SAS takes fight to meddling Russians
Britain’s SAS soldiers will be told to disrupt Russian meddling around the world as part of a major shake-up of defence priorities.
The SAS and other units in the Special Forces Group will work alongside MI6 to conduct covert surveillance operations against Russian spies and military units.
Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, the Chief of the General Staff, said that special forces will be tasked with tackling ‘‘hostile state actors’’.
The move comes ahead of the publication of the Defence Command Paper, the MoD’s contribution to the Government’s Integrated Review of foreign, defence, security and development policy, which is due to be published today.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, says that Britain must reinvent its armed forces for the 21st century as the threat it faces ‘‘has changed beyond recognition’’ in 30 years.
He says: ‘‘Our enemies have infinitely more options. Encryption, precision, and information operations complicate the threat picture.
‘‘We find ourselves constantly confronted in the ‘‘grey zone’’ – that limbo land between peace and war. So conflict prevention is more critical than ever.’’
In a new Battle of the Atlantic, the Royal Navy will deploy a ‘‘spy ship’’ to stop Russian submarines sabotaging Britain’s internet by damaging undersea cables.
Due in service by 2024, the Multi Role Ocean Surveillance ship will help protect critical national infrastructure such as undersea cables which carry trillions of dollars of financial transfers each day and transmit — per cent of the world’s global communications.
The command paper will see an extra £3 billion given to the army, £120 million of which will be used to create the new Special Operations Brigade, based around a Ranger Regiment of four battalions. But it will also see cuts. As many as 10,000 troops are expected to be lost and senior members of the armed forces face future pay cuts.
The last remaining C-130J Hercules aircraft are also expected to be axed in plans to be unveiled by the MoD tomorrow.
The aircraft – affectionately known as the ‘‘Fat Albert’’ – has been a highly versatile workhorse of the military as its propeller engines allowed it to operate from rough surfaces like deserts or beaches.
The Hercules roles will be taken on by the recently introduced A400M aircraft, although the fleet has suffered serviceability issues and has yet to earn soldiers’ trust.
The new tasks for the SAS will be complemented by the Rangers – the army’s new battalions of troops to advise partner forces around the world and go into battle with them.
Carleton-Smith said that in future special forces ‘‘will be tracking the changing and accelerating nature of the threat’’.
‘‘The most persistent and lethal threats are those associated with hostile state actors,’’ he added. ‘‘So they’re tracking a different trajectory and what they leave behind is a vacuum where they need to hand off tasks, missions and responsibilities to a second echelon force. The Rangers will fit neatly into that.’’
Tackling hostile states has previously been run by the security services such as MI6 and GCHQ.
The hostile states CarletonSmith referred to are likely to be Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Of these, Russia is considered the most pressing security concern.