The Icebox

Geopolitically inactive...

Note: armed forces is used to refer to all military capabilities of a country or group of countries, including land, sea, and air.

  1. Stop procuring (big) ships
    As detailed in [1], ships are no better defended than 70 years ago, move no faster, and are essentially large targets.

    Buying smaller, cheaper vessels reduces cost by allowing mass production to be employed. If the vessels are all based on the same technology platforms, it is easier and cheaper to maintain them - akin to how budget airlines work (easyJet and Ryanair have fleets that are practically identical). Smaller ships are also faster to build, and may be just as effective (in terms of firepower) than larger frigates and destroyers.

    Moving bulky equipment around is a benefit of ships, buy with the advent of the shipping container, standardised design could be used across all military equipment to increase transport efficiencies. This would be because using the same platform technology (the shipping container) would allow for synergies across the entire defence establishment (using the same equipment or variations of). Taking civilian technology also means no development costs have to be paid, and the equipment is widely available. Additionally, the UK only has one 'auxiliary ship' - a logistic vessel to resupply other ships. It is currently not usable, as it is being overhauled. Regardless, many of our vessels are likely to have adequate range to reach a 'friendly' state in which they could resupply. Therefore, I would argue that this function is not necessary. Strong rail connections with the rest of Europe, through the Channel Tunnel, would also negate the need for ships to move large equipment around. It is likely that any conflict the UK is involved in would be in neighbouring states, so needing to transport tanks half-way around the world is unlikely.

    Using a mass production supplier, such as Damen, also reduces procurement costs. As demonstrated with the vessel 'Patrick Blunkett', it is possible to obtain vessels that meet specifications, while being underbudget and delivered early. Lethargy in the traditional channels necessitates solutions to increase the UK's ability to defend itself.

    Likewise, big submarines are a liability. If a shift to a defence-focused armed forces was done, a nuclear second-strike capability could be maintained but would likely be incredibly expensive and have few benefits. As demonstrated during the start of 2024, the UK's trident nuclear weapon system is aging and failing - after two test launches of missiles from nuclear submarines failed. Switching to cheaper submarine drones, as discussed in [2], would allow for better defensive capability. The UK has some very advanced submarine drones used for scientific research, so taking that technology and developing it for defensive use would likely lead to good outcomes against even very powerful opponents.

[1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/people-are-realizing-that-the-arsenal/comment/44514354
[2] https://www.alphr.com/the-future/1003587/the-submarine-drones-that-could-depower-trident/

  1. Sort out the recruitment crisis

    The armed forces have consistently failed to meet their recruitment targets, and recent news reports have highlighted the net loss of individuals. However, there have also been reports that conscription may be reinstated to boost numbers (like Sweden, which has reintroduced a form of conscripted national service). This will not work in the UK, if it is brought in. Many younger people (who have been abandoned by the state to some degree or another) would not be willing to serve the armed forces. I do agree, and would probably find a minor technicality absolving me (such as vision requirements or something else).

    If compulsory national service is reintroduced, it would require at the absolute minimum a new government. That government would need to: a) build houses and control house price increases to make housing affordable for all, b) remove any age requirements requiring everyone to serve, c) use an event of national pride (akin to the 2012 Olympics) in an attempt to bring everyone together. I think it is largely infeasible to do those actions in any reasonable time, and it will take many, many years to shift the Overton window sufficiently to make the required policies for conscription to become palatable.

    The only way for the armed forces to overcome their recruitment woes is to work on promoting the positions they have available. They need to improve the working conditions, the salaries. Perhaps they could partner with NCS. It is not right for the MoD to target more deprived areas, or disadvantaged children. Instead, they could work with rehabilitation programmes - this would have the advantage of also reducing recidivism while supporting the armed forces targets.

    The (relatively) recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by bad information and misleading by senior elected officials hasn't helped the image either. A new 'contract' should be implemented, describing when the UK government will send the armed forces into danger. It should never be for political purposes. I would argue it is only acceptable to use the armed forces for defence against intrusions into the UK's internationally recognised territories, and for humanitarian purposes where the recipient country has agreed to the contribution and is in line with international activities.

  2. Insource the production of weapons

    The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated how poor weapons and munition manufacturing supply chains are. Both the US and UK (the two highest funded western militaries) have almost exhausted their supplies of munitions. Other countries are not in much better states. This puts the two countries in poor positions as geopolitical tensions rise further.

