Deborah Haynes

The Wargame returns and this time it is on screen as we simulate what might happen if Russia attacks the UK "Every decision is a choice between bad and worse" youtube.com/watch?v=m0zV0wrv…

Come out to a @RoyalNavy sea power conference, we are told It will be awesome as it’s going to be in Norway on the UK’s flagship aircraft carrier…. Slight snag 🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶

🚨 Asked about the exit of multiple military aircraft from RAF Mildenhall in the UK amid reports about a security threat from Iran, a US Air Force spokesperson said: “US Air Force aircraft rotate between installations and operating locations for a variety of reasons including training and real world requirements. US military aircraft are hosted in accordance with access, basing, and overflight agreements with our Allies and partners. Due to operations security, we will not provide further information on movement of assets.”

Asked about the US pulling aircraft from RAF Mildenhall reportedly because of a security threat from Iran - and whether the UK could guarantee the security of US forces on British soil, Defence Minister @LukePollard says it is up for other nations to comment on their own military movements but the US “remains our closest security and defence partner and that won’t be changing”

⚓️The head of the @RoyalNavy says he is not telling us all that war is coming but he says the world is more unstable than he has seen it at anytime in his 36 year career and “our job is to be ready”. General Sir Gwyn Jenkins is speaking at the opening of an “international sea power conference” off the coast of Norway hosted by the UK on its flagship aircraft carrier @HMSPWLS The First Sea Lords says: “We are no predictors of war. I am not telling you that war is coming but I am telling you that instability is here and our job is to be ready.”

🚨Russia may have reached the limit of its "peacetime" ability to project force in the Baltic Sea, with the maritime situation "tense" but "stable", the head of Finland's navy has said. Rear Admiral Tuomas Tiilikainen was speaking to Sky News as a team of US Marines briefly joined a NATO mission tasked with detecting and deterring hostile Russian activity in the area. This includes attempts by sanctioned Russia-linked shadow fleet vessels to damage or spy on vital underwater data cables, power lines and other critical infrastructure. "They [the Russian navy] monitor what we do, what NATO does, and we obviously need to monitor and maintain a vigilant guard on what they do and their activities," the Finnish naval chief said in an interview. "But at the moment, I need to stress, even though the situation at sea is tense, it's still stable and there is no need for us to escalate the situation any further - rather de-escalate." Rear Admiral Tiilikainen, speaking outside his naval base in Turku, a city on Finland's southwest coast, offered two possible reasons as to why the situation was stable. "They [the Russians] see that there is no immediate need to ramp up their presence or their readiness in the region, but also maybe they have reached the limits of their capability in peacetime as they like to see here in the Baltic Sea," he said. Full story ⬇️ news.sky.com/story/finlands-…

AHUS also really bad for kidneys

🛰️ Andy Burnham must settle a bitter battle on Earth between rival American and European companies over the future in space of a critical UK military satellite system. Four industry sources said the prime minister is reviewing a decision - thought to have been taken by the Ministry of Defence - to award the £2.4bn Skynet contract to the US defence firm, Lockheed Martin, instead of sticking with its European rival, Airbus. The British arm of Airbus has long delivered the capability, which handles the UK's most sensitive data and is designed to be "unhackable". Sources that support Airbus warned that giving the contract to a US company - even the UK branch of Lockheed Martin - would be a "betrayal" of the British space and defence industry. Though sources that back Lockheed point out that Airbus is a European, not a UK, firm. The review by Mr Burnham is thought to have come after the head of Airbus wrote to the prime minister in recent weeks to make the case for why the contract to provide two new military-grade satellites should stay with his firm. Airbus has warned that 3,000 highly skilled jobs in Britain, designing and building satellites, could be lost. ⬇️ news.sky.com/story/pm-review…

