https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b...rter-gjscz6mpn
Beijing engaging in warfare by stealth, says General Sir Nick Carter
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General Sir Nick Carter yesterday unveiled a new “integrated operating concept” for the armed forces as he warned they must do more to combat adversaries attacking the nation using means beyond traditional warfare......
In a speech at Policy Exchange, the UK-based centre-right think tank, Sir Nick said that Beijing has developed technologies that have outpaced the evolution of international law, as it has sought to avoid its actions “being classified as conflict”.
The People’s Liberation Army has stated that the blurred boundary between peace and war had created “opportunities for the military to achieve its ends, disguising its activities as civilian, and therefore peaceful”, he noted.
Sir Nick added: “China’s new Strategic Support Force is designed to achieve dominance in the space and cyberdomains. It commands satellite information attack and defence forces; electronic assault forces and internet assault forces; campaign information operations forces, which include conventional electronic warfare forces, anti-radiation assault forces, and battlefield cyberwarfare forces.”.....
He stressed that stealth technologies will become increasingly important. “Warfare is increasingly a competition between hiding and finding,” he said.
He also flagged that the British military will move away from expensive, crewed platforms. He said these were “increasingly vulnerable to swarms of self-co-ordinating smart munitions — perhaps arriving at hypersonic speeds or ballistically from space — designed to swamp defences already weakened by pre-emptive cyberattack”.
His intervention is likely to raise eyebrows in the Royal Navy about the future of their two aircraft carriers, which collectively cost £6.2 billion........