Sean Rayment is the editor of National Security News and the co-host of The Security Podcast. He served as a Captain in the Parachute Regiment in the late 1980s. As a defence correspondent, he has reported on wars in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and Africa.
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Israel has no other choice but to carry on bombing Gaza if it wants to destroy Hamas. Its campaign of relentless air strikes and long range artillery barrages has so far been effective at eroding Hamas’ military capability and limiting the Islamist group’s capacity to kill more Israelis. Hamas has been unable to respond in
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The rise of the combat drone is changing the nature of the battlefield, as Israel has already found to its cost. The 7 October atrocity began when dozens of cheap commercial drones equipped with explosives paralysed the Israeli army’s communications and camera systems surrounding the Gaza border. It was the first crucial phase in an
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It would be a major strategic error for Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, as some are calling for now. Any let up in air and ground attacks would simply allow Hamas to regroup, rearm and replenish its depleted ranks with new recruits ready and willing to kill women, children and babies the
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Israeli soldiers are the masters of street fighting. It is unlikely that there has been a single month in the 75-year history of the Israeli state in which members of its security forces have not been involved in some form of urban warfare. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) have fought on the streets of Gaza and
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17 min listen
James Heale speaks to foreign policy expert Sophia Gaston and defence correspondent Sean Rayment about what could be Israel’s next steps, the strength of their military and how much political backing they have worldwide.
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Israel is likely to need every one of the 300,000 soldiers it is amassing on the border with Gaza if, as now seems likely, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a full-scale invasion of the Palestinian enclave. The first signs of an imminent attack are so-called shaping operations – punitive strikes in a bid to test
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Is the tank still the ‘king of the battlefield’? The sight of burnt out Russian vehicles littering the highways outside of Kyiv has led some to question their effectiveness in modern-day warfare. But don’t be deceived: the death of the tank has been greatly exaggerated. There is a reason, after all, why Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is pleading
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There is a useful military adage often used by generals in times of war: no plan survives contact with the enemy. Vladimir Putin’s plan, it now appears, didn’t even survive contact with his own troops. Russia’s leader has combined a major strategic miscalculation with tactical stupidity on a scale unprecedented in recent times. Four weeks
