The 32 members of Nato meet on its 75th anniversary in Washington knowing that it faces one of the biggest crises in its history.
The challenge is focused on war in Europe, the violence in the Middle East where war could now break out on a third front — in Lebanon.
The challenge is deep and multi-faceted, not least for Britain with its new Prime Minister and Defence Secretary attending for the first time. Both are committed to a major defence review and reform. There may not be time for that — the worsening plight of Ukraine means the UK and its allies have to act now. Nato needs to do more to thwart Russia’s air attacks like Monday’s massive bombardment in several cities, not least the Kyiv children’s hospital. Russia has the upper hand in the air war, especially with the use of air-launched glide bombs, and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles travelling at up to five times the speed of sound.
Ukraine’s forces must be allowed to fire American long-range missiles at air bases and missile launchers inside Russia. But it can’t all be left to the US — one of the main messages from the summit is that European allies still need to do far more.
For their part, the European allies are now bracing for a possible return to power by Donald Trump, and a weakening of support for Ukraine and Europe altogether.
This is likely to happen anyway as the threat from China looms larger, with many strategists now seeing 2027 as the possible target date for Beijing attempting to seize Taiwan. It is, after all, the year by which Xi Jinping has stated China should match, or surpass, the US as a military superpower.
Britain now has to operate as equal partner both to the European Nato allies, and the US and Canada.
The defence review and reform programme has to fix problems in the key areas of personnel, procurement, policy and planning. The services are still not recruiting enough. The procurement process is still too lengthy and cumbersome, leading to costly programmes becoming obsolete.
The aircraft carrier programme, launched in the review of 1998, is still not fully functioning. More glaring is the acquisition of the Ajax reconnaissance tank — costing over £3.5 billion and still with teething problems after 15 years.
Almost all defence reviews are overtaken by events within years, sometimes months. The Falklands War of 1982 and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 came after big defence reviews. Coming out of the blue, they are what strategists call “the Friday surprise” — which they were on a grand scale.
This time the Friday surprise might be a sudden attack on the British base at Akrotiri in Cyprus, vital for Gaza support and operating against the Houthis in Yemen, by Iranian and Hezbollah missiles.
The first move is for the new Government to be upfront about the mess our defences are in. Only then can the process of fixing them begin.
