Ain, I, like many people have taken my eye off the ball with regard to Ukraine due to the Palestinian crisis. Arguably, Putin's boldness has emboldened Israel, although the more I have come to understand about that conflict, the more it is clear that what is nakedly revealed in the present, has always been the plan and the ethos. I can't help wondering whether 75 years of carefully constructed narrative towards the outside world and the Jewish diaspora has not been blown out of the water by Netenyahu's need to stay in power and giving control to those who go all out for Nakbar v. 2. Will world opinion or rather world governments be driven to change their support. Your assessment of the tepid support for Ukraine does not encourage for the outcome in either area. You told me a lot which I had not heard eg. about N. Korea. I agree about the need for NATO to get to grips with drone warfare (also demonstrated in Gaza and in the October 7th attack by Hamas where drones dropped explosives on the automatic gun towers). When there was debate about the merits of the UK ordering a new aircraft carrier, I thought then that we should be anticipating and spending for quite different kinds of war. At the time, I was thinking more of countering small terrorist/insurgent actions since Ukraine and Gaza had not happened then, but if I can see that, and with the "unthinkable" "conventional" wars in both places (one in Europe) WTF are our UK and other governments thinking? Defence policies need rethinking from macro to micro starting with putting money and serious intent behind the mouthed platitudes about stopping Putin's attack on rule based order and applying the same thinking to an out of control Israeli government...
Ain, I, like many people have taken my eye off the ball with regard to Ukraine due to the Palestinian crisis. Arguably, Putin's boldness has emboldened Israel, although the more I have come to understand about that conflict, the more it is clear that what is nakedly revealed in the present, has always been the plan and the ethos. I can't help wondering whether 75 years of carefully constructed narrative towards the outside world and the Jewish diaspora has not been blown out of the water by Netenyahu's need to stay in power and giving control to those who go all out for Nakbar v. 2. Will world opinion or rather world governments be driven to change their support. Your assessment of the tepid support for Ukraine does not encourage for the outcome in either area. You told me a lot which I had not heard eg. about N. Korea. I agree about the need for NATO to get to grips with drone warfare (also demonstrated in Gaza and in the October 7th attack by Hamas where drones dropped explosives on the automatic gun towers). When there was debate about the merits of the UK ordering a new aircraft carrier, I thought then that we should be anticipating and spending for quite different kinds of war. At the time, I was thinking more of countering small terrorist/insurgent actions since Ukraine and Gaza had not happened then, but if I can see that, and with the "unthinkable" "conventional" wars in both places (one in Europe) WTF are our UK and other governments thinking? Defence policies need rethinking from macro to micro starting with putting money and serious intent behind the mouthed platitudes about stopping Putin's attack on rule based order and applying the same thinking to an out of control Israeli government...