{"id":332456,"date":"2026-10-27T06:25:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T06:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=332456"},"modified":"2026-10-27T06:57:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T06:57:38","slug":"military-air-chief-warns-uk-faces-rapidly-evolving-existential-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=332456","title":{"rendered":"Military air chief warns UK faces \u2018rapidly evolving’ existential threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dan Haygarth \u2013 The Independent Oct 26, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The UK faces \u201cproximate, rapidly evolving\u201d threats which could prove to be \u201cexistential\u201d if left unchecked, a military chief has warned.<\/p>\n

Air chief marshal Sir Harv Smyth (above) said that the \u201cinternational rules-based order\u201d, which long secured Britain\u2019s \u201csanctuary and prosperity\u201d is being \u201cactively challenged and dismantled by our adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threats we face are no longer distant storm clouds on the far horizon\u201d, Sir Harv said as he delivered the Lord Trenchard Memorial Lecture at the Royal United Services Institute<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

The UK faces \u201cproximate, rapidly evolving\u201d threats which could prove to be \u201cexistential\u201d if left unchecked, a military chief has warned.<\/p>\n

Air chief marshal Sir Harv Smyth said that the \u201cinternational rules-based order\u201d, which long secured Britain\u2019s \u201csanctuary and prosperity\u201d is being \u201cactively challenged and dismantled by our adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threats we face are no longer distant storm clouds on the far horizon\u201d, Sir Harv said as he delivered the Lord Trenchard Memorial Lecture at the Royal United Services Institute<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the government has drawn up recommendations for households<\/a> to have three days\u2019 worth of bottled water and tinned food to deal with a crisis such as a war, an online attack or natural disaster.<\/p>\n

The checklist released advises stocking up with three days\u2019 worth of bottled water and non-perishable food, a battery or wind-up FM radio<\/a> to receive updates during outages and cash in case electronic payments or cash machines are disrupted.<\/p>\n

Andy Burnham last week denied that people were being asked to step up because the government had failed<\/a> in its responsibilities, telling reporters in Merseyside: \u201cNo, we\u2019re having the conversation with people about being better prepared because we\u2019re living in a world where unexpected events seem to be becoming more and more common.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, weather events, and we\u2019re in a situation today where the UK is facing storms and obviously, we feel for the people without power in Cornwall right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is just having those supplies in the house to get you through those moments. So we are having that conversation about resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wes Streeting<\/a> said he wanted people to be \u201calert but not alarmed\u201d as he defended against accusations that the call to stockpile was scaremongering.<\/p>\n

He also said that cyber incidents such as the critical security flaw in the PHP programming language used by the majority of websites that has left organisations around the world scrambling for a fix will happen \u201cmore and more\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Streeting, speaking at the opening of a new gun hall in Telford on Thursday, warned of the need to be ready in case businesses were hit by cyber attacks that could knock out supply chains of essentials.<\/p>\n

He said households and businesses need to ask if they know how they would respond to possible \u201ceveryday challenges\u201d that might manifest themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ll also need to take the country a step further and ask them are they prepared for increasingly sophisticated cyber attacks on our businesses, are they prepared for the eventuality that there may be disruption to essential supply chains caused by hostile state actors or terrorists?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow would we cope if the payment systems at the local supermarket went down?\u201d<\/p>\n

In his lecture, Sir Harv also said that a new doctrine of \u201cautonomy, not flesh\u201d should guide the modern military.<\/p>\n

Referring to the Allied \u201csteel, not flesh\u201d strategy during the Second World War, the head of the Royal Air Force said: \u201cGiven today\u2019s changing character\u2026 I would argue strongly that the modern paradigm must now become autonomy, not flesh.\u201d said: \u201cYou will also be familiar with the steel, not flesh philosophy, a Western way of war during the Second World War that embraced the emergent technology of the day.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said this involved planes and tanks to avoid the \u201cbloody\u201d and \u201ccostly\u201d nature of trench warfare.<\/p>\n

Sir Harv said: \u201cGiven today\u2019s changing character\u2026 I would argue strongly that the modern paradigm must now become autonomy, not flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n

The head of the UK military earlier this month<\/a> warned that Europe must take greater responsibility for its own defence<\/a> as war returns to the continent and shows that security can no longer be taken for granted.<\/p>\n

Writing for The Independent<\/em>, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the UK chief of the defence staff, and his Swedish counterpart General Michael Claesson urged the need to reinforce Nato\u2019s northern flank in the face of new threats<\/a> and \u201creckless acts of aggression\u201d from abroad.<\/p>\n

Source\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More ominous warnings about the threats facing the West, this time from Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth. Is all this all this fear mongering being used to induce paranoia among the public as they are led into an impending war? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":332457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-posts"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=332456"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":332491,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332456\/revisions\/332491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/332457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=332456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=332456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=332456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}