PART II: INSIGHTS

CHAPTER 2: THE CLASSICAL EPOCH: 1750-1850

It is characteristic of our convictions, in strategy, as in all affairs of life, that we tend to regard them as natural and inevitable. However, if we examine the history of ideas contained in these convictions, we usually find they have evolved in a definitely traceable way, often as the result of the contributions of gifted persons who addressed themselves to the needs of their own times on the basis of the experience available to them. Our own needs and experience being different, we are enabled by our study to glimpse the arbitrariness of views which we previously regarded as laws of nature and our freedom to alter our thinking is thereby expanded. Where new circumstances require fundamental adjustments to our thinking, such aids to adjustment may be useful.

Bernard Brodie

Introduction

Why study the history of strategy in the first place? The answer, as this chapter will show, is that many of the ideas in strategy that we take for granted now have their origins in the past. And if we are to use them intelligently, we need to understand their origins and the historical context of their birth.

There are different ways to organise this analysis. What ought to be the time frame? Should we reach back 100 years? Or 500 years? Or 2,500 years to include Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military philosopher? How should we consider strategy’s interaction with parallel developments in politics and armed force? How have the reasons - the political ends - for which wars were fought changed over time? And how have armed forces - the military means - evolved? And what are the implications of these developments for strategy? The choice of structure is, however, largely arbitrary, because our sole purpose is to expose and extract key ideas and insights. So, we will keep things simple.

First, I will limit the analysis to the period from 1750 AD to the present day. 1750 works well as a starting point. By this time, many of the early characteristics of modern war were visible. The German military historian, Hans Delbrück, observes:

Between the Renaissance and Frederick the Great, the tactics of all arms underwent changes that gave them a completely new face from period to period. The close, deep squares of infantry became long thin lines; the heavy knights on powerful horses who sought to fight in tournament fashion became closely formed cavalry squadrons attacking at the gallop; and the artillery increased a hundredfold in numbers and effectiveness.^[1]

By 1750, these new tactics had been widely adopted. Frederick the Great, one of strategy’s master practitioners, was consolidating his thinking, through his writing and in his practice. Soon after this came the births of two soldiers-to-be - the Prussian Clausewitz and Swiss Jomini - whose writings would become seminal sources for modern strategic thinking.

Second, I will subdivide the 250 or so years into four periods. I base this subdivision on changes in the pace with which armed forces - the strategist’s means - developed. There were two periods where the pace of development was evolutionary; and two periods where change was so rapid as to have a revolutionary impact on the nature of war and on the art of strategy making.

The first period, the Classical Epoch, lasted until 1850 and was one of incremental change. This was followed by a period of rapid change, the Industrial Transformation, lasting until the First World War. The impetus for this change was primarily technological, driven by the Industrial Revolution’s developments, including mass production, locomotive power and electronic communications. The third period, the Modern Epoch, lasted until around 1991 and was one of incremental change. This, in turn, was followed by a second period of rapid change, the Information Transformation, that is still in progress. The impetus for this second period of rapid change has again been primarily technological, based on the Information Revolution’s developments, particularly modern computers, electronic information management, global positioning systems (GPS) and miniaturization. The dates of the three boundaries - 1850, 1914 and 1991 - are not meant to be precise, but rather to give a broad indication of when the changes in pace occurred.

Although these boundaries are technology derived, they also work well in a political sense. Despite the Napoleonic experience, the political continuity in the 100 years of the Classical Epoch was the enduring view that war was a perfectly legitimate act in the conduct of international affairs. But then, as the Industrial Transformation started and modern warfare’s more ominous character emerged, there were signs of a divergence in thinking about war’s moral efficacy. At the start of the Modern Epoch, World War I changed, probably forever, international views on war’s political utility. The political continuity of the Modern Epoch was the backdrop of two great political contests. The first, between Western liberal democracy and Fascist totalitarianism, finished in 1945. The second, the Cold War between Western liberal democracy and Socialist totalitarianism, played out in the shadow of thermonuclear weapons, ending with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thereafter the Information Transformation encompassed and encompasses, the new security context of the late 20th and early 21st century, a period in which political leaders are trying to make sense of a new multipolar world. These four periods thus work as well for our political analysis as they do for our military analysis.

So, to begin with the Classical Epoch, we will start by considering the technical development of armed forces, the means. We will then examine the political contexts in which war occurred and the political objects for which wars were fought, the ends. Finally, we will focus on strategy, the ways and examine it, in theory and practice, considering key strategic events, the practice and reflections of the great practitioners and the writings of the great theorists. And, for simplicity, we will use the same structure for the two chapters that follow.

But to be clear, we are not embarking on an in-depth analysis of the military developments and political history of war in the Classical Epoch - space precludes this, nor is it necessary for our purposes. Rather, we are setting out on a simple fishing trip, guided by the eye of a practitioner on the lookout for jigsaw pieces to fit into a theory of modern strategy making. We are in search of insights for leaders, strategists and the well-informed; not data for political scientists nor meaning for military historians.

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PART I: WAR & STRATEGY

CHAPTER 1 – THE NATURE OF WAR & THE ROLE OF STRATEGY

War is nothing but a duel on a larger scale. Countless duels go to make up war, but a picture of it as a whole can be formed by imagining a pair of wrestlers. Each tries through physical force to compel the other to do his will; his immediate aim is to throw his opponent in order to make him incapable of further resistance. War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.

Carl von Clausewitz

Introduction

Although at its heart war is political, no individual has managed to develop a unified theory of strategy and war. Indeed, with the complexity of the factors involved, it is doubtful that this will ever be possible, even if it were politically (or morally) useful. But as we shall see, there are, scattered throughout the practice of the great strategic leaders and the writings of the great strategic thinkers, enduring insights for our conceptual jigsaw. If we can identify these, piece them together and add others from first principles and experience, then we may have the basis for something less ambitious but more immediately useful, a theory for rational strategy making.

As we start to think about armed conflict and war, our first challenge is the unpredictable nature of it all. Notwithstanding war’s capricious personality, if we are to bring rigour to our strategic calculations on how to use armed force to pursue political objectives in a rational way, we need a means of organising our thinking.

As a first step, we need to explore the strategy makers’ world. We need to consider more deeply the elemental nature of armed conflict and war, this complex environment in which leaders and strategists operate. In particular, we need to clarify what we mean by the term ‘war.’ We need also to clarify what we mean by ‘policy’, a term that is all too often conflated with strategy. This done, we can then examine the need for and the role of strategy in arms conflict and war. This, in turn, will allow us to deduce a contemporary definition of strategy. Taken together, these analyses will provide a starting point for our historical examination and help build the basic foundations of a theory of modern strategy making.

