It is interesting to look at the details and see who the (news) 'media' are in this case. Going through the details, I find 1 instance (under Kemp) of the BBC, and everyone else is the 'usual suspects', the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times, and so forth.
The Guardian is only mentioned in context of exposing these conflicts of interests; and whilst I am surprised to find LBC and Nation Cymru as not being transparent about their experts and commentariat, I don't see The National mentioned at all, nor The Herald, The Scotsman, the Metro, the Financial Times, and The i.
This may tell us that these experts only appear in the 'usual suspect' news media. Or it may tell us that this report didn't look at a wide range of U.K. news media. The latter seems unlikely given the inclusion of some niche publications (I've never even heard of London Loves Business until today.) and things like Nation Cymru, so I am more inclined to suppose the former.
The report doesn't say the media they mention is an exhaustive list, which is what you're assuming.
You mention the Guardian. I took one of the names listed in the report and quickly found an article in the Guardian where he's quoted but his ties to the arms industry are not disclosed: Richard Barrons - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/20/britain-def...
> the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times
Indeed. These are pay-to-play propaganda and should not be accorded the dignity of "newspaper". Peter Oborne's resignation from the Telegraph is still worth reading: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31510152
I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism. It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum.
There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.
Whilst not commenting on that, a fascinating quote from the article you are replying to is:
"Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian’s celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations."
This tells you something about why you might feel that way.
I mean they operate as a trust and wear their journalistic bias proudly on their sleeve; in terms of intent their altruism is self-evident.
That said, no British media is exempt from adherence to D Notices and tenets of their legal system like the concept of a super-injuction, whereby a court order prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all.
That the term was coined by a Guardian journalist covering the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump scandal should be context enough as to their motives and constraints.
The reformed DSMA notice system which replaced the D notice system in 2015 is somewhat more specific on what should not be reported. I think that's fit for purpose now. And it's still not legally binding. It's an agreement. Thus it does not break press freedom should the notice be found unethical or covering something up.
I sort of disagree with this. I bet if you asked liberals and progressives in a country like America for a foreign newspaper they read -- if they do read one -- in most cases it is probably the Guardian. So it may be only the best of a bad bunch but it does have that reputation.
Never thought of it from that perspective. They should read multiple sources too. BBC as well, which once the articles have settled, are quite good. (just ignore the breaking stuff which is dubious sometimes)
"Ex UK military members discover the private sector pays 10-20x more" underlines the title, but yes, media should disclose it. But even if they were "just" retired ex-military, their bias would be the same (being a member of the UK military).
One thing I've seen a bit in Norway, and which is relevant this month, is opinion pieces by "concerned parents" that get their writing into national news, but a quick search show that they're often head of some bigoted organization. Of course they should be entitled to their opinion and be able to express it as any other, but the news papers not disclosing this is unethical imo.
There was recently in Swedish media an article about harassment of Jews in Sweden and they guy they talked to was a member of a Zionist organisation who advocates from that Jews should move to Israel. Such a clear conflict of interest should have been disclosed.
Well of course, if you're a concerned parent or concerned person of any kind in Norway, the first thing you do is start an organization. There are even some who start many, in the hope of cross-pollination.
What's more extreme to me is people like NRK's economy commentator Cecilie Langum Becker, who I read today went over to a lucrative job as communication chief in Aker. A corporate PR person by trade, for 8 years, she had front page space every day to push austeritarian, interest-scold propaganda that would make The Economist blush. So good of our public broadcaster to promote voices we rarely hear from in the media /s.
> Quack doctors spruiking amazing new treatments (that they hold shares in).
Doctors commonly have kickback arrangements to prescribe specific medication. Sometimes it's the correct course of action they just always go for the particular brand, other times it's the wrong course of action but they prescribe it anyway for the kickback (the OxyContin scandal comes to mind).
Pharma reps "bribing" doctors prescribing habits is a thing, for sure, and varies in degree by country.
This is a separate issue for media reporting on (say) new tanning treatments that are endorsed on screen during traditional "news hours" in undeclared infomercial segments that feature "independant" medical experts gushing over benefits of perineum UV treatments.
Frequently both the company that paid for the faux news segment and the guest experts that also benefit fail to have fiscal interests disclosed.
