Tag: Security

Defense Needs

I’m a simple creature. Not too difficult to agree. Controlling a country’s border is one of the fundamental aspects of national security. However, it’s one amongst many and it’s not the single most important. Certainly, I’d put provisioning and training of the country’s military personnel above that of basic border control. It’s possible to carry more than one priority. What’s important is to put those priorities in the right order.

There’s a lot to be said for the notion of speaking softly and carrying a big stick[1]. Possessing strength is as much about perception as reality. But if the gap between the two grows too far then trouble is just around the corner.

Thus, the media obsession with immigration, at a time when it’s clear that the peace dividend that has been taken since the falling of the Berlin Wall has gone too far, is an indulgence. It’s missing the point by a million miles. Putting up more barriers and walls is not a way of building strength. The past should teach us that lesson. Dare I say, a lot of people are being led by the nose in the wrong direction.

Saying that we live in turbulent times can be a predicable line. Turbulence, in one part of the world or another, is a constant. However, in today’s mishmash of geopolitical movements, we here in Europe have been fortunate, at least in the last 40-years.

The Cold War was a clear and present danger to our way of life. That story was played out as I left school. The prospect of an accidental nuclear catastrophe was real. As such the UK invested in national defence along with its close allies. Sometimes not wisely, it’s true, but the threat was well understood. As the threat appeared to diminish so government spending habits changed. For perfectly understandable reasons the end of the Cold War ushered in a period in which society focused less on military provisioning. Government turned its attention to issues that were more at the forefront of day-to-day public demands. Blown by the winds of regular media frenzies.

Yesterday, in the rain, I visited a local arts centre. Greenham Common[2] is now an industrial estate and open parkland. The military runway has long been ripped up. That’s good. What we shouldn’t forget is the history of the place.

Big stick diplomacy is about sober confidence that is backed by an unquestionable capability for immediate action. It seems to me that the UK has slipped a long way from that philosophy. Recent events have tested the gap between words and deeds.

Where does the cacophony of voices about immigration came from? One source is political parties that take money from foreign donors. Another is media organisations who have a track record for backing the wrong people. Another is spokespeople who don’t have the UK’s best interests at heart. Yet, these all get massive amounts of press coverage.

The current US President may have a considerable number of faults. In one area he’s right. It’s not easy to say he’s right. Europe must stand on its own two feet. That’s a Europe that includes the UK. Our national security is only sustainable by working closely with our neighbours.

So, we need to get off a short-term media obsession about immigration.

Start being serious about what we spend on defence and why. The government’s defence investment plan, originally scheduled for last year, needs to be settled and put into action. There’s no point in talking big and carrying a lesser stick. In fact, it’s dangerous.

POST: Industry calls for closer links Fast-Tracking EU-UK Defence Industrial Cooperation: a critical reset – ADS Group

[1] widely attributed to US President Theodore Roosevelt.

[2] https://visitnewbury.org.uk/attractions/raf-greenham-common-crookham-common/

Global

Our everyday life is built on an assumption of freedom of navigation. It’s not always easy to relate to this reality but there it is. Goods move around the globe. I illustrated this uncomfortable fact the other day by saying let’s just sit down and look around. Observe the room.

Sitting in my living room. How many items came to us by ship? Over the ocean. All the electronic goods for sure. The furniture? Some yes and some no. The carpet, maybe not. The curtains, the material for sure. Books? Some yes and some no. Radiators? Surely, made in the UK. However, even the items that were manufactured in the UK needed materials that were imported. Strip away all the imported goods and materials and there’s not much left. The cupboard would be bare.

Now, look at what I’m wearing. My clothes all got here by container ship. I’m not wearing up market attire only everyday wear. Down to my underwear it’s imported. If I did an inventory of my wardrobe there’s not much that was made here.

Take the cup of tea in my hand. Well, the cup might be domestically manufactured but the tea doesn’t grow here. True the milk in my tea is well and truly English. No sugar. I never take sugar.

My point is clear. The days when everything in an Englishman’s home was manufactured in the England have long gone. That day was a long time ago. Almost a pre-industrial period. Our imperial past was such that imported goods have always been a huge part of everyday life.

Today’s automatic assumption of the freedom of navigation stems from post-war settlements. Agreements and institutions flourished in the post-war period. They created and reinforced conventions that assured freedoms of navigation by air and sea. Something we all too easily take for granted. Almost totally ignore.

Since Reagan and Thatcher, it would be hard to find an international management school that didn’t emphasis the benefits liberalised markets and global supply chains.

Post-war the world went from a period when freedom of navigation that was secured by air forces and gunboats to a period when it was secured by agreement and mutual interest. Obviously, the subject is not entire so simple since conflict has always been occurring somewhere on the globe.

National sovereignty remains at the core of the agreements that exist. There is no such thing as world government and international law can be brittle to say the least. Amongst those who benefit from it, there’s a strong interest in upholding and protecting freedom of navigation. Those acts that disrupt or challenge freedom of navigation will always meet a response.

