The Social World

Tag: Military

The unbearable wokeness of the Canadian military

“I think the question that needs to be asked is: what kind of military does Canada even want?” Dallas Alexander has been all country-star cool until I ask about his former employer. Now his voice takes on a more earnest tone.

We’ve talked about the song the veteran-turned-singer considers his best – “Child of this Land,” a ballad about growing up in the remote Fishing Lake Métis Settlement in northern Alberta – and we’ve discussed which is the fan favorite: same, he says, or maybe the more upbeat “Can’t Blame My Bloodline.” To my mild surprise he doesn’t mention “Adios Amigo.” The song, with its catchy (and ominous) refrain, references the record-breaking sniper shot taken by Alexander’s team in 2017. Fired during the Battle of Mosul, the bullet traveled 2.2 miles before taking out an ISIS combatant who had just scrambled out of a window with an AK-47.

Back then, Alexander was a sniper with the elite Joint Task Force 2, a Canadian special ops unit on a par with America’s Delta Force and Britain’s SAS. But the Canadian Armed Forces were already beginning to lose their way, pursuing diversity, equity and inclusion at the expense of effectiveness – and only a few years later, Alexander would be hounded out.

Today, Alexander is unimpressed by General Jennie Carignan, the head of Canadian defense, who appeared on TV earlier this month with a tearful public apology for systemic racism. Alexander, who is Métis and served for 17 years, doesn’t think the military is systemically racist, as he understands the word “systemic.” He’s nuanced about it: racism, he says, can appear in any large group, especially in an aggressive workplace like a military unit or sports team, with “very get-after-it types of people.” But, “I don’t think the answer to any of it is a general – supposed to be in charge of a fighting force – crying on TV.”

It began when Alexander was still fighting with Joint Task Force 2. “It was starting to trickle in, you needed to do an Indigenous awareness course. And I was like, what the hell does this have to do with a special operations unit? And I’m Indigenous.” Gender awareness courses were next, then other sensitivity training, all eating into time previously spent on combat training.

The Canadian military has been struggling with recruitment and retention, and I remark that leadership seems to think that going down the sensitivity route will attract more people. “They’re going to get the people that they ask for, that’s all… recruiting might go through the ceiling,” but it’ll be “just a bunch of people that want to go in and be sensitive and get free money.”

When Covid hit, with its protocols and mandates, the troops felt they were being used as a testing ground; the government wanted to “be able to go to the world, or to the rest of Canada, and say: look, this group of people were 100 percent compliant.”

Alexander thinks that if every person in JTF2 at the time who didn’t want to be vaccinated had stuck to it, their unit might have gotten away with it. The government would have had to cancel the whole Tier 1 special operations program – and Alexander thinks that wouldn’t have happened. But there was a lot of pressure. “People got scared for their mortgages and their next positions.” Many caved; those who, like Alexander, held their ground were eventually forced out. He thinks the elite units took a gigantic hit at this point. “A lot of people that were very experienced in tons of operations, leaders, aggressive, what you need in a force like that,” left. “And like the cliché of an action movie, if I had to pick a team to go do some crazy mission, every single person I would add to that team is out of the military right now.”

How good was the Canadian military, before all this? “Second to none,” Alexander says of his unit. They trained and competed a lot with Delta in the US and though the Canadian special forces have nowhere near the same money and equipment, Joint Task Force 2 “kicked ass.”

If Canada wanted to turn things around, what could be done? “If I was in charge of the military in Canada tomorrow,” Alexander says, “I mean, this is gonna sound terrible, but I’m gonna say it anyway – I would cancel almost every part of the military and build a robust special operations unit and intelligence-gathering unit. And that is all that we would have. The rest would be volunteers to help within Canada. And that’s it.”

I ask him about PTSD. Alexander says he thinks a lot of veterans go through a similar cycle, becoming disillusioned when they “realize that the government… is corrupt and immoral.” He firmly believes soldiers need to know what their own morals are before heading out on deployment and “if someone tells you to do something against that, you tell them to go to hell.”

“Everyone says that’s not how the military works,” he says. But Alexander believes in morals. For him, they always came before orders. “Call me a bad soldier. I don’t really care. But I don’t have debilitating PTSD because I stuck to my morals.” He says a lot of young guys who go into the military early are put into situations for which they are unprepared. Then once they grow up, they have a lot of regrets that they have to work through. Moral preparation “isn’t popular because it makes soldiers harder to deal with. Instead of just taking some stupid order, you’re like, wait a minute… but I think it’s needed if you want to get out the other side and be able to sit peacefully at the dinner table with your family.”

What does Alexander think of the Canadian government offering euthanasia to vets asking for help with PTSD? “To me, that’s insane,” Alexander says. “It’s insane that that is a place where the government thinks it should be stepping in, offering to kill people who are its own citizens. I think it’s very weird. And especially people in vulnerable positions… it’s sickening.” Why pick on veterans in particular? “I mean, you look at it, it saves them a lot of money, that’s for sure. But I don’t know. It’s not a good enough reason, in my opinion.” Mine neither.

Alexander is pursuing his music career in Nashville now, where he’s making tour plans for 2026 and has founded Music City Gun Club for artists and musicians to go shooting with special operations instructors. He likes Tennessee. “I’m super happy and grateful for all that happened, because I’m way better off now,” he says. That said, speaking with Alexander, it seems to me that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy. Of his own songs, his favorite is “Child of This Land.” And that, in a way, says it all.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s November 24, 2025 World edition.

November 18, 2025
Is Germany ready for military service?

It’s finally crunch time for Boris Pistorius’s plan to reintroduce military service in Germany. Following a delay of several months thanks to the country’s snap federal election campaign at the start of the year, the defense minister’s new “Modernization of Military Service” draft law is currently being debated in Berlin.

