Picture's emblematic of the age, being what Ukranian company Skyeton made last century and what it has replaced it with in this. More significantly its partners in the UK ~ we don't make, we partner ~ suggest that it is set to replace the billion-pound domestic experiment in the UK.
The reason billion £/$ (delete as necessary) procurement experiments fail is that Western defence is built around a consumer boom and military-industrial complex... and why YouTube futurist Professor Jiang has predicted that (a) Trump would win the presidency (b) would go to war with Iran and (c) lose.
For his suggestion is that the US military is designed for war in the 20th century and not the 21st. He adds that the AI boom sustaining the US economy is financed to a great extent by petrodollars, the flow of which war will constrain; while threats to either desalination plants or the Straits of Hormuz could choke off the supply of food and water to places like the UAE and Saudi Arabia within weeks. And we forget whilst watching QVC that you can't do without those.
Meanwhile the author of The Art of the Deal bemoans the fact he has no Churchill, author of A History of the English-Speaking Peoples to deal with, and he is probably right. For Churchill was of his time, a product of economies that produced instead of consuming, and we are of ours.
And that is to say that after 2,500 years of war or more instead of 250, Europeans are belatedly wise to the merits of defence at least, even if it needn't extend to pre-emptive attack. What's happening around the Gulf is inflating oil and gas, bolstering Russia's efforts in Ukraine... be careful what you wish for and choose friends wisely.
In response the suggestion is that warships escort oil tankers through the Straits, so the global economy proceeds as normal. Not a stone's throw from where I write tho' is the underground museum from where the Battle of the Atlantic was fought, and orchestrated by said Churchill.
Problem was ships carrying supplies to Europe, plus their escorts, were being sunk by numerous and comparatively inexpensive submarines hunting in packs.
Sound familiar, anybody?
One of my flying students served on the final convoy aimed at relieving beleaguered Russians via the northern route during WW2, prior Churchill pulling the plug given losses from U-boats.