Armed Conflict and War

During the 19th century, international politics had a polar character: peace reigned or you were at war and there was not much in between. Whereas now, at any modern moment, a spectrum of conflicts of differing intensities exists. Some of these conflicts may be popularly characterised as war and others not.

This leads us to an important observation. The term ‘war’ is popularly used as shorthand for three interrelated, but nevertheless distinct, ideas:

· First, war is an instrumental act which uses armed force for the violent settlement of international disputes.

· Second, war is a political condition that is caused by the use of armed forces but that had an elementally different nature to the political condition of peace.

· Third, war is a legal institution or international regime of agreed norms, values and rules, that sets legal boundaries on armed conflict.^[1]

These ideas overlap but are nevertheless distinct and the distinctions matter. It is important to understand the idea of war as a framing legal institution as, although there have been no recent formal declarations of war, the laws of armed conflict apply in circumstances where war has not been declared. And war crimes fall within the jurisdiction of the newly established International Criminal Court. But for strategy, the key distinction is between war as an instrumental act and war as a political condition.

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Introduction^[1]

A simple observation explains much about the situation in the Russo-Ukraine War: Russia’s military operations have been guided by a winning military strategy; whereas NATO’s military operations have been guided by a losing political narrative.

The Americans, now with higher national security priorities – not least their own entanglement with Iran – have limited their engagement to providing intelligence support, indeed are looking for “new ideas” post-Anchorage. But, notwithstanding Russia’s deliberate but decisive success on the Eastern Ukraine battlefield, Europe’s institutions – NATO and the EU – and Kyiv itself are clinging to the political narrative they have created.

Based on their narrative statements, NATO, the EU and Kyiv seem determined to prolong the war. With seemingly little if any concern about the human costs to Ukrainians, the economic costs to Europe’s nation states, or the societal costs to Europe’s tax paying populations who are now expected to pay everything. In truth, NATO and the EU have become, with Zelensky, the primary obstacles to ceasefire negotiations. By deduction, they are also the primary obstacles to a goal that all of Europe’s peoples should surely want – a long-term sustainable European peace.

There could now, though, be a plausible alternative pathway to peace, if the European Three (E3), Britain, France and Germany are prepared finally and decisively to take over the reins from the US. And to agree – with other Europeans – what is best for Europe. The E3 will need carefully to diagnose the war’s cause and Russia’s real motivations. They may also need to examine the logic of West’s accepted pillars of European security, US engagement and NATO. They will then, subject to this analysis, need the courage to act in a way that NATO and the EU – captured by their own political narrative – cannot.

The War’s Nature

If Europe is to replace its incoherent – and ever-shifting – political narrative with a coherent strategy to guide its actions then, as General Carl von Clausewitz so wisely advised, intelligent diagnosis of the war’s nature is the first essential step for our political and military leaders.

The war is not an isolated event. Rather it is a symptom of an historically deeper cause, centred on the inadequacy of NATO’s security strategy. Which although described as collective security has in truth been one of confrontational security, masquerading as deterrence:

‘... NATO expansion was the touchpaper for the Russo-Ukraine War. The Russians warned us, time and again, that such expansion constituted a red line. So too did some of our very greatest strategic thinkers, starting with George Kennan in 1996, Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, even Bill Burns in his famous ‘Nyet means Nyet’ diplomatic telegram, and most recently John Mearsheimer with his 2014 forecasts. All ignored.’^[2]

It is a simple but profound statement of the obvious that, based on events since 2022, NATO has failed to keep the peace in Europe. Put starkly, NATO has failed disastrously in its primary purpose.

Furthermore, there is a compelling historical argument that NATO’s confrontational strategy – and indeed it’s very post-cold war existence – was and still is the primary cause of the war, and thus a critical barrier to the war’s conclusion.

This article thus treats the conflict for what its diagnosed origins make it. Not a Russo-Ukraine War, but at root a NATO-Russia War. With Ukraine as the battleground on which NATO’s expansion and Russia’s long signalled response have collided.

The Strategic Context

The second essential step toward a coherent European strategy is to have a clear understanding of today’s strategic context, on which to chart our actions. Much has changed since February 2022:

· US National Security Strategy (NSS) – the Trump administration, operating in the US’s national interests, sees the European theatre as, at best, fifth on their priority list - behind the homeland, the Middle East, China and the Americas. A priority list that has, if anything, lengthened with America’s own unfortunate entanglement with Iran. What this means is that Europeans can no longer count on US engagement as a one of its two foundational pillars of European security. This may be uncomfortable for Europeans to acknowledge, but it is there in black and white in the NSS^[3], for all to see. So, rather than seek to draw the US back into the war – which NATO, the EU and Ukraine are so transparently trying to do – it would be wise not to question America’s national security interests. But instead to seek to understand and accept these priorities, then work to be better aligned to them in a way that suits Europe’s own security interests. This is what it means to be true Atlantic friends.

· E3 Leadership – more recently the political atmosphere across all three E3 capitals may be starting to shift – in ways that could open the door to new thinking. In London, the new government under Burnham, elected on an explicitly domestic platform, has no explicit mandate for European security leadership. In Paris, Macron, whose own term is nearly over, has long maintained channels to Putin. In Berlin, Merz governs under mounting pressure, from a strongly polling AfD that includes in its manifesto re-engagement with Moscow. None of this guarantees a shift in E3 policy. But, with Starmer’s much vaunted “coalition of the willing” stillborn, the opportunity for new thinking is growing.

· Eastern Fortress Belt – on the battlefield, the key towns in Ukraine’s “fortress belt” are falling. In early July, Russian forces took most of Kostyantynivka. Zelensky’s response – sacking his defence minister and top military chief – is unlikely to change much and instead smacks of onsetting political crisis. I assess that Russia’s military strategy is now in its fourth phase of attritional offence, and that Russian advances will continue in the same deliberate way as recent months. But it would not surprise me if, after the fortress towns have fallen, military matters move more quickly. With Russia moving to a fifth phase of strategic exploitation, further intensifying the political and military pressure on NATO, the EU and Kyiv.