Under Pistorius’s proposals, all 18-year-olds will be asked to complete a questionnaire that will gauge their willingness and ability to carry out military service. For men, the quiz will be compulsory; for “other genders” – including women – it will be optional. Those who declare themselves willing to serve will be invited for a formal assessment for recruitment into the armed forces, while anyone refusing to fill out the questionnaire could face a fine. Volunteers will then be expected to serve a minimum term of six months. Bar unexpected delays, the new law is expected to come into effect from January 1, with medical exams for all potential recruits to be made compulsory by July 2027.

Conscription was suspended during Angela Merkel’s stint as chancellor in 2011. But so far, it appears that, despite earlier resistance to the idea of bringing it back, Berlin’s politicians are in broad agreement that resurrecting military service in some form is now a good idea. What they can’t seem to agree on, however, is what to do if Pistorius’s new law doesn’t bring in enough volunteers to plug the gaps in Germany’s armed forces.

Pistorius has grand plans to grow the German army to 260,000 active troops and 200,000 reservists by 2035. But following years of financial cuts, along with a marked decline in employment conditions, the Bundeswehr has shrunk to a nearly all-time low of just over 182,000 active personnel. Many in Berlin – but in particular Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative CDU party – want reassurance that, should the new military service law fail to bring in enough voluntary recruits, other means can be used to boost the army’s numbers.

A working group of MPs from the CDU and Pistorius’s social democratic SPD have suggested that any shortfall in volunteer numbers into the armed forces could be made up through a randomized lottery. Defending the idea, CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn said this would ensure any compulsory recruitment was fair. Few in Berlin – and beyond – appear to agree.

Blasting the proposal for a backup lottery, the head of the German army Carsten Breuer said it would be an ineffectual way of taking stock of the country’s manpower reserves in the event of an emergency. “From a military perspective,” he said, “it is crucial that the entire year group is examined.” This could only be achieved through blanket conscription, he added.

Pistorius himself was also quick out of the gates to slam the idea of a lottery for plugging the gaps in the Bundeswehr, arguing that this would fail to bring in the best possible recruits. “One thing is clear,” he said. “If voluntary service isn’t enough, there will be no way around mandatory conscription.” Such a move, he added, would also act as a deterrent against an increasingly belligerent and provocative Russia. Hoping to make the Bundeswehr a more attractive employer and avoid having to resort to any kind of “plan B” measure, Pistorius’s draft law also lays out plans to improve pay and working conditions with the aim of improving the retention issues the armed forces have been plagued with in recent years.

The dispute between Pistorius and members of the governing coalition to which he belongs has been ongoing ever since his draft law was introduced to the Bundestag in mid-October. A planned press conference between the CDU and SPD on the eve of the draft law’s first reading was canceled with hours to go, reportedly after an agreement to include the backup lottery in the legislation fell through.

Several weeks of wrangling later, there are few signs Pistorius or his parliamentary opponents are any closer to finding a resolution. “There’s really only one proposal,” senior CDU politician Norbert Rottgen told German media today defensively. “With the procedure we are proposing, everyone has the same chance, the same risk of being called upon. That is the equality we are upholding. Any better proposal is welcome.”

Conspicuously absent from the discussion over a lottery versus mandatory conscription is any suggestion of how the government would force young Germans into the army – and how to punish those who don’t comply. It is safe to say that passing any sort of law allowing jail time or fines for such rebellious youths would go down like a lead balloon with younger voters. This most likely goes some way to explaining the degree of resistance any suggestions of mandatory conscription have been met with.

Also unsurprisingly, the idea of bringing back military service of any kind is proving very unpopular with Germany’s youth – the demographic, of course, most directly affected by Pistorius’s new legislation. Enquiries into how to register as a conscientious objector are reportedly on the rise. Meanwhile, a study co-authored by the university of Hamburg found that only 14 percent of 18- to 29-year-old men who had never done military service before were willing to put themselves forward for it. According to another survey from INSA, only 20 percent of respondents aged between 18 and 29 were in favor of a lottery recruitment system. Interestingly, it found that on balance, more Germans preferred a return to mandatory conscription than any kind of lottery.

The Hamburg study, however, may hold some good news for Pistorius. According to their research, even extrapolating just the small percentage of young Germans who expressed a willingness to volunteer for military service, Pistorious would be able to meet his target for bolstering the Bundeswehr’s numbers “without coercion.”

With eight weeks left of the year, Pistorius is steadily running out of time to calm the disquiet around his draft law. He has held the honor of being Germany’s consistently most popular politician since he took up the post of defense minister nearly two years ago. But caught between a fractious Bundestag and an unimpressed public, will Pistorius’s military service law knock him off that top spot?

November 9, 2025
How Germany is preparing for war

Hamburg

What would happen if Russia was planning an attack on Estonia, Lithuania or Latvia – and the threat was sufficiently great that NATO felt the need to send troops east across Europe to face off against Moscow?

This was the scenario the German Bundeswehr spent several days rehearsing last month, working out how the army would transport its soldiers towards NATO’s eastern flank in the event of conflict in the Baltics. For three days, the port city of Hamburg played host to the exercise Red Storm Bravo: 500 soldiers, along with roughly 300 members of the emergency services and other civilian organizations, took part – the largest military exercise in the city since the end of the Cold War.

In the event of conflict with Russia, Germany would, because of its geographical position, become a “hub” for NATO to coordinate the flow of soldiers and weaponry to the front line in the east. Troops from the US and across western and southern Europe – including Britain – would flow through the country toward Warsaw and on. The purpose would be deterrence in the hope that a show of international force would put Vladimir Putin off an attack that would test NATO’s commitment to Article 5, which considers an attack on one member to be an attack on all.

It would be a huge operation: the Bundeswehr’s Operation Plan Germany, details of which were leaked to the press last year, envisages 800,000 NATO troops and 200,000 vehicles traveling across the country toward the front line. According to one army source, even with Germany’s motorways and ports used to full capacity, this would take close to a week. Red Storm Bravo was a rehearsal of the section of Operation Plan Germany that runs through Hamburg.

