“Whoever gets new technology into the hands of their Armed Forces the quickest will win”, writes Defence Secretary John Healey in his foreword to the government's new Strategic Defence Review (SDR). This is presumably meant to be encouraging and reassuring to the public, but to anyone who knows the slightest thing about military technology it should be a terrifying warning. New military technologies kill more people far quicker than previous generations of technology. They have a tendency to lower the threshold for the use of force; transfer the risks of war from soldiers to civilians; and allow governments to wage permanent warfare. They also generate incredibly damaging and wasteful arms races as states rush to keep up with their rivals: sucking up valuable resources that should be used for human development purposes.
One of the fields where new technologies are advancing at a rapid pace is the space domain, with developments in sensor and surveillance technology, artificial intelligence, and advanced radar now enabling states to extend their war-fighting capabilities both in space and on the ground. Recognising the importance of space in modern warfare, the SDR contains a modest three page chapter on space – a first for a UK government defence review.
The chapter argues that space technologies are one of a number of capabilities which are redefining warfare, and acknowledges the reality that there are “few internationally agreed rules and norms governing space-based activities, which makes planning and acting with certainty more difficult”. Unfortunately nothing is said about how this problem might be addressed, or the role which the UK might play on the international stage to address the lack of controls and regulation on space-based activities.
The government's priorities as set out in the SDR are reinforcing the UK's commitment to NATO and prioritizing European security; being ready to fight a war; and using new technologies to provide an advantage in warfare and create economic opportunities. The SDR's authors argue that following these priorities and the recommendations in the review would allow the UK “to take a more ambitious approach to assuring access to space, both on a sovereign basis and with NATO and other key allies”.
The review suggests that the UK should work with NATO on space matters, especially on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for European and Atlantic missile defence. This raises all kinds of questions, given that missile defence systems are seen by Russia, the UK's main adversary, as destabilizing and intended to give the US uncontested military domination over the world.
We can expect Russia to respond to US and NATO missile defence initiatives by modernising its nuclear delivery systems, developing new 'exotic weapons such as the Poseidon nuclear torpedo, and anti-satellite weapons, racking the global arms race up another rung.
Related to this is the concept of 'space control', with the SDR stating that to support UK “freedom of action in space”, investment should be “focused on Space Domain Awareness (such as Earth-based sensors), command and control at levels of classification above Secret (developed in cooperation with the UK Intelligence Community and allies such as the United States of America), and counterspace systems (both co-orbital and Earth-based)”. This seems like a recipe for space warfare: sensors for space domain awareness are used for identifying and tracking objects in space, which, of course, is a necessary first step before destroying them. For “counterspace systems” read anti-satellite weapons. Aware that in space warfare the UK's own satellites would also be vulnerable, the SDR points out that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) needs to “invest in the resilience of military space systems and the government needs to take steps to protect critical national infrastructure in space”.
The SDR argues that the UK's military space programme, already closely linked to the civil space sector, should exploit civilian space efforts even more explicitly. It calls for MoD to work with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to "ensure defence requirements are reflected in cross-government efforts to deliver resilient space-based PNT [position, navigation, and timing] systems”. A Cabinet sub-Committee should “set the UK’s strategic approach to space, maximising synergies between the UK civil space sector and military needs”.
In a similar vein, the SDR maintains that military needs have “an important role to play in shaping the UK space market and supporting exports to Europe, Asia, and the Middle East”. Space should be “a priority technology portfolio” for the new National Armaments Director role proposed elsewhere in the review, “creating closer links across the military, civil, and industrial space complex”. One aim of the SDR is a desire to use military spending to boost the economy, despite that fact that spending on health, education, and green energy schemes have been shown to deliver greater economic and employment benefits than military spending. This runs the risk of further militarising the UK's economy and society in same the way that China's 'military-civil fusion policy' – much criticised by Western governments – is said to have done.
Despite what politicians may say, military technology does not provide easy answers to complex global problems and disagreements between powerful states. Military and tech-led 'solutions' leave no room for the dialogue or discussion which is the only real way to resolve our differences. The Strategic Defence Review says nothing about non-military ways of resolving conflict, and it is left to non-government organisations to advocate for such approaches, through for example the excellent Alternative Defence Review and the invaluable work of Rethinking Security.
New technologies also come at a price - which is not cheap - so there is the question of how we will pay for them. Back in the Thatcher era, when Cold War military spending rose year on year as public services were slashed, it used to be a standing joke that Britain had the best defended dole queues in the world. Now we seem to have the best defended hospital waiting lists in the world.
