Defence Newsletter w/e 4th November 2022

 

w/e 4th November 2022

Tank CommanderLt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available for pre-order now

Newsletter story

 

 

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Defence Newsletter w/e 28th October 2022

 

 w/e 28th October 2022

“Dirty Bomb” Disinformation

UK Defence Budget Uplift In Doubt

The Undersea Threat

Tank CommanderLt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available for pre-order now

The Undersea Threat

 

w/e 28th October 2022

First there was the presumed sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, to which nobody has owned up to yet by the way, although Russia is strongly suspected. Then there was the disruption to undersea cables to Shetland which shut everything down, including bank ATMs which meant that for a short while IOUs became the currency of those islands. This time the reason seems to have been more innocent, probably caused by fishing gear or a dragging anchor.

Nonetheless, incidents such as these have focused attention on the security of undersea pipelines and cables worldwide. Subsea infrastructure is generally buried in trenches where possible, but some types of seabed make this more difficult and it is less common for communications cables.  It is estimated that there might be more than 530 active or planned submarine telecoms cables around the world. Extending to more than 1.3 million kilometres, they carry ninety-five per cent of the world’s internet traffic.

Most people have no real idea how many thousands of miles of pipeline and cables are under the seas around the UK.  These are the oil and gas pipelines, offshore wind farm power export cables, international electricity and gas interconnectors, and internet and communications cables that allow Britain to do much of its business.

Determined attackers are very likely to get through. The effects of a successful attack will differ. Pipelines and subsea electricity cables are few in number. If one is blown up, gas, oil or electricity cannot easily be rerouted through another. In addition, many offshore oil, gas, and windfarm installations are unmanned; anyone with a boat can sail along and board a complex industrial control centre where half an hour smashing equipment would take months to repair.

Whatever way you look at it, the subsea domain is a huge area and extremely hard to monitor properly using conventional means. In the UK we have far fewer surface ships, submarines, and maritime patrol aircraft than we once had. In this context, it is reassuring that the UK has now committed to procuring two specialist ships – the so-called “Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance Ships” – to protect the UK’s critical underwater infrastructure.

All of this assumes, of course, that the most likely attacks will be via submarines. But AUVs (autonomous undersea vehicles)can be launched from any cargo ship or fishing vessel. And recent events in Ukraine show the impact that armed or “kamikaze” drones can have on the course of military operations on land.

Imagine a “cargo” ship carrying several containers of racked drones being let off in the middle of the North Sea to attack oil rigs and wind farm transformer towers. Clearly we will have to pay more attention to this relatively new perceived threat, and it is probably best approached in conjunction with our NATO allies. In this we should be mindful of the talents and experience contained in the UK civilian subsea industry, a world leader in such matters. There is little point in the MoD and Royal Navy reinventing what already exists.

Nord Stream and the Shetland disruption have given us early warnings of the dangers to our critical infrastructures under the ocean. We ignore them at our peril.

 Have you signed up for the Defence Review Podcast?  https://open.spotify.com/show/4vHJsYgxfrDyTkKgMpGlqs 

Tank CommanderLt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available for pre-order now

“Dirty Bomb” Disinformation

 

w/e 28th October 2022

Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has raised fears, without evidence, that Ukraine plans to use a dirty bomb in the Russo-Ukraine conflict. This he has explicitly stated, apparently, to the UK’s Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and also to other defence ministers in the USA, France, and Turkey. This unfounded allegation has been rejected by all.

What is a so-called “dirty bomb”? Well, it isn’t a tactical nuclear weapon, that’s for sure. Nuclear weapons depend on the fission or fusion of radioactive isotopes to release massive amounts of energy which produce catastrophic results. A dirty bomb, on the other hand, employs a relatively small amount of conventional explosive to scatter radioactive material, like uranium for example, through the air.

It doesn’t require the highly refined material that is needed for a nuclear weapon proper, but can use radioactive materials from research establishments, hospitals, or nuclear power station waste. On the initiation of the explosive charge, particles of radioactive dust are dispersed and can be dangerous to health, and it can’t be seen, or smelled, or tasted. In other words, it is an invisible killer.

The attractions of the dirty bomb, if we can call them that, is that they are cheap and easy to produce. They don’t need investment in the complicated centrifuges required to super-refine material for standard nuclear weapons, nor do they need expensive delivery systems. They can be put in a suitcase of car boot and taken to their target.

The major downside is that they are fairly indiscriminate. There is no control over where the resultant radiation cloud might spread, and it can be just as dangerous to one’s own side as it is to the enemy. There’s also the question of whether the radiation drifting into a neighbouring NATO country would trigger Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the “attack on one is an attack on all” clause.

The suggestion made by Russia that Ukraine might be planning such a dirty bomb attack is frankly ludicrous and another indication of desperate the Putin regime has become in the face of defeat on the battlefield. There is no suggestion that they are doing so and we can dismiss this particular piece of disinformation out of hand.

 Have you signed up for the Defence Review Podcast?  https://open.spotify.com/show/4vHJsYgxfrDyTkKgMpGlqs 

Tank CommanderLt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available for pre-order now