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About us
The UK Defence Forum meets on a regular basis in London under the Chatham House rule. The Forum is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organisation which holds no corporate view of its own.
Put at its simplest, the Forum looks at strategic issues; present threats; where future wars may break out; why; and what the UK should do about both them and preserving the peace, and what capabilities could be expected of industry and others. The Forum represents an opportunity for politicians, including those in Government, preparing for it or holding it to account, to meet specialists from diverse backgrounds in defence, security and peace and to exchange information in confidence with them. Briefings have in the past been delivered by politicians, diplomats, senior officers, civil servants, academics and industrialists from the UK and elsewhere. From the point of view of politicians, they are able to obtain insights into matters of mutual concern without prejudice or commitment. Any conclusions they reach are theirs alone which they treat as they see fit and are not obliged to share with anybody else. In addition, research papers are prepared which are offered to parliamentarians and key libraries, and after three years are placed in the public domain through this site. The views in research papers are those of the authors alone. A list of past and future meetings, and our published papers, can be found on this website, along with many years' archives of DEFENCEnet Daily. Some 18,000 pages of original material can be accessed using the "search" facility in the top right hand corner of this site. In addition to strategic issues, tactical and short term ones plus partisan points of view and interesting papers from other research "think tanks" are presented through Defence Viewpoints which is updated daily, and which carries a Twitter feed.
We are proud to host the archives of one of our founder members and late Patron, Air Marshall Lord Garden. The "search" facility automatically includes the large body of his written materials.
The UK Defence Forum supports the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Armed Forces and its subgroups for the Royal Navy; Army; Royal Air Force and the Royal Marines. It helps to organise Parliamentary Welcome Homes for UK troops of all three services returning from operations, as well as Receptions, briefings and other events. The U K Defence Forum has had two informal directives from politicians which are reflected in our papers and meetings: " Think the unthinkable" - Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, 1996 " Educate us" - Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, 2002
These sentiments are summed up in our motto :
conloqui audete sapientia proficite
- through dialogue comes knowledge and wisdom
Our rules are simple :
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