Defence of the Realm

" ... in a move designed to address public fears that allied troops could become bogged down in Afghanistan for years to come," re...

The end of the Second World War had not only left Afghanistan in a weakened state, with its development and modernisation stalled, there wer...

See also the update here . Our romp through Afghan history now brings us to the reign of the last king, Mohammad Ẓahir Shah (pictured). As N...

As a not infrequent commentator on the state of the Ministry of Defence, it might be thought that I would welcome the considerable media scr...

As we left our continuing romp though the history of Afghanistan, we had seen the death of the "Iron Amir", Abdur Raḥman, in 1901....

In our previous piece , we looked at the influence of Afghan history on the current conflict. We concluded that there were three elements w...

With due respect to Lt-Col Gus Fair DSO, the CO of the Light Dragoons battle group, this officer has lost the plot. That is one of the comm...

As the Afghan conflict continues to exert its bloody effect, we have been exploring further the prospects of success of what is fashionably ...

When rumours of a major incident in Nad-e-Ali started circulating yesterday, from which we learned that five British soldiers had been kille...

Adam Holloway MP is possibly a disappointed man. Having produced an excellent CPS pamphlet on our adventure in Afghanistan, the response o...

Developing almost into a ritual, we get a " media scoop " revealing one or other failures in equipment provision – in this case th...

The Daily Mail is running a piece today which reveals that Lt-Col Thorneloe wrote a secret memo, a month before he was killed by an IED wh...

After three weeks of media exclusion, the Pakistani Army lifted a corner of the veil on Thursday, flying in a group of journalists to a barr...