacked the military alliance and said the US would think twice about coming to the aid of an ally that had not paid its dues. The US currently accounts for roughly 70 per cent of Nato spending.

The BBC's Paul Adams says that what some at the time saw as the musings of a candidate not expected to win are now being seen almost as an existential threat to the alliance.

Stoltenberg's comments have also been interpreted as a shot across the bows of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has raised the possibility of a European defence force.

Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, described the idea as "a folie de grandeur, like other things the EU has done which has caused it to face its current existential crisis".

He added: "It is frankly crackers. But it is illustrative of the weird and narcissistic world in which [Junker] operates."

France and Germany are planning to unveil plans for closer military integration in the EU in next few weeks, says The Observer.

Yesterday, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a long-standing critic of Nato, called for Western leaders to demilitarise the border between Russia and Eastern Europe or risk a new Cold War.

Nato announced last week it had put 300,000 troops on high alert due to increasing tensions between Russia and the Baltic states. Last month, the alliance said it was preparing to station 4,000 troops on the Russian border in what The Independent called "its biggest military build-up since the Cold War".

Nato puts 300,000 troops on high alert amid tensions with Russia

8 November

Nato has put an estimated 300,000 troops on high alert as tensions with Russia increase.

Speaking to The Times, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance hopes to speed up the deployment of troops from six to two months in response to "a more assertive Russia implementing a substantial military build-up over many years".

While Nato member states have drastically cut their defence budgets and military investment since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has been bolstering its military capabilities. It has tripled defence spending since 2000 in real terms, developed new military capabilities and used military force against its neighbours.

"We are responding with the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence since the end of the Cold War," said Stoltenberg.

While Stoltenberg refused to be drawn on the specific number of troops being put on alert, the UK's outgoing Nato representative, Sir Adam Thomson, said it was likely to be around 300,000.

He added that Nato is having to respond to an increase in espionage, hybrid warfare, cyber attacks and propaganda by Russia and other non-Nato states.

The alliance's response "is in part a result of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, as well as a bid to reassure ex-Soviet states like Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia - all Nato members who fear Moscow could try a similar tactic again", says The Independent.

It was reported last month that Nato was preparing to station 4,000 troops, including some from the UK, on the border between Russia and the Baltic states in its biggest military build-up since the Cold War.

However, a US think-tank said it believes Russia could overrun Nato's current military force in the Baltic states in a matter of hours.

Relations between Russia and the West have worsened in the last year, "with Moscow's insistence on backing its Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, at all costs leading to serious tension with the US, Britain and France", says the Daily Mail.

A recent poll found nearly half of Russians fear Moscow's intervention in Syria could lead to World War III.

Russia vs Nato: Is there a risk of World War III?

28 October

The UK will send fighter jets to Romania next year while the United States has promised troops, tanks and artillery to Poland in Nato's biggest military build-up on Russian borders since the Cold War.

The news follows this week's "storm in the petrol pump", as the BBC's Jonathan Marcus put it, when Russia withdrew a request to refuel three warships in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta after Defence Secretary Michael Fallon claimed they were on their way "to bomb Syrian civilians in Aleppo".

Nato's tensions with Russia have escalated since the annexation of Crimea and the West's decision to impose retaliatory sanctions, prompting speculation about a new Cold War.

Roland Oliphant, the Moscow correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, says: "There are still one or two who say 'cold war' is an exaggeration. But the general consensus is that is has started".

Are we headed for World War III?

Relations may have reached a new low, but there is a sense neither side truly wants a full-scale conflict.

A recent informal lunch between US and Russian participants concluded the best the two countries could hope to achieve over the next five to eight years was the establishment of rules to avoid any inadvertent escalation, similar to the years of detente, reports Bloomberg.

"One of many reasons why the new Cold War is different from the old is the extreme asymmetry in conventional forces, with the US and its allies stronger that they used to be, and Russia much weaker than the former Soviet Union," says Andrey Kortunov, a Russian security analyst.

But, he adds, Russia will continue reminding the West of the one area in which it has parity: its nuclear arsenal.

"The possibility of war is definitely there, which could be triggered by minor mistakes," said Sergei Karaganov, a senior Russian foreign policy advisor. "The current situation is just like that in the 1960s, when the world was on the brink of war."