    While war isn't the solution to these problems, it is perhaps an inevitable fact that a leader, in the coming years, will use it to escalate further. The high number of elections this year (including the UK and US) are expected to raise tensions further - particularly if Trump is selected as president in the US.

    With large consolidations amongst munitions and defence equipment manufacturers, there is less resilience in the supply chain. This is probably due to shareholder pressures seeking higher returns on their investments. It probably doesn't help that many US elected officials have financial interests in these manufactures and so can clear any regulatory hurdles that may lead to them becoming richer. Perhaps a change of company structure here, placing a social impact calculation on their decisions (like B Corp or public benefit corporations) would improve resilience here. Or maybe bringing development and manufacture of weapons systems into armed forces would allow for greater control of both costs and capacity.

    One could argue that insourcing many activities would generally be beneficial, especially after the selling of national assets (water, electricity, gas, …). It can be advantageous to use companies to spread research and development costs across several buyers, but the developments of technology within the armed forces could be sold through commercial arms. This could be similar to Airbus (25% owned by the French, German, and Spanish governments) or Naval Group (almost entirely owned by the French government), allowing the sharing of expertise and manufacturing facilities across many different states. Or

  3. Invest in rail

    The conflict in Ukraine has shown how important rail transport and logistics are in preventing advancements by enemy forces. If an army is well organised, it will have far greater chances of success, even against a more formidable opponent.

    Rail transport is highly efficient - using very little fuel to move a lot of equipment. Although one of its disadvantages is that it is more centralised, ensuring there are backup routes that can be used would help. Exploiting the Channel Tunnel would also be advantageous, removing the risks of transporting equipment by sea to continental Europe. This would also improve the UK's economy during peace time. The infrastructure in the UK is currently over capacity, and investment on stressed regions would give massive improvement to the passenger experience. It would also support the UK's transition to net zero.

  4. Porcupine strategy

    The porcupine strategy has been suggested (or maybe forced!) by the US in Taiwan. [1] By having many small, but damaging defences within the country, it is possible to be highly hostile to enemy forces. This strategy has also proven effective in Ukraine.

    Using smaller, cheaper, and more nimble defences allows for more constant bombardment of the opposition. For example, Ukraine has used cheap Chinese drones to have highly targeted bombs at a fraction of the cost of a Javelin (or equivalent) weapon that would be used by the NATO forces. Improving the ability to manufacture these sorts of devices in the west should be a priority, as currently virtually all of the world's advanced microprocessors are manufactured in Taiwan, and electronics manufacturing is generally expensive or impossible in Europe and north America. This would require reforming defence procurement and contracting, reducing the influence certain monopolous manufacturer's have. Supporting local manufacturers would also improve resilience when supply chains are disrupted.

    Other defences could also be incorporated into this strategy. Having a well trained 'civilian army' could be beneficial here (but that is probably hard to implement politically for many reasons). Attempting to decentralise defence makes many more targets an opposition force would have to take out before a significant reduction in the UK's capabilities.

[1] https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1814&context=nwc-review

  1. Technology resilience

    Society is so reliant on technology that any interruption would be drastic and far reaching. Even a 30 minute complete outage of payment infrastructure would cause chaos, with many not having access to alternative means for payment. O2 had issues with its mobile network a few years ago, preventing their customers from being able to make telephone calls. Whenever one of the large content delivery networks has an issue, vast swathes of the internet become inaccessible.

    So many of these services are reliant on international and undersea fibre optic cables to function. With a number of attacks on undersea infrastructure (sub-sea fibre optics around Scotland, Nord Stream I, …) in recent years, it is likely many armed forces have the capability to break these connections. Due to the importance of these links, we should work on improving resilience. The recent shift towards decentralised services (think Mastodon, Matrix, even email, ...) allows for more resilience and while many tech companies would resist this shift, it is important to prevent huge disruption from any potential attacks.

    It is important to ensure safeguards are in place with in-shoring or near-shoring infrastructure like this. Privacy concerns should be addressed fully, ensuring there is not indiscriminate and unfettered access to personal information. I would argue it is in the national interest to use strong E2EE by default - this prevents signals intelligence being used on the populous as a whole, making it harder for unfriendly states to attempt to produce propaganda.

    Developing resilient communication systems (if they are not already existent) should be a priority. Using an open source technology like LoRaWan would reduce costs, and allow flexibility in the network's use for future requirements. For example, if major communication cables were sabotaged (as happened with the Deutsche Bahn signalling system [1]) a wireless mesh network would be able to continue functioning. The low power requirements of LoRa would allow fully independent operation (with something like solar or wind), and the low cost would allow the network to be so pervasive it would be almost impossible to destroy. Remote sensor networks could be employed, using multi-year long battery life to continue providing information even after an event. The technology could also be used for communication, which would be beneficial if other systems were disrupted.

