Blain’s Morning Porridge 22nd, September 2026 – The Wargame – a chilling reminder of the primacy of Defence
“To be prepared is half the victory.”
The UK is gradually waking up to the reality of very changed world. Its 40 years since we thought we’d won the Cold War. Now it’s apparent a new cycle of aggression has started, and just how woefully the West, and particularly the UK, is prepared. The Wargame, a new programme on SKY, explores just how swiftly the UK could be brought low in a conflict situation. It reinforces the message about the primacy of defence for governments and investment. If you want returns – they have to be protected.
Key Takeways
- Effective defence is expensive but much cheaper than the economic destruction of conflict. (It also brings significant economic multiplier effects!)
- There is a significant dearth of private capital in Europe directed towards defence – unlike in the US, where the opportunities to acquire European Mil-tec has been noticed.
- The “Wargame” exposes how unprepared the UK is for conflict.
- The next war started back in 2022 in Ukraine – there will be no declaration of war, but mounting sabotage, infrastructure attacks, cyber-assaults, misinformation and maskirovka.
- Defence is binary – you are either a nation with the credibility to defend itself which deters attack, or you are not. The UK is not.
- Europe and the USA were united by NATO. That is over.
- The new Mil-Tech sector is much wider than a battlefield. The new battlespace is all around us; on land, in the air, on sea, in space and in the digital world.
It’s over a month till Halloween, but it’s time to give readers a good old fashioned scare this morning… I recommend you watch SKY’s new drama – The Wargame.
It’s based on the same premise as last year’s highly successful Wargame Podcast, a very professional and slick production from SKY (I like to think the Morning Porridge’s podcast is more “immediate” …) The premise of the show is to put a roster of recognised experts in real-time jeopardy; recognised politicians, warriors, media experts and intelligence officers, wargame out their roles through a swiftly escalating conflict situation to see how they react and how it plays out.
It does not go well for the UK.
The original podcast was shocking. The Russian’s test the UK in the North Sea, after first assassinating RAF F-35 pilots (who take 5 years to train), undermining stability through cyber-attacks on the NHS, then swiftly escalating from provocation to an assault on the UK in a classic Russian Maskirovka of distraction, lies and denials which seek to paint the UK as aggressor. A Trump-adjacent US president decides to favour the Russian version, while the UK is left friendless as NATO’s Article 5 fails to gather round European allies – who choose to look the other way.
The original Podcast was great listening – it explored themes around how unprepared the UK armed forces are to defend the nation after decades of political neglect, underfunding and unwise funding of defence. Follow ups examined how the military and procurement had evolved symbiotically into a massively expensive but chronically ineffective way of delivering security. The original podcast showed how tough choices are forced on the Government – protect the Fleet or London with the single Air Defence Destroyer that’s available. Suffice to say Portsmouth Naval Base is soon a smoking ruin and conventionally armed missiles hit Oxford Street.
The Chief of the Defence staff warns all-out war is not an option as the UK would be out of weapons in less than a fortnight. I reckon that may be overly optimistic. The Podcast featured former defence secretary Ben Wallace wargaming the role as Prime Minister.
Now it’s been remade for TV – airing this week on SKY.
The programme “stars” some of the UK’s most senior former political players. Michael Gove plays the Prime Minister – and that’s a revelation. I happen to like Gove –and although I’d be wearing a stab-vest back-to-front (think about it), I find him interesting. But in The Wargame, he’s nervous and lost, trying to hide by scribbling everything as it occurs in his notebook. His lips all a’tremble are not an indication of military vigour or decisiveness. He is joined by Nicola Sturgeon as Deputy PM where she makes a lot of declarative noise looking terribly serious – and Penny Morduant as Penny Morduant… Baroness Warsi as attorney general seems to have missed the point they are making a programme about the dangers of Russian aggressive intent, and keeps demanding evidence – to which the Chief of the Defence Staff, excellently gamed by General Sir Richard Barron, tells her that will leave them behind the curve.