The purpose of Red Storm Bravo was as much to familiarize German civilians as the army regarding what to do in the event of a coming war. Only a fraction of the Operation Plan Germany soldiers took part but the scenarios neatly reflected the possible challenges. Soldiers rehearsed setting up and manning checkpoints; the fire service practiced fishing a sinking barge out of Hamburg’s port; and the ambulance service simulated a mass casualty event with multiple victims.

The first day’s main event was moving a military convoy through the center of the city after dark. As the sun set over Hamburg’s port, I watched the heavily armed soldiers march toward a fleet of about 70 military vehicles, lined up three abreast. Some were small armored vehicles, others enormous Rheinmetall-branded trucks, several with machine-gun turrets that would later be manned as the convoy sped through the city. Many soldiers wore balaclavas to prevent them being identified, according to our Bundeswehr escort.

There is an art to traveling in a convoy. It moves as one, meaning that as long as the leading vehicle continues to move, the others follow in an unbroken line, regardless of red traffic lights or civilian traffic. This convoy of just 70-odd vehicles snaked back roughly 2.5 miles – a considerable logistical challenge.

At two points along the route, the convoy was stopped by pretend protests: at the first, army reservists in civvies waved banners and chanted at the convoy to “turn back”; at the second, “protesters” staged a sit-in, with signs saying “glue” around the necks of some to denote those who would have stuck themselves to the ground. The point was for the riot police to practice removing them. Groups of three took turns: a grab at the protester’s head from behind and a knee to the back, one arm twisted around, then the other, allowing the police to peel them off the ground and carry them away.

When the planning for Red Storm Bravo was initiated, few could have predicted the new significance it would take on in the weeks leading up to it. Last month, a series of suspected Russian drone incursions into NATO territory set alarm bells ringing. Alongside Germany, Romania, Denmark, Norway and Poland have all reported drone activity close to military bases and other critical infrastructure. Meanwhile, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace for a total of 12 minutes on September 19.

“We developed the scenario for Red Storm Bravo last December and now reality has actually caught up with us somewhat,” said Captain Kurt Leonards, the head of the Bundeswehr’s Hamburg command, who oversaw the exercise. “Whether that’s in Poland, in Estonian airspace, or even the whole discussion now taking place in Denmark, it shows how topical this issue is, and that’s why we have to react very quickly and expand our capabilities.”

Poland and Estonia triggered NATO’s Article 4 less than two weeks apart, requesting alliance members come together to discuss the incursions. While the mood in NATO’s Brussels HQ appears to be calm so far, the rhetoric coming from individual members is somewhat more bellicose.

In comments supported by NATO chief Mark Rutte, Donald Trump gave his endorsement to any NATO ally shooting down Russian aircraft entering its territory. Poland and Lithuania have declared they will do precisely this. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said: “We are not at war, but we are no longer living in peace either.” The German government intends to change the law this fall to allow the army to shoot down any drones deemed a threat. Last month, the EU agreed to move forward with building a technological “drone wall” along its eastern boundary.

The mood on the ground in Germany is clearly jumpy, too. At approximately 1 a.m. on a stretch of road just outside the center of Hamburg, as the Red Storm Bravo convoy paused to set up for the second of its two protest simulations, a whining buzz became audible overhead. Alarm bounced around the crowd of assembled press and official observers as a small black drone hovered above us. “Is it one of ours?” someone asked nervously. It was only after a press photographer was able to get a grainy shot of it that one of our military escorts confirmed it did indeed belong to the Bundeswehr.

Leonards agreed that Hamburg had seen an increase in drone activity. “Of course, you don’t always know where the drones are coming from,” he said. “Are these drones the work of a state actor that’s systematically operating here? Or do we have a teenager with a remote-controlled drone who wants to test how fast the police can arrive on the scene?”

Following years of underinvestment, the German army is restocking its arsenal thanks to reforms that will see defense spending exempt from the country’s rigid debt rules and a one-off €100 billion fund ringfenced by Merz’s predecessor, Olaf Scholz. Some of this will be invested in anti-drone technology.

Following years of underinvestment, the German army is restocking its arsenal

In an army barracks in the Hamburg suburbs, the Bundeswehr demonstrated some of the gadgets already available. First to be sent up was a type of “hunter drone” capable of ensnaring other drones mid-flight by shooting out a web, Spider-Man-style. Disabling drones this way avoids having to use expensive weaponry to shoot them down and lowers the risk of falling debris injuring civilians. Once the hunter drone had lowered its catch to the ground, a four-legged “drone dog” dubbed “Lassie,” equipped with a camera and other sensors, was sent out to inspect it.

Despite these recent undertakings, questions over the German army’s readiness for conflict remain. In June, defense chief General Carsten Breuer warned that Russia could be ready to launch an attack on a NATO state by 2029; according to one government source I spoke to, this could be even sooner. Meanwhile, according to official figures, just under 183,000 soldiers are actively serving in the Bundeswehr, and a damning report published in May revealed that, at the end of last year, more than 20 percent of military positions remained vacant. The reintroduction of conscription seems inevitable to meet its commitment to NATO troop numbers.

So, is Germany prepared for the defensive challenges ahead? When asked this, Leonards said: “Germany is in the process of significantly developing its armed forces and the Bundeswehr. And I believe we’re really on the right track.” Not a resounding yes, then. But any preparation against an increasingly provocative Russia is better than none.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 27, 2025 World edition.

October 21, 2025
Why the Army needs the cavalry

A generation ago, I was an officer in the US Army National Guard and later in the Army Reserve. I did absolutely nothing important, and never saw any places more exotic than Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, and Camp Atterbury, Indiana. I then spent a dozen years working for the Army as a civilian employee.

