Army chief calls for British military to fight cyber attacks

THE military should be deployed to combat cyber attacks, the new head of the Army has said.

In his first speech since being appointed, Gen Mark Carleton-smith described how the modern battlefield had expanded rapidly, and was “no longer bound by laws of physics”.

Opening the Land Warfare Conference, hosted by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Gen Carleton-smith added that “revolution is the new evolution” and warned “existential threats occur at the speed of the internet”.

The new Chief of the General Staff warned of growing evidence that the cyber domain is being used to undermine Western societies.

He suggested military forces should be employed as part of a national response to a crisis earlier, warning: “Success will depend on operating across multiple domains, jointly, cross-government and multi-nationally.”

Responding, Lord Hague, the chairman of RUSI, called for Nato to develop an “Article 5B” to counter hostile action in cyberspace. Article 5, the fundamental principle that underpins Nato, says that an attack on one member state is considered an attack on all.

The former Conservative leader added the country that leads the world in Artificial Intelligence by 2040 will be as powerful as the country that led in nuclear weapons research in 1940.

Lord Hague also described the “vast misunderstanding” between the West and Russia, but stopped short of directly criticising Moscow.