How Britain should navigate the new nuclear age

The dawn of a third nuclear age demands a ‘national and collective sense of purpose… leadership and a willingness to act’. That was the message of the head of Britain’s armed forces when he delivered his annual lecture to the Royal United Services Institute this week.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin has been chief of the Defence Staff for three years – usually a full term – but was asked earlier this year to stay in post for a further year, until autumn 2025. His tenure has seen Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel and the resulting conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, Iran’s ballistic missile strikes on Israel and the Houthi campaign against commercial shipping in the Red Sea. It has not been, in the language of the Royal Navy in which Radakin serves, a quiet watch.

This week he warned that, after a period marked by disarmament and counter-proliferation, the world has now entered a new age of nuclear competition.