The November edition featured a warning of how, perhaps only in a year or two, Russia might ramp up cyber and physical attacks on Britain, short of either side declaring war, but doing harm – sabotaging critical infrastructure (although such is the state of the railways, how would we notice a hostile state blocking the tracks?), damaging the networks that so much of commerce and government services depend on. I’ve taken that a step further and looked (from page 41) at what a major war with Russia might mean for UK private security.
See the website of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the Whitehall-based defence and security think tank, for thinking about how Russia will look to only escalate its ‘hybrid’ attacks on the west in general and the UK in particular, such as sabotage; and misinformation and disinformation, seeking to sow public distrust or fatigue in its democratic institutions. It’s commonly argued that Europe has been slow to build credible ‘hybrid deterrence’ – a capability it is only now recognising and wanting to address. As a ministerial briefing at RUSI on February 26 will examine, Britain by its geographical position has farflung supply chains that may be vulnerable – whether shipping and ports, or subsea cables.
Senior figures in UK Government and the military, like NATO, are speaking ever more candidly. In a foreword to the UK’s Strategic Defence Review 2025, published in June, PM Sir Keir Starmer wrote that ‘Russia is waging war on our continent and probing our defences at home, we must meet the danger’. Echoing similar strategy documents about resilience, the review calls for a ‘whole of society’ approach.
Quite apart from the misery, and waste of life, an emergency such as a major war would find the country badly placed to respond to the challenge; so commentators and historians agree. Andrew Hindmoor closes his book Haywire: A political history of Britain since 2000 by listing the ‘known unknowns’, besides Russia, including ‘low economic growth, political mistrust’ and climate change. The trouble is that political and other leaders can avoid some difficult decisions; leave them for the next lot. In wartime, as when faced by covid, whoever’s in control won’t have that option.
Towards the end of his book Command: The politics of military operations from Korea to Ukraine, the war historian Sir Lawrence Freedman noted that (in wars against terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan), ‘private military companies have been assigned tasks once handled by regular forces’, which raised ‘problems of coordination’. To state the obvious, if Britain were fighting a major war, and ‘vulnerable’ or ‘key’ points (whatever jargon you want to choose) needed guarding, at the same time the armed forces would have a say – especially for the protection of docks, airfields and barracks – yet soldiers would have so much on its plate, the generals would surely be glad of all the help they could get. Private security in recent years has forged relationships with police at all ranks; less so with the military. And a war when people are getting bombed and fearing sabotage would hardly be the ideal time to start a relationship. Making for yet more stress, while some in private security have military backgrounds and might be better able to meet military ‘clients’ halfway, and talk (literally) the same language, the military and civilians have different aims, masters, even attitudes to publicity (Freedman quotes one colonel complaining that it was easier to drop a bomb than send a tweet).
What might such a war look like? See from page 41. For some years, retired military men and others have been publishing scenarios. If Russia wins, by Prof Carlo Masala, originally published in German last year, opens with Russia seizing the border city of Narva, in Estonia (even though British troops were among NATO forces in that Baltic state). Although you could argue that the Baltic is a long way from Britain, Masala charges European democracies with a ‘failure to join the dots between various global conflict hotspots’ (more, page 56). Russia (and friends) are challenging democracies over the rules-based world order. Masala warns that Russia might carry out a ‘NATO stress test’, and what counts is not only military weaponry but ‘a public willingness to consistently face down Russia’. Keeping Russia at bay (from ‘hybrid warfare’, in the physical and cyber worlds) will come at a price, he concludes. That was not an enjoyable feature to write, but the time to face these uncomfortable facts may have come.
Photo by Mark Rowe; anti-invasion blocks from the Second World War, still in place on the Firth of Forth coast between North Berwick and Musselburgh.
