My Dearest Mega-Orderers,
Firstly, Greetings from the Big Easy. Two days ago, there was a lot of Mega Ordering of truth and justice concerning who is and is not the GOAT and some Mega-Disordering of Mahomes’s timing as the Eagles repeatedly burst through Chief’s O-line and established the Eagles as possibly the most dominating defence since the 85 Bears.
Drawing on my experiences at the game and conversations around the event with Americans of all stripes I will be making a special audio and visual substack over the next 24 hours for all our subscribers with bonus content for PAID subscribers… but before I discuss there what Football can teach us about American culture and global order, it is back to our regularly scheduled programming with our first episode with a RUSI GUEST to concretize our partnership.
With a major war still raging in Europe, Trump continually threatening to abandon NATO, and China’s long-standing desire to invade Taiwan, is Britain actually getting prepared militarily to step up and use hard power for the causes of deterrence and global ordering?
It’s hard to tell. The current Labour government is still refusing to clarify its exact Defence strategy and spending plans, including when it might increase spending to 2.5% of GDP as promised. Instead, we are left waiting for the publication of a new Strategic Defence Review. So are Starmer and Co. missing an opportunity to be Mega Orderers and lead the allies?
To delve into these issues and much more, this is our first episode drawing on the top flight expertise of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). We’re joined by Matthew Savill, RUSI’s Director of Military Sciences. His team focusses on understanding trends in modern warfare and their impact on military strategy, capabilities and planning. Before joining RUSI, Matthew spent over 20 years in national security roles in government, starting as an intelligence analyst and moving on to policy and operations. He has worked the Ministry of Defence and the UK Cabinet Office and served on deployments in Iraq, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.
Jason and Matthew discuss the challenges faced by Britain in conducting military procurement and cultivating unique drone and AI capabilities. Jason and Matthew both advocate for the UK to enhance its status as a major global player and maintain independent military capacities such as a fully operational carrier group. Matthew postulates that we might be in a genuine ‘pre-war era’ which requires an extra focus on re-capitalisation of Britain’s hard power deterrents.
As they Order the Disorder, they look at whether AI, drones, and genuine hard military power could help Britain become a Mega Orderer. Matthew ends with a parting message for Starmer: invest in people.
Listen here on Apple Podcasts; And here on Spotify.
BACKGROUND ON RUSI AND MATTHEW’S WORK
More on our partnership with RUSI - https://www.rusi.org/news-and-comment/rusi-news/rusi-announces-partnership-disorder-podcast
Read Matthew’s analysis, Starmer’s New National Security Adviser: A Consequential Choice https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/starmers-new-national-security-adviser-consequential-choice
Read Matthew’s piece, A Hollow Force? Choices for the UK Armed Forces - https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/hollow-force-choices-uk-armed-forces
Read The Disintegrated Review? Britain and the Ukraine Crisis by Matthew https://wavellroom.com/2022/03/14/the-disintegrated-review/
Our episode on AI with Marc Warner - https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/3f615a6ab068a88f5dcd8d444dbbb60f
Our episode with Jonathan Powell - https://pod.link/1706818264/episode/94c9f3ec23902d3f606bffb43dc39928
Key Quotes
MATTHEW: We are now living in a world where cold, hard power is being exercised, and the US is not talking about, frankly, values, it's talking about US interests, and it's willing to trample its own allies to get at them, and if the UK wants to convene It needs to bring something to the party. We've got to bring actual influence, or actual military capability, or an actual clever diplomatic insight into solving a problem. If we just see ourselves as essentially, you know, uh, a place to have nice conversations at Lancaster House, then all we're going to do is be standing still whilst China and Russia are using hard power to achieve their objectives.
JASON: Are we in a pre-war world? What would that war be? And is Britain really preparing for this, you know, World War Three or AI or drone war scenario? OR IS YOUR PHRASE THAT WE ARE IN A PRE-WAR WORLD ONLY a flourish of rhetoric.
MATTHEW As an attempt to try and bring home the possibility that we could be called upon to do something more intensive if things don't go well.
What should come out of that use of are we in a pre war period is It is realistic that within the next few years we could see a major country clash that, you know, is very similar to Russia and Ukraine in terms of scale because things might get worse in Europe. The Middle East remains unstable and China, you know, is, is, is got designs on Taiwan. And so the idea that we can. Um, just sort of stay back and, and potter along in terms of normal views of maintaining stability is, is that's for the birds.
NOW SPEAKING OF THE BIRDS… STAY TUNED FOR MY UPCOMING POST ABOUT THE MEGA-ORDERING EAGLES… GO BIRDS!
