Chemical Weapons Use in Ukraine Tests Global Norms to Breaking Point

A forthcoming paper by the Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank, takes a sober look at this. It argues: “Without increased attention and resources, the JEF is unable to deliver upon its self-imposed mandate, causing it to atrophy, amounting to a serious loss of credibility in UK defence and security leadership in Europe. To avoid this outcome, it must be immediately invested in, both politically and militarily.”

“Iran proxies have been substantially degraded, and this has an unquestionable impact,” on the Assad regime’s ground forces, said Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East expert with the Royal United Services Institute thinktank. But she also reflected that Iran itself, which has come off worse in its direct military exchanges with Israel, may also be more cautious to step in or allow its proxies to step in as well. “The real challenge to Syrian regime forces is the lack of willingness so far by Iran as the patron of Hezbollah and Russia to deploy military assets and air power to bail out the regime as it did before,” she added. An overt intervention from Iran in support of Assad may also provoke further bombing by Israel.

A recent report by academics at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) identified the same shift: that in the “gig-economy era”, the Kremlin can outsource its aggression to anybody in want of a payday and willing to risk drawing the attention of the security services. The benefits of putting more and more layers between Russia and the eventual perpetrator are obvious when it comes to plausible deniability, as well as the sheer scale and speed of the work, but so are the basic economics of the deal.