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05 Jun 24. Their Majesties The King and The Queen will officially open ‘The Winston Churchill Centre for Education and Learning’ at the site of the British Normandy Memorial on 6 June 2024, the 80th anniversary of D-Day. This historic moment will also be attended by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer, Chair of the Normandy Memorial Trust, General Lord Richard Dannatt and Chair of BAE Systems, Cressida Hogg, among other VIPs and dignitaries. The Winston Churchill Centre has been funded through a donation of £600,000 from the Trust’s principal sponsor, BAE Systems.
The Ministry of Defence has also contributed to the construction of the Centre, alongside the Normandy Region, the Department of Calvados and the Seulles Terre et Mer Community of Communes. The new building houses two educational exhibition galleries telling the stories of those who fought on D-Day and in the Battle of Normandy, curated by The Royal British Legion.
A specially designed classroom for use by schools from the UK, France and beyond will enable younger generations to understand our past and learn about the effort required to make the Normandy Landings possible. The centre will be open to the public from Friday 7 June onwards and entry is free.
This is an historic milestone in the evolution of the Memorial project. The creation of the Centre will fulfil the Trust’s ambition to help future generations learn from the events of summer 1944 and keep alive the memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.
General Lord Richard Dannatt, Chairman of Trustees of the Normandy Memorial Trust said: “This year is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied landings which opened the door to Western Europe’s freedoms. The Normandy Memorial Trust is building ‘The Winston Churchill Centre for Education and Learning’ at the British Normandy Memorial. The purpose of this education centre is to ensure that new generations never forget what Britain did for Europe in 1944 and to remember the sacrifice of so many. We are delighted that the Centre’s ‘principal sponsor’ is Britain’s leading defence company BAE Systems. Like us, they recognise the importance of understanding the past and learning its lessons. We are deeply grateful for their support as indeed we are to our French partners, the Normandy Region, Department of Calvados and the Communauté de Communes, Seulles Terre et Mer. I should also like to thank the Churchill family for agreeing to the centre being named after Britain’s distinguished wartime prime minister.”
Cressida Hogg, Chair of BAE Systems, said: “We are privileged to be able to play a part in creating the Winston Churchill Centre for Education and Learning to permanently commemorate the D-day landings. As a company with a strong heritage in protecting our armed forces, I’m incredibly proud that we can honour the courage and sacrifice of those men and women who gave so much to protect our freedoms. Sadly, with a dwindling number of surviving veterans, D-Day will soon pass from living memory. So, it’s more important than ever that we find ways to permanently mark their place in history, enabling young people to understand our past and learn the lessons from it to shape our future.”
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said: “In 2024 the Ministry of Defence will help lead the nation in commemorating those who died in the liberation of Normandy and thanking the Greatest Generation for their extraordinary achievements 80 years ago. I’m proud that the MOD has helped to fund the Winston Churchill Centre for Education and Learning to ensure new generations come to understand the bravery, sacrifice and determination of the veterans of Normandy.”
Normandy Veteran and Memorial Ambassador Ken Hay MBE said: “Remembrance and education go hand in hand, and for future generations to keep the memory of the 22,442 alive they need to understand the story of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy – why it happened, who was involved, what they did and why it must never be allowed to happen again. The new Winston Churchill Centre will go a long way to achieving this for schoolchildren, families and young people visiting the Memorial.
I visit to talk to schools in England and in Normandy and to have 120 children paying attention to one’s every word, as is evidenced by the number and range of questions that follow, speaks volumes for the teaching they have received and for those who shape modern education – far more meaningful than the Roman & Greek wars that were taught when I was a lad. I have no doubt that the new Education Centre can only enhance future generation’s understanding of this key battle in the Second World War, the part we played in the liberation of Europe and, most important, the price paid by those that we Veterans left behind.”
02 Jun 24. Europe needs to invest more in defence production, Airbus CEO says. Europe must work more closely on defence projects and raise investment in production capacity, the chief executive of Airbus (AIR.PA), told a German newspaper. Guillaume Faury told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that the European Union was buying five times less armaments than the United States and that up to three quarters of those were not produced in Europe but mostly in America.
