Adrian Bird, Chief of the U.K.’s Defense Intelligence, declared Russia and China the current and future enemies of Britain in a speech addressed to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), yesterday. “Although the U.K.’s non-discretionary security priority must be our home region of the Euro-Atlantic, and here we assess that Russia will remain the greatest threat to the U.K. mainland out to 2030, it is also increasingly clear that the security of Europe is indivisible from that of the wider world,” he said.
Bird didn’t dwell further on Russia, however, moving instead on to China. “Just as our closest allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region—Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore—have all taken steps to counter Russia’s destabilizing influence in Europe and support Ukraine, so the U.K. must be alive to the challenges being presented by China,” he said. “China will compete more directly with the U.K. across our areas of interest and will be capable of disrupting supplies of key technologies and materials such as microprocessors, semiconductors and rare earth elements, its military, intelligence, space and cyber capabilities posing an increasing threat. Within this world of increasing competition, we assess that China will present the greatest challenge to the U.K.’s overseas interests and economic security in 2030.”