General Interest Articles & Lectures
Ending The Cycle of Vexatious Legal Claims Against Our Armed Forces
Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill
Army Heritage News
December 2023
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Weakening our defences: dangers in the Political Declaration
By Lt-Gen Jonathon Riley
Debate concerning our future relations with the EU has concentrated overwhelmingly on trade. But there are vital defence elements too in the Political Declaration which it is dangerous to overlook, for they risk being seriously damaging to UK interests. Yet commentators and even ministers seem to know little about them.
I was recently asked for my thoughts on the current state of Brexit.
This is a 10-point assessment of the defence section of the negotiations, following research by the Veterans for Britain team which involved reviewing the EU defence policy:
Ending The Cycle of Vexatious Legal Claims Against Our Armed Forces
The Prime Minister has been clear about his determination to end the unrelenting cycle of vexatious legal claims undermining our Armed Forces and providing them with the best possible protection, through the introduction of legislation within the first hundred days.
That is why today we are introducing the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Bill, which comprises those essential legal protections for both Armed Forces personnel and veterans serving on military operations overseas..
RAPID INTERVENTION AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION:
BRITISH MILITARY INTERVENTION IN SIERRA LEONE 2000-2002
BY RICHARD IRON
The British operation in Sierra Leone is regarded as a rare success for Western military intervention. In the popular narrative, British paratroopers deployed to Freetown over a weekend...
Chapter 6 - Brigadier Riley Takes Command
When Brigadier Riley assumed command of Operation Silkman on 25 November and HQ 1 Mech Bde became the JTFHQ, there was a general belief in PJHQ and MOD that the war had been won and that the new JTFHQ’s role was limited to ‘taking forward the peace process and implementing longer term training and restructuring plans.
How The Exit Deals Are A Step Too Far For Intelligence Sharing & Defence?
7 Key Points on the Defence Risk
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The EU The UK Defence
No 10 Issues Inaccurate Reprimand to Sir Richard Dearlove
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Why is Brexit Britain getting entangled in the EU’s defence structures?
August 29th 2018 - In the weeks after the release of the Chequers Plan, observers have revealed yet more reasons why it is a bad deal for our country.
Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley and colleagues have researched UK involvement in the EU’s defence fund and found that it started with a European Commission charm offensive in early 2017 – once again since the Brexit vote. Lt-Gen Riley describes the whole Whitehall ploy to put us into a third-country defence arrangement as “a U-bend route for the UK to come back fully under EU authority in the future”, such is the breadth of its policy reach and the monumental importance of defence for a country’s autonomy.
Read the full article here »
© 2016
The Chilcot Report - Iraq Inquiry
On the 15th June 2009, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that an Inquiry was to be conducted to identify lessons that could be learned from the Iraq conflict.
As an Expert Witness, Lt-Gen Riley was called to give evidence on the Iraq Inquiry
In a televised interview in 2011, Lieutenant-General Jonathon Riley gives his thoughts on how history will judge our involvement in Iraq...
© 2002
A Plea For Culture
This is not, as you might be forgiven for thinking, a hope that military training might embrace grand opera – so read on. My thesis is that we have spent a great deal of time and effort over the past fifteen years developing our own doctrine, and understanding that of our allies and opponents, perhaps to the extent that, as one commentator on Ex Saif Sareea suggested, that they are read only by those who write them; and we focus on our enemies’ and allies’ doctrine during the planning and conduct of operation...
© 2007
Why Organizations Forget
History, it is said, is accelerating. Since the end of the Second World War, we have amassed around 100 times more information than in the rest of human history up to that time. We think of human knowledge as always increasing, “What is now proved”, said William Blake, “was once only imagin’d.” But is it like that? Consider human knowledge, if you will, as a freight train pulling a long line of carriages. Each carriage contains the knowledge of a generation. We like to think that every generation couples its carriage behind the engine and thus...
© 2011
A Tribute To Richard Holmes
Published in "The Hand of History"
Richard Holmes had a magical gift for bringing that other country, the past, right into the present Through his many books, his public lectures and above all his television programmes, he made history accessible to everyone - and he made it fun. In mis quotation, he is describing the casus belli between Prussia and Germany in 1870, something that might usually cause one to plump up one's pillow, how the debauched Queen Isabella II of Spain went too far, was deposed by a military coup and left the throne vacant. The nearest family in line that was ...
©2010
Littlecote: The English Civil War Armoury
Foreword to the Catalogue of the Littlecote Armoury
The greatest 17th Century arsenal of English weapons and equipment is that held by the Royal Armouries, underlining the continuity between the Armouries in its current form and functions and that of the Civil Wars. Now, the heritage side of the Royal Armouries business has become its dominant preoccupation, although it still continues a role in national security through the work of the national firearms centre. In the mid to late 17th Century, national security was the dominant theme as the Armouries led in equipping the national armies...
© 2013
Lemkin Seminar Series
Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation
Supported by United States Department of Defense
Jonathon Riley has spoken on several aspects of preventing mass atrocities in warfare during the three years of the programme. These included his experiences in the Balkans in 1992-1993, 1995 and 1998-1999. He also spoke about Sierra Leone...