“There is too little investment in production capacities here and in the end quickly available armaments are procured in the United States,” he said. “Politicians should not only look at how they can cover their needs in the short term.”
Faury also called for closer defence cooperation with Britain, which is developing the GCAP jet fighter project with Italy and Japan, while France, Germany and Spain are pursuing the so-called FCAS jet project.
Airbus is involved in FCAS alongside France’s Dassault Aviation with which it reached an agreement on the development of a demonstrator in 2022.
“It is conceivable, for example, to consider standardising the IT systems for FCAS and GCAP at some point,” said Faury, adding this would ensure interoperability at a NATO level. (Source: Reuters)
31 May 24. Finland, Estonia call for increased defence spending to ward off Russia. Russia’s small neighbours on Friday lobbied the West at the Shangri-La Dialogue for arms production, spending and military planning to protect against Russian aggression, a challenge a senior Finland official said was too much to bear alone.
“Being a new member in NATO … it is of paramount importance that we make progress in terms of the military planning, to really look deeper at Finnish defence as a part of the NATO’s defence,” Finland’s deputy defence minister Esa Pulkkinen said at the security summit in Singapore.
Washington will host the annual summit of NATO’s 32-member states in July, where aid for Ukraine will top the agenda, along with integration of its two newest members, Sweden and Finland.
Pulkkinen said NATO decisions on command and control arrangements taken at the July summit in Washington would be “of crucial importance” as Russia’s capabilities increased.
“We saw that Russia is capable and willing to wage a full-scale war on its neighbour,” Pulkkinen added. “It became clear that no small state could cope by themselves when brutally attacked by a much bigger enemy.”
Estonia has been a NATO member since 2004 and is pressing member states to increase defence spending.
“(Regarding) our role in NATO, yes, we are very vocal,” said Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur.
“Going to Washington, we are advocating for the ACDC initiative,” he said, referring to Baltic states’ proposal for an Allied Capability Development Commitment, which calls for NATO members’ spending plans to rise from 2% of GDP to 2.5%.
“We clearly see there are shortages and challenges for the NATO countries in order to be ready to defend our alliance and this is why we need to increase rapidly our defence spending,” he said.
Ukraine, which Russia invaded in 2022, has become increasingly reliant on Western arms and ammunition as its stockpiles of Soviet-era equipment dwindle. Its Western allies have promised tens of bns of dollars’ worth of security assistance this year.
Russia has not attended the Shangri-La Dialogue since before the invasion. The Kremlin has repeatedly warned that arms buildups and shipments to Ukraine posed dangerous escalation risks.
The Shangri-La Dialogue, held annually in Singapore by the International Institute of Strategic Studies for the last 21 years, ends on June 2. (Source: Reuters)
03 Jun 24. Labour commits to continuous at-sea deterrent and four new nuclear submarines. The Labour Party is to commit to Britain’s nuclear submarines and the four new ones that are currently under construction.
The UK’s Continuous At Sea Deterrence is provided by four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines – HMS Vanguard, HMS Victorious, HMS Vigilant and HMS Vengeance.
As part of the election campaign, Labour leader Keir Starmer and shadow defence secretary John Healey are due to announce that national security will always come first in a “changed Labour Party”.
They will commit to a “nuclear deterrent triple lock” of the current at-sea deterrence, its upkeep and the four Dreadnought submarines being built at Barrow-in-Furness.
Sir Keir visited the factory earlier this year and said Labour would guarantee “decades” of support to nuclear defence.
Labour has matched the Conservatives’ pledge to spend 2.5% of national income on defence when economic conditions allow.
Fourteen veterans are standing as Labour candidates in the general election.
Sir Keir will be appearing at an event later today with Al Carns (Labour candidate in Birmingham Selly Oak), who was until last week a colonel in the Royal Marines, Louise Jones (Labour candidate in North East Derbyshire), an Army veteran who was previously an intelligence officer, and Calvin Bailey CBE (Labour candidate in Leyton and Wanstead), who was a commanding officer in the Royal Air Force.