Doctors prescribing drugs recommended to them by pharma reps should disclose that connection.
On a media "news" program:
Producers of media programs should disclose any connection "experts" they interview on a subject have to the financial returns or funding of that subject.
> These individuals had also been quoted, featured, or otherwise used as commentators in UK media coverage of defence, conflict, or national security issues.
If they are promoting defence spending or plugging their employers products that's bad, but using their experience to comment on the Iran war or Ukraine, or Russian/Chinese Spy networks doesn't seem that bad?
In 17 of the 19 detailed instances, it is stated that they are promoting increases in budgets and spending. The two others are reported as speaking with different conflicts of interest.
It absolutely is sinister. Everything about the military is, when you decouple the rhetoric from the actions and consider what it is that those organisations actually do.
To skip the currently political sensitive topics of who is helping who with what, who feels the consequences, what prices are affected because of that, let's go a bit further in the past... for example, UK taxpayers money went for bombing Iraq for the "weapons of mass destruction" when Tony Blair already knew those didn't exist.
At some point you have to ask, is it really for defense, if you're bombing someone a quarter of a planet away? Are you really protecting your people at home by doing that, and are they happy their money is being spent for that instead of eg. healthcare, education, etc.?
You can't just skip the currently present and urgent defence requirements because they're "politically sensitive" and then go twenty years back to support your point.
But even if you want to do that, why don't you go just a couple more years further and argue that Bosnians should've been left to be genocided?
It's not the message spoken that is at issue here, it is the lack of disclosure of the connection of "the expert" to those that benefit (or suffer) from the message.
> "The expert claiming that cancer is bad was employed by the NHS five years ago"
from any media outlet quoting that "expert", yes. I'd also like the circumstances of their departure to be mentioned, should that be relevant to the claims.
I expect it as such things are also expected by the press council of the country I'm in, even though it can be an uphill battle getting such compliance.
It's also a problem because who controls those media? So the taxpayers are at the least two times at a disadvantage here, private interests funding private media, to then set the agenda of reporting very selectively - or not at all in certain areas.
The problem isn't good honest journalism can't be done. Think from the point of view a good critical news story, if that news story is gonna disadvantage a powerful entity, that entity will do everything in its power to discredit and stop that news story from publishing. This is also the reason why I like social media, Game Nexus does so much impactful reporting on hardware.
1. Calling it the "defense sector" is already quite biased. Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity. Or just call it the "arms industry" etc. If we were less charitable, we could well call it the "war industry".
2. Reading the article we note there's quite some overlap between arms industry links and links to Israel's fundraising and lobbying circles. I wonder whether UK media discloses those links.
* weapons sales for offensive usage (eg: The UK government admits that Saudi Arabia has used UK weapons, made by companies around the UK, in its attacks on Yemen.)
He is quite correct though. By calling it "defence" industry, it is insinuated that this is always a moral right use of arms. In reality one would have to look on a case by case basis to see which use really qualifies as defence. In many cases I would not call it defence, for instance, if money is used to overthrow other governments and so forth. Or the Falklands War as an example - technically one could claim the UK had to "defence" its territory, but at the same time one has to question the use of colonies in the first place.
The Falklands weren't colonised by the British in the way you probably mean. They were settled by them - the people of the Falklands are the descendents of British settlers.
Why wouldn't you call a military action to stop Argentina invading them "defence"?
The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs like Russia, or diplomacy through violence. In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles. So no, it is in fact the defense sector.
What countries have a defense sector, if the UK doesn't?
Iraq and Afghanistan might disagree with your first point.
Last time I looked Iran and the UK are quite some distance from each other, and Iran has inexplicably neither been launching missiles at the UK, nor threatening to, and is apparently not even capable of it.
So the justification for these "defensive" bombing runs on Iranian mountain sites from Fairford remains mysterious.
The UK's arms industry is - like most things associated with the establishment - an exercise in turning privilege into cash, so it's not a surprise to see Senior Figures doing the media rounds in establishment narrative factories like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail.
Readers with the money and connections to make a difference already know how the game is played.
Readers who don't should perhaps be allowed to keep their happy fantasy that the UK isn't one of the most corrupt countries in the world, as a mercy.
