The Future Of This Substack
Hello All,
Before I get to the heart of the matter I just wanted to say that tomorrow (Friday June 5) at 445pm UK Time and 1145 EST, Adam Kinzinger and I will be doing our latest Substack Live. We will focus, not surprisingly, on the state of US politics and also the Russo-Ukraine War. Here is a link, so please do watch if you want.
Now to the matter at hand. I am sure many of you have noticed that the writing pace of this Substack has picked up noticeably in the last three months. I seem to be producing at least 4, sometimes even 5 pieces a week and lengthy ones at that with the occasional Substack Live, etc.
It has been a great deal of work, though tbh I have found that I have loved the experience of being more committed to the platform. In fact in some ways it is frustrating that I cannot interact more, particularly with those of you who are kind enough to support the Substack by being paying subscribers. I would like to spend more time answering you comments in my pieces and doing Substack lives chats, even podcasts with technical experts, just for you, etc.
I also have come to discover that this Substack has a rather prodigious footprint. Pieces now have a minimum of 80,000 individual readers, and most are getting over 90,000. A few have even crested 100,000. The Substack also has an ability to set discussions which are fascinating. My favorite example recently was when I wrote the Ends-Ways-Means piece about Trump’s strategic deficit on March 2, just after the bombing started. This analytical framework then exploded after that and was widely adopted (and continues to be adopted) in the press and analytical community.
It is amazing to think that this is not only the number 1 Substack in the International category…
…it is at the same time the fastest growing one in the category.
In other words, this Substack has become a thing I never expected. With 118000 subscribers it has the impact of something much more than an academic bashing away messily on his keyboard.
One thing I have also noticed is that a very large (and increasing) number of subscribers are coming from banks, investment companies, international consultants, foreign ministries, defense departments, even political offices. Many of these subscribers are taking the analysis and research they get here and sending it around their offices (sometimes one email address will see more than 100 different devices access a single piece). In some ways I do not blame them. If I can say one thing over the last few years, it is that the state of strategic analysis stretching from war and power, to the politics of foreign policy, is, frankly, exceptionally weak. I would go as far to say that we are witnessing an analytical crisis where leading publications and voices constantly miss important points and approach questions with deeply flawed intellectual frameworks.
Not to toot my own horn too loudly, but my way of approaching such questions seems superior and the extraordinary growth of this Substack supports that hypothesis. In the last few years I have, compared to most of the press and analytical community, argued that:
The Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine would most likely result in a long war and a strategic disaster for the Russians (in January 2022)
That cheaper weapons such as drones were reshaping warfare and were pushing large legacy systems dangerously down the road to obsolesence (in May 2022)
That Ukraine needed to be armed to fight a ranged war and not to be forced into a direct assault on Russian fortified lines (in early 2023)
That the US was making a major mistake in deferring to Russia and not providing Ukraine with better systems (Patriots, ATACMs, F-16s) earlier.
That Trump represented a seminal challenge to European security and that European states needed to start preparing for their own defense before the election of 2024.
That Trump was going to cut Ukraine off from US military aid and that Europeans needed to get ready for that.
That US military policy under the Trump administration was going to lead to the growth of military inefficiency and underperformance.
That the course of the war in Ukraine in 2024 and 2025 was being fundamentally misunderstood, that the Russians would not be able to make a breakthrough and people were mistakenly talking Ukrainian prospects down.
That in focussing on Ukrainian manpower and infantry, people were looking at the war from a flawed perspective and not understanding that Ukraine should be looking to get soldiers off the front line.
That Ukraine had the ability to use a combined long-range and medium range strike campaign to reverse the trajectory of the war (and should be aided to do this).
That from the start of the Iran bombing, there were signs of the rot that had entered the US military that people had been wilfully ignoring.
That the US had made it clear that it can no longer and under Trump will no longer fight for Taiwan.
And this is just some of the areas where I believe my analysis has been different and better than that you can get anywhere else. I have also, as a counterbalance, tried to be explicit in acknowledging my mistakes, most obviously in my annual columns which dissect the biggest errors I made in the year.
I certainly will continue with these columns.
I suppose this is a long winded and self-congratulatory way of saying that I think this Substack has real value, and that is being recognized as such extremely widely. And that has set the stage for what I see as the future, the key points of which are:
Paying subscribers who are signed up now or who sign up before midnight on July 1, 2026 will NEVER have their subscription prices rise. You are locked in at the present price for as long as you subscribe. That is a promise.
That I will still produce a weekend update that is free for all—at least as long as the Russo-Ukraine War is going on.
That podcasts that benefit causes such as Come Back Alive and which aid the Ukrainian war effort in any way will always be free for all. I can never charge for those.
Prices for new paying subscribers starting on midnight on July 1 will go up to $10 per month/$100 per year. So people who do want to be paying subscribers now have almost a month to lock themselves into the lower rate.
I will produce more content exclusively for paying subscribers going forward (see note below)
That I will never accept advertising on written pieces for this Substack. I have found that this Substack works because I write what I want when I want, without any worries about offending any person or institution. That must continue.
So there we have it. The last few months have been amazing and made me want to commit more to this Substack. I am incredibly gratified that so many of you have supported the work and I look forward to the future.
Note For Paying Subscribers
One of the reasons for these changes is that I want to commit more of my
