LC: Yes. China has been engaged in a sustained build-up of its military over the last 20 years.  This has led to an arms race in Asia, with Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, India and Australia increasing their defence expenditure in order to try and hold China in check.  It is also the reason why the Obama administration unveiled its ‘Pivot to East Asia’ regional strategy in 2012.  

GO: Xi and China are striving to achieve “rejuvenation”; a policy/strategy that is based on a somewhat erroneous view that China was once a global power with maritime strength and reach.  Xi, as all Chinese Presidents, has to face domestic pressure and is not the all-powerful arbiter of all that he surveys as say Kim Jung Un in North Korea.  His problem is that a new domestic popular vision of a “rejuvenated” and powerful China has gained traction amongst a significant number of groups, the CCP, the PLA, a new economic elite and emerging middle class and a more aware people, who have travelled internationally.  There is a desire to put right the perceived historical humiliation of this once and now re-emerging, great nation.  The Submarines fit into a military strategy that will allow China to challenge the US and others not just in the Yellow, East China and South China, seas but globally.  For their vision to be realised the economy must, Post-Covid, re-accelerate.  To do this the SLOCs must be secure from Africa, Asia and across the Pacific.  If China is to emerge as the Regional Power it must be seen to have a Navy capable of operating super and sub surface.  Ironically the US re-orientation towards Asia may undermine everyone’s ability to benefit from globalisation.  Equally, it may not.  It is perhaps going to be the greatest game of strategic risk management of the C21.

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LC: The risks to the UK’s security have not fundamentally changed since the start of the pandemic.  Since 2010 the top risks have been identified consistently as pandemic, natural disaster or manmade accident, international terrorism, cyber attack, and international military crisis. 

What will change as the result of the pandemic is the government’s ability to respond in a meaningful and sustained fashion should any of the other risks become a reality. 

The lockdown measures imposed by the British government, and other nations, may have been absolutely necessary from a public health perspective, but they will have long term consequences in terms of revenue and recession; the Bank of England is currently predicting the worst recession in 300 years.

We can anticipate that the public will want to see greater investment in the NHS going forward.  With businesses shuttered, staff furloughed or made redundant, tax revenue will fall, however Government expenditure is increasing as it endeavours to bail out businesses and pushes money into the social welfare system. All of that will have an impact on the Government’s ability to invest in response mechanisms to other security risks in the future. 

GO: The only thing I would add is, perhaps the new risk may be that we may not have learned the lesson that ‘Resilience’ is not just a buzz word and about reaction, but about analysis, preparation, prevention and learning. 

My time working for and with governments worldwide tells me that one drawback of that obsessive reliance on and use of technology is that in the near future, once again, the lessons will only be identified. The technological hamsters will continue to remain confused as to why the wheel seems to move even faster than before without the circumstances significantly improving.

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