· Western Air Defence – as I set out in ‘Principles & Practice of Air Defence’^[4], Ukraine’s skies cannot be defended by the West. Nor is this situation likely to improve in the next five years. But not only is Ukraine undefendable from the air, so too is Europe. Which should worry Europeans, when we have the E3 providing to Ukraine heavier missiles and drones that can strike deep into Russia. As I explained in ‘The Coming War with Russia’, were Russia to retaliate against E3 weapons manufacturers, not only would Britain, France and Germany be unable to defend against such retaliation, but nor could any other European state, as the US’s current setbacks in Iran unequivocally demonstrate. In the face of any Russia retaliation, the much-vaunted NATO Article 5 guarantee would be useless.

· Global Energy Shock – finally, and critically, Europe is facing an accelerating energy shock, which must inevitably lead to an accelerating economic shock. Even before the Iran war, Europe was suffering from the consequences of its own foreign policy, as European sanctions removed Europe’s access to cheap Russian hydrocarbons. With the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the E3’s active support to attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure by Ukraine – the latter a second European energy own goal – matters can only get worse. The economic consequence of which is that, notwithstanding the push by NATO and the EU for increased defence expenditure, there will soon be even less fiscal and political headroom for funding this war. A war that NATO is losing, a time when Europeans face for the second time in three years a ‘cost-of-living’ crisis, which in truth is simply a symptom of a ‘cost of energy’ crisis.

Taken together, these developments sharpen the choice facing Europe’s key actors. On the one side, are two institutions – NATO and the EU – each with their own institutional logics for prolonging the NATO-Russia War. On the other side, are the sovereign European nations, led by the E3, whose national interest is now clearly to bring the war to a close.

But for the E3 are to make a difference, we need a credible alternative to NATO and the EU’s current political narrative, the current foundation of which seems to be: “Double down and hope we can draw the US back into the war.”

The EU and NATO

The EU institutional interest in prolonging the war is likely one of political cohesion: a common foreign and security policy is one of the few genuine demonstrations of ‘ever closer union’ and a negotiated peace on Russia’s terms could be read, fairly or not, as a defeat for that project. But Russia is relaxed about the EU. So, other than providing insights into why von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas are strong advocates for prolonging the war, the EU’s view matters little.

Whereas Russia sees NATO as an existential threat. Those pundits who suggest that Russia has nothing to fear from NATO miss the fundamental point. It doesn’t matter what the pundits think. It matters what Russians think.

For NATO, arguably the institutional interest is also existential: an alliance built for a bipolar confrontation needs a live confrontation to justify its budget, its structure, and its post-Cold War expansion. But NATO as an institution has a post-Cold War track record that is less than stellar. First, offensive operations against Kosovo were launched without a Security Council Resolution and using a legitimacy logic less convincing than Russia’s SMO justification. Next, after near two decades fighting against a rag tag Taliban insurgency armed with Kalashnikovs and IEDs, NATO lost in Afghanistan. Then, in February 2022, not only did NATO unequivocally fail to prevent war in Europe, the historical evidences suggests that NATO’s Eastern expansion was the cause – the foreseeable cause – of the war. Finally, as I explained in January 2025, NATO is a now military shadow of its former self and could not win a conventional war against Russia – nor is this likely to change without significant and sustained investment over the next 10 years. As I have said previously:

‘The truth is that NATO now exists to confront the threats created by its continuing existence. Yet … does not have the capacity to defeat the primary threat its continuing existence has created.’^[5]

On this basis, the logic for having NATO as the second foundational pillar of European security deserves, at the very least, intelligent and clear-eyed scrutiny.

As importantly, it is not just NATO’s failing track record that warrants scrutiny, but also the live matter of how the NATO-Ukraine War – where the balance of regional military power now decisively favours Russia – is ended. The fundamental point is this: even with the US onboard, NATO’s chances of militarily imposing on Russia the ceasefire conditions currently sought by Zelensky and Europeans would have been extremely slim; without the US, the chances of any future European ‘coalition of the willing’ are nil. America’s policy - no Ukraine in NATO, no US forces on the ground, no NATO peacekeeping mission, no Article 5 guarantee, no US ‘backstop’ - reflects this truth.

The logical deduction seems clear. Unless Europeans wish to continue sending good money after bad, whilst at the same time risking a catastrophic Russian retaliation against which they have no defence, we have no other intelligent option than to accept the realities on the ground. Russia will retain the lands controlled by the Russian Army. Any negotiated peace must – largely – accept Russia’s long-stated ceasefire conditions, in which NATO has no role. This is not a concession to Russia but to realpolitik.

NATO’s Future Role

But, led by the E3, in approaching negotiations with Russia. Europe could go further. Much further. Drawing on our earlier diagnosis of the war, a first radical – but logical – measure would be jointly to examine the fundamental question of NATO’s future.

The Russians have made clear that NATO can have no role in Ukraine after a ceasefire. Furthermore, even if confrontation masquerading as deterrence were a good principle, NATO does not have the military or industrial or energy capacity to make good on this approach. So, after a war that NATO failed to prevent, and given that it is unlikely in any meaningful timescale and at any realistic level of fiscal investment to defeat the threat that its continuing existence has created, what will be the point of NATO?

Whatever the answer, it is now surely obvious that NATO cannot guarantee future security in Europe? Yet security in Europe is surely what all Europeans want? Including Russians?

Well, yes – this is exactly what Russians want. Because they have told us just this. As a recent example, in June 2026, ‘Ukraine, Europe and Global Security’^[6], Lavrov argued that any durable settlement would need to rest on legally binding mutual security guarantees rather than political commitments. He explicitly cited the founding principle of the Organisation for Security & Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) of the indivisibility of security as a foundational basis for a pan-European order. In other words, as well as there being a potentially opening door in the E3 to new thinking, there is on the other side of the conflict a door already ajar, with an implicit invitation for Europeans to walk through it – as, reportedly^[7], some already have.

An Alternative Pathway to Peace and pan-European Security

If we are to work through a sustainable NATO-Russia peace settlement, and toward long-term pan-European security, we will need at least three things. First, there will need to be a commitment to new diplomacy by European leaders – even if conducted whilst operations continue, which is not of itself unusual in war. Second, we will need to develop a general framework for peace talks, a framework constructed by all the parties to the conflict. Third, we will ideally need the support of an organisation or organisations that could facilitate such a process. By historical good fortune, the OSCE headquartered in neutral Vienna, is a plausible alternative. Not least because Lavrov has already cited its founding principle as key to pan-European security.