🚨British troops will be allowed to fire back at Russian forces if attacked as part of a multinational mission to secure any future peace in Ukraine, Western officials have said. The risk of direct confrontation between the UK and Russia underlines the high stakes of the potential deployment, led by Britain and France. But whether the operation will ever actually happen in reality remains in serious doubt because of a rather large spanner in the form of Vladimir Putin. It would require Russia's war in Ukraine to stop and for "peace" to be established before any consideration of what has perhaps rather optimistically been named the "Multinational Force-Ukraine" (MNF-U) heading into the country at the invitation of the Ukrainian government. Yet, for peace to have been established, it would need a cessation of hostilities - something that would doubtless involve various conditions and compromises agreed between Kyiv and Moscow in the absence of an outright victory by either side. The idea that the Kremlin would allow for troops from 11 NATO nations to help "secure lasting peace" as part of this negotiation seems fanciful. The Russian president has repeatedly ruled out such an idea in the past. Yet London and Paris are still pressing ahead with their preparations - even though some sources have told me that resources would perhaps be better spent focused purely on doing everything possible to ensure Ukraine wins instead of planning for the aftermath. In the biggest demonstration of preparing for when the war stops, some 300 British troops and more than 2,000 soldiers from 10 other partner nations are taking part in an exercise in Poland that starts on Monday and will last for almost a fortnight. Read more here⬇️ news.sky.com/story/british-t…

🎩 to the @MetroUK headline writer on the splash. The new Cold War 👾🥶

When UK ministers talk about how they are spending £298bn over four years on their defence investment plan it sounds impressive. But this is just the annual budget - including for recurring costs like canteen food, boots and light bulbs - lumped together from 2026-30. We have analysed the numbers in the small print of the investment plan (DIP). It shows that military chiefs are banking on tens of billions of additional pounds from 2030 and beyond. Or else their own numbers do not add up. Check out our rather rough and ready maths - and thank you to @FTusa284 for sharing your views! ⬇️ news.sky.com/video/is-there-…

Given John Healey’s plan to lift defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 is unfunded, why did he not just reveal this ambition when he became chancellor instead of keeping us all guessing until the budget? It feels rather performative which is the last thing defence needs

This "Be Ready" omission in the budget is genuinely bemusing. It creates the inescapable assumption that rebuilding societal resilience (at a time when the Defence Secretary says the UK needs to be ready for the possibility of war by 2030) is not a priority for the Andy Burnham government

Wow - just listening to Jonathan Haskel, chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility on Radio 4 He says UK GDP spent on welfare is rising to 11% of GDP from 10.5% of GDP following the budget. "That's a big increase." Yet Chancellor John Healey can't even say how he's going to inch up defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 even as his government says the military needs to be ready for war by then.

Er, defence spending has too often been cut since the Cold War so this is a hollow metric for gauging the rebuilding of military strength The question is: are we rearming at the speed of relevance? Given @wesstreeting says we need to be ready for war by 2030, it would appear not

🚨While it is significant that the Chancellor has committed to increasing UK defence spending faster - don’t get too excited. The actual details on how the rise to 3% of GDP will be funded won’t be clear until the spending review at some point next year, which means more limbo, uncertainty and lost time. Also, promises of jam tomorrow will do little to relieve the considerable financial pressures on the military today. John Healey knows about that first hand - or at least his Army reservist son (with no bullets for training) does.   In fact, in the small print of the budget, in a column marked resources - so things like training - funding will be lower than previous estimates over the next two financial years. The Ministry of Defence says this is because of a technical adjustment to pension contributions across government so it doesn’t mean a drop in day-to-day spending. But, as mentioned above, that was already in a bad place. Yes the chancellor says he’s going to plug a £4.7bn hole in a major defence investment plan. Yet he’s not found extra money to enable the army to reverse a cost-saving decision to reduce training even as the new defence secretary warns the UK needs to be readying for war ⬇️ skynews-defence.noosphere.ap…

There is not a single mention in the Budget of the government's new three-year "Be Ready" campaign to strengthen national resilience in the face of mounting threats (from severe weather to war). This feels like an oversight⬇️ assets.publishing.service.go…

This is long overdue - the budget reveals a push to cut red tape and (I am guessing) peacetime aviation rules to enable drone manufacturers to test drones in the UK - something that has been a massively limiting problem given the critical importance of this technology for the armed forces to be able to train on and learn to fight with: 6.81 Drone regulation unit– The government is launching a new Ministry of Defence-led drone regulation unit working across the government, which will take a targeted approach to cutting red tape and create clearer routes for testing uncrewed and autonomous systems.

The budget reveals that the Ministry of Defence finally has a new permanent Director General Innovation: "Accelerating the delivery of cutting-edge innovative technology. UK Defence Innovation – the Ministry of Defence’s innovation agency – was launched last year with a ringfenced budget of £400 million per year, and the government can now confirm Tony Reeves as the new permanent Director General Innovation"

Clear evidence that the Chancellor’s pledge to lift defence spending to a new target of 3% of GDP by 2030 is now a firm commitment by Andy Burnham’s government ⬇️