The light comedy relief is provided by the Laura Ashley home-counties gels in the press office. As the media and socials are drowned in misinformation and Russian propaganda, they are instructed not to scare the horses in the press releases they endlessly draft….
Only former Foreign Secretary Jim Murphy comes off well – screaming an expletive when the US Treasury Secretary (played by a dead-pan ex-Trumpista Anthony Scaramucci, “The Mooch”, from the highly entertaining The Rest is Politics US) tells him the US has already spoken to Russia, and how the Trump presidential analogue has a better relationship with the Putin analogue which literally trumps the UK’s long alliance with America! Murphy nails it with a strategic “F*ck”.
It doesn’t matter how corny or badly played the piece is. The point of the Wargame is to show how vulnerable we are – which it does. It effectively warns the war won’t start with divisions massed on the frontiers and conventional sabres or declaration. Speak to any Military Professional today and they’ll tell you it’s already underway. Russian provocations in our Domestic Waters to map out fibre nodes and port vulnerabilities is now constant.
And it’s not going to get any better.
The recent noise around the UK’s defence spending – a defence secretary resigning because the defence spending plan couldn’t provide security, then accepting a new job as chancellor and saying no more money is available – is a classic Guns or Butter argument. Do you spend the nations’ wealth on defence or welfare?
More to the point, even as Putin prepares to mobilise hundreds of thousands of young Russians to feed into the Ukraine meatgrinder, or perhaps a demonstrative attack on Nato’s flanks (I reckon the Arctic Island of Svalberg), the Americans are planning to pull at further 25,000 troops out of Europe. (That won’t surprise many people who follow defence who reckon whatever Kompromat Putin has on Trump, and perhaps Hunter Biden (to be politically even-handed), is the underlying reason for the defacto disintegration of NATO.)
I have to say… I am hooked on the Wargame. I don’t think its brilliant, and I wasn’t particularly convinced by the scenario, or how it is playing out, but it addresses many of the themes that lie behind my “day job” within Spitfire Strategic Capital – the UK based Defence Investment Fund. (We are currently raising institutional capital at present, but a HNW investment option in on the agenda – if you email me, I will register your interest.)
The Wargame makes the point quite brutally… if you don’t defend this Sceptred Isle, no one will be in receipt of welfare…
Yet that is message that doesn’t seem to have got through too many leading investment firms, asset managers and allocators who are still turning down defence investment on the basis its contrary to their ESG guidelines or not “sustainable”. Even though the UK government and the regulator, the FCA, have made clear Defence Investment is not an issue, and should be pursued, many firms remain uncomfortable. I recently spoke with one firm which effectively asked if we would construct a fund that didn’t involve anything kinetic or bang-based!
Nope. We talk about kill-chains and lethality. Absolutely we acknowledge “dual-use” technologies, but the goal of defence is not to go to war. It is expressly not to be forced to fight war by being prepared to do so. And to fight war today you need to be prepared to be brutal, swift and bloody to make sure it’s’ not our young men and women that are dying for their countries!
We do expect the bulk of our investments in Spitfire will be in terms of the heft of the spear – sensors, surveillance, coms, manufacturing and logistics, but to deliver the lethality design to deter and, if necessary, defeat, our enemies on the rapidly evolving battlespaces at sea, on land, in the air, in space and in digital domains… we need to meet force with more lethal force.
Spitfire Strategic Capital is a defence investment fund investing in the roots of new Mil-Tech sector. We have a mission: to fund war winning military technology that can be delivered swifty, which is adaptable to the evolving battlespace, and which will allow the nations of the West to re-establish credible strategic deterrence – the kind of deterrence that will dissuade Russia from testing us. Don’t hesitate to email me if you have questions.
Out of time and off to do the day job…
Bill Blain
Author of the Morning Porridge
CEO Windshift Capital
Advisor – Spitfire Strategic Capital
Meanwhile, don’t forget about my new book: The Battle for Hamble
You can read a review on the Society of Professional Economist’s website here.
