UK: Natural Disaster Is Greater National Security Concern Than Any Foreign Military Threat

A National Security Review says the greatest threat to the UK is not war with another country …

From DATELINE ZERO – There’s plenty of “shock and awe” in Britain right now, as the military begins to experience pain from cutting and reshuffling defense assets. The days of direct military threat from some other country are simply in the past, as far as the Ministry of Defense is concerned.

Climate change is now a more pressing national security issue than tanks and planes.

The revised order of threats are now:

1. Terror attack
2. Cyber attack
3. Natural disaster
4. Military conflict with foreign nations

Some military leaders are positively furious about the inevitable defense restructuring, which began already.

Recent cuts have included sending aircraft carriers out without aircraft. Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord West said, “If, God forbid, the Argentinians invade the Falklands, it would be totally impossible for this country, even if we had an Army of ten million, to do anything about it.”

Center for Defense Studies recently reported that Her Majesty’s government has been “preparing to implement a national austerity package that could trim up to 20 percent from Britain’s $60 billion defense budget.”

Angry military commanders are actually accusing Defense Secretary Liam Fox of drinking while making these decisions; and according to the Daily Mail, some are going so far as to suggest Fox should be removed.

Colonel Richard Williams, a former SAS commander, told BBC Radio 4′s Today program that there is a romanticized view of the Royal Military of the late 1900s, and that such emotional attachment could get in the way of clear thinking while restructuring defense assets.

Colonel Williams explained, “Dad’s Army is a particularly fond image, but actually if you look at the models of the combat capabilities deployed it doesn’t meet up with the potential we are proposing.”

To place things into historical focus, Center for Defense Studies points outthat “if earlier proposals come to bear, the Royal Air Force could see its numbers contract to its smallest size since World War I.”

“Dad’s Army,” as Colonel Williams called it, didn’t have to contend with cyber warfare and the inevitability of climate-related conflict — which is on a list of defense problems as British defense officials look toward an uncertain future.

The Daily Mail reports that “a new national security strategy … will downgrade possible military conflict with another state to fourth in a list of threats facing the UK.” At the top of the list is a “terrorist attack, which could involve nuclear or chemical weapons, followed by cyber-attacks and natural disasters.”

The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR)  is available online as a PDF via www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers, and will be hashed out by the British government next week.

Terrorist threats and cyber attacks are understandable. But natural disasters?

Here’s the question: does this mean that the British defense leaders believe that (A) foreign military threats have diminished that greatly, or (B) that natural disasters have increased in probability? Perhaps the answer is both ‘A’ and ‘B.’

Whatever the case may be, it seems that the UK is quietly making preparations for floods, earthquakes, and more. It will be interesting to see how much of the budget is going to allocated this.

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