Whatever the cause turns out to be, the electricity transformer fire causing catastrophic infrastructure breakdown at Heathrow is a reminder of the perils of hybrid warfare – fast becoming a daily reality in Britain and most of Europe. Cyber attacks alone routinely cause millions of pounds of damage, sometimes billions, each month.
The architects of the Government’s Strategic Defence Review, due out in the next few weeks, are stressing that the country needs to wake up to the perils of different forms of conflict now facing us. The country has to up its game for resilience and security, at home and abroad. “We are in a state of war, and could be in combat in a very short time,” said one official connected to the new review.
This is behind the surge of activity by Keir Starmer in galvanizing allies and defence forces. He visited the Trident submarine HMS Vanguard on its return to the Faslane base after a record underwater patrol. He then went to Barrow to lay the keel of Vanguard’s successor to lead the Trident force, HMS Dreadnought.
***PHOTOS EMBARGOED UNTIL 2200 March 19th 2025 FOR PRINT AND 0001 FOR ALL OTHER PLATFORMS 17/03/2025. Scotland, United Kingdom. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey visits a Vanguard class submarine off the coast of Scotland as it returns home from a period of duty at sea. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
Keir Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey visit HMS Vanguard off the coast of Scotland as it returns home from duty at sea (Photo: Simon Dawson/No 10)
Thence he called in at the meeting of allied defence planners at the UK and Nato HQ in Northwood, Middlesex, with the “coalition of the willing” trying to put forward some sort of European force to monitor or assure armistice in Ukraine. Unfortunately, peace in Ukraine seems less likely by the day.
The Starmer visits may not have quite the high-octane theatricality of Queen Elizabeth I reviewing her Armada troops at Tilbury in 1588, but the purpose of the choreography is similar. Things have changed. Behind the scenes a huge public information campaign is being planned to explain the Strategic Defence Review and risks from the new kinds of hybrid warfare.
The shock of change was palpable at the memorial service at Sandhurst this week for General Sir Mike Jackson, one of the great commanders in the messy post-Cold-War conflicts. Friends and colleagues who had known Mike for years, among them the King, talked of a new reality. One distinguished general confided to me that he was shocked about the growing chasm between the militaries of Britain and America, and the cool he felt from former comrades in arms in the US.
Defence with less America
They were worried about the war in Ukraine and the changing attitude to it from Trump and his team. Both Russia and America were now reliable only in their unpredictability, though their brand of toxicity is different.
In no sense does this mean abandoning Ukraine, in its fight to remain a viable sovereign nation. Russia’s aim – and this has been reiterated in the past 24 hours by its official spokespeople – is to destroy Ukraine as an independent power and absorb it back into the Putin empire of the Russian Federation.
Behind the scenes across the European capitals this week, however, there has been a major shift in thinking. Capitals and military headquarters are now actively considering how to operate for their nations’ security without American guarantees and cover. This could mean forging a de facto alliance outside Nato itself.
This has split the community of think tanks and civilian analysts, on which the UK Government and Nato HQ rely heavily. Foremost of the think tanks is the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), founded by the Duke of Wellington in 1831, which works closely with government departments. It is firmly Atlanticist. One of its senior staff told a private meeting recently that “the US remains crucial to European security – the intelligence relationship [between UK and USA] cannot easily be broken.”
In contrast, voices from think tanks like Rand, with its main base in the US, stated baldly “the trans-Atlantic partnership is unravelling before our eyes. We are seeing a US pivot to Russia.’
The new defence arrangement, relying less on America, is now under active discussion leading up to the annual Nato summit to be held this year in The Hague in the last week of June. The meetings had been intended to focus on a relaunch of Nato strategy and deployment. Now it is looking more like a day of reckoning. America is now expected to flesh out Donald Trump’s election campaign pledge to pull back, if not pull out, from Nato and leave the Europeans to their own defences.
Already there have been hints from the Pentagon that the US no longer wants to claim the top military post of Supreme Allied Commander, which it has held since the day of Dwight D Eisenhower. “It looks as if they close to violation of the Washington Treaty, Nato’s foundation document,” said one highly placed Pentagon observer.
For Britain the dilemma is acute – especially on intelligence-sharing. The close ties with the US in global intelligence, through the Five Eyes Alliance and the shared Government Communications HQ at Cheltenham, and the Trident nuclear submarine force, are “almost impossible” to disentangle, according to RUSI analysts. “I just don’t think it’s going to happen,” one said privately.
AT SEA - MARCH 4: In this handout image provided by the Ministry of Defence (MoD), King Charles III visits the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, as the Royal Navy finalises preparations for a major global deployment to the Indo-Pacific this spring, on March 4, 2025 at sea. King Charles III was flown to the flagship in the English Channel during the closing stages of her intensive training, before the vessel sets sail for Japan on a mission promoting UK's defence partnerships. It is the first time in nearly 40 years that a reigning monarch paid a visit to a Royal Navy warship at sea.
King Charles III visits aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales in the Channel during training this month. It is the first time in nearly 40 years a reigning monarch has visied a Royal Navy warship (Photo: UK Ministry of Defence)
Britain and France are now under pressure to pool their military nuclear resources to help fill the gap if the US no longer provides European Nato with its nuclear umbrella. Nuclear preparedness and deterrence lie at the top of the hard-power agenda for the new ad hoc European alliance, which will include Canada. Germany and Poland are now pressing for France and the UK to develop tactical nuclear weapons, bombs, rockets and shells. Poland has said that they should be deployed forward into Poland itself.
This is in response to Russia’s change to its nuclear doctrine last year. Moscow said it would make first use of its own tactical nuclear weapons, if its sovereign territory, or that of an ally, were attacked by an ally of a Nato nuclear power. This could include occupied Ukraine, now regarded as part of homeland Russia, as well as Belarus where nuclear missiles and forces have been deployed recently.
Sticking with Ukraine
Professor Julian Lindley-French, chairman of the influential Alphen Group, thinks the new European formation is entirely feasible. It could be loosely attached to organisations like the EU’s defence and security structures. It should access the new funding for defence, initially €150bn leading possibly to €800bn. Britain must sign the long forecast Anglo-EU Security Treaty. Colleagues in Alphen, known as TAG, such as Rupert Smith, a highly successful UK operational commander and author of The Utility of Force, believes the new alliance both feasible and necessary.
The core “coalition of the willing” Euro-Canadian alliance has to stick with Ukraine, and the defence of Ukraine, because this will give the new formation time to organise, in terms of structure, strategy, personnel and equipment. One of the toughest asks will be replacing communication systems owned and patronised by the United States such as GPS and Starlink.
A basic aspect of military geography compels support for Ukraine. Any major land assault by Russia to disrupt or grab territory in western Europe, goes the Lindley-French and Smith analysis, has to come through Ukraine. This may seem alarmist, but Russia is now run by a regime and economy predicated on outright war, and involving the continuous mobilisation of more than a million-and-a-half soldiers and military.
This will become a hot debate when the 110-page Strategic Defence Review is published around Easter. Unusually, it is likely to be less a shopping list for defence forces, and more a series of debating points on the way forward for UK national security and resilience based on deep analysis and forecasting of intelligence.
So far, the SDR report, which is now completed, has been surrounded by a wall of silence, an omertá, astonishingly tight by Whitehall’s leaky standards. But a close source, speaking on condition of anonymity naturally, said quietly to me, “It is very far reaching, indeed, because it explains that we are very near a state of war – and in aspects of non-conventional hybrid warfare, we are actually in war. The problem is explaining this to the nation.”
Robert Fox is a defence expert and war correspondent who has reported from the Falklands, Middle East, Afghanistan and the Balkans