Iran attacked the British base in Cyprus with drones so has directly attacked British territory more than once. Iran has also been sponsoring terrorism in the UK. Iran has also attacked an American base on British territory.
> one of the most corrupt countries in the world
A ridiculous exaggeration given what a lot of other countries are like.
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles.
Claiming that the UK doesn't support diplomacy through violence then transitioning into this gem has to be one of the wildest juxtapositions I've seen this year. Do you classify the US strikes on Iran as uniformly offensive or defensive in nature? Or do you think there is a mix? How would you classify a US bombing run on anti-air defences in the opening phase of the conflict?
They have been trying to kill people in the UK for years. And have been funding proxies everywhere, some of whom have attacked the UK. We're not really even involved and I find it hard to agree with this point.
However it should have been dealt with earlier rather than latent bombing.
>The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs
It has centuries of exactly that at a global scale, and continued post-war neo-colonial land grabbing and pressuring, plus eager participation in all the imperialist games of its larger brother.
What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation. The UK currently has fewer military personnel in Iraq than it has in, say, Germany. And Britain doesn’t control the Iraqi government.
I think something Brits don't fully understand is the extent of our vassalage under the US.
We do, as you rightly note have quite the history of a policy of imperialist land grabs, now we just play a support function to somebody else's empire.
Ok, but you can say the same for the US. It also has vastly more troops in Germany than Iraq, and it also does not control the Iraqi government. And the less said about Afghanistan the better. So where is the land grab?
One does not need to dictate every item of policy to control a country, one just needs to ensure that there's alignment on strategic issues. I think this was America's key point of learning when it took over the reins of the European empires after WW2.
In Germany, historically the strategic issue was anti-communism, but now it serves as a military logistics hub; in Iraq, it's about trade in oil in dollars and access to Iraqi oil fields for US companies.
The UK is more complex and more total, ranging from support in the security council, to access to markets for US goods and services, to stationing of US troops and hardware. Most of our economy is geared up for the benefit of US investment funds.
Any government, whether it be Germany, Iraq or the UK, which tries to alter any of these fundamentals will quickly find out the extent to which their land has been grabbed.
Or, to put it more succinctly, Iraq is occupied by the US in about the same sense that Germany is. And while the US no doubt exerts influence over Germany in part via its military power, I think the position that the US military presence in Germany is part of a “land grab” would be a rather fringe one.
It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much.
Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country.
I don't believe that it really changes the fact that yes, US troops occupy the UK, Germany and Iraq, and many more. The most substantial deployments, e.g., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and until recently Iraq and Afghanistan, were very much the product of invasions. At the time of those invasions, many of those on the receiving end would have very much felt on the receiving end of a land grab. It's just their grandchildren have been conditioned to view this state of affairs as natural.
The general pattern is "bomb the bejesus" [2] out of a country. Plant base. Install a friendly government and ensure a favourable operating environment for US interests. The UK is an exception in that it wasn't bombed by the US, but the upshot is the same. We're a wholely-owned subsidiary of corporate America, and a giant aircraft carrier on the other side of the Atlantic -- as the US's latest adventure in Iran has clearly demonstrated.
You may quibble over the "land" in land-grab, but the strategic bits (e.g., oil fields, bases) are very much owned, and the territory as a whole controlled by pliant governments.
>What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation.
Yeah, just a few decades years, to secure oil deals and/or keep control of the region. No biggie.
That this can be said with a straight face about invasions to two countries that created civil war, suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths, displacement, etc, is telling of the ever-present colonialist mindset.
My post wasn’t defending the Iraq war. It was just pointing out that the war was not a land grab. Iraq is not now a part of the UK or US (in contrast to the situation with Russia and Crimea, for example).
For anyone else interested, negotiations that could lead to the US leaving Iraq and fully returning control to the Iraqi people are also going swimmingly, according to reports.
The US military presence in Iraq is already far smaller than its presence in Germany and many other countries. Certainly, the US is a global superpower (albeit a declining one) that exerts influence via its military strength. But Iraq is not occupied by the US any more than Germany is.
>The British empire has been completely wound down, other than a handful of small overseas territories.
Just because Britain couldn't afford it anymore. And after bloodshed, in India, Kenya, Cyprus, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Not out of the bigness of their heart.
