Squaring the Circle

John Paul Rathbone, writing in the Financial Times, on the United Kingdom’s efforts to transform its military amid public spending constraints and growing strategic challenges, puts it extremely well when he wonders as to how its military will “square the circle of being everything, everywhere, all at once.” 

This, however, is not just a problem that afflicts the UK or its European and NATO Allies, but the rest of the international community as well. The impact of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict, in what increasingly appears to be an unwinnable war, is restricted not only to the geo-political or and national security spheres but also calls for a clear understanding of how future conflicts will play out and what kind of a military capability is essential if that country is to remain relevant in the changing global order.

In our context, the challenges are far more complex and greater as we face two hostile neighbours, both nuclear armed, and unwilling to give any quarter. Indeed, it is quite ironic that while China poses the greater threat to our aspirations, ambitions and future prosperity, it is the dysfunctional and dystopian Pakistan, that threatens us with Armageddon, looking to take us down with it, as it seems intent on committing hara-kiri.