I had already decided before these events to devote my academic career to the study of the Army. I loved (and still do love) it in an abstract and historical sense. However, only after my personal association with it did I realize how profoundly shortsighted it was. I observed this myopia daily and marveled at its immensity. Veterans may remember the adage that there is “the right way, the wrong way and the Army way.” The Army way is usually just plain dumb.

Veterans may remember ‘the right way, the wrong way and the Army way.’ The Army way is usually plain dumb

Where am I going with all this? You may have seen the Army’s recent decision to eliminate all its horse-mounted ceremonial units in a cost-saving measure. Many will immediately attribute this decision exclusively to President Trump and the Department of Government Deficiency (DoGE). I know better, and so does anybody who served in the Army but retained a healthy sense of skepticism. While there has certainly been an emphasis on cost-cutting and savings, this decision was made by someone much lower in the food chain. Some one- or two-star general or some Deputy Assistant Undersecretary of the Army for God Knows What decided that for a mere $2,000,000 of savings (the Department of the Army’s total annual budget for 2024 was $165.6 billion), the Army would eliminate one of its few historical vestiges and an example for relatively cheap positive public relations.

Every other branch of the armed forces has its quirks. The Air Force has been described as an organization staffed with businessmen in flight suits. The Navy is an organization that will sacrifice anyone to save face (do a Google search on how often ship commanders are relieved because of a “loss of confidence.”) The Marine Corps not only takes pride in being the physically toughest branch of service but also seems to enjoy suffering in an almost strangely masochistic way. The Army, however, owing to its status as the first American armed force and almost always the largest, doesn’t seem to have a true ethos of its own.

Its advertising campaign could almost be (paraphrasing the internet) “Not smart enough for the Air Force? Don’t want to be trapped on a ship with 1,000 other people? Not tough enough for the Marines? Well then, what about the Army, you don’t have any other choices…”

When it comes to history and public relations, the Army’s incompetence truly shines. There is scarcely a ground combat situation in our history where it was not present. Yet it seems unable to inform the American public about this storied history. Even among people who know scarcely any US history, I would be shocked to find those who do not know about the Marine Corps and its role in World War Two. Why? The Marine Corps treats history more like hagiography, and they have lovingly wrapped their history and public relations together.

The Air Force maintains the Thunderbirds ($35 million annual budget), and the Navy maintains the Blue Angels ($40 million), both of which go around the country providing examples of aerobatic excellence, which enthrall crowds and entice young people to join their services.

We have already mentioned the Marine Corps’s brilliance in merging history and public relations. Where does that leave the Army? Ironically, the mounted units, which it has now decided to get rid of, are one of the few examples of effective public relations without explicitly recruiting – generating goodwill and positive feelings among the public. Yes, the horses were a throwback to a bygone era, but isn’t the Army proud of its history?

So, here it stands, shooting itself in the proverbial foot for the savings of 0.00001 percent of its annual budget. Unlike the Navy and the Air Force, the Army is an institution whose backbone is people, not aircraft or ships. The Marine Corps is organized similarly to the Army, but it seems to understand what it is and how to relate that information to the public.

There was a memoir written back in the 1980s by a man who served in the cavalry during its final years. He told the story of how an Army officer and a sergeant violated regulations to allow an old cavalry horse to live out its final days in a pasture rather than be sold off for dog food. He then contrasted that behavior with what he saw when he later served in the Air Force in the 1950s.

For him, the distinction demonstrated the different service cultures and why he preferred the Army’s. Unfortunately, I think that culture no longer exists in the Army. Can it be revived? I certainly hope so, but this latest decision gives me very little hope.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s October 27, 2025 World edition.

October 21, 2025
The ‘Great Spiritizing’ of the top brass

“Today we end the War on Warriors,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, author of the book The War On Warriors, tweeted this morning. Today was the day that Hegseth really became Secretary of War, addressing, along with President Trump, a full gathering of top military brass in Quantico, Virginia.

“This is only an esprit de corps,” the President said, as he set sail from the White House for the event. “Do you know what that is, an esprit de corps? This is only a spirit. These are our generals, our admirals, our leaders, and it’s a good thing, a thing like this has never been done before, because they came from all over the world. And there’s a little bit of expense, not much, but there’s a little expense to that. We don’t like to waste it. We’d rather spend it on bullets and rockets, frankly. But this was the one time we had to do a great spiritizing.”

The Great Spiritizing began with remarks from Hegseth saying that he had spent his early days at the War Department rooting out “toxic ideological garbage” of DEI and diversity. “We are done with that shit,” he said. “I’ve made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal.”

From now on, Hegseth said, all military personnel would have to pass a twice-yearly “male-level” fitness test. “Frankly, it’s tiring to look at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise, it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It is bad, and it’s not who we are.”

Hegseth, who has either not seen or disagrees with Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam film Full Metal Jacket, said basic training will be “scary, tough, and disciplined.” Drill sergeants can instill fear in new soldiers. “They can toss bunks, they can swear – and yes, they can put their hands on recruits.”

Sir, yes sir!

And now it was time to hear from the President of the United States, who doesn’t have to pass a twice-yearly military fitness test. Trump got to play good cop today, providing a warm fatherly contrast to Hegseth’s frightening telesoldier persona.

“I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” Trump said.

“Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Because there goes your rank, there goes your future.”

No one left the room. They spent most of their time sitting attentively, unemotive, ramrod-straight, as per their training. But why would you leave the show of a lifetime? Trump decided to use this moment to break the news that because he had felt a “little bit threatened” by Russia, he’d decided to deploy a nuclear submarine, “the most lethal weapon ever made”, off the coast of Russia. “I call it the ‘N-word,’” he said. “There are two ‘N-words,’ and you can’t use either of them.”

