UK to build up defences against Chinese space weapons

As Russia and China develop new offensive weapons, we are aggressively modernising our Army

BRITAIN will bolster its ability to fend off threats from China and Russia in space as part of the most comprehensive defence review since the Cold War, Ben Wallace says today.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Defence Secretary warns that “China too are developing offensive space weapons”, after the UK and US accused Russia of testing a weapon-like projectile that could target satellites.

Mr Wallace states the integrated defence review, which will report to Boris Johnson next year, will lead to the Ministry of Defence “pivoting away” from a focus on conventional warfare, with the department “reshaped to operate much more in the newest domains of space, cyber and sub-sea”.

The Government will adopt “nextgeneration defence” as it seeks to “outmanoeuvre our adversaries with a sharper technological edge and relentless focus on innovation”, he pledges.

It comes after MPs warned that a weapon said to have been fired from a Russian satellite earlier this month could “cripple” the UK’s systems. Moscow dismissed the claims as “propaganda”.

Yesterday, Will Whitehorn, the president of UKspace, the industry body, warned such missiles could spell “the end of space”. He told Radio 4’s Today: “If you actually fired at other satellites, space would quickly become a field of massive shrapnel and, as you can imagine, that would be the end of space.”

Today, Mr Wallace writes: “Russia is not alone. China too are developing offensive space weapons … Such behaviour only underlines the importance of the review the Government is currently conducting into our foreign, security, defence and development policy – the deepest and most radical since the end of the Cold War.”

Lt Gen Sir Simon Mayall, a former deputy chief of defence staff, urged the UK to push against anti-satellite weapon development, adding: “The consequences [are] for every nation on Earth of some kind of catastrophic confrontation in space because we are so reliant on satellites.”

One year since taking up the privileged post of Defence Secretary, it feels like the right time to assess what we’ve achieved in the past 12 months and where we go next. I returned to Defence two decades after leaving the British Army and was immediately struck by the UK Armed Forces’ remarkable agility and resilience. Within days I watched our helicopters swoop to save those threatened by flooding at Whaley Bridge. I saw the Royal Navy rapidly deliver humanitarian aid for the hurricane-hit Bahamas and speed to the Strait of Hormuz to protect UK shipping from Iranian interference. And that was all in my first month.

More recently, in the eye of the coronavirus storm, Defence resilience once more came to the fore. Our heroic NHS doctors and nurses were truly on the front line, but the Armed Forces were right behind them – airlifting to hospitals or providing military planners to Whitehall departments.

By the end of this month we’ll have passed another milestone on the road to normality when our Armed Forces hand over their work on the coronavirus national testing programme to civilian contractors. It has been an immense effort and a perfect example of how Defence contributes to the nation’s security and resilience through their professionalism and responsiveness.

In just seven days, soldiers from 66 Works Group, Royal Engineers, created a mobile testing unit from scratch. Just hours after the first unit was assembled, it was on the road, and since then more than 2,780 service personnel have set up 218 mobile testing units, with a daily capacity of 87,200. They’ve deployed more than 8,000 times, been operational for almost one million testing hours and conducted nearly 750,000 tests.

Meanwhile, the pandemic did not deter or distract our adversaries. The mounting threats we face have not gone away. It has reminded me that we must prepare for the potential crises to come. Today we have been dealing with a viral outbreak. Tomorrow it could be a high-level cyber-attack, or a terrorist chemical weapons release.

This week we have been reminded of the threat Russia poses to our national security with the provocative test of a weapon-like projectile from a satellite threatening the peaceful use of space. Space, and our access to it, is fundamental to our way of life. We’ve called on Russia to avoid further testing and urge them to work constructively with us and other partners to be responsible in space.

But Russia is not alone. China, too, is developing offensive space weapons and both nations are upgrading their capabilities. Such behaviour only underlines the importance of the review the Government is currently conducting into our foreign, security, defence and development policy – the deepest and most radical since the end of the Cold War.

The world I knew while a serving soldier at the end of the Cold War has changed beyond recognition.

It is moving at an unprecedented pace and defence must move with it. Our adversaries go further, deeper and higher. The binary distinction between peace and war has vanished.

The MoD that emerges from this review will be a much more threat-lead organisation, pivoting away from what we have become used to in recent decades, and reshaped to operate much more in the newest domains of space, cyber and sub-sea.

This will be a next-generation Defence – its forces prepared for persistent global engagement, ready for constant campaigning and able to transit between operating and fighting as required. As traditional conflict shifts, and cyber and data become the battleground, we must outmanoeuvre our adversaries with a sharper technological edge and relentless focus on innovation. Defence has huge value to industry and, with the right focus, will unlock opportunities in jobs, in skills and in exports.

When I arrived in the job a year ago, I never imagined our military would find themselves responding to one of the most serious crises of modern times in the coronavirus pandemic. The people of the UK admirably rose to that immense challenge. It is a privilege to serve them. But we are not going to sit around waiting for the next crisis to come to us. In the coming 12 months we will be building a modern, integrated, and more resilient Armed Forces – embracing regulars, reserves, specialists and the unconventional. Making sure that, whatever lies around the corner, our future force has got it covered.