CHACRDIGEST
MARCH 2nd, 2026
#53
AUTHOR: Professor Andrew Stewart, Head of Conflict Research
Uncertainty about long-term US goals and ambitions continues to be a dominant theme in domestic and international discussion about global defence and security. President Donald Trump’s often contradictory comments about NATO and the questions raised about how the US would respond to any widening of Russian actions are a cause for considerable anxiety, as was made clear throughout the Munich Security Conference. The question of Greenland’s future featured prominently alongside the situation in Ukraine. With the fourth anniversary of the general Russian invasion which began in February 2022, the conflict’s grim milestones continue. Having lasted longer than the Soviet Union spent fighting Nazi Germany, the scale of Russian military losses is now greater than were suffered during that war and is rising at almost unimaginable levels. Europe, however, has no choice but to look ever more to safeguarding its own security. With questions about continuing support for long-standing NATO missions such as those undertaken in Iraq and Kosovo, regional concerns now also apparently extend to whether protection long provided by the US nuclear umbrella can be counted upon. And with the focus in Britain on political and economic worries along with some evidence of growing concerns about potentially existential European dangers, popular interest in the complicated security dynamics of the Indo-Pacific region is sparse, while the position in Africa – which remains the continent with the most global conflicts – attracts almost no attention.
UK MOD © Crown copyright 2026
BRITAIN Following January’s parliamentary debate there has been considerable media coverage highlighting increased British commitments to the wider Nordic region. Alongside coverage of several visits made by senior politicians, it was reported by the BBC that the number of troops stationed in Norway will double to 2,000 personnel over the next three years. This is in addition to significant involvement in the newly announced Arctic Sentry mission, NATO’s Exercise Cold Response in March and September’s Joint Expeditionary Force Lion Protector exercise. In a wide-ranging YouGov opinion poll about Britain’s defence and foreign polices, three quarters of respondents considered it important to strengthen the UK’s hard and soft power (including around four in ten who described it as ‘very important’). Only a quarter were willing to see taxes rise or cuts to public spending in order to better fund the armed forces, with one third willing to support more borrowing. More than one third are willing to reintroduce conscription but while 57 per cent of over-65s were supportive, it was only 16 per cent of 18-24 year olds. Even among those who say it is ‘very important’ Britain boosts its hard power, there is still overall opposition to measures that would increase taxes or the cost of living, or require cuts to public services. While the number of Britons who indicated ‘defence’ is a top national issue increased to 25-26 per cent at the height of the Greenland crisis, the overall conclusion of the poll was that Britons believe the country should become more powerful but without any evidence of how this should be funded. In the London Review of Books, Tom Stevenson considers the degree to which Britain is prepared for a changed security environment and questions whether there is any evidence of a post-Cold War decline in defence spending. He notes that data for the period reveals “an unmistakeable long-term secular decline in military spending from the mid-1950s until 2000”, which only registered a slight increase in the years that followed. This, he suggests, points to there being no evidence of any obvious ‘peace dividend’ but instead a longer-term trend and he questions why military spending remained high from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. He argues that the post-Cold War claims were an “effective propaganda tool for domestic military interests” allowing “uniformed British officers and their allies in the media and defence intelligentsia… to complain that the armed forces were being ‘hollowed out’”. Acknowledging that the military now has fewer personnel than during the Cold War and the British Army would struggle to deploy overseas, he concludes “a reduction in the capacity for international violence” is not a bad thing. The views expressed in this Digest are not those of the British Army or UK Government. This document cannot be reproduced or used in part or whole without the permission of the CHACR. chacr.org.uk
1 // WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND UKRAINE // CHACR DIGEST
Picture: NATO
NB: THIS DIGEST WAS COMPILED BEFORE THE OUTBREAK OF OF THE US-ISRAEL WAR ON IRAN