And the post-colonialism never ended. The same grabby hands get everywhere they can get.
And why exactly are those "small overseas territories" unquestionably retained? "No biggie, just an island here, an island there, and island there, some land in here"
"war industry" is still very charitable! If you have any standards that distinguish a war from indiscriminate killing, they probably violate those standards in a large proportion of their business.
When I said "If you have standards" I did not specify what those standards are. So I said "probably", because I have to guess you have similar standards to me. If you do, then you can drop the "probably".
As the other commenter correctly guesses, you only have to open the news to find examples. Iran, Palestine, Iraq (way back when). Most "wars" are not really wars these days, they're just exercises in western aggression.
“This research does not suggest that any individual cited in this report deliberately concealed their commercial affiliations from journalists. Rather, it highlights a recurring failure by news organisations to disclose potentially relevant industry interests when presenting former senior military figures as independent expert commentators on defence, conflict, and national security issues.”
“Of course, holding private-sector roles after military service is both lawful and commonplace. This is not the point of this report. Rather, the concern highlighted here is about the UK’s media.”
“The findings presented here do not argue that the individuals identified are acting improperly, nor that their analyses lack merit, however we assert that the public has a right to full and relevant information when evaluating expert commentary, particularly where it involves lives, public expenditure, and international security.”
“It is important to note that this report does not allege wrongdoing on the part of the individuals identified, nor on the part of the publications presented within the pages of this report.”
Practically every third paragraph reiterates this.
They are anticipating a flood of complaints from various well-connected groups and individuals that it's an unfair hit piece. They want to be able to point to all the "Hey, we didn't say this ACTUALLY MATTERED" disclaimers they front-loaded it with.
Source? The UK has been extremely vocal about defending Ukraine's sovereign rights and has spent a lot of money supplying it with defensive equipment.
Russia despises the UK. The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people, just like the US does. Just like most of Europe does. It is the fringe view and not reflected in state policy.
Right wingers like Tommy Robinson (it's not even his real name!) want to make a saint out of Henry Novak just because he got killed, it's a clown world.
It is interesting to look at the details and see who the (news) 'media' are in this case. Going through the details, I find 1 instance (under Kemp) of the BBC, and everyone else is the 'usual suspects', the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times, and so forth.
The Guardian is only mentioned in context of exposing these conflicts of interests; and whilst I am surprised to find LBC and Nation Cymru as not being transparent about their experts and commentariat, I don't see The National mentioned at all, nor The Herald, The Scotsman, the Metro, the Financial Times, and The i.
This may tell us that these experts only appear in the 'usual suspect' news media. Or it may tell us that this report didn't look at a wide range of U.K. news media. The latter seems unlikely given the inclusion of some niche publications (I've never even heard of London Loves Business until today.) and things like Nation Cymru, so I am more inclined to suppose the former.
The report doesn't say the media they mention is an exhaustive list, which is what you're assuming.
You mention the Guardian. I took one of the names listed in the report and quickly found an article in the Guardian where he's quoted but his ties to the arms industry are not disclosed: Richard Barrons - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/mar/20/britain-def...
> the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times
Indeed. These are pay-to-play propaganda and should not be accorded the dignity of "newspaper". Peter Oborne's resignation from the Telegraph is still worth reading: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31510152
> How the UK Security Services neutralised ‘The Guardian’ newspaper (2019) (dailymaverick.co.za)
> 3 points by indigodaddy on June 2, 2023 | past | 1 comment
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36170406
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-u...
I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism. It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum.
There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.
Whilst not commenting on that, a fascinating quote from the article you are replying to is:
"Viner also oversaw the breakup of The Guardian’s celebrated investigative team, whose muck-racking journalists were told to apply for other jobs outside of investigations."
This tells you something about why you might feel that way.
That's what happens when you employ someone on their political stance (CND poster girl) rather than their editorial integrity...
I mean they operate as a trust and wear their journalistic bias proudly on their sleeve; in terms of intent their altruism is self-evident.
That said, no British media is exempt from adherence to D Notices and tenets of their legal system like the concept of a super-injuction, whereby a court order prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in_English_l...
That the term was coined by a Guardian journalist covering the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump scandal should be context enough as to their motives and constraints.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJW_v_Guardian_News_and_Media_...
Fair points.
