The Future Starts Now!

I am glad to have the opportunity to introduce myself, my name is David Saw and I have the great privilege of being appointed as the Editor-in-Chief of European Security & Defence (ESD).  I have been writing about defence for a very long time, in fact I started writing for major defence magazines in the early 1980s!   If you think about it, the defence and security situation has changed incredibly in Europe since then. The fall of the Soviet Union, the end of the Warsaw Pact and the Reunification of Germany, if you had forecast that at the start of the 1980s you would have been laughed at! Think beyond Europe and look at the rise of China and at how the economic potential of India is now starting to be felt.   Changes that were once thought impossible became a reality. And it is change that is the key, change is a constant and at ESD we will have to evolve as well to reflect a defence and security environment that is constantly changing and evolving!

The future direction of ESD will see us look to have contributions from a broad spectrum of writers from across Europe and beyond that will provide our readers unique perspective on defence affairs. We will be publishing our highly regarded in-depth articles on major defence and defence technology topics, in addition we will also have highly focused articles that are a rapid response to key defence issues as they emerge. I am particularly excited by the fact that we will feature a wide selection of Opinion Pages reflecting news and insight from across Europe from an outstanding team of contributors from Vienna and Prague to Kyiv and Warsaw to London and Paris and beyond.

We will be changing and constantly evolving, both in terms of our flagship print magazine, but also in terms of our digital presence as well.  Our aim is to increase engagement with our readers in both the print and digital spaces by becoming the reference publication for the European defence and security environment. The aim is very simple, we wish to continue the growth of ESD to both solidify its position as the leading defence magazine in Europe, by continuing to provide high quality professional reading for defence professionals in Europe.

Finally, I would like to thank my predecessor as ESD editor, Mark Cazalet, for all the effort he has put into the magazine since late 2022. We must also mention Peter Felstead, the departing News Editor of ESD from 2023, for his contribution to the magazine.   They have left us with a strong basis to build a bigger and better ESD, one that fully reflects the dynamism of the European defence environment.

David Saw