So, this week’s developments to protect international shipping routes through the Red Sea should come as no surprise. It’s a different matter as to whether they are right or wrong. Or whether the military action that has been taken will work.

Our western tendency to expect a rational response to a rational action maybe flawed. However, the aggressor in this case has interests that may not make any sense to us.

Next Decade Aviation

Here, I thought I’d speculate on what’s coming our way. That’s looking at the next ten-years.

Although this maybe contradictory to my earlier writings the subject is by no means all or nothing. Aviation is a technology-based means of mobility. Without the technology component there is no flight. Aviation a youthful industry when compared with ships, roads, and rail.

On the other hand, people are at the heart of the aviation system. That’s particularly true in assuring its stability, safety, and security. People create, innovate and fix systems when they fail. People make go-no go decisions. People protect systems from attack.

Commercial aviation maybe a youthful industry but it has an inbuilt conservatism. It’s the characteristic of not wishing to change when systems are working well. This has both and upside and downside.

A maturity of rules, regulations, processes, and procedures comes about by continuous improvement. By people learning. However, it’s often the case that industry does not reflect the society that it serves. People are excluded or walk away when expectations are dashed.

Across the globe, the future of the aviation workforce depends upon change. There again is a rub. People operating in a successful system rarely welcome change. Especially, if the drivers for that change come from outside the tight knit community of aviation professionals.

The first decades of the jet-age were characterised by a sense of adventure, glamour, and pride. As commercial aviation became available to a wider traveling public there was a gradual opening to professional entrants from most sections of society, even if that was predominantly male.

Now, big company traditional career paths are more an exception rather than the norm. Aviation competes with other industries at a time of rapid digital transformation. This has the impact of opening a wide range of options to potential professional entrants. In the coming decade the trend is going to advance.

A successful aviation industry organisation looks for skills and behaviours as much as it looks for raw technical talent. Assuring stability, safety, and security means having a responsible attitude, an instinct to challenge and question.

Today in the post-pandemic world, the industry is going through a period some people have called the “great resignation”. A generation have walked away from the pressure and stresses of the crisis. Industry behaviour, in a rush to cut costs, exasperated this by treating people exceptionally poorly.

For a sustainable future, commercial aviation needs to work to eliminate the hire and fire cycle. The global aviation industry needs to think and act differently. Aviation needs to get off the trap of the “similar-to-me” effect found in hiring. When a selection bias dominates potential professional entrants are put off. Talented young people are likely to choose meritocratic employment where rewards are there for achievement and commitment regardless of non-relevant factors.

Some work will be replaced by automation. However, retaining aviation people with people skills, regardless of background, will be invaluable in the next decade.

Cyber

Now, where did that word come from? My earliest recollection is the scariest adversary of Dr Who. The cybermen hit the small screen back in 1966. This fiction of an amalgam of machine and human is particularly scary. This was the fabled monster that drove young children to hide behind the sofa. The BBC hasn’t given-up on this character. Somehow, these fictional metal-men are almost certainly going to retrun to run amok and devastate humanity.

Patrick Stewart being assimilated by the Borg is a mega dramatic cliff-hanger. The Cylons[1] obliterating the colonies sent humanity on a runaway across the endless expanse of space. The indestructible killing machine of the Terminator was a huge box office success. There’s a recuring theme. In the popular imagination the combination of machine and human is thought of as fundamental threat. The enemy is the machine that transforms human mind and body into a single-minded demon intent on mischief or destruction.

By this reckoning you might think that “cyber security” was a Robocop like police force committed to routing out bad cyborgs. Yet, that’s nothing like the common usage of the term. There’s a certain threat, and it does involve digital systems and humans. However, in this century they are not yet[2] wandering around doing unpleasant things to all and sundry.

Strangely enough the term “cybernetics” has been around for a long-time. It’s not about robots. It came into being before modern digital systems and the silicon revolution were kicked-off. In part, cyber was coined as a way of expressing the almost magical qualities of feedback processes. It was wide-ranging, in that this term described natural as well as mechanical systems. In the words’ origins there was nothing sinister or chilling implied.

In 2023, “cyber security” is how we reduce the risk of cyber-attack[3]. Not a great description but let’s just say the notion is dealing with a recognised threats in digital systems.

This wasn’t something that was commonplace until the Personal Computer (PC), its software and the INTERNET connected billions of people. The normal human limitations that constrained our sphere of influence have been extended across the globe. Now, bad actors intentionally doing bad things can be based anywhere on the planet.

Since they are human actors, they are mighty creative and inventive. These people are a constant threat, like the Borg[4] that adapts and modifies what they do so as to counter any actions to defeat them. Our defence can’t be as that of the Battleship Galactica, disconnection, we are going to have to find another way. Unlike some threats there’s little chance this one will ever go away.

[1] https://ew.com/gallery/battlestar-galactica-12-things-you-need-know-about-cylons/

[2] https://www.bostondynamics.com/

[3] https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/section/about-ncsc/what-is-cyber-security

[4] https://intl.startrek.com/database_article/borg