Facing Coming Storms: Talking International Defence

What do war films really teach us - not just about conflict, but about who we think we are, and what we believe we’d do when it matters?In this Christmas episode of Facing Coming Storms, we step slightly sideways from our usual focus on geopolitics and defence technology to explore war movies and popular culture and what they reveal about society’s relationship with conflict.We’re joined by Robert Hutton and Duncan Weldon from the War Movie Theatre podcast, alongside Patrick Bury, former British Army officer and now Professor of National Security Studies. Together, we talk about the films we grew up with, the ones that still resonate, and the striking absence or difficulty of telling stories about more recent wars.What We Explore - Why War Movies Matter: We reflect on how war films act as a cultural classroom - teaching generations what courage, leadership, sacrifice and loyalty are supposed to look like.- Generations, Memory and Distance: We compare how different generations encountered war through cinema - from Second World War films shown on Sunday afternoons, to Vietnam-era classics, to the far thinner cultural record of Iraq and Afghanistan.- Action Films vs War Films: We draw a clear distinction between spectacle and substance, asking why the most enduring war films are rarely about explosions and almost always about people under pressure.- Failure, Defeat and Groupthink: From A Bridge Too Far to Kajaki, we explore why some of the most powerful war films are about mistakes, moral ambiguity and institutional failure and what they teach us about leadership and decision-making.- Modern Wars and the Storytelling Gap: We ask why Iraq and Afghanistan have produced relatively little mainstream cinema, and whether proximity, political discomfort, or unresolved outcomes make these conflicts harder to process.- War, Preparation and Deterrence: The conversation widens to the present day - how societies prepare for conflict, why deterrence depends on credibility, and why the goal of preparation is often to ensure war never happens at all.- Culture, Identity and the Information Space: We reflect on how narratives, myths and memory interact with today’s information environment and why misremembering past wars can be as dangerous as forgetting them.As we close, one theme keeps resurfacing: war stories endure because they are never just about war. They are about character, pressure, loss, loyalty, and the choices people make when there are no good options left.In a moment where the idea of conflict feels uncomfortably close again, these stories remind us that preparedness is not bravado, and reflection is not weakness. Understanding how we’ve told these stories before may be one of the ways we avoid having to live them again.Facing Coming Storms is brought to you by the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, in partnership with the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, and produced by Urban Podcasts.

What happens when the speed of modern warfare outpaces the systems designed to manage it?In this episode of Facing Coming Storms, we are joined by Eva Sula, Estonian defence advisor and mentor at NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator (DIANA), and Robert Fetters, former U.S. Army paratrooper and special operations officer now working in defence technology. Together, we explore how defence innovation is colliding with institutional barriers and what that means for NATO, Europe, and the future battlefield.What We Explore- Why Ukraine Changed Everything: We reflect on how the war in Ukraine has redefined innovation cycles, battlefield learning, and the brutal reality of contested environments and why lessons from even last year are already outdated.- Estonia’s Frontline Perspective: Eva shares how Estonia’s history, geography and digital-first mindset have shaped its defence posture, innovation culture, and sense of urgency and why small countries often adapt faster than large alliances.- Drones, AI and the Pace of War: We examine why drones dominate modern conflict, why counter-drone systems struggle to keep up, and how AI is being applied unevenly across defence - often more in PowerPoint than in practice.- Procurement vs Reality: Robert explains the gap between what operators need and what procurement systems deliver, including how budgets, incentives and bureaucracy lead to duplicated effort, wasted money, and capabilities that never reach the field.- Training for the Wrong War: We question whether conventional forces are still being trained for a battlefield that no longer exists and why a special operations mindset is becoming essential for all units.- Collaboration as Deterrence: We return again and again to the same conclusion: real deterrence comes not from isolated innovation, but from genuine collaboration - across borders, services, industries and institutional barriers And it’s never easy Facing Coming Storms is brought to you by the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, in partnership with the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, and produced by Urban Podcasts.

From volunteering in March 2022 to whispering in the ear of Ukraine’s High Command and authoring the paper that birthed an entirely new branch of the military, Ukrainian-born Canadian national Illya Sekirin has been at the heart of Ukraine's drone revolution rewriting the rules of warfare.We explore the thinking that led President Zelenskyy to create the Unmanned Systems Forces as Ukraine’s fourth armed service, the impact that has had on wider existing frontline forces and the future of “drone blitzkrieg" in which an overwhelming assault of unmanned systems might deliver history.What You’ll Learn- Drone Blitzkrieg Defined: How cheap, massed drones have replaced traditional artillery and armour as the new kings of the battlefield.- Birth of a New Military Branch: The inside story of the paper Illya wrote that convinced Zelenskyy to spin drones out into their own service (and why traditional commanders are furious). - The China Dependency Crisis: If the next war cuts Western supply lines, Russia keeps flying while NATO stalls - unless we act now.Illya Sekirin isn’t just watching the drone revolution - he’s one of the people who built it. His book Rise of the Machines – Drone Warfare in the Russia-Ukraine War: Tactics, Operations, Strategy is out in January.Facing Coming Storms is brought to you by the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, in partnership with the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, and produced by Urban Podcasts.

What happens when the West stops writing the rules and every middle power starts playing its own game at the same time?Peter Apps reunites with Samir Puri, Director of the Centre for Global Governance and Security at Chatham House. From Trump’s transactional peace pushes to China’s mineral land-grab and the growing power of emerging middle powers, they map a world where old empires fade and new ones rise - often in the same contested spaces.What You’ll Learn- The Middle-Power Free-for-All: Why countries from Indonesia to Kazakhstan now hedge between Washington, Beijing, and Moscow and what that means for tomorrow’s battlefields.- The Real New Scramble: It’s not colonies this time; it’s lithium, cobalt, rare earths, Arctic shipping lanes, and the infrastructure deals that lock in influence for decades.- Climate + Tech + Geopolitics: The triple storm quietly redrawing the global map faster than any single war ever could.Samir Puri’s big-picture clarity cuts through the noise: we’re not sliding into a new Cold War - we’re stumbling into a hotter, messier, multipolar scramble where everyone wants a seat at a table that keeps getting bigger and less predictable.Facing Coming Storms is brought to you by the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, in partnership with the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, and produced by Urban Podcasts.

We talk with neurologist Dr Nicholas Wright – adviser to the Pentagon Joint Staff and US nuclear strategists amongst others on the functioning of the brain – about his new book "Warhead", which dissects modern conflict and military history from the perspective of spent their career studying how our brain structure, cognitive biases, stress, and human decision-making will shape and potentially derail modern warfare, from Ukraine’s trenches to potential flashpoints in space and cyber domains.What You’ll Learn- Importance of Training: How rigourous and challenging training can both deliver the instincts to survive in challenging crises, while also building the flexibility to adapt when situations change.  - Stress and Snap Decisions: Why fatigue and cognitive biases turn even trained leaders into high-stakes gamblers and the lessons from history that keep repeating in today’s battlefields.  - Tech Changes, Humans Remain: Drones and AI walls may redefine tactics, but the unpredictable human element – shaped by our our neurology – remains a solid constant. Facing Coming Storms is brought to you by the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research, in partnership with the Project for the Study of the 21st Century, and produced by Urban Podcasts.