News, Articles and Comment

Ed. If a cyber-attack paralyses a dockyard or a disrupted supply chain prevents a critical repair, the resulting loss of fleet availability constitutes a military defeat achieved by civilian means. The era of the homeland as a sanctuary is over. This article, by the NR’s Chairman, challenges the unhurried pace of current government resilience planning, arguing that the Royal Navy must adopt a National Support Base mindset and apply the same rigorous, FOST-style testing to its civilian dependencies as to its warships. A 20 minute read.

Ed. Members who have read today’s Times or Daily Telegraph will have seen that the First Sea Lord made an important speech on the relevance of the Atlantic to the defence of the United Kingdom. That speech in full is available for members to read here.

Ed. The Naval Staff Research author contends that the current warfare transformation demonstrates a systemic technological model favouring the defensive or, in naval terms, sea denial. How should the RN, which must act offensively to achieve policy objectives, adapt? A 10 minute read.

Ed. This article argues that although the Ukraine War has degraded Russian conventional forces, Moscow’s hybrid and grey zone warfare capability remains a persistent and growing national security concern. A 15 minute read.

Ed. As military escalation increasingly takes centre stage, the author asks if Treasury intransigence has shifted the Defence goalposts. A 10 minute read.

Ed. The expert authors investigate the history of 21^st century space warfare, a legally undefined arena for grey zone conflict. A 25 minute read.

Ed. With John Mearsheimer’s ultrarealism firmly in mind, the author addresses the logic of abiding by, and violating, the international law of war. A 15 minute read.

Ed. When the 1980s Iran-Iraq War bled into the maritime sphere, the US Navy raced to halt depredations to oil shipments; the mine-warfare factor weighed heavily in the operation and offers lessons for today. Originally published in the USNI’s Proceedings, June 2025. A 15 minute read.

Ed. The author assesses the growing threats to the UK’s subsea infrastructure as a component of hybrid warfare, and makes direct recommendations for reducing grey-zone ambiguity and improving the RN’s capacity to respond. A 15 minute read.