Article published in The Daily Express, 6 April 2026. © Richard Kemp

No other country could have pulled off a rescue operation of this magnitude, complexity and danger. The first rescue was relatively straightforward, with emphasis on the word relatively, because every such mission in enemy territory is highly dangerous, for both the downed airmen and those trying to save them. The pilot was brought out in just a few hours, with designated US search and rescue forces already in the area standing by to react.

For his crewman, a colonel, it was a different story; he had landed separately from the pilot and was harder to get to. I have been involved in hostage rescue operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and although the scenarios were different, all such endeavours share two hugely demanding challenges: precise location of the subject and time.

This was very much a race against time. As every minute ticked by, the likelihood of the enemy reaching him before the Americans increased exponentially. Once the Iranians knew they potentially had a US pilot in their clutches, they went all out to get their hands on him, crashing out military forces and militias and even mobilising local civilians with promise of a bounty.

No doubt the Americans planned to retrieve their man by force had the Iranians got to him first but that would have been an even more hazardous mission.

To minimise the likelihood of that, the Americans had immediately thrown into place several different operational tracks at the same time, all pre-prepared for this eventuality. In that they were aided by the Israelis, both in intelligence and firepower. Sophisticated deception was mounted against the Iranians to throw them off the track while obscuring their own rescue plans. Concurrently they put into action the most advanced geo-location tools known to man, including cyber and space capability. The challenge of maintaining their fix on the colonel as he moved to evade the Iranians was particularly great in the mountainous terrain of southern Iran.

Meanwhile the rescue package was deployed, including dozens of aircraft and hundreds of special forces operatives. They opened fire on Iranian troops heading towards the airman. They had back-ups for back-ups and when two transport aircraft were stranded in Iranian territory they destroyed them on the ground to prevent them falling into enemy hands and sent in replacements.

The immense military skill, coordination and technological power speak for themselves. As does the tremendous courage of the rescue force pilots and ground troops who willingly threw themselves into a potential death trap.

The stakes could not have been higher — on top of saving two American lives. Reeling from the political and military destruction they have suffered for the past few weeks, the Iranians would have done all in their malignant power to capitalise on the captured airmen. They would have been paraded publicly, most likely tortured into making video statements confessing to ‘war crimes’ and put  on trial. We would have had a full-blown hostage crisis, with the regime making sure the airmens’ plight was kept in the headlines for as long as they were held. Growing concessions would have been demanded from President Trump who would have come under increasing domestic political pressure from those opposed to this war.

The timing was critical, with Trump’s deadline for the Iranians to reach a deal looming fast. The last thing he needed was leverage of this kind in Tehran’s hands. He will no doubt be as grateful for the success of this unprecedented mission as will the downed airmen, their families and comrades.

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 2 April 2026. © Richard Kemp

Iran’s entire defensive strategy has been upended by the current campaign. The ayatollahs never expected to find themselves in a sustained, direct, high-intensity war with the US and Israel. Their thinking had been based on gaining ascendancy in the Middle East by proxy groups and ultimately by nuclear weapons.

The rulers of Iran spent billions of dollars building a series of terrorist networks that would do their dirty work for them both for offensive action and defence. They expected retaliation against their belligerence would be limited to containable clandestine operations and cyber attacks, as they had experienced for many years.

But had they come under direct attack from either the US or Israel, they had some not-so-secret weapons up their sleeves: Hezbollah, Hamas and – very much in third place – the Houthis. These groups would simultaneously bombard Israel with many thousands of missiles, overwhelming IDF air defences and inflicting intolerable damage. That would have forced the US to back down in traditional fashion.

It didn’t work out like that. All three terror proxies have been very severely handled by Israel (and in the case of the Houthis, the US) since the brutal and ill-judged Hamas offensive on October 7, 2023. Their combined contribution to the defence of Iran over the last few weeks has consequently been strategically negligible.

So when the war came to Iranian territory, the ayatollahs had to find another way of making the US back down. That wouldn’t be achieved by striking Israel alone: the 12-day war last June showed that Israel is able to bat off most of the missiles and drones and in any case would never have stopped fighting or appealed to the US to do so.

