TV drama imagined war with Russia – now Britain is rehearsing for it

           

 

 

 

Is life mirroring art? Britain rehearses for the war nobody wants

Imagine waking up to find your mobile isn’t working, the internet is down, card payments are failing and cash machines aren’t responding. Supermarket deliveries are disrupted, businesses can’t access their systems, and nobody is quite sure whether Britain is under attack or simply suffering a catastrophic technical failure. No bombs have fallen and no Russian tanks have crossed a NATO border, but ordinary life is beginning to seize up.

It sounds like the plot of TV drama The Wargame. Yet Britain is preparing for precisely this kind of hybrid threat, and in my view not before time. The Government is planning the UK’s largest home-defence exercise in decades for 2027, while Royal Marines have returned to the Faroe Islands for their first exercise there since the Second World War. Across the North Atlantic, High North and Baltic, British and allied forces are rehearsing how to protect the infrastructure upon which our comfortable modern existence depends.

I spent much of my Army career during the Cold War, when we trained on the assumption that a major conflict in Europe was possible. We knew what the threat was, where it was likely to come from and broadly what war might look like. More importantly, Britain understood that national defence wasn’t simply the responsibility of soldiers, sailors and airmen. The country itself had to be capable of functioning during a crisis.

We lost much of that mindset after the Soviet Union collapsed. We took the peace dividend, reduced our Armed Forces and increasingly behaved as though war was something that happened elsewhere and could be watched safely on television. Defence became something the military did on our behalf rather than a national responsibility. That assumption now looks dangerously complacent.

THE FRONT LINE HAS MOVED

Exercise Lion Protector 26 brings together British personnel with forces from the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force. The return of Royal Marines to the Faroes is significant because those islands mattered during the Second World War for precisely the reason they matter today: geography. Technology may have transformed warfare, but it hasn’t moved the North Atlantic.

What has changed dramatically is the potential battlefield. When I served, we worried about tanks, artillery, aircraft and missiles. We still need to worry about them, but today an adversary can potentially inflict serious damage without deploying any of them.

A confrontation could begin with cyber attacks, sabotage, satellite interference, disinformation or damage to seabed infrastructure. If a Russian tank crosses into Estonia, NATO knows what it is dealing with. If a communications cable suddenly fails, things become more complicated. Who did it, can we prove it and when does sabotage become an act of war?

THIS ISN’T JUST A MILITARY PROBLEM

The civilian consequences could arrive frighteningly quickly. Supermarkets depend on digital logistics and just-in-time deliveries, while hospitals, pharmacies, banks, petrol stations and businesses rely on communications and electricity. Most of us carry little cash because we simply assume the systems surrounding us will always function. That confidence is now part of our vulnerability.

This is why I believe the 2027 home-defence exercise may prove as important as deploying Royal Marines to the Faroes. Defence cannot begin and end with the Ministry of Defence. Government departments, emergency services, energy companies, telecoms providers, banks, supermarkets, transport operators and the public themselves all have a role in national resilience.

I am not arguing that war with Russia is imminent. Military preparation doesn’t make war more likely; credible preparation is one of the ways we try to prevent it. The danger lies in allowing a potential adversary to believe Britain is so fragile, unprepared or politically uncertain that it can be disrupted without an effective response.

That is where television fiction and reality meet. The Wargame asks what happens if deterrence fails, while Lion Protector and Britain’s 2027 exercise are about ensuring nobody is tempted to find out.

During my Army career we prepared for a war we desperately hoped would never happen. Perhaps Britain needs to relearn that lesson: the best way to avoid finding out whether we could survive the next conflict is to convince any potential enemy that we are ready for it.

Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk

 

 

Lt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available now

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