Trump spent 72 minutes praising “the strongest military in the history of the world,” which is something, he said, his predecessor Joe Biden, “the autopen,” never said. Actually, “he never said anything,” Trump said. While addressing the Department of War – “I love the name, I think it’s gonna stop wars” – Trump also advocated for his newly-formed Board of Peace. If his Gaza peace plan works out, that would be the eighth war ended in eight months. “That’s pretty good,” he said. “Nobody’s ever done that.”

“Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing. They’ll give it to a guy that wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump… We’ll see what happens, but it would be a big insult to our country. I will tell you that. I don’t want it. I want the country to get it.” And one of the ways Trump said he’s going to win the Nobel Peace Prize is by killing foreign drug traffickers. “If you try to poison our people,” he said, “we will blow you out of existence.”

But today wasn’t about Donald Trump, even though of course it was. It was about the Armed Forces. “Everybody wants to be in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, and our Space Force, our beautiful Space Force. A year ago you would have thought it wouldn’t have been possible. They were talking about making it smaller. Now we’re talking about making it larger. And that’s a beautiful thing. Everybody wants to be doing what you’re doing now. What a difference a Presidential election can make.”

This went on and on, but the real news of the speech was that Trump announced to his soon-to-be non-fat top brass that the U.S. military would soon deploy to defeat “the enemy within.” “San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places and we’re gonna straighten them out one by one,” in a statement that will please some, infuriate others, and terrify those prone to feeling Trump-related terror.

Thus Spiritized, America’s top military brass set forth to destroy the enemy within. They had their marching orders, to fight wars and also to not fight wars. Either way, the goal was the same. As Ricky Bobby once said, if you’re not first, you’re last.

September 30, 2025
A dangerous era of nuclear weapons is upon us

The world is moving into a more dangerous age. According to the Peace Research Institute Oslo, last year set a grim record: the highest number of state-based armed conflicts in more than seven decades. At the same time, we are seeing a fundamental realignment of global geopolitics – made clear from the recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the “Victory Day” parade held in Beijing shortly afterwards. There, the leaders of what many in the West regard as an emerging new world order stood shoulder to shoulder as Chinese military hardware was put on display to mark 80 years since the end of World War Two.

That anniversary also meant the commemoration last month of the only two occasions where atomic bombs have been used. Their detonation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was so horrific that they played an important role in the fragile balance that characterized the Cold War. Fear of nuclear war scarred generations, with a well-grounded anxiety that the use of a single warhead might result in a retaliation so severe that military strategists came to talk of the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction.”

What was unimaginable a decade ago is now seriously discussed in newspapers and research institutes

Now, thoughts are turning in many quarters to whether it’s time for a new chapter in the bleak history of nuclear weapons proliferation. Lessons from Ukraine and the Middle East have shown the use of force can pay handsome dividends. The sense that things have changed has become mainstream even in the US, which has played the role of guarantor of the rules-based system since 1945. As Marco Rubio put it earlier this year: “The postwar global order is not just obsolete, it is now a weapon being used against us.”

Not surprisingly, then, in some parts of the world the US is thought to be using coercion to reshape the world in its favor through the application of tariffs as economic punishments. But the threat of military force, too, has been a signature of Donald Trump’s year in office. Many take the President’s comments about the possible annexation of the Panama Canal to Canada with a grain of salt; but many do not. In March Vice-President Vance stated that “the President said we have to have Greenland… We cannot just ignore this place. We cannot just ignore the President’s desires.” The new world order, in other words, depends on the whims of a single individual, whose wishes apparently cannot be ignored.

All of this – made worse by worries about economic challenges and large-scale migration – has spurred a set of discussions in many countries about how to prepare for an age of fracture, competition and new rivalries. Some of these discussions have been fueled by technological leaps, including automation, drones, AI and robotics, which will radically lower the cost of war, making military confrontation more thinkable.

In a world of multiplied pressures and fragmented power, it is chilling – but perhaps not unexpected – to find voices calling for the development of nuclear-weapons programs to provide a new line of defense against possible state-on-state violence.

Such conversations have been fundamental to Iran for several decades – one reason for the dramatic events of the “Twelve-Day War” in June, when Israeli jets targeted nuclear facilities, as well as some of the most senior Iranian scientists working on enrichment and delivery systems.

It is discussions in other countries, however, that have been particularly striking. Take Turkey. The country has long been a key member of NATO, with B61 nuclear bombs held at the airbase at Incirlik a vital part of western defense capabilities in the time of the Soviet Union, as well as today. For decades, Ankara kept its own ambitions firmly in the realm of a civilian nuclear program. This summer, though, more commentators have been arguing that not only does Turkey possess both the scientific base and natural resources to pursue enrichment, but that only an indigenously designed and manufactured bomb would truly constitute “mutlak caydirıcilik” (absolute deterrence).

For one thing, nuclear self-sufficiency would be an alternative to having to rely on NATO. Much has also been made about the fact that Israel – Turkey’s primary rival in Syria and beyond – has an undeclared arsenal and acts unilaterally as a result. The recent strike on the Qatari capital of Doha, targeting the remains of Hamas’s leadership, was a stark display of Israel’s capabilities, which emboldened it to carry out what the Emir of Qatar called a “reckless criminal act” and “a flagrant violation of international law.” To many in the region, the support given to Israel by the US is significant, but its nuclear capabilities provide it with its ultimate layer of protection.

Even Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish Prime Minister, noted that his country’s ability to restrain Israel is compromised by the fact that Spain does not have aircraft carriers, “large oil reserves,” or nuclear bombs. By this he meant that Spain has a limited capacity to influence global affairs. “That doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying,” he added.

The point has been made many times in the Turkish press over recent weeks that Iran was vulnerable to Israeli attacks because of the “cifte standart” (double standard) by which Israel is allowed nuclear arms while Iran is punished for enrichment. As one commentator put it, when small or medium-sized states are forced to ask what genuinely prevents attacks, the answer is increasingly obvious: nuclear deterrence.

