Kevin Townsend
The UK’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) details a plan to integrate its military defensive and offensive capabilities through increased use of cyber, AI, and digital warfighting.
Like the US, the UK is known, but not publicly proven, to engage in offensive cyber operations, even against allies. Among Snowden’s leaks was information about Operation Socialist, which ran from 2010 to 2013. GCHQ successfully used a Quantum Insert attack against Belgacom (Belgium’s largest telecoms provider).
Despite this, the UK has generally insisted that it does not engage in cyberwarfare – until now. The new SDR (PDF), published June 2, 2025, concentrates on integrating the UK’s offensive and defensive military capabilities on land, sea, and air – and in cyber.
This is a military review, but naturally includes real time collaboration with “the UK Intelligence Community [MI5, MI6, and GCHQ], to achieve maximum effect in response to national security challenges.” A major part of the review is the full and open acceptance of the role of cyber and the electromagnetic spectrum (CyberEM), together with increased use of AI in both defensive and offensive posture; and the need to integrate these capabilities.
“To maximize the benefits of cutting‑edge technology and of the common digital architecture, Defence must also make a concerted effort to develop the necessary digital, AI, cyber, and electromagnetic warfare skills that are central to modern warfighting.”
CyberEM is described as the heart of modern warfare. “It is the only domain contested by adversaries every day,” says the report. For example, the UK’s military networks reportedly received 90,000 ‘gray zone’ attacks over the last two years. (A gray zone attack is designed to disturb or weaken adversaries without triggering a full-scale military response.) Different UK forces already operate in the CyberEM domain,
but independently. These operations are both offensive and defensive, including the UK’s own gray zone activities against the networks or technologies used by adversaries.
No comments:
Post a Comment