The reformed DSMA notice system which replaced the D notice system in 2015 is somewhat more specific on what should not be reported. I think that's fit for purpose now. And it's still not legally binding. It's an agreement. Thus it does not break press freedom should the notice be found unethical or covering something up.
I sort of disagree with this. I bet if you asked liberals and progressives in a country like America for a foreign newspaper they read -- if they do read one -- in most cases it is probably the Guardian. So it may be only the best of a bad bunch but it does have that reputation.
Never thought of it from that perspective. They should read multiple sources too. BBC as well, which once the articles have settled, are quite good. (just ignore the breaking stuff which is dubious sometimes)
fascinating article thank you for posting. Everyone should read this!
"Ex UK military members discover the private sector pays 10-20x more" underlines the title, but yes, media should disclose it. But even if they were "just" retired ex-military, their bias would be the same (being a member of the UK military).
Media in general is poor on declaring any and all bias of their various interviewed "experts".
Quack doctors spruiking amazing new treatments (that they hold shares in).
Automotive experts promoting car brands (that they receive advertising and influencer dollars for).
etc.
One thing I've seen a bit in Norway, and which is relevant this month, is opinion pieces by "concerned parents" that get their writing into national news, but a quick search show that they're often head of some bigoted organization. Of course they should be entitled to their opinion and be able to express it as any other, but the news papers not disclosing this is unethical imo.
There was recently in Swedish media an article about harassment of Jews in Sweden and they guy they talked to was a member of a Zionist organisation who advocates from that Jews should move to Israel. Such a clear conflict of interest should have been disclosed.
Many parts of Norway are much less functioning than many Norwegians understand. The media sector is one of them.
Well of course, if you're a concerned parent or concerned person of any kind in Norway, the first thing you do is start an organization. There are even some who start many, in the hope of cross-pollination.
What's more extreme to me is people like NRK's economy commentator Cecilie Langum Becker, who I read today went over to a lucrative job as communication chief in Aker. A corporate PR person by trade, for 8 years, she had front page space every day to push austeritarian, interest-scold propaganda that would make The Economist blush. So good of our public broadcaster to promote voices we rarely hear from in the media /s.
> Quack doctors spruiking amazing new treatments (that they hold shares in).
Doctors commonly have kickback arrangements to prescribe specific medication. Sometimes it's the correct course of action they just always go for the particular brand, other times it's the wrong course of action but they prescribe it anyway for the kickback (the OxyContin scandal comes to mind).
Pharma reps "bribing" doctors prescribing habits is a thing, for sure, and varies in degree by country.
This is a separate issue for media reporting on (say) new tanning treatments that are endorsed on screen during traditional "news hours" in undeclared infomercial segments that feature "independant" medical experts gushing over benefits of perineum UV treatments.
Frequently both the company that paid for the faux news segment and the guest experts that also benefit fail to have fiscal interests disclosed.
Oh, I just meant it's not just "quack doctors" doing it. it's a fairly common practice.
In a doctors suite:
Doctors prescribing drugs recommended to them by pharma reps should disclose that connection.
On a media "news" program:
Producers of media programs should disclose any connection "experts" they interview on a subject have to the financial returns or funding of that subject.
Manufacturing Consent continues being relevant
> These individuals had also been quoted, featured, or otherwise used as commentators in UK media coverage of defence, conflict, or national security issues.
If they are promoting defence spending or plugging their employers products that's bad, but using their experience to comment on the Iran war or Ukraine, or Russian/Chinese Spy networks doesn't seem that bad?
In 17 of the 19 detailed instances, it is stated that they are promoting increases in budgets and spending. The two others are reported as speaking with different conflicts of interest.
Does it say that in the full report somewhere else? I can't find that in the text.
I think most people would be surprised if ex senior military Personnel didn't think military spending should be increased.
>I think most people would be surprised if ex senior military Personnel didn't think military spending should be increased.
When all you know is a hammer...
"People who have seen the state of the military first hand are saying that we need to fund the military" is not really shocking or sinister.
It absolutely is sinister. Everything about the military is, when you decouple the rhetoric from the actions and consider what it is that those organisations actually do.
This is a luxury belief that requires the privilege of being unbombed. I invite you to explain this to Ukrainians.