But in the minds of the ayatollahs, attacking their Arab neighbours would achieve what they wanted. Fearing political and economic instability, the Gulf states would pressure Trump to call off the war.

In fact it had the opposite effect. Behind the scenes, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have reportedly urged the president to keep attacking until the job is done. Whatever they might say in public, the Arab states’ true position can be seen by the continued US use of bases in the region.

Indeed, Iran’s actions have further underscored a threat that Arab countries long feared, and consequently increased their reliance on protection from the US and Israel, especially in intelligence and air defence. Even those states that had long sought to stay neutral, such as Qatar and the UAE, both previously acting as mediators, have been forced to pick sides. A strategy that was meant to divide has instead consolidated opposition to Tehran.

Another strategic miscalculation has been the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. As a global economic attack, it gives further justification for the US and Israel to continue the war, including potentially widening strikes against Iranian energy infrastructure. It also reinforces the narrative that Iran is a worldwide threat and Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Express, 8 March 2026. © Richard Kemp

One word sums up the Labour Government’s policy on the war in the Middle East: fear. It’s not even fear of sending British troops into battle, and it’s certainly not fear among our forces, who will fight whenever and wherever they are sent.

Many have suggested a failure of strategic planning in the Ministry of Defence accounts for the absence of any British naval assets in the Middle East. I doubt that’s the case. The PM and Defence Secretary would have been given options long ago, as soon as potential hostilities appeared on the horizon, which goes back many weeks.

Those options would have been quite limited given the extent to which our army, navy and air force have been starved for decades.

There must have been a political veto on deploying warships to the region, otherwise how could it have taken so long for HMS Dragon to be readied for action?

If a green light had been given, she could have been fixed up and patrolling in the Mediterranean long before an Iranian-made Shahid drone exploded at RAF Akrotiri.

This whole episode does however illustrate the disgraceful state of the armed forces today.

More than seven days have passed since the drone strike on British sovereign territory. Remember that back in 1982, a naval task force of some 40 warships was bound from Britain to the South Atlantic just four days after the Falklands were invaded.

But Britain’s abject failure to join a just, defensive war against the Iranian terror regime, which threatens the world as well as its own people, is not about lack of military capability.

We even refused to allow the US use of British military bases that America has paid for for decades. It comes back to fear. Fear of losing even more political backing from the Muslim and hard left supporters on which Labour relies. The very idea of joining in or even facilitating a US-led attack on a Muslim country would have filled Starmer with horror.

He might just have mustered the stomach for that, but to take part in an offensive alongside the hated Israel? Impossible. He spent the last two years vilifying Israel, but even the partial arms embargo, sanctions on political leaders and recognition of ‘Palestine’ failed to satiate the anti Israel mobs, as we saw in Labour’s defeat at Gorton and Denton.

Not only that, but his own leadership of his party would be at even graver risk had he joined Operation Epic Fury. Don’t forget there are even greater opponents of Israel waiting to pounce.

Not least Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary. A decades long supporter of Labour Friends of Israel, he sensed the way the wind was blowing and recently published his erroneous view that Israel had been committing war crimes and the whole country should be sanctioned, not just political leaders.

The upshot of all this internal Labour politicking is that our national security has been sacrificed on the altar of party interests. The ‘special relationship’ with the US has been shot away, a long standing alliance which has strengthened our defences and given Britain greater authority on the world stage.

We have undermined whatever remnants remained of any ability to deter our foes.

In short, Britain is now a military laughing stock, standing by wringing our hands even while British sovereign territory is under attack. I have spoken to several US military officers in the last few days. They are all utterly bewildered by how far their once most dependable ally has descended into irrelevance.

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2026. © Richard Kemp

The recent strike on the runway at RAF Akrotiri was delivered by an Iranian-made Shahed – the same type of suicide drone that has been supplied to Putin’s forces to strike military and civilian targets in Ukraine. It has been assessed that it was fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah, a key Iranian proxy, designated a terrorist organisation by the UK.

RAF Akrotiri is not just another military base on foreign soil. It is British sovereign territory, one of two areas retained by the UK under the 1960 Treaty of Establishment that created the independent Republic of Cyprus.