Sir Keir will say: “National security will always come first in the changed Labour Party I lead. Keeping our country safe is the bedrock of stability that the British people rightly expect from their government.
“My message to them is clear: Labour has changed. No longer the party of protest, Labour is the party of national security.
“The excellent former service personnel that are standing as Labour candidates are a testament to that change. From Al Carns in Birmingham Selly Oak to Louise Jones in Derbyshire, national security is now a central strand of the Labour Party tapestry.
“In the face of increasing threats to national security, actions will speak louder than words.
“That’s why, alongside our unshakeable commitment to Nato, an incoming Labour government will introduce a ‘triple lock’ commitment on our nuclear deterrent – providing vital protection for the UK and our Nato allies in the years ahead, as well as supporting thousands of high-paying jobs across the UK.”
And shadow defence secretary John Healey is expected to say: “With threats increasing, we must secure Britain’s defences for the future.
“The Conservatives have failed defence over the last 14 years. Even Ben Wallace admitted that the Conservatives have ‘hollowed out and underfunded’ our Armed Forces since 2010.
“The Tories have cut the Army to its smallest size since Napoleon, missed recruitment targets every year and allowed morale to fall to record lows. Our Armed Forces can’t afford another five years of the Conservatives.
“Britain will be better defended with Labour. In Government, the UK’s nuclear deterrent will be the bedrock of Labour’s defence plans to keep Britain safe and grow our economy.” (Source: News Now/forces.net)
Commenting on the Labour Party’s defence announcements today, Professor Paul Cornish, a defence expert from the University of Exeter, said: “During the 14 years the Labour Party has been out of office it has been largely disconnected from the practice of national strategy and defence, other than through Parliamentary debates and the work of oversight committees. Labour have promised a new Strategic Defence Review, and it will be interesting to see how broad a process this will be. It should be a complex piece of work, requiring careful planning and sophisticated analysis. It should be a mature, serious-minded, and comprehensive exercise in strategic information-gathering, consensus-building and confident decision-making. It is the task of the MoD and the Armed Forces to match strategic priorities with military capabilities. Only when the larger ideas are clarified can decisions about capabilities reasonably be made.”
31 May 24. Restoring credible deterrence, Dutch F-35’s begin Nato nuclear role. The Dutch F-35 will take over from the aging F-16 fighters, providing Nato with a dual-capable stealth platform for nuclear deterrence.
The F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter will take on the Nato’s nuclear role for the first time on 1 June 2024, as the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNLAF), one of few Nato Allies contributing dual-capable aircraft to this mission, transfer the task from its F-16 fighters to the new fifth-generation airframe.
The step up to the F-35 stealth aircraft mitigates issues surrounding the credibility of Nato’s nuclear deterrent. To date, the nuclear deterrent has been a system of American made B-61 gravity bombs dropped by F-16 fighters that would rely on mass to penetrate significant air defences, and be dependent on coordinating a mid-air refuel operations in order to travel to targets at significant distances.
In any second-strike scenario wherein an initial nuclear attack has led to complications in the adoption of an orderly course of action, the surety of delivering a retaliatory strike via dual capable aircraft was not guaranteed by the performance of the F-16 fighter.
The F-35, in contrast, is in possession of several systems that lift Nato’s nuclear deterrent credibility. Its stealth capabilities and advanced sensor suite allow it to course through air defences, applying electronic warfare tools to suppress and jam adversary radar, and then locate targets accurately for the pilot.
This stealth capability is of particular advantage in the context of a Europe grappled in conflict on Nato’s Eastern Flank. The War in Ukraine has seen a ramping up of multi-layered air defences by Russia, leading to a state of mutual air denial. For much of the war, air supremacy, long a doctrinal aim of air forces internationally, was swept aside.
For both parties in the conflict, the use of air assets was contingent on ground support to secure the airspace from effective surface-to-air munitions, hence high-value platforms were consigned to close-support missions, while stand-off weapons including drones and cruise missiles operated as the principle long range strike capability. (Source: airforce-technology.com)
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