Iron Command Advisory
Indo-Pacific geopolitical risk, read at intelligence-grade.
Fractional and one-off geopolitical risk advisory for funds, family offices, insurers, and corporates carrying Indo-Pacific exposure. An intelligence team on call, without the headcount. Led by a former British Army intelligence analyst.
Tradecraft applied at
Home Office
Ministry of Defence
British Army
What Iron Command does
Three ways to put an intelligence analyst on your problem
Headline retainer
Fractional Geopolitical Advisor
An on-call intelligence seat for organisations too small for an in-house intelligence team but too exposed to ignore the risk. A continuous Indo-Pacific read rather than one engagement at a time. Capped at a small number of concurrent seats.
- — Monthly strategy call, written summary
- — Ad-hoc questions between calls (email / Signal)
- — Risk and investment committee attendance
- — First-call status for urgent reads
Engagement
Ongoing retainer, six-month minimum
Scope and fee agreed on the first call, against your exposure and the depth of cover you need.
Current availability
Open to new retainers
One-off
Scoped geopolitical risk reads
A single decision, assessed end to end. Market entry, counterparty exposure, escalation scenario, or a board question that needs an intelligence answer rather than a news summary.
Start an enquiry →Defence track
Capability & threat assessment
For ministries, primes, programme offices, and defence-tech investors. Capability and threat analysis, red team, wargame design.
See defence services →READ Audit
Not sure you need an analyst on call?
Five minutes, eight questions. See where your current Indo-Pacific read is tight and where it's exposed.
Coming September 2026
First Island Brittleness (FIB) — our quarterly Indo-Pacific decay-rate index.
Deep-dive briefings
Long-form intelligence, on the record
Scripted long-form briefings on the platforms and decisions shaping the Indo-Pacific — the same tradecraft that runs inside every advisory engagement.
Selected work
The methodology, in public
Every advisory engagement runs the same tradecraft you can read here. These are worked examples, not the deliverables.
F-22 vs J-20: America's 187-Plane Problem
The F-22 Raptor is still the best air-superiority fighter ever built. It wins the one-on-one duel with China's J-20 and loses the theatre anyway. An intelligence read of why the better aircraft is the worse strategic position.
Virginia-class vs Yasen-class: A Strategic Comparative Assessment
Professional intelligence assessment comparing US Virginia-class and Russian Yasen-class nuclear attack submarines across design philosophy, capabilities, and strategic impact.
America Promised Australia Submarines It Can't Yet Build: The AUKUS Industrial Gap
AUKUS Pillar 1 commits the US to transferring Virginia-class submarines to Australia from the early 2030s. The binding constraint isn't money or political will — it's shipyard throughput. An operator's read of the gap, with a three-branch forecast.
Ben Brand
Founder & Lead Analyst
Former British Army intelligence analyst. Thirteen years across intelligence analysis and cyber operations — nine years of British Army intelligence analysis and four-plus years of cyber and threat-intelligence consultancy, including work within UK government.
Every Iron Command assessment is authored or directed by Ben personally.
Methodology
READ — one framework, applied like intelligence
READis how Iron Command thinks about every capability and risk claim: Reality, Evidence, Alternatives, Decision. Built on intelligence-community standards — sources graded on the NATO Admiralty scale, confidence rated under ICD-203, and the competing read tested before any call. The same method runs inside every advisory engagement and behind every published assessment.
Read the full methodology →Sponsorship and brand partnerships · partnerships · Journalist enquiries · press kit