It's the UK we're talking about here.
To skip the currently political sensitive topics of who is helping who with what, who feels the consequences, what prices are affected because of that, let's go a bit further in the past... for example, UK taxpayers money went for bombing Iraq for the "weapons of mass destruction" when Tony Blair already knew those didn't exist.
At some point you have to ask, is it really for defense, if you're bombing someone a quarter of a planet away? Are you really protecting your people at home by doing that, and are they happy their money is being spent for that instead of eg. healthcare, education, etc.?
You can't just skip the currently present and urgent defence requirements because they're "politically sensitive" and then go twenty years back to support your point.
But even if you want to do that, why don't you go just a couple more years further and argue that Bosnians should've been left to be genocided?
It's not the message spoken that is at issue here, it is the lack of disclosure of the connection of "the expert" to those that benefit (or suffer) from the message.
Do you expect the same standard to be applied to the NHS? "The expert claiming that cancer is bad was employed by the NHS five years ago"
I expect this:
> "The expert claiming that cancer is bad was employed by the NHS five years ago"
from any media outlet quoting that "expert", yes. I'd also like the circumstances of their departure to be mentioned, should that be relevant to the claims.
I expect it as such things are also expected by the press council of the country I'm in, even though it can be an uphill battle getting such compliance.
In other words: institutionalized corruption.
It's also a problem because who controls those media? So the taxpayers are at the least two times at a disadvantage here, private interests funding private media, to then set the agenda of reporting very selectively - or not at all in certain areas.
The problem isn't good honest journalism can't be done. Think from the point of view a good critical news story, if that news story is gonna disadvantage a powerful entity, that entity will do everything in its power to discredit and stop that news story from publishing. This is also the reason why I like social media, Game Nexus does so much impactful reporting on hardware.
1. Calling it the "defense sector" is already quite biased. Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity. Or just call it the "arms industry" etc. If we were less charitable, we could well call it the "war industry".
2. Reading the article we note there's quite some overlap between arms industry links and links to Israel's fundraising and lobbying circles. I wonder whether UK media discloses those links.
> Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity.
What do you mean? As in invading other countries?
Just on the facts,
* assisting US offensive actions,
* weapons sales for offensive usage (eg: The UK government admits that Saudi Arabia has used UK weapons, made by companies around the UK, in its attacks on Yemen.)
How is that "almost all"?
Did I say that?
Perhaps direct your Socratic Simplicio more accurately.
You were answering this:
> > Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity.
> What do you mean? As in invading other countries?
He is quite correct though. By calling it "defence" industry, it is insinuated that this is always a moral right use of arms. In reality one would have to look on a case by case basis to see which use really qualifies as defence. In many cases I would not call it defence, for instance, if money is used to overthrow other governments and so forth. Or the Falklands War as an example - technically one could claim the UK had to "defence" its territory, but at the same time one has to question the use of colonies in the first place.
The Falklands weren't colonised by the British in the way you probably mean. They were settled by them - the people of the Falklands are the descendents of British settlers.
Why wouldn't you call a military action to stop Argentina invading them "defence"?
The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs like Russia, or diplomacy through violence. In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles. So no, it is in fact the defense sector.
What countries have a defense sector, if the UK doesn't?
Iraq and Afghanistan might disagree with your first point.
Last time I looked Iran and the UK are quite some distance from each other, and Iran has inexplicably neither been launching missiles at the UK, nor threatening to, and is apparently not even capable of it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crm120x4lzxo
So the justification for these "defensive" bombing runs on Iranian mountain sites from Fairford remains mysterious.
The UK's arms industry is - like most things associated with the establishment - an exercise in turning privilege into cash, so it's not a surprise to see Senior Figures doing the media rounds in establishment narrative factories like The Telegraph and The Daily Mail.
Readers with the money and connections to make a difference already know how the game is played.
Readers who don't should perhaps be allowed to keep their happy fantasy that the UK isn't one of the most corrupt countries in the world, as a mercy.
Iran has been funding terrorist networks who are active in the UK and has taken direct action against UK citizens before on numerous occasions.
They are also allied with Russia who are doing the same.
They aren't some innocent party here. Geopolitics is complicated and not some black and white good guy bad guy mechanics.