Here, then, is the opportunity for Britain, France and Germany to bring new thinking to the table. To make an explicit offer to reengage diplomatically with Russia, and work with Russians and Ukrainians to develop an alternative pathway to long-term European peace. Working through the good offices of the OSCE – an OSCE perhaps strengthened for this purpose by investment of time, people and money from all sides of the conflict.

This will not be easy, quite the reverse. It will take diplomatic commitment and time and effort and perseverance and patience and by Europeans and Russians – perhaps with American support but perhaps not – to formulate such an approach. But some potential components give a sense of how such a successful framework could be constructed:

· Security Cooperation – an agreed philosophical and strategic mindset shift from confrontation to cooperation, based on the indivisibility of security in our common European home.

· Security Guarantees through Neutrality – with the US unwilling, and Europe too weak, to provide meaningful security guarantees or backstops the only viable alternative for Ukraine is neutrality. Drawing on the 2022 Istanbul accords, an Austrian or Swiss model would be a good starting point.

· Confidence Building Measures – another important step in rebuilding trust. Russia has made clear there will never be NATO country ‘peacekeepers’ on the ground in Ukraine. But ‘observers’, for example drawn from non-NATO OSCE nations, could be a different story - especially if acting, early in the peace, to verify that agreed Ukrainian movements toward neutrality are underway.

· Arms Control – conventional arms control treaties will take significant diplomatic effort to craft. But the idea of Britain, France and Russia examining options to re-invigorate the nuclear arms control treaties could be a quick win-win — and allow all of human society to begin to breathe more easily.

· NATO – an offer by the E3 nations, ideally with support of other European nations, to review – with Russia – NATO’s future purpose and roles. Including, if this made sense, the idea of extracting those NATO capabilities that could have some future utility in the furtherance of pan-European security – maybe integrating them into a rejuvenating OSCE – and gracefully retiring the remainder with no such utility.

· Economic Cooperation – the release of all Russian foreign monies and the cessation of all economic sanctions would be a final quick win-win. Not only as an important signal to Russia, but also for the benefit of European people. Who, in stark contrast to Russian companies and consumers still benefitting from stable, cheap energy prices, are suffering the consequences of British and EU sanctions’ boomerang impacts on European economies.

For the clear sighted, the potential advantages are manifest. For Russians, removal of their primary security threat. For Americans, the end of its European NATO political and financial burden. For Ukrainians, closure on the NATO membership question, the end of a disastrous war, and security through neutrality. For Britain, France and Germany – and the smaller European nations – a chance to ‘step down’ from a losing war, from an unwinnable arms race, and from accelerating socio-economic impoverishment.

Conclusion

In 1648, after years of protracted and difficult diplomacy, the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, ending the 30 Years and 80 Years wars – establishing the principles of diplomacy we recognise in international law today and ushering in a period of relative peace that lasted for well over a century. Westphalia’s genius was not only diplomatic, but also conceptual. It established sovereignty itself – the right of a state to determine its own affairs, free of external dictation – as a foundation of international order. That is the principle this moment calls for again. In this case, a conscious agreement to shift from a strategic philosophy of zero-sum confrontation to one of non-zero-sum cooperation.

With Westphalia as inspiration, this is the time for Britain, France and Germany – for Andy Burnham in London, Emmanuel Macron in Paris, and Friedrich Merz in Berlin – to have the political and moral courage, as Americans have already had, to look at the NATO-Russia War from Russia’s perspective. To question long held but increasingly dubious military-security foundational ideas on NATO’s utility. To be prepared, subject to that re-examination, strategically to pivot.

Away from an explicitly confrontational security strategy, by decommissioning a failed, bloated and unredeemable NATO. Toward a cooperative security strategy, perhaps delivered through an empowered and reinvigorating OSCE, working toward a shared goal of long-term peace in our common European homeland.

^[1] This article was originally drafted in March 2025 but thought to be too radical for the outlets to which I offered it. I hope that times have changed sufficiently for it to appear less radical and more rational.

^[2]

MOR GALLOS - USING POWER WISELY IN THE 21st CENTURY

NATO COULD NOT WIN A WAR WITH RUSSIA

Responsible Statecraft…

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3 months ago · 63 likes · 18 comments · Steve Jermy

^[3] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

^[4]

MOR GALLOS - USING POWER WISELY IN THE 21st CENTURY

Principles & Practice of Air Defence: Confronting Comfortable Western Illusions

Executive Summary…

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2 months ago · 62 likes · 16 comments · Steve Jermy

^[5]

MOR GALLOS - USING POWER WISELY IN THE 21st CENTURY

NATO COULD NOT WIN A WAR WITH RUSSIA

Responsible Statecraft…

Read more

3 months ago · 63 likes · 18 comments · Steve Jermy

^[6] Sergey Lavrov, ‘Ukraine, Europe and Global Security’, Russian Foreign Ministry, 19 June 2026. Declined for publication by Politico Europe.] Full text at: globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/russia/2026/06/russia-260619-russia-mfa01.htm

^[7] In July 2026, Bloomberg reported that former British National Security Adviser Sir Tim Barrow, former German State Secretary Markus Ederer, and veteran French diplomat Pierre Vimont met secretly in Vienna with a former Kremlin official to explore conditions for peace talks - a Track II initiative organised by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue. Bloomberg, ‘European and Russian Ex-Officials Held Talks on War in Ukraine’, 5 August 2026. bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-05/european-and-russian-ex-officials-held-talks-on-war-in-ukraine.

Forward by Major General Julian Thomson CB OBE

Steven Jermy opens his book with a quote from Clausewitz:

No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.

I believe that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not subjected to the Clausewitz test. When the relevant papers are opened to the public, I may be proved wrong.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that at the highest levels of decision making in the UK, both civil and military, there is an insufficient grasp of how to formulate strategy. The Army is the least proficient in the art. It took until the late 1980s and a former Chief of the General Staff, Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall, to drag the Army’s corporate brain up from the tactical to the operational level. This is not sufficient. Competence at the operational level is not enough to win wars as the Germans, the leading operational practitioners, discovered, having lost two world wars through flawed strategic decisions.

In my day, 1980, the Royal College of Defence Studies never taught strategy. To be fair, we were straitjacketed by the Cold War which, I contend, dulled the strategic sense of many serving soldiers, sailors and airmen - soldiers especially, exercising on tactical ‘tramlines’ on the North German Plain. The outcome of the UK’s 2010 Strategic Defense and Security Review will demonstrate whether or not the Army, immersed tactically in Afghanistan, is able to raise its sights and think strategically about the defence of the UK.

