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“Boots, Bots and Drones: From the ‘Grey Zone’ to Total War” London one-day conference, January 28, 2026
National Liberal Club, Whitehall Place, London,January 28, 2026, 10 AM-5 PM Virtual and in-person tickets available here As the world enters the second half of the 2020s, the international competition of the first part of the century has escalated firmly to confrontation between the West and more authoritarian powers –… Listen ⇢
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Episode 43 – Defence Tech, Innovation and Institutional Inertia
What happens when the speed of modern warfare outpaces the systems designed to manage it? In this episode of Facing Coming Storms, we are joined by Eva Sula, Estonian defence advisor and mentor at NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator (DIANA), and Robert Fetters, former U.S. Army paratrooper and special operations officer now working in… Listen ⇢
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Episode 42 – Inside Ukraine’s Drone Revolution
From volunteering in March 2022 to whispering in the ear of Ukraine’s High Command and authoring the paper that birthed an entirely new branch of the military, Ukrainian-born Canadian national Illya Sekirin has been at the heart of Ukraine’s drone revolution rewriting the rules of warfare. We explore the thinking that led… Listen ⇢
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Episode 41 – The Wider Struggle for the World
What happens when the West stops writing the rules and every middle power starts playing its own game at the same time? Peter Apps reunites with Samir Puri, Director of the Centre for Global Governance and Security at Chatham House. From Trump’s transactional peace pushes to China’s mineral land-grab and the growing power of… Listen ⇢
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Episode 40 – How the Human Brain Approaches Modern War
We talk with neurologist Dr Nicholas Wright – adviser to the Pentagon Joint Staff and US nuclear strategists amongst others on the functioning of the brain – about his new book “Warhead”, which dissects modern conflict and military history from the perspective of spent their career studying how our brain… Listen ⇢
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Episode 39 – “Blood in the Water”: From Donbass to Taiwan
As winter grips Ukraine’s frontlines and Chinese warships circle Taiwan, the shadows of escalation stretch across two hemispheres, testing alliances and resolve. In this episode of Facing Coming Storms, Peter Apps convenes experts from the Institute for the Study of War – George Barros (Russia & GEOINT Team Lead) on Moscow’s grinding… Listen ⇢
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Episode 38: UK Defence in a Changing World
What if the UK’s defence future hinges not on its own capabilities, but on bridging gaps in an unpredictable US partnership? In this episode of Facing Coming Storms, Peter Apps speaks with Matthew Savill, Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), about his two decades in… Listen ⇢
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Episode 37: Information Operation: Navigating the New Battleground
What if the real frontline of modern conflict isn’t on the battlefield, but in the minds and screens of everyday people? In this episode of Facing Coming Storms, Peter Apps is joined by Simon Paterson, former British Army Intelligence officer and head of strategic partnerships at Boone Global, and Margot… Listen ⇢
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Episode 36: Inside U.S. Defence Uncertainty
Power without a plan: what happens when the world’s strongest military hits pause? In this episode of Facing Coming Storms, Pete Apps sits down with Nikolas Gvosdev, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and Professor of National Security Studies at the U.S. Naval War College, to unpack the geopolitical and… Listen ⇢
Executive Director, Peter Apps.
Peter Apps is executive director of the Project for Study of the 21st Century (PS21), a global defence columnist for Reuters and presenter of the “Facing Coming Storms” global defence podcast from PS21 and the British Army’s think tank the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research (CHACR).