To add some pretty hard data to this: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/fiona-and-irans-role-in-the-...
Iran attacked the British base in Cyprus with drones so has directly attacked British territory more than once. Iran has also been sponsoring terrorism in the UK. Iran has also attacked an American base on British territory.
> one of the most corrupt countries in the world
A ridiculous exaggeration given what a lot of other countries are like.
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles.
Claiming that the UK doesn't support diplomacy through violence then transitioning into this gem has to be one of the wildest juxtapositions I've seen this year. Do you classify the US strikes on Iran as uniformly offensive or defensive in nature? Or do you think there is a mix? How would you classify a US bombing run on anti-air defences in the opening phase of the conflict?
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability ...
Reminds of the old joke, "What propaganda? We don't have propaganda."
> In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability
If Iran struck all of the UK's missile factories and military bases, would it be considered a defensive or offensive action?
Iran.
It didn't attack anyone until it was attacked.
It has been defending itself.
They have been trying to kill people in the UK for years. And have been funding proxies everywhere, some of whom have attacked the UK. We're not really even involved and I find it hard to agree with this point.
However it should have been dealt with earlier rather than latent bombing.
You could easily be describing the UK, Israel, and the USA, lol.
Anyway, I live in the UK, and I don't swallow the same propaganda as you.
I can't tell if your first sentence is a joke or not...
Defending those launching illegal strikes is still offensive, in both meanings of the term.
war is peace etc etc
"Department of War" was renamed as "Department of Defense" because Edward Bernays (the greatest propagandist who ever lived) said so.
Defensive missions? Was the UK under attack?
>The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs
It has centuries of exactly that at a global scale, and continued post-war neo-colonial land grabbing and pressuring, plus eager participation in all the imperialist games of its larger brother.
I mean, just mentioning "Tony Blair" is enough...
20 years since he was in power...
What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation. The UK currently has fewer military personnel in Iraq than it has in, say, Germany. And Britain doesn’t control the Iraqi government.
I think something Brits don't fully understand is the extent of our vassalage under the US.
We do, as you rightly note have quite the history of a policy of imperialist land grabs, now we just play a support function to somebody else's empire.
Ok, but you can say the same for the US. It also has vastly more troops in Germany than Iraq, and it also does not control the Iraqi government. And the less said about Afghanistan the better. So where is the land grab?
One does not need to dictate every item of policy to control a country, one just needs to ensure that there's alignment on strategic issues. I think this was America's key point of learning when it took over the reins of the European empires after WW2.
In Germany, historically the strategic issue was anti-communism, but now it serves as a military logistics hub; in Iraq, it's about trade in oil in dollars and access to Iraqi oil fields for US companies.
The UK is more complex and more total, ranging from support in the security council, to access to markets for US goods and services, to stationing of US troops and hardware. Most of our economy is geared up for the benefit of US investment funds.
Any government, whether it be Germany, Iraq or the UK, which tries to alter any of these fundamentals will quickly find out the extent to which their land has been grabbed.
Or, to put it more succinctly, Iraq is occupied by the US in about the same sense that Germany is. And while the US no doubt exerts influence over Germany in part via its military power, I think the position that the US military presence in Germany is part of a “land grab” would be a rather fringe one.
It depends where you're sat and when. It's almost certainly a fringe perspective in the US, because I don't believe American's really think about it that much.
Whether troop presence is viewed as occupation or not in each of the >50 [1] countries currently "hosting" troops is very much a matter of personal perspective, the fringeness of which will vary from country to country.
I don't believe that it really changes the fact that yes, US troops occupy the UK, Germany and Iraq, and many more. The most substantial deployments, e.g., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and until recently Iraq and Afghanistan, were very much the product of invasions. At the time of those invasions, many of those on the receiving end would have very much felt on the receiving end of a land grab. It's just their grandchildren have been conditioned to view this state of affairs as natural.
The general pattern is "bomb the bejesus" [2] out of a country. Plant base. Install a friendly government and ensure a favourable operating environment for US interests. The UK is an exception in that it wasn't bombed by the US, but the upshot is the same. We're a wholely-owned subsidiary of corporate America, and a giant aircraft carrier on the other side of the Atlantic -- as the US's latest adventure in Iran has clearly demonstrated.
