If we let Ukraine fall, Taiwan’s next — then we really will be at war - Grant Shapps, Former Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom
Each day as defence secretary I would review top secret briefings. These highly classified documents, some of which are only otherwise shared with the prime minister, contained the latest intelligence from our global analysts, military strategists and foreign policy advisers.
The quality of British intelligence is outstanding. I read these papers with considerable interest, frequently calling for more information, sometimes summoning an intelligence officer to elaborate on a specific point, perhaps to better appreciate how much weight to attach to a particular nugget of information.
We get our intelligence from a variety of sources. Each has its own acronym. There’s signals intelligence (or Sigint) — data collected by intercepting communications. Human intelligence (or Humint) is the approach often taken by Bond and Smiley in your favourite spy novels. And then there’s open-source intelligence (or Osint). This is intelligence gathered from publicly available sources like newspapers, social media, academic papers and speeches.
There are many others, but if I had to rely on just one, it would definitely be the last. Why? Because historically it has proved incredibly reliable.
Need 14 years’ notice of Hitler’s desire to invade the rest of Europe? No problem: he openly set out his plans in Mein Kampf, published in 1925. That’s classic Osint.
Looking for a heads-up a year before Vladimir Putin’s full-scale Ukraine invasion? Easy: read the dictator’s 2021 essay in which he asserts that Ukraine is an inseparable part of Russia. A black-and-white example of Osint, in case you missed his earlier invasion of Crimea.
Or perhaps you want to understand China’s plan to take over Taiwan. Simple. The People’s Republic of China has made its position clear hundreds of times with speeches, documents and policy declarations in which President Xi has made “reunification” a central tenet of his leadership. Unsurprisingly, democratic Taiwan is deeply uneasy about being absorbed by its giant authoritarian neighbour.
And yet, despite this mass of available intelligence, the world is somehow failing to grasp the importance of this coming Indo-Pacific war. If you are wondering whether a conflict on a small island 6,000 miles away matters to you, and thinking Britain should not get involved, that is a monumental mistake. Sadly not everyone gets the privilege of booting out their government when things aren’t working.
Avoiding a physical conflict between China and Taiwan is not just about defending principles of freedom and democracy; it is also about the global economic impact. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would create a worldwide shortage of the semiconductors that power everyday essentials like smartphones, laptops, washing machines and your car. Inflation would soar; jobs would be cut. The world could be thrown into a deep recession, costing trillions and disrupting sectors from technology to defence — probably dwarfing the financial toll of Covid and the war in Ukraine combined.
It is clearly in the world’s interest that Taiwan is not blockaded. Fortunately, we have the opportunity to send a clear message to the Chinese leadership that subjugating the neighbouring democracy by force will never be acceptable. We must send this message by acting much closer to home, here in Europe.
Nearly 1,000 days ago, after that clear open-source signalling, Putin marched on Kyiv. He hoped to wrap up his control in a few days. Yet brave Ukrainians were not prepared to see their democracy crushed by their large neighbour.
Britain was the first of Ukraine’s allies to rise to the challenge, delivering weapons, training and intelligence to help resist Putin’s illegal war. Time and again — whether through the supply of tanks or long-range missiles — we helped ensure that this tyrant must be confronted, never appeased.
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