MT 5/2022 · 1 To state that the last three years have seen seismic-level changes in the defence and security world – and, indeed, in the world in general, would be to indulge in that most British of linguistic tools – the art of understatement. It is, however, a statement that must, perforce, be made – and be made to cover a longer period of recent history than events post-COVID. Why so? Primarily because we need constantly to remind ourselves that what we are defending against – the threat envelope, if you will – is constantly changing, morphing and expanding. It is not just the glaringly obvious issues that cause headaches for our defence and security planners – like the unwarranted and significantly destabilizing Russian incursion into Ukraine – but the rather more subtle, below-the-line issues that are beginning to make inroads into the resources that are being stretched increasingly thinly around that threat envelope. The problem is that – rather like Joe Public’s reaction to the end of the Cold War (“well, that’s that, then – no more enemy, so we can do away with expensive armed forces”) the almost subliminal issues that arise from great events often gain little exposure in the mainstream media and do not, therefore, receive much attention from the people who will be affected by continued threat proliferation. Climate change is, of course, a major challenge and one that is certainly generating the countless thousands (millions?) of column inches of opinion – some better informed than others – that characterize the formation and manipulation of public opinion in the modern world. As usual, there are as many varied definitions of the nature of climate change as there are definers – ranging from those who deny there is such an issue, blaming it all on the scaremongering tactics of one or another extremes of the political spectrum, to those who see the end of the world as we know it arriving as early as lunchtime next Tuesday. The truth, inevitably, lies somewhere between the two poles. But try telling that to the inhabitants of Pakistan, China or California this week. California is on fire. Nothing unusual in that, one might think – but the indications and prognostications are that current wildfires are more widely spread than has been the case in recent years, and are likely to continue to increase in extent and, perhaps, in frequency. Pakistan is in dire straits: according to some estimates – which do not appear to be overly exaggerated – fully one third of the nation is underwater, and over 32 million people have been displaced. That is a crisis of catastrophic proportions for an economically challenged nation – one that has the potential to spill over into actions that Security Challenges? What Security Challenges? Editorial natural resources perceived to be in short supply – a whole raft of issues that the man in the street does not consider on a regular basis. Politics also has an effect which should not be discounted. Anywhere. The election of Liz Truss as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by slightly over 80,000 voters (around 0.0012% of the population), and her actions in the first week in office prove little beyond the fact that the Conservative party sees ideology as a preferable solution to common sense approaches to problem solving. And the United States – in which much of the rest of the world sees an aspirational ideal – is arguably more deeply divided today than at any time since the Civil War. The security challenges plaguing resource-constrained planners and their political masters are legion. And they are growing. But defence and security remain shrouded in secrecy and are routinely not subject to the levels of transparency common in other governmental spheres. It’s time for that to change – within the bounds of maintaining operational security. Change in the stability of the global village will only come about with changes in behaviour by large percentages of any social group or population. And such change can only be engendered through understanding of the issues. It‘s time for better, more profound and wider spread communication. Knowing is, after all, half the battle. Tim Mahon Editor-in-Chief of MilTech may affect international security if sufficient assistance cannot be provided in a reasonably short period. China, on the other hand, is suffering from the longest and most severe heatwave since records were first taken 160 years ago. Temperatures consistently above 40°C for days at a time, a drought that is having dramatic effects on water distribution: over 60 Chinese rivers have dried up completely, and the iconic Yangtze is at its lowest level ever. Add to this the fact that later this year (if it has not actually already happened) China will be pushed into second place in the league table of the world’s most populous nations – by India – and it becomes understandable why some of the nation’s governing classes may consider the Middle Kingdom to be at risk of losing its cachet. To what effect, one wonders? Speculation by ‘Western’ pundits on the way in which events are interpreted and decisions arrived at in the Chinese leadership are rarely particularly fruitful, since the difference in mindsets and experiential bases are simply too great for accurate predictions to be made. Some see the cumulative pressures on China – current circumstances have had direct and detrimental effects on food production and industrial output, for example – as having the potential to drive expansionist policies. Others believe that any likely aggression will be channeled into a unilateral ‘resolution’ of the outstanding Taiwan question. That uncertainty is key to the question of security. Uncertainty leads to instability as politicians and populations ponder and prevaricate; instability causes greater sensitivity to the possibility of trigger events setting off a chain reaction of escalation in border incidents, mass migration, economic warfare, competition for
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