    Using technology like Matrix would also improve resilience. Huge swathes (if not all) of the public sector are reliant on cloud services provided by Microsoft - these could easily be disrupted, and due to Microsoft being a US company raise privacy concerns (PRISM, …). Matrix is a decentralised communication protocol widely used within the French and German governments. I believe this is being used by the UK Government in some form (but is probably an isolated trial and not a large rollout).

    Investment in cyber security is critical in the coming years. As demonstrated by the 'WannaCry' ransomware attack on the NHS in 2017, using legacy computer systems that are not maintained will result in failure. This is caused by a lack of interest by the government. The west is using cyberweapons (Stuxnet, …), and other countries are too (Russia, DPRK, …). Finding holes in critical systems for the function of society is critical before it is too late. [2] Technology supremacy is important as the world begins to re-fragment, due to the requirement of the internet to be a global network (the internet would not work as fragmented networks - globalisation is too critical for it to function).

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/8d897c26-e9cc-4a16-82da-4ef393e583c3 [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15MaSayc28c

  1. Improving energy security

    Energy is vitally important to successful logistics in a conflict. Progressively, the UK has sold off many of its energy assets to foreign states: nuclear power to EDF (French government), oil and gas pipelines to the Spanish, offshore wind to the Danish, …

    Some of these sales made no economic sense, with the oil pipeline network being sold to Exolum for £82mn, to which the MoD then paid £237mn over the next 10 years to rent capacity back. Liquid fuels are (at least currently) the sole form of power to military equipment.

    Funding research into renewable fuels that can be produced locally (such as algae, methanol, ammonia, …) would improve resilience by reducing reliance on petrochemical states (OPEC, …). This technology could be exploited in the private sector as well: shipping and aviation are both looking for more sustainable and cheaper fuels (and it is likely the significant advance in this field will only come from the military sector). Lithium batteries would likely not be suitable. It may be that this is due to a fire or explosion risk (both undesirable around explosives) but the risk of this is likely no greater than with petroleum. I think battery electric vehicles would be unsuitable due to the high weights required to have adequate range (at least, with current technology), and the slower recharging (again, with current technology).

    It's also important that a country has a reliable, local supply of electricity. With the electrification of more things, demand will increase, and will become more essential to the function of society. Building out networks of nuclear reactors and renewable energy will be the only way to overcome this. The UK government has been funding research into 'small modular reactors', using the same technology as nuclear submarines, and these will probably be the best way to improve energy security. SMRs can be built on a production line, before installing them at their final location, reducing cost. Nuclear fuels are highly abundant on Earth, and can easily be stockpiled before their use. Reprocessing at Sellafield (one of the only facilities in the world capable of doing so) would allow energy independence for the foreseeable future. Until nuclear fusion exists as a viable technology, SMRs will probably be the way forward. Renewable energy is considerably more variable in output, but would still have a place in providing energy security. Variable loads, such as from arc furnaces, could be timed to exploit high renewable production, preventing spikes in price to the rest of the country.

  2. Civil defence

    Civil defence is probably the best aim for the armed forces. Repeated failures in overseas conflict have demonstrated the inadvisability of 'hard power' interventions. Instead, making the UK more resilient and better prepared for all issues and risks that could face it. Whether they are pandemics or combat, having strong civil defence infrastructure would allow rapid responses.

    This would require drastic changes from the status quo, and would take time. However, with budget constraints and the recruitment issues facing the armed forces, it is probably the best route forward. Sell the aircraft carriers that keep leaking and breaking down, and get some equipment that is useful to the defence of the UK.

  3. Bioweapons

    The risks of bioweapons will increase over the coming years. Accessibility to the equipment required to synthesise this class of weapons is beginning to approach being accessible to anyone with a strong enough conviction. Although these sorts of attacks would result in mutually assured destruction, there are likely groups that could acquire the knowledge and willpower to release these.

    Improving the resilience to pandemic and having adequate capacity in the healthcare system are probably the only two methods to improve resilience within the UK. Reinstating the network of disease surveillance labs the US CDC had developed would be a good plan, allowing early warning of a potential attack.

    It will not be possible to prevent the technology and knowledge required for bioweapons to be contained - the point of no return has been passed. However, the risks can and should be mitigated.

[1] The Coming Wave, Mustafa Suleyman (2023)