Britain has deployed its armed forces for combat over 80 times in 47 countries since the end of the Second World War, in episodes ranging from brutal colonial wars and covert operations to efforts to prop up favoured governments or to deter civil unrest
There's growing disquiet in the military. The Iran war made it worse
Since Trump began his second term, his administration's use of the armed forces has left a growing number in the military unsettled, according to NPR interviews with service members and advocates.
The shifting battlefield: technology, tactics, and the risk of blurring lines in warfare - Humanitarian Law & Policy Blog
The accelerating integration of emerging technologies into armed conflict is transforming not only the tools of war, but its tactics, geography, participants and impact. Technological developments – from commercial drones to artificial intelligence, electronic warfare to the military use of civilian infrastructure – risk undermining boundaries between military and civilian domains. These changes challenge long-held...
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part I: Why They Fight
This week I want to try something a little different. Rather than taking apart a particular fantasy military system, I thought I might try to lay out a more general sense of how military systems te…
We built a database of 290,000 English medieval soldiers – here’s what it reveals
We created the database in order to challenge assumptions about the lack of professionalism of everyday soldiers.
Design, Destroy, Dominate. The Mass Drone Warfare as a Potential Military Revolution
The widespread use of drones observed in Ukraine—both in terms of the scale of the fleets deployed and their omnipresence in the operations of both belligerents—appears to meet the conditions of a genuine military revolution.
Are All Wars Now Drone Wars?
From Sudan to Ukraine, UAVs have upended warfighting tactics and become one of the most destructive weapons of conflict.
Recent Developments in Drone Threats to Humanitarians
The threat of drones to humanitarians is a rising concern. High-profile incidents—such as the fatal multiple-strike attack on an aid convoy in Gaza in April 2024—have made this dynamic an even greater priority for risk managers.Global data on this emerging threat is currently defined by the rapid increase and volume of drone attacks perpetrated by Russian forces in Ukraine, and to a lesser extent, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). In other contexts, like Sudan, Iraq, and Syria, governments are also the primary perpetrators of drone incidents. Nonetheless, the list of drone operators in complex humanitarian settings has increased and diversified since 2022, particularly among organised armed groups (OAGs), driving further interest within the humanitarian community.
‘I’m fighting two wars. One against the Russians. And one inside myself.’
A drone pilot and her all-women unit are waging a new kind of warfare on Ukraine’s eastern front
The Strange Rise and Fall of Russia’s Crowd Sourced Defense Industry
In the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, much that could go wrong did for the Russian military. As one volunteer
Collections: Pre-Modern Armies for Worldbuilders, Part IIa: Mobilization without Administration
This is the second part (I, IIa) of our honestly-who-knows-how-many part series laying out some general guidelines for how pre-modern armies are recruited, raised, equipped and paid. While I hope t…
Darfur’s Endless War
As paramilitaries tear through their already devastated province, self-defense fighters in North Darfur have taken up arms to defend their homes.
Military Drone Proliferation Marks Destabilizing Shift in Africa’s Armed Conflicts
A revolution in unmanned drone systems is reshaping conflicts in Africa, providing militaries tactical advantages but also risks.
How Russia Is Reshaping Command and Control for AI-Enabled Warfare
Kateryna Bondar examines how Russia conceptualizes, builds, and adapts its command and control (C2) architecture under wartime pressures, in the first installment of a series on Russia’s use of AI in military operations.
Exclusive: Russians covertly trained by China return to fight in Ukraine, sources say
China's armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year.