The Air Force’s Strategy has always been aimed, above all, at its continuing survival; a prime example, in the inter-war years, being its advocacy of strategic bombing. To support his theory Trenchard deployed Liddel-Hart’s views on the indirect approach, including the dubious unique selling point that strategic bombing, by shortening war, would make it more humane. Steven Budiansky has commented, ‘Behind the dogma was the consideration that if Trenchard’s theory was correct, it was an unassailable case for the continuing independence of the RAF - and for a hefty chunk of the defence budget.’* I am glad that Steven Jermy has little time for Liddell-Hart as a strategist.

The Navy’s strategy of distant blockade in the First World War played a key part in the defeat of Germany. However, Fisher’s attempt at deterrence by building a huge battlefleet failed to prevent the war in the first place.

Too often the prospective strategy makers did not meet Steven Jermy’s precept:

If we want to make superior strategy, we need to start our strategy making by answering two key questions. What is the political issue at contest? And what is the desired political object? In other words, before we make a decision to fight, we must know what we will be fighting about and we must know what we want to achieve by fighting.

To formulate strategy demands an organisation. The old Defence and Overseas Policy Committee went some way to meet this. Perhaps the National Security Council (NSC) will fill the bill. The NSC could start by reading Steven Jermy’s excellent book.

Julian Thompson, 2010

* Stephen Budiansky, Air Power: The Men, Machines and Ideas that Revolutionised War, From Kitty Hawk to Gulf War II, (New York,2003) p.133.

Strategy for Action: Using Force Wisely in the 21st Century

Introduction

Preparation for war is an expensive, burdensome business, yet there is one part of it that costs little - study.

Bill Slim

Flying into Kandahar Airfield on 7 May 2007 to join the West’s deployment in Afghanistan, it was almost 25 years to the day after I had entered the Total Exclusion in HMS Invincible off the Falkland Islands. Picking up my sidearm and backpack and cadging a lift on a special Forces C130 Hercules to Kabul, I felt the same sense of privilege as I had in 1982; the opportunity to be part of history. And yet this time around, there was also a sense of uncertainty, strategic uncertainty to be precise.

This time there would be few of the risks of the front line. I would be operating at the strategic level, in and around Kabul and the main NATO HQs. Although Kabul would have its odd ‘moment’, they would be as nothing compared to our operations on and around the Falklands or, for that matter, those for NATO soldiers and marines operating out in Afghanistan’s Pashtun provinces. My uncertainty was not due to the relatively small risks of Kabul, but rather a lack of clarity about where the campaign was heading. It was an uncertainty borne on what I sensed to be a lack of strategy.

But what do I mean by strategy? As he laid out the logic for a decision to wage war, General Carl Von Clausewitz, war’s greatest philosopher, exposed the essence of the answer:

No one starts a war - or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so - without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.

Strategy should answer the ‘how?’ question: How are we going to do this?’ At its starkest, strategy should explain how a state or coalition will fight a war, then guide the actions of its forces once operations begin.

Sometimes there may be little time to consider the ‘how?’ question. This was classically the case for defensive parties to conflicts in the 20th century. After Pearl Harbour, did Roosevelt have any other realistic political alternative than to respond militarily to Japan’s attack? In such circumstances, unless you have contingency plans that match the situation, your strategy will have to to be made on the hoof, at least to start off with.

But times change and the experience of the post-Cold War years suggests that events such as the great wars of national survival of the 20th century are less likely in the early 21st century. Complex armed conflicts, including those where one or more of the belligerents is not a state, appear more likely. Afghanistan and Iraq are obvious examples. Such conflicts are motivated less by threats to national survival, more by intricate political issues, such as national security. If this view is correct then, by deduction, the future will see proportionately fewer wars of necessity and proportionately more wars of choice. And in these wars of choice, there will be less excuse to begin operations without having first done the thinking.

Yet post-Cold War history suggests the West has not always done the thinking. Operations have followed paths different from those envisaged by political and military leaders. At times, our strategies have seemed unclear or faulty or both. Why has this been so?

I had started to consider this question in 2005 as a possible subject for a part-time fellowship at Oxford. I had been prompted by no more than an intuition, borne of experience of operations and war, that Western thinkers - including Western military thinkers - had lost sight of the importance of strategy Yet in the great endeavours of our time it seemed to me that strategy mattered. Superior strategy would not of itself guarantee success in an operation, but without it the prospects of success would surely be reduced.

My extended operational tour in Kabul did little to change my mind. Indeed once I had had the chance to get around the campaign, I found the problem in Afghanistan was worse than I had originally sensed. Visiting the various Regional Headquarters of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in mid-2007, I asked the military planners in the Regional Command (West) and Regional Command (East) HQs the same question: “What strategy are you using for guidance and to help you shape your operational designs?” The response from the uniformly impressive, well-motivated and highly intelligent you Majors - US in the East, Italian and Spanish in the West - was essentially the same. Paraphrased: ‘There’s nothing sir. We’re just getting on with it. We’re just doing what we think is best.’ In short, notwithstanding that we were over five years into a mission that had, since October 2006, been under unified NATO command with, first, a British commander and then an American, there was no sense in these regional HQs of a strategy to guide the campaign.

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1. Executive Summary

Introduction – this strategic analysis: forecasts an emerging and prolonged global energy crisis; sets out consequential implications for Cornwall; recommends preparatory contingency actions for Cornwall Council and the Cornwall Leadership Board.

Key Points:

• Global Energy Crisis – the emerging crisis is triggered by the 3rd Gulf War, but for structural reasons – and unlike the 1973 & 1979 oil shocks - a deep and prolonged crisis is in prospect.

• Energy Price Volatility – oil & gas prices are forecast to rise over time, with volatile fluctuations, generally trending upwards because of supply constraints, with occasional reductions due to demand destruction. Rising oil & gas prices will increase the costs of all other energy sources (coal, nuclear, renewables) as diesel underpins all their supply chains.

• Renewables & Nuclear - investments in sources such as floating offshore wind (FLOW) are important but cannot scale quickly enough to offset declining oil & gas supplies. They also generate electricity, not the liquid fuels required for transport and heavy plant, for which synthetic fuels (e.g. methanol, ammonia) are not yet viable replacements at scale.

• Economic & Societal Consequences – in reality, the “cost-of-living crisis” is a “cost-of-energy crisis”. This will intensify over time, leading to: persistent CPI increases; GDP contraction; contracting government revenues & reducing public spending headroom.