What was our response to a direct attack on British sovereign territory? Defence Secretary John Healey claimed that this was an ‘indiscriminate’ strike which it clearly was not. His apparent attempt to deny that British territory had been deliberately attacked by the Iranian axis was akin to Keir Starmer’s desperation to distance himself from the joint US-Israeli strikes against Iran when he plaintively insisted right at the start that Britain played absolutely no role.

He reinforced that stance by denying US use of British bases in the UK and Diego Garcia. Furthermore Starmer has done his best to avoid saying one way or the other whether his government supported the US-Israeli operation. He desperately clung to a threadbare cloak of international law even as left wing leaders in Australia and Canada came out backing Trump against a terrorist state that has brutally murdered thousands of its own people, perpetrated violence across the region for decades and is actively pursuing nuclear weapons.

While Britain stands idly by, Greece dispatched frigates to help defend Cyprus and even France has promised warships and air defence systems. The appalling state of our armed forces has been illustrated by the Royal Navy’s failure so far to get even one warship ready to sail to the Middle East. This, despite weeks of gathering war clouds as US forces steadily built up in the region. Contrast that with 1982, when a task force of 40 ships left Britain for the South Atlantic within just four days of the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands.

Meanwhile Israel is doing our fighting for us by going in against Hezbollah. Israel is defending its own citizens of course but it’s expanding assaults against the terrorists in Lebanon will also be protecting us. Can we expect to see a word of thanks to a country that is putting its own soldiers’ lives on the line and has consistently supported Britain with life saving intelligence and defence technology over many decades?

No of course not, quite the opposite. What we can expect as fighting intensifies in Lebanon is more hand-wringing about de-escalation, negotiation and compromise together with Starmer’s habitual finger-pointing at Prime Minister Netanyahu, one of only two world leaders today (the other being Trump) who has the courage to stand up in defence of his own country and of Western values. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 1 March 2026. © Richard Kemp

At a time when the misdemeanours of so many current and former politicians has dragged public esteem for British politics to record lows, it is gratifying to find a long-serving ex-MP putting his money where his mouth is by signing up for war service in Ukraine.

Jack Lopresti, who represented Filton and Bradley Stoke for the Conservatives from 2010 until he lost the seat in 2024, joined the International Legion – a formation of the Ukrainian armed forces – in November 2024. And more recently, just last month, it was announced he is serving with the Azov Brigade, a volunteer force that attracted controversy due to its far-Right origins, but is now understood to be fully integrated into Ukraine’s armed forces.

Lopresti, who was a reservist with the Royal Artillery, was vocal in parliament about defence spending, Nato commitments and the need to deter Russian aggression. He has been a strong advocate for supporting Kyiv in its fight against Putin since the full-scale invasion began four years ago this week.

The Ukrainian war has seen no shortage of statements of solidarity from European capitals; but comparatively few elected politicians have been prepared to share the burdens borne by soldiers on the frontline in that or any other war.

There are exceptions. Remarkably, Charles Goodson-Wickes, the former Conservative MP for Wimbledon, fought with the 7th Armoured Brigade in the 1991 Gulf War while still in office, the only MP to have done so since the Second World War.

Only a handful of current MPs, including Labour’s Mike Tapp and Dan Jarvis, saw regular military service before getting elected. That is hardly surprising given the minuscule size of the armed forces today.

But perhaps our national defences would be in a less parlous state if the number of veterans that reached the top end of government came somewhere close to the tally of human rights lawyers, life-long political groupies and financiers.

Of course, that was once the case. Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan, Jim Callaghan and Edward Heath all saw combat. Margaret Thatcher did not, but by her side was a man who had: her husband Denis.

All of them maintained strong defences, which then began a long and disastrous downward spiral under John Major and his successors as prime ministers, none of whom served in the armed forces, and the same is true of most of their cabinet ministers, which may help account for the wilful neglect of our nation’s defences.

This is not just about starvation of funding and strategic ineptitude, but also the abject failure to protect serving soldiers and veterans from predatory lawyers who have repeatedly sought to hound them through the courts. Continue reading →