You may quibble over the "land" in land-grab, but the strategic bits (e.g., oil fields, bases) are very much owned, and the territory as a whole controlled by pliant governments.
[^1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_oversea...
[^2]: Kissenger, 1972
>What land did Tony Blair grab? You can disagree with the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq without making the exaggerated claim that this was part of some kind of long-term imperialist occupation.
Yeah, just a few decades years, to secure oil deals and/or keep control of the region. No biggie.
That this can be said with a straight face about invasions to two countries that created civil war, suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths, displacement, etc, is telling of the ever-present colonialist mindset.
Saying that it's the invasions that created civil wars and suffering in Afghanistan and Iraq is just exceptionally ignorant. Here's a taster: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Ba%27athist_Ir...
For all their failures, the allies never bombed cities with nerve agents.
My post wasn’t defending the Iraq war. It was just pointing out that the war was not a land grab. Iraq is not now a part of the UK or US (in contrast to the situation with Russia and Crimea, for example).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military...
For anyone else interested, negotiations that could lead to the US leaving Iraq and fully returning control to the Iraqi people are also going swimmingly, according to reports.
The US military presence in Iraq is already far smaller than its presence in Germany and many other countries. Certainly, the US is a global superpower (albeit a declining one) that exerts influence via its military strength. But Iraq is not occupied by the US any more than Germany is.
If Germany wants the US to leave, do they have to negotiate to get that to happen?
Your biases are hanging out. Like hemorrhoids.
The British empire has been completely wound down, other than a handful of small overseas territories.
How long do you plan on holding the currency set of British people responsible for things they didn’t do?
>The British empire has been completely wound down, other than a handful of small overseas territories.
Just because Britain couldn't afford it anymore. And after bloodshed, in India, Kenya, Cyprus, Malaysia, and elsewhere. Not out of the bigness of their heart.
And the post-colonialism never ended. The same grabby hands get everywhere they can get.
And why exactly are those "small overseas territories" unquestionably retained? "No biggie, just an island here, an island there, and island there, some land in here"
oh, i see you misunderstanding. he obviously meant the ruling class, those epsteinites. nobody cares about british people, they're just ... people!
"war industry" is still very charitable! If you have any standards that distinguish a war from indiscriminate killing, they probably violate those standards in a large proportion of their business.
What informs your "probably"?
When I said "If you have standards" I did not specify what those standards are. So I said "probably", because I have to guess you have similar standards to me. If you do, then you can drop the "probably".
As the other commenter correctly guesses, you only have to open the news to find examples. Iran, Palestine, Iraq (way back when). Most "wars" are not really wars these days, they're just exercises in western aggression.
Okay - I see. I thought it was a qualifier of "in a large proportion of their business".
In that case - why do you think it's "in a large proportion of their business"?
No wonder they are so pro russia (but pretend otherwise ), they want the war to go on and on, have people die on both sides.
“This research does not suggest that any individual cited in this report deliberately concealed their commercial affiliations from journalists. Rather, it highlights a recurring failure by news organisations to disclose potentially relevant industry interests when presenting former senior military figures as independent expert commentators on defence, conflict, and national security issues.”
“Of course, holding private-sector roles after military service is both lawful and commonplace. This is not the point of this report. Rather, the concern highlighted here is about the UK’s media.”
“The findings presented here do not argue that the individuals identified are acting improperly, nor that their analyses lack merit, however we assert that the public has a right to full and relevant information when evaluating expert commentary, particularly where it involves lives, public expenditure, and international security.”
“It is important to note that this report does not allege wrongdoing on the part of the individuals identified, nor on the part of the publications presented within the pages of this report.”
Practically every third paragraph reiterates this.
They are anticipating a flood of complaints from various well-connected groups and individuals that it's an unfair hit piece. They want to be able to point to all the "Hey, we didn't say this ACTUALLY MATTERED" disclaimers they front-loaded it with.
Source? The UK has been extremely vocal about defending Ukraine's sovereign rights and has spent a lot of money supplying it with defensive equipment.
Russia despises the UK. The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people, just like the US does. Just like most of Europe does. It is the fringe view and not reflected in state policy.
Right wingers like Tommy Robinson (it's not even his real name!) want to make a saint out of Henry Novak just because he got killed, it's a clown world.