Public opinion has started to move in the direction of support for Turkey acquiring nuclear weapons – just as it has elsewhere. In Poland, on another part of NATO’s eastern frontier, calls for the country to host nuclear weapons have grown, while in some quarters the question has begun to be asked whether the country needs its own deterrent. One catalyst for this has been the war in Ukraine; another was Moscow’s 2023 announcement that it would station nuclear warheads in Belarus.

The recent incursion of Russian drones into Polish airspace, in what Prime Minister Donald Tusk made clear was not a mistake, will only increase demands to boost Polish defense readiness – not least because some senior figures in Russia have proposed using a nuclear strike to deter western support for Ukraine. The risks, wrote the Russian political scientist Sergei Karaganov last year, are low: if Russia used a device against Poznań, the US would not dare to retaliate. Doing so would risk sacrificing Boston for a Polish city and only a “madman,” Karaganov suggested, would consider doing that.

And then there’s Trump’s unpredictability and perceived hostility toward Europe. This month, Pentagon officials informed European diplomats that the US was no longer willing to fund programs to train and equip militaries in Eastern Europe, creating a hole in defense expenditure worth hundreds of millions of dollars. That is a problem, but just as important is the messaging that Europeans are on their own.

This has not been lost on the Poles. Former president Andrzej Duda has declared that Warsaw is indeed ready to join NATO’s nuclear-sharing program and to host US weapons – though some fear that Washington’s retreat might make that a pipe dream.

According to leaks earlier this month from the forthcoming National Defense Strategy, the new consensus in the Trump administration is to disentangle the US from foreign commitments and to prioritize places closer to home – such as Central America and the Caribbean – rather than focus on China, Russia, or other faraway places. Inevitably, that leaves Europeans feeling exposed, especially those on its eastern flank. It’s also a reason why even Germany, a country that has prided itself on a moral as well as military abstinence, has seen a growing debate about how best to counter the threat posed by Putin’s Russia.

Even before Trump’s re-election last year, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published essays debating whether Germany should consider an independent deterrent or support a Franco-British umbrella. Other newspapers have since followed suit, asking if Europe must not only learn to “love the bomb,” but must develop one itself in the face of current US foreign policy. Leading think tanks have started to turn out papers urging deeper nuclear dialogue inside Europe – including around developing weapons and delivery systems. What was unimaginable a decade ago is now seriously discussed in mainstream newspapers and research institutes.

Even in Japan, the only country to have atomic bombs used against it, public sentiment has been changing

Similar questions are also being asked across Asia, with debates driven by proximity to threats – perceived or otherwise. South Korea lives in a nuclear neighborhood that has become increasingly precarious. North Korea is thought to possess as many as 50 nuclear warheads, and enough fissile material to make dozens more. Its deepening partnership with Russia has seen its men and weapons reinforce the front lines in the Ukraine war, while advanced technologies, including missile systems, have flowed in the other direction. North Korea is not just a problem for Washington; it’s a permanent feature of Seoul’s security environment.

Against this backdrop, South Korean public opinion has swung heavily toward nuclear options. Polling by the Asan Institute – a Seoul-based think tank – shows more than three-quarters of citizens favoring either an independent bomb or the redeployment of US tactical weapons, which were removed at the end of the Cold War as part of the Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Even in Japan, the only country in history to have atomic bombs used against its people, public sentiment has been changing. Tokyo has been careful to develop advanced fuel-cycle technology and large plutonium stocks. So far, calls for a domestic nuclear weapons program have been muted – at least in public. Behind closed doors, however, some senior figures admit that exposure to risk is rising in a rapidly changing world. Having allies in North America and Europe is all well and good, but with competition in the South China Sea more likely to increase than to diminish, anticipating problems has become increasingly important – one reason why Japan’s defense budget has risen for 13 years in a row, with spending up almost 10 per cent this year alone.

Another, closely connected, reason is the buildup of Chinese hardware. In 2024, for example, a single shipbuilder in China produced more tonnage than the US has done since 1945. The rate of expansion of China’s nuclear arsenal has been breathtaking as well, with around 100 warheads estimated to have been added since 2023. In ten years, some reckon that China’s arsenal could almost triple – putting it at parity with the US and Russia in terms of the number of its devices ready for use at short notice.

As in Europe, it has dawned on politicians in Asia that decades of over-dependence on US security – and US taxpayers – are coming to an end, leaving a set of existential questions on how to invest in defense and how to do so quickly. Japan remains committed to non-nuclear principles, but talk of nuclear options is no longer unthinkable. Taken together, these cases underscore the prospect of the erosion of the old nuclear order and prompt fears of a new era of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Iran has been on the edge of being nuclear ready and is thought to be more or less nuclear capable. In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been explicit, saying that while “we are concerned [about] any country getting a nuclear weapon,” if Iran did develop a weapon “we will have to get one.”

The world is heading into a decade of uncertainty. If more states do cross the nuclear threshold, they will have to develop not only the weapons themselves, but also the doctrines to guide their possible use. History shows that the process of drafting those doctrines can itself be destabilizing, as rivals attempt to divine intentions and try to work out how to respond, in theory and in practice. It remains uncertain, too, how the US or China, both of which have consistently voiced opposition to further proliferation, would react if partners or adversaries seek to join the nuclear club. What is certain is that every new entrant adds complexity to an already fragile system.

These risks are not abstract. Confrontation between nuclear-armed states carries the prospect of catastrophe on a global scale. The world has come close before, whether during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, or this year in South Asia, where tensions between India and Pakistan were on the brink of escalation.

Each of these near-misses underlines the same truth: nuclear weapons are not just the last line of defense but also the last line of existence. As more states contemplate acquiring them, the space for miscalculation grows ever wider – and the margin for survival ever thinner.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 29, 2025 World edition.

