America will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated. 🇺🇸

The UK has never been a major land power in Europe outside of war. The 2H of the 20C was an aberration. The situation has changed dramatically. The benefit of being in an alliance is we can prioritise and share the burden. After all no one is asking Bulgaria and Poland to field ASW forces in the North Atlantic, or deploy ballistic nuclear missiles, or develop 6th gen bombers. ‘Come then: let us to the task, to the battle, to the toil - each to our part, each to our station’

British Army regulation states that: "Male hair is to be cut short such that its length does not reach to the collar or onto the ears." It appears they can bend the rules for certain groups of people now.

June 6, 1944. An American paratrooper jumps into Normandy in the dark and lands on the roof of a church. By the end of the war he had been declared dead, held a funeral he didn't attend, escaped the Nazis, and fought his way toward Berlin in a Soviet tank unit. His name was Joseph Beyrle. He's believed to be the only American soldier to serve in both the US Army and the Red Army during World War Two. Beyrle was from Muskegon, Michigan. He joined the 101st Airborne, the Screaming Eagles. His buddies called him Jumpin' Joe. On D-Day night his plane was hit by flak and he jumped early. He came down on a church roof, slid off, and lost his unit in the chaos. For a few days he fought on his own, blowing up a power station and cutting German communications. Then he was captured. Here's where it gets strange. A German soldier ended up wearing Beyrle's uniform and dog tags. That German was killed. When the body was found, the Americans identified it as Joseph Beyrle. The army told his parents their son was dead. His hometown held a funeral mass for him. His obituary ran in the local paper. Meanwhile, he was very much alive, being moved from one German prison camp to another. He escaped more than once. One time he and two other prisoners jumped off a train heading east. They thought they were heading for Russia and freedom. They got lost and ended up in Berlin, where they were caught by the Gestapo, beaten, and tortured. In January 1945, from a camp in eastern Germany, he finally made a clean escape. He went east, toward the gunfire. Toward the Soviets. When he found a Soviet tank unit, he walked out with his hands up, holding a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes, and shouted the only Russian he knew. American comrade. It worked. He asked to join them. And they said yes. For about a month, an American paratrooper rode with Soviet tank crews as they pushed toward Germany. He used his demolition training. He fought. He was reportedly welcomed by a Soviet officer who was one of the rare women commanding a tank battalion. Then a German dive bomber attacked. Beyrle was badly wounded. He was evacuated to a Soviet hospital. Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov reportedly visited, heard his story, and gave him papers to get to the American embassy in Moscow. When he showed up, the embassy didn't believe him. As far as the US was concerned, Joseph Beyrle was dead. They held him under guard until his fingerprints proved who he was. He made it home to Michigan in April 1945. In 1946 he got married. In the same church where they'd held his funeral. Decades later, in 1994, he was honored at the White House by President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin for serving both countries. And the last twist. His son, Joseph Beyrle II, grew up to become the United States Ambassador to Russia.

I found it hard to believe this could be true. But it is, of course telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2…

So if NATO is key, and its main deterrent factor is its unity, then UK capabilities should also be shaped to maintain and enhance NATO cohesion. As NATO cohesion is the core deterrence factor. This is where a more maritime, close-in defence strategy could fall foul.

This chart is insane. This shows Russia's casualties over time compared to Russia's territorial gains in Ukraine over the last five years. No sane or rational person would say continuing the war to try and take more of Ukraine's territory is worth the casualties.

Has he outed himself as a listener???!! @WeHaveWaysPod

🇺🇸🇺🇦 Zelensky offered the US three options to stop strikes on Russian refineries! "I said: if you want us not to hit diesel, refineries, then let them (the Russians, - ed.) not hit our electricity. This is fair. An energy truce. The second option is you open Starlink over Russia, we show you the places where there are ballistic missile launchers. We want to destroy them. The third option is if you don't open Starlink to us, and it depends only on you, and you said that Musk doesn't want it, then give us something that doesn't depend on Musk and Putin - missiles for Patriot."

🚨 David Richards - a former head of the British Army - has backed calls to cut the force from its already historic small size to give more cash to the Navy and RAF

The pre-pandemic rate was £8.21/hour; £13.20/hour represents a more than 60% increase in five years. People keep saying businesses who can't pay it shouldn't employ people. So they're not.

My first instinct is to always argue for a balance of investment across the services, and arguments for a stronger navy that start with 'we are an island' are generally utter nonsense (and should be roundly ridiculed), but you cannot help to think of priorities

NEW!!! Ukrainian sources tell me Kyiv has received no update from Hegseth or the Pentagon on Patriot/NASAMS missile approvals. Zero movement. Zelenskyy said earlier Ukraine has been waiting nearly a month for Hegseth’s sign-off.

At one point, Ukraine had the third-largest contingent of personnel deployed in Iraq, behind only the U.S. and UK.