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The UK falling further down the Nato GDP defence metric will alarm allies who are moving in the opposite direction under the same financial pressures.”

Over the course of 2025, however, some of Ukraine’s better units worked out how to conduct offensive operations under modern conditions. This has enabled successful counterattacks in Kupiansk and in the south. The question for Kyiv is whether the tactics of these units can be taught more widely across the front...Fixing Ukraine’s training process is the key to addressing the challenge of force generation and thereby bolstering the strength of units at the front such that Russia cannot continue its infiltration tactics when vegetation returns in the spring.”

But America’s increasing antagonism to Europe and unpredictable, aggressive foreign policy may make a “UK government already inclined to be legalistic and cautious even more so”, said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a London–based think tank. “Iran 2026 isn’t Iraq 2003 or Libya 2011...But it has echoes of both, and there are huge uncertainties that are presumably not being addressed. If the Government is going to support military action it has a responsibility to test and reduce those uncertainties, not just roll over.”