September 23, 2025
Why is Putin probing Poland with drones?

Provocation, mistake, or something in between? Either Putin sent Russian drones into Poland’s airspace on Tuesday night to test Nato’s reaction, or Ukrainian electronic jamming scrambled the targeting systems on Russian drones and sent them haywire. Or perhaps the Kremlin is playing a grey-zone game, launching an accidentally-on-purpose attack to push Europe’s boundaries.

Whatever Putin’s intent, the shooting down of several drones marks the first time ever that Nato warplanes have engaged and destroyed Russian weapons in European airspace. Though Polish prime minister Donald Tusk noted that “there is no reason to claim that we are in a state of war” he did call the incursion “significantly more dangerous than all previous ones” and warned that a military conflict with Russia is “closer than at any time since the second world war.”

The problem with the Kremlin testing the boundaries theory is that it doesn’t make much political or military sense. Poland’s relations with Ukraine are already souring, which is exactly how the Kremlin wants it. Just days ago Polish President Karol Nawrocki said that he believed that Ukraine’s accession to Nato should be “postponed” because of the risk of automatically involving allies in a conflict with Russia. He added that discussions about Ukraine’s EU membership were “premature,” stressing that such processes “require time and the consideration of economic factors.” Decoded, Nawrocki fears that Poland’s agricultural sector will be undercut by cheap Ukrainian produce, and Kyiv will receive all the EU subsidies that currently go to Warsaw. Poland also recently ended most benefits payments to Ukrainian refugees settled in its territory.

Why, when relations between Poland and Ukraine are heading into choppy waters, would Putin wish to rekindle their solidarity by attacking Polish territory directly?

Militarily, too, it’s not clear what the purpose of a deliberate Russian “probing attack” might be. The drones seem to have flown in different directions, one ending up 275 kilometres into Polish territory toward Warsaw while the others were shot down around Rzesow in the south-east of the country. A true test of Poland’s air defense would presumably involve a concentrated attack on a specific target. And Shahed drones – and their Russian-made clones, known as Geran – are a strange way to test defenses as they are notoriously slow and heavy, unlike Russian cruise missiles or indeed hypersonic rockets like the nuclear-capable Kinzhal. The military utility of Shahed attacks is to overwhelm air defense batteries by sheer force of numbers, relying on just 10 or 20 percent of the drone swarm getting through.

The problem with the Kremlin testing the boundaries theory is that it doesn’t make much political or military sense

Another piece of evidence that the incursion may not have been deliberate are reports indicating that after the drones went Awol into Polish airspace some Russian strategic bombers aborted their missions, returning to base without launching their cruise missiles against Ukrainian targets. If true, it could suggest that Russian commanders were wary of escalating the war beyond Ukrainian territory.

This week Russia and Belarus are about to commence scheduled joint military exercise dubbed Zapad-2025, designed to test their response to a western attack on Russia. For decades, the annual ritual of the Zapad war-games have been a moment of heightened tension for Poland and the Baltic states. To deliberately stage a serious provocation against Nato on the eve of the exercise would be a reckless and foolish move by the Kremlin. But then again the whole full-scale invasion of Ukraine was in itself a massive act of recklessness and folly.

What is clear is that Putin is very serious about smashing Ukraine’s energy and transport infrastructure before winter sets in. The massive swarms of missiles and drones that Russia has been sending almost nightly set new records for their scale. A major target seems to be military supply hubs for Nato materiel around Lviv, Lutsk and Rivne – all close to Ukraine’s border with Poland.

In the wake of the drone incursion Tusk invoked Nato’s Article Four for only the seventh time since the alliance was founded, calling on allies to “consult” in case of a threat. That will be an important test of Donald Trump’s attitude to Nato. Last week Trump had said that “we are with Poland all the way and we will help Poland protect itself.” Blasting Nato’s European members as free riders has been a long-time Trump talking point. But in July EU leaders pledged to up their contributions to 5 percent of GDP – and Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte called Trump “Daddy.” Whether this has fundamentally changed Trump’s attitude to Nato remains to be seen.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address vowed that Europe would apply “more pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table. We need more sanctions.” France’s Emmanuel Macron called the airspace violation “simply unacceptable… We will not compromise on the safety of our allies.” But so far nothing that Nato, or Europe, has done so far has succeeded in deterring Putin or swerving him from his systematic campaign to crush Ukraine.

September 10, 2025
How did the men who bombed Hiroshima live with themselves?

Eighty years on, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima continues to provoke fierce debate, reflection, and deep moral inquiry. How did the thirteen men aboard the Enola Gay – the US aircraft that delivered the bomb that killed at least 150,000 people – live with the knowledge of what they had done?

The morning of August 6, 1945 began like any other on the Pacific island of Tinian. That was, until the Boeing B-29 Superfortress lifted into the sky. Its destination: Japan. Its payload: “Little Boy,” the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare. Piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jnr. and manned by a crew of twelve, the mission forever altered the course of history. The explosion over Hiroshima ushered in the atomic age, marked the beginning of the end of the Second World War, and created a moral legacy that haunted and defined the lives of those aboard.

Some defended their actions unapologetically; others expressed private doubts or lingering sorrow

The men of the Enola Gay were highly trained and mission-focused, yet none could fully comprehend the historic and human weight of the operation they had executed. After the war, these men returned to civilian life or continued military careers, each navigating the public scrutiny and personal reckoning that came with their roles in the atomic bombing. Some defended their actions unapologetically; others expressed private doubts or lingering sorrow. But all of them lived in the long shadow of that moment.

Colonel Tibbets Jnr., the aircraft’s commander and pilot, remained the most visible and vocal member of the crew throughout his life. As the man who had selected the Enola Gay, named it after his mother, and led the 509th Composite Group, Tibbets carried the weight of command. Unapologetic to the end, you can only admire his message discipline, consistently defending the mission as necessary. In a 2002 interview, he reflected:

“I viewed my mission as one to save lives. I didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor. I didn’t start the war. But I was going to finish it.”