• Critical Regional Vulnerabilities – Cornwall is critically dependent on diesel for: critical sectors (agriculture, fishing, food-logistics, water, utilities, communications); essential sectors (emergency services, health, public transport).

• Contingency Preparations – preparatory actions should begin immediately and focus on:

  • Competence & Insight – increase energy literacy in senior politicians and officers, develop county modelling capacity, and secure expert professional support.

  • County Energy Review – assess supply & demand situations, particularly across:

    • Critical sectors – food, water, energy, utilities, communications.

    • Essential Sectors – emergency services, key public services, key industries.

• Operational Planning – undertake preliminary crisis planning:

  • Review crisis management arrangements, drawing on COVID-19 & Storm Gorriti lessons.

  • Review and agree energy prioritisation (”triage”).

  • Develop scenarios and deduce contingency plans.

• Communications & Public Education – develop public education policies, to improve energy awareness in the leadership, key institutions, and then the public.

Conclusion – based on this forecast, Cornwall’s leaders face a simple choice:

• Do Nothing – risk reactive, disorderly civil responses and avoidable disruption.

• Prepare – accept the challenges and act early to maintain societal stability.

This strategic analysis recommends Prepare.

2. Introduction

I am writing to alert you, as Cornish leaders, to a global energy crisis that I anticipated in 2013^[1], but which I now judge is starting to unfold, hastened by the Russo-Ukrainian War and finally triggered by the Iran War.

Unlike the last two global energy crises – the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979 – I judge this one will be of extended duration, at least two decades and possibly more, and beyond HMG’s capacity to solve, whichever political party, or combination of parties, is in power.

Except for Norway and Russia, no European country, nor British nation, nor English county is yet prepared for the energy shortages that are to come. Preparations will not solve the severe reductions now in prospect. But they can and should help us retain the confidence of the county and help avoid the societal disorder that could otherwise ensue.

3. Context – Structural

The global energy context is critical, but its true nature is poorly understood. Not only throughout the Western establishment; but also by almost all international economists; and, more surprisingly, throughout the West’s energy commentariat, few of whom hail from the energy industry. The crucial misunderstood point is this: although the Iranian War is the trigger for the crisis, the underlying foundations lie in the structural dynamics^[2] of the oil & gas markets.

As a result, I anticipate the oil & gas price rises that started in 2022 with the Russo-Ukraine War, and are now intensifying thanks to the Gulf War III trigger, are likely to rise rapidly in the coming months and will be unlikely to reduce over the remainder of the decade. The price graph will not, though, be smooth. Each price notch up will likely subdue global economic demand, in turn suppressing oil prices for a time, before more global oil supply shortages again result in rising oil prices, and the cycle repeats. The critical fuels in the supply chain for all other energy sources – natural gas, coal, nuclear and renewables – are refined oil products, in particular diesel, thus as the oil price rises, so too will the price of all other energy sources.

The problem is not only the scale of primary energy supplies needed – hydrocarbons currently provide over 80% of primary global energy supplies – but also the nature. This is because the energy sources that have the potential to grow – nuclear and renewables – produce electricity, and in the latter’s case on an intermittent basis. This is not to say that energy sources such as floating offshore wind (FLOW) cannot turn the dial on Britain’s overall demand. They can in the long term, and I expect HMG rapidly to ramp up their investments in such sources, as the scale and urgency of the challenge becomes clearer. But nationally important though these critical British sources will become, it would be quite wrong for me to present them as the answer to our short-term prayers, because they are not.

This is for two reasons. First, nuclear and renewable ramp-up cannot be achieved at the pace and scale needed to fill the short-to-medium-term energy gap that is now rapidly emerging. Second, neither FLOW nor any other non-hydrocarbon electrical power source – renewable or nuclear – is yet able to produce the synthetic fuels needed to fill the gap created by the fall in oil and gas production. Such synthetic fuels do exist – ammonia and methanol appear the most promising – but none are yet ready to replace diesel and the other key refined oil fuels.

4. Consequences – Increasing Energy Shortages & Prices

At the national level, increases in all primary energy prices will exacerbate existing societal challenges.

First, it will intensify the ‘cost-of-living Crisis’ – which is a symptom of the ‘cost-of-energy crisis – as increasing energy costs in all supply chains feed into increasing consumer costs, including in basic foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals and indeed almost all manufactured goods.

Second, it will lead to reductions in GDP, and thus to an extended recession. In a lecture in Oxford in 2015^[3], I forecast that we would see a reduction in GDP of 24% over this decade – equivalent in economic terms, to the Great Depression – and I have seen nothing since to move me from this forecast. There will likely be attempts at economic stimulus to help us “get back to growth.” These must, though, fail because, whilst we can print new money and create new debt, we cannot print new energy and especially not new oil.

Third, with falling primary energy sources and falling GDP, central government tax receipts will fall, as must the monies available to redistribute to the regions.

At the county level, rising petrol prices will increasingly check domestic and business car usage, in turn playing negatively into the prospects of key Cornish sectors, most obviously tourism. The same will be true with rising kerosene prices, which will impact the aviation sector in general and Cornwall Airport in particular. But the one to watch is diesel.

Diesel fuels the prime movers in all our critical sectors. All Cornish farming, fishing and food logistics rely on diesel. The same is true of SW Water, who reported to me in 2019 that diesel was their critical dependency. WPD are in a slightly better position, with a significant shift to electric business vehicles, but their heavy plant is all still diesel powered. The same is also largely true of our emergency and essential services: ambulances, fire service vehicles, police vans, council refuse vehicles, school buses, construction plant, and so on. All diesel driven.

It would be a mistake to assume that Britain can easily source diesel elsewhere. It is well understood that Russia has been the source of Europe’s gas supplies, but less well known that Russia has also been the source of 40% of Europe’s refined diesel, all no longer available to us thanks to economic sanctions by Europe, with the situation now exacerbated by events in the Gulf. I thus anticipate with rising analytic confidence that we will see increased diesel shortages over the remainder of this year. I further assess that these shortages will not be rectified in the short or medium term.

So, because the evidence is increasingly clear that refined oil product supply reductions are now upon us, and largely beyond national control, we can deduce that we are faced with an accelerated and likely chaotic energy transition, whether we like it or not.

