A friendly reminder: the UK designed, as well as manufactures, key components for the F-35, including all the ejector seats, & the lift fans on the F-35Bs, among other systems. Without the UK, production of the F-35 halts. So, London can be relaxed about using the F-35, & the 2030s are sorted.

Great to have you posting here, Sir Humphrey!

Venezuela isn't Europe's problem; Greenland & Ukraine are. In this naked power politics era that has suddenly burst upon us, European states have to clearly identify & prioritise core interests. Their silence Venezuela & clear statements on Greenland & support for Kyiv show that they are doing so.

Having said that, there is a very big issue that does require European leaders to make clear unequivocal statements: Greenland. 7 of them have jointly done so, including all the Big 4 (France, Germany, Italy, the UK), & Poland, Spain & Denmark. And the 5 Nordic Foreign Ministers also did so.

Cochrane was effectively the founder of the Chilean Navy, and played a hugely important role in securing the country's independence. The Chilean Navy always has a ship named in his honour.

I am open to correction, but I believe that in UK service, Trident also has a "sub-strategic" role as well -- perhaps 1 or 2 of the missiles on each SSBN has only 1 or 2 warheads. But it must be noted that it would take many years for the UK to expand its warhead design & production capacity, alas!

Lovely analysis. To me, these "battleships" can only make sense as part of an anti-access/area denial strategy; they are of no use to a global navy. But MAGA isolationists don't need a global navy. I wonder if this is a plan to refocus the USN away from the globe to NW Hemisphere AA/AD.

9. I hope those who know France, Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, & other countries bettee than I do, will check out defence progs initiated by those countries during & since Trump 1, & whether they increase strategic autonomy wrt the US. But the divorce some hope for may have started years ago.

8. Last month, the UK launched another urgent project, Nightfall, for a national, again 500 km+ range, ballistic missile. And there's the UK-Japan-Italy GCAP 6th gen combat aircraft. All these projects greatly increase the UK's strategic autonomy wrt the US. All but 1 of these started before Trump 2

7. The UK also relied on the US for longer-ranged cruise missiles & for ballistic missiles. At the end of 2024 (end of Biden admin) the UK launched the urgent Project Brakestop, for a national 500 km+ range cruise missile. A long way short of the Tomahawk's range, but longer-ranged than Stormshadow

6. ISTARI will create a spy satellite constellation of both optical (code-named Juno) and radar (Oberon) spy satellites, to be fully operational by 2031. The operational prototype, Tyche, was launched in August last year. ISTARI will free the UK from dependence on US spy satellite data.

5. But in 2018, during Trump 1, & taking advantage of advances in technology that allow high quality satellite imagery for much lower cost than previously, the UK launched a contractor-owned technology demonstrator, Carbonite-2, made by UK company SSTL. Its success led to the ISTARI programme.

4. The rest of this thread focuses on the UK, because I know more about the UK. So, for decades, the UK focused on top of the range communications intelligence (signals, codebreaking, etc.) & human intelligence, & left spy satellites to the US (except for a solitary abortive programme in the 1980s).

3. Already, we have forgotten just how alarming Trump's 1st administration had been. The Biden admin did not restore confidence in the US. Wrt the Ukraine-Russia War, Biden was frustratingly, even alarmingly, timid. He delayed key initiatives until London & Paris disregarded him & just did them.

2. But it has now also occurred to me that we might all also have been looking at the wrong timescale -- looking for things initiated since Trump was reinaugurated President at the start of 2025. But what if key projects to strengthen autonomy vis-a-vis the US had been launched earlier?