Tibbets served in the US Air Force until his retirement as a brigadier general in 1966. He never expressed remorse and, anticipating potential protests, requested no headstone after his death in 2007. His ashes were scattered over the English Channel by his French-born widow, Andrea.

Major Thomas Ferebee, the bombardier who released the bomb, shared Tibbets’ view. A seasoned airman who had seen combat in Europe, Ferebee also showed little inclination toward public reflection or regret. He returned to service after the war and retired as a colonel, keeping a low profile for much of his life. Like Tibbets, he believed the bombing had ultimately saved more lives than it had taken.

Navigator Captain Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk was responsible for guiding the aircraft to its target. His recollections offered a blend of historical realism and quiet resignation. In a 2005 interview, Van Kirk said:

“War is war. And in war, you do what you have to do to win. It was a different time and a different place.”

After leaving the military, Van Kirk worked in private industry, remaining relatively quiet until his later years, when he began to speak more openly about the mission. He maintained that the bombing, tragic though it was, had likely prevented an even greater catastrophe. He passed away in 2014, the last surviving member of the Enola Gay crew.

Co-pilot Captain Robert Lewis, in contrast, expressed deep emotional conflict shortly after the mission. In his logbook, written during the return flight, he famously recorded:

“My God, what have we done?”

This single line became one of the most quoted responses from the mission, often contrasted with the stoic tone of Tibbets and others. But his crew members have called into question the veracity of that account. According to Van Kirk, who was sitting behind the co-pilot, as they gazed at the giant mushroom cloud enveloping the heart of Hiroshima, Lewis exclaimed: “Look at that son of a bitch go!”

Lewis, a civilian airline pilot before and after the war, wrestled with the event privately. Though he never publicly condemned the mission, his writings and interviews reflected a more complicated emotional legacy. He died in 1983.

Sergeant George “Bob” Caron, the tail gunner, was the only crew member to witness the blast directly through a rear-facing window. He captured the famous photographs of the mushroom cloud that have since become emblematic of the bombing. In his 1995 memoir Fire of a Thousand Suns, Caron defended the mission as a necessary military action and expressed pride in his crew’s professionalism. After the war, he lived a relatively quiet life and worked in sales.

Lieutenant Jacob Beser, the radar specialist, played a role not only in Hiroshima but also in the second bombing mission over Nagasaki. A physicist by training, Beser was deeply involved in the technical side of the weapon’s delivery. In later interviews, he was frank about his participation, stating that he had no regrets, though he did express concern over the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons in the postwar world. Beser passed away in 1992.

Several crew members chose to step away from public life entirely. Staff Sergeant Wyatt Duzenbury, Sergeant Robert Shumard, and Technical Sergeant Joseph Stiborik all returned to civilian life without engaging in public commentary. These men had played crucial roles in maintaining the aircraft and monitoring its systems, yet their postwar narratives were largely defined by silence. Their private reflections, if any, were not widely recorded.

Captain William “Deak” Parsons, the mission’s weaponeer, had the grave responsibility of arming the bomb during flight. A naval officer and ordnance expert, Parsons ensured that the weapon was live before it reached the drop zone. He continued to work in nuclear weapons development and held high-level roles in the Navy and at Los Alamos. Parsons died in 1953, before the larger public reckoning with the bomb’s legacy fully unfolded.

Ensign Morris Jeppson, Parsons’ assistant, was the man who removed the bomb’s safety plugs mid-flight, allowing it to arm. After the war, Jeppson became an electrical engineer and worked in private industry. In later life, he occasionally gave interviews in which he offered a calm, pragmatic defence of the mission. He expressed neither regret nor triumph, focusing instead on the technical precision and professionalism required for such a complex operation.

Their reflections were often grounded in the logic of the time: a brutal war, a feared invasion

As the Cold War intensified and nuclear weapons proliferated, public sentiment around Hiroshima became increasingly divided. The 50th anniversary of the bombing in 1995 brought renewed scrutiny to the crew of the Enola Gay, particularly when the Smithsonian Institution’s planned exhibit on the aircraft was met with controversy. Veterans’ groups clashed with peace activists and historians over how the bombing should be remembered. Tibbets and other surviving crew members criticised what they saw as a politically skewed narrative that cast them as villains rather than soldiers following orders during wartime. The exhibit was eventually revised, displaying the aircraft without a strong interpretive stance.

While many of the men maintained personal pride in their military professionalism, few glorified the destruction itself. Their reflections were often grounded in the logic of the time: a brutal war, a feared invasion, and the perceived necessity of demonstrating overwhelming force to end the conflict swiftly. These were not bloodthirsty men; they were professionals who had been tasked with delivering an incomprehensibly powerful weapon, under orders and in service to a broader strategic objective.

As the years passed, the crew of the Enola Gay aged into a world that changed dramatically from the one in which they had taken flight. They watched as the power they had unleashed became the centrepiece of global geopolitics. Some lived long enough to see the fall of the Soviet Union, the debates over arms control, and the shifting global consensus about the use of nuclear weapons.

Yet through it all, the men remained tethered to that day in 1945. Whether in silence or speech, pride or doubt, they carried the memory of Hiroshima with them. Their mission was history’s turning point, but also their personal burden. They did not ask to become symbols of victory, destruction, or moral ambiguity, but that is what history made them.

Their story is not one of monsters or saints, but of men caught in the furnace of global conflict, making choices within the brutal logic of war. They dropped the bomb. And then, for the rest of their lives, they lived with it.

‘The Hiroshima Men: The Quest to Build the Atomic Bomb, and the Fateful Decision to Use It’ by Iain MacGregor is out now.

August 4, 2025