5. Campaign – Energy Triage & Transition

If this forecast is correct, or even simply plausible enough to be of concern, we are all faced with a simple choice: to prepare or not to prepare. Preparation seems to me the wiser choice for regional leaders, and the responsible thing to do.

On this basis, my starting point for such preparations would be to plan on the assumption of: first, an initially acute energy crisis, as the nation works out how to cope, leading to; second, a chronic extended energy crisis, of at least two decades, as the country comes to terms with living with significantly reduced levels of energy available to British society. On this basis, I recommend we start work on a strategy based around four primary ‘lines of action’:

a. Insight

First and critically, it is essential that we develop the energy insight needed to allow us to make wise short-term, medium-term, and long-term decisions. This will require, amongst other things, a programme of energy education for Cornwall’s senior leaders. It would be beneficial to draw other energy professionals into this education programme, both from local industry and University of Exeter’s energy academics. We should also, with these energy experts’ help and the county’s combined public sector, private industry and academic resources, develop a county-wide mathematical energy model^[4], so that individual decisions we may need to make can be made with the support of quantitative analysis of the broad county context.

b. Regional Energy Review

Informed by the developing energy modelling, we should undertake a baseline review of Cornwall’s energy supply and demand, according to the following priorities:

• Critical Sectors – the critical sectors for the functioning of a modernised Western society are food (farming, fishing, food-processing and food-logistics), water, energy, and communications.

• Essential Services – energy reviews should be undertaken of Cornwall’s essential services, most obviously the energy-intensive areas of Cornwall Council, together with other key public sector entities, such as emergency services, health and education.

• Industrial Sectors – energy reviews should be undertaken of the industrial sectors in Cornwall that have a national role to play in energy transition, most obviously space, mining, and energy.

• Discretionary Sectors – finally, energy reviews should be undertaken of those sectors that are of a discretionary nature in the functioning of a modern society, such as the arts, culture, retail, and tourism. Where, sad to say, the first cuts must most logically fall, in the event of unavoidable energy supply shortages.

These reviews should be rough and ready, and prompt. What is needed is a rough-order-of-magnitude (ROM) analysis, so we can get a sense of the overall picture. But these ROM reviews will also provide us with an initial baseline, upon which more detailed analysis can continue.

c. Strategic & Operational Planning

In parallel, it will be wise to develop a strategic plan to guide Cornwall’s short-term, medium-term and long-term actions, in turn providing a basis for scenario analysis, operational planning, and contingency gaming. This strategy should include, but not be limited to:

• Governance – arrangements should be considered for energy crisis governance, in which the Cornwall Leadership Board has a potentially central role to play. We should draw, too, on COVID-19 and Storm Goretti crisis management experiences and best practice. We may also wish to review the relevant legislative powers sitting with regional government; together with potential national sources of support, most obviously from the armed forces under Military Aid to the Civil Authority (MACA) and/or Military Aid to the Civil Power (MACP) mandates. It will be important, given the crisis will likely be measured in decades, that the governance arrangements allow us not only to respond to the short-term imperatives, but also take a medium and long-term view, can survive changes in political leadership, and ideally have cross-party engagement and support.

• Triage – we will need to identify priorities for energy supplies, in the increasingly likely event that, on occasion, all regional energy demands cannot be met. The order of the bullets listed in the Energy Review section above provides a first basis for such triage, but it is essential that a cross-sector and cross-Cornwall view be taken and talked through. The discussions and decisions therein will not be easy, but better to talk them through now, before the event, rather than make up things as the first urgent mini-supply crises unfold and matters then intensify.

• Operational Planning – once the broad strategy, governance arrangements and approach to triage are agreed, work should then start on operational planning, supported by scenario analysis and contingency gaming. The aim of this work should be twofold: first, to design plans for short-term contingencies, such as unplanned diesel fuel shortages or electrical power outages; second, to rough out a medium-term and long-term county-wide operational plan for energy transition. Utilities and other relevant private sector companies will need to be brought into these discussions, at an appropriate time and on a case-by-case basis.

The strategy, strategic and operational plans will, in the early days, be imperfect, as is always the case with early campaign design. But if we wish to be able to make wise decisions and take wise actions when the time comes, it is essential to start the work immediately and begin to develop a framework for our thinking.

d. Communications & Public Education

As the early work gets underway and the early results are available for review, we will need to develop a parallel programme of communications and public education. This will need to start with leaders, officers and staff within regional governance and the critical sectors, then broaden to include the wider public.

The latter is, of course, a delicate political matter: we do not want to frighten the horses prematurely; equally, forewarned is forearmed, and it would be irresponsible to keep from the public something that we know to be on the horizon. It may be, though, that the Iranian War, and its continuing potential impact on global energy supplies, provides a solid contingency logic to explain our contingency work and public education briefings. Furthermore, as the crisis takes hold, if the Cornish public are aware that contingency thinking and planning is well established, it should lead to a much higher degree of public confidence in local government.

6. Conclusion

To conclude, I have not formally written before on this matter, for two reasons. First, although I anticipated a situation such as this as far back as 2013, the timing was very difficult to judge, and I needed to see more evidence to confirm the crisis’s actual inception. Second, from experience in lecturing on energy transition, the messages above rarely land well, and it was in turn important to me to have sufficient evidence to rebut the ‘crying wolf’ charge. If the picture I have painted sounds sombre, please rest assured that my purpose is simply to come at the matter with forensic realism, based on my insights into geopolitical events in West Asia, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, together with my own energy and economic modelling and what the associated numbers tell me.

To reiterate, the forecasts that I have set out are based on especially strong scientific evidence — geological, physical, and energy engineering — wrapped within an equally strong mathematical concept, and the events that are now unfolding align all too well with the pattern that this concept predicts^[5]. I do realise that the predicted prospects are wholly unappetising, politically, but that does not change the evidence as I see it, nor the likely pattern of unfolding events.

Finally, and notwithstanding over a decade and a half working in the energy sector, I am aware of no technological miracle that will save the day. I am thus clear that we are committed to this energy transition journey, like it or not. Which in turn means our strategic choice is clear:

• Prepare – to prepare, with all the associated political, administrative and resource challenges that this entails.

• Do Nothing – or to ignore the forecast, and to instead deal with matters in a wholly ad hoc and probably chaotic way. And, in unhappy parallel, deal with our own consciences, given that we will have deliberately chosen to ignore this forecast and consciously decided not to prepare.