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has also warned the Syrian conflict has put the world "on the brink of the beginning of a large regional or global war", with the US and Russia on opposing sides.

"If this proxy war continues, after this, let me be clear, America and Russia will come to a point of war," he said last week.

How did we get here?

The current conflict can be traced back to the end of the first Cold War and Nato's continued expansion following the fall of the USSR, analysts say.

Paul R Pillar, a senior fellow at the Centre for Security Studies at Georgetown University, in Washington DC, and a former senior CIA officer, says the initial fault lies with the West.

"The West did not treat Russia as a nation that had shaken off Soviet Communism," he said. "Russia was regarded as the successor state of the USSR, inheriting its status as the principal focus of Western distrust."

But Russia's policies since the end of the Cold War have also done little to ingratiate the nation to the outside world, he told the BBC.

For instance, President Vladimir Putin paraded the country's new nuclear arsenal days after he suspended a treaty with Washington on cleaning up weapons-grade plutonium, signalling he was willing to use nuclear disarmament as a new bargaining chip in disputes with the US.

Why hundreds of British troops are heading to Eastern Europe

8 July

Several hundred UK troops will be sent to Poland and Estonia as part of a Nato deployment in response to anxiety over Russia.

In order to "reassure" the two countries, a 500-strong battalion will be sent to Estonia while 150 troops will be based in Poland, says Defence Secretary Michael Fallon.

The move is the latest chapter in Nato's response to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Fallon says Nato wants to "deter Russia from any further aggression", adding that eastern Nato countries "feel enormous pressure from Russia doing large exercises on the border, flying over their airspace and so on".

Referring to the plan, he said: "This is something Nato's been planning for a while, that countries like Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia have made clear that they want."

Moscow says it is a victim of Nato "encirclement" and responded by announcing a snap inspection of its armed forces.

A "highly mobile" British-led force will act as "a trip-wire" in Estonia after military planners were unnerved by Russian behaviour in the region, including the buzzing of US ships by Su24 jets in the Baltic Sea, says the Daily Telegraph.

Fallon insists that in the event of a military emergency, the taskforce could be supported by a Nato high-readiness "spearhead" brigade of 5,000 men.

"They won't be left out to dry. They can be reinforced very rapidly," he said.

Last month, General Sir Nick Carter told the defence select committee that Britain was in an "era of constant competition" with Russia. "I think the boundaries between peace and war are now much more blurred than they once were," he said.

Moscow's annexation of Crimea and the ongoing war in Ukraine will be top of the agenda at a Nato summit starting today, which is seen as the most significant since the end of the Cold War.

Also to be discussed are the alliance's continuing support for Afghan forces and defeating Islamic State.

Defence secretary Michael Fallon has committed the UK to a long-term troop deployment in the Baltic states to deter Russian aggression.

The length of the deployment will be open-ended but it will work on a rotational basis with the US and Germany, in line with post-Cold-War agreements about permanent troop placements in former Eastern Bloc nations.

The UK deployment will form part of the "Transatlantic Capability Enhancement and Training" initiative, first agreed in June between Germany and the US, which is designed to increase training and exercises with less militarily-equipped European allies.

"The move is almost certain to raise hackles in Moscow," says the Financial Times. "Russia has long accused Nato of encroaching on its sphere of influence and attempting to militarise territories along its border."

While the UK contingent is only likely to comprise around 100 troops, the deployment is still a "marked change in Britain's posture", says the newspaper.

The UK is already deploying RAF jets to the Baltic states and around 75 military trainers are running programmes for Ukrainian troops. The defence secretary also revealed plans in August to double the resources in Ukraine, where President Petro Poroshenko has said he is trying to regain control of its eastern border with Russia.

"Now we will have a more regular drumbeat of troops deploying in the Baltics and Poland," said Fallon ahead of yesterday's Nato defence ministers meeting in Brussels.

Nato members also renewed its promise to defend allies in relation to Russia's "escalation" in Syria, with thousands of troops prepared to go to Turkey, which has condemned Moscow for violating its airspace.

Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said the organisation would send a "clear message" to its allies: "Nato will defend you, Nato is on the ground, Nato is ready."