On next steps, once you have had the chance to digest this analysis, I would of course be only too happy to provide a follow-up briefing. From my experience in military campaign planning, I would advise an important first step would be a brief to the Cabinet and the Cornwall Leadership Board, so that they too are similarly alerted and can, in parallel, begin to get their heads around our shared challenges.

Steve Jermy

31 March 2026

^[1] publications.parliament.uk – Defence Committee, Session 2013–14

^[2] There are two primary factors underlying these structural dynamics. First, global oil production is now on a peak plateau, with supply forecast to fall, due to increasing supply constraints, from the late 2020s onwards. Second, the global oil & gas markets operate in a situation of efficient dynamic balance, between supply & demand and moderated by price, but with little resilience and with little if any capacity to accept an oil shock of 20% of oil supply and 25% of gas supply without catastrophic consequences for the global economy.

^[3] podcasts.ox.ac.uk – Changing Character of War series

^[4] It is an unfortunate lost opportunity that this model was not developed during the Local Area Energy Plan (LAEP) works, which it would have been had the Council selected Celtic Sea Power and Regen for the project.

^[5] You may find colleagues who initially challenge these professional judgements. My advice, in each case, is to ask for their contrary geological, engineering, and mathematical evidence to support their challenge. In over 12 years of presenting on the matter, including to some very learned audiences and most recently as January 2026, at the Stokes Society, Cambridge University’s premier science association, I have yet to be offered any such evidence.

The Follow-on Broadcast?

Since my conversation with Tucker Carlson released this Mon, I’m delighted to see that he has today released a follow-on broadcast on the energy crisis, including with Chris Martenson who’s work I’ve been following for years. If parts of their discussion sound extremely familiar to those who’ve listened to my discussion with Tucker, I think that’s very helpful convergence.

Two energy analysts, working independently from different data and different concepts, arriving at much the same place. That both wars now underway are wars with profound energy consequences. That the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken a very large volume of oil off the market: at a time when significant oil volumes were already missing from the market - thanks to the West’s self-defeating sanctions on Russia. That futures price quoted on our screen and the price actually being paid at the pump and the refinery gate are very different numbers. That the US is not energy independent, far from it, and will not be protected from price rises. That Europe and the Far East are exceptionally vulmernable. That ultimately, the consequences must show up in future GDP data - in other words, we are in for a severe global recession, with some of the world’s regions more exposed than others.

When independent analysts converge like that, its worth taking seriously - a second, unrelated view confirming the same underlying picture. Worth taking seriously and worth thinking about how we might all prepare.

What’s next

Early next week, I will upload a detailed letter that I wrote to my local government, on 30 March 2026, about how they should prepare for the energy crisis, if and when it came. I hope, within this letter, you will find useful the structure of how I’d been thinking about this.

In the months ahead, for my paid subscribers I will also start to set out and explore the concept that I’ve been working on for nearly a decade, macro-energetics - a framework where I use energy analysis, rather than conventional economic maths and indicators, to forecast macroeconomic outcomes.

I’m using macro-energetics right now to think about the global and regional recession risks, as a result of the Hormuz closure and the wider energy shock, and will put pen to paper on this next month.

More soon.

Steve

A brief personal note to everyone who has chosen to follow Mor Gallos.

On 20 June, as I stepped down from my full-time offshore energy role, we were at just over 40 subscribers. As I write, we are passing through 1,000. I didn’t expect this, and I am hugely grateful for your support - not only for the numbers, but for the quality of the commentary they represent.

I want to share two developments with you.

Tucker Carlson Interview

Tucker Carlson’s team got in touch early last week, and Tucker and I recorded an interview on Friday, discussing The Coming War with Russia. For those who haven’t yet read the article, it’s here: https://stevejermy.substack.com/p/the-coming-war-with-russia

The interview is being released in two stages this evening:

• 17:00 BST - live now for Tucker Carlson Network paid subscribers at tuckercarlson.com

• 18:00 BST - live publicly on X, YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I’ll share the links as soon as they are up and post the YouTube link here.

The article has generated considerable interest - which I am pleased about, because although it develops a scenario rather than a forecast, the risks to Europe that it exposes need to be publicly aired. Having had the opportunity to discuss them with Tucker will help considerably. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to share it, if you wish.

Paid Subscriptions

From yesterday, Mor Gallos has a paid subscription tier. Thank you to those who have already joined. The publication has grown faster than I expected, and the work behind it - the research, the analysis, the writing, the podcast preparation - takes time and resource.

A paid tier allows me to reinvest in the operation: to maintain the level of professionalism to which I aspire, which was so important throughout my first and second careers, and to develop Mor Gallos into the kind of serious, independent publication this moment deserves.

The free content is not going anywhere. The major analytical pieces - the kind that prompted the Carlson invitation - stay free and publicly available. That won’t change. The ability to reach new audiences and take the analysis to the widest possible readership matters to me.

What the paid tier adds is a deeper layer for those who want to go further:

• Deep Dive Analysis - full access to all deep-dive analytical pieces, more granular and more operationally specific than the free articles

• Monthly Strategic Estimate - a long-form structured assessment of both conflict theatres, European strategic posture, and the energy dimensions of great power competition

• Strategy for Action - pre-publication access to chapters from Strategy for Action: Using Force Wisely in the 21st Century, the strategic doctrine framework that underpins everything I write here

• Macro-Energetics - early sight of the analytical framework I’m developing for my second book, Energy Realpolitik: Using Power Wisely in the 21st Century.

• Archive - full access to all past Mor Gallos publications

Subscriptions are £7/month or £70/year - the annual option saves 17%.

For those who want to be part of building Mor Gallos from the ground up, there is a Founding Member tier at £180/year. Founding Members receive everything above, plus a quarterly group analytical briefing - a live Q&A session where you can put questions directly to me - personal acknowledgement in both Strategy for Action and Energy Realpolitik, and early access to Mor Gallos YouTube content when The Strategic Arena channel launches later this year.

I hope the Carlson interview brings new people to this Substack. If it does, I want them to find something that reflects the professionalism and independent insight I try to bring to this work. Your support so far has made that possible.

Next Steps

Looking ahead, over the next four weeks I will be publishing further analytical pieces, starting with an assessment of the balance of power in the Russo-Ukrainian War, with three further articles to follow.

Getting onto Tucker Carlson’s radar is an important development. I am genuinely encouraged by the opportunity to raise the profile of strategic issues about which the mainstream media has been so surprisingly reticent. Thank you all again for your support in this endeavour.

Steve

Commodore (Rtd) Steven Jermy RN