The UK is already under attack – food and medicine supplies must be secured now ...Middle East

To win a modern war, you need “heavy metal” hardware – tanks, fighter jets and naval ships – along with personnel brave and skilled enough to use them. But you also need supplies to keep that military force – and the people it’s fighting for – well fed, healthy and able to do their jobs.  

For decades, the likelihood of the UK needing to worry about such basic concerns, after finding itself at war with another major world power such as Russia or China, has been unthinkable. Thankfully, military and diplomatic experts say that, on balance it remains unlikely.  

The Strategic Defence Review has made it very clear, however, that it’s no longer impossible. The risk is increasing, and we must be prepared – especially because planning for war can also prevent one breaking out.

A conflict on the scale that Western leaders fear – reminiscent of the Second World War, with dictators threatening our islands, our people and our freedom – would affect and involve all of us.

This should be a new awakening.

The SDR had a narrow remit, dealing purely with how our forces should be armed, supported and reformed for the next two decades. But as General Sir Richard Barrons, one of its authors, highlighted last week, we also need to think about services like the NHS. We can’t risk the health service being overwhelmed if it has to deal with mass casualties arriving at hospitals after missile strikes on cities.  

As a surgeon who has served in conflict zones with the British Army, I have some idea of the challenges that might be involved.

Preparing for these doesn’t just mean expanding hospital capacity or registering reserve doctors, as he suggested – though those moves would be important.  

We also need to think about where our medicines are made, the sources of our healthcare equipment, and where our personal protective equipment (PPE) comes from. What if a war meant that we couldn’t secure those supplies anymore?

During the pandemic, I joined the UK Government’s PPE Taskforce as its medical director. Worldwide demand for PPE was soaring while the country producing much of it – China – was gripped by lockdowns and manufacturing shutdowns. It was implementing export bans and freight was coming to a standstill in some places.  

That was a crisis I never thought I would see, but it happened. A war could be even more disastrous.

From food supplies to tech components, our supply chains run on a basis of cost savings and just-in-time efficiency, meaning that companies have been flocking to China for decades. Think of all our essential items which are directly sourced from there, or rely on the country for key parts or ingredients – or from nations that may fall under Xi Jinping’s influence.

If we found ourselves in a confrontation with Beijing, that would be a major weakness.

Supplies of PPE, like this load from China being unloaded in Cardiff in 2020, became difficult to obtain during the pandemic (Photo: Matthew Horwood / Getty Images)

We’re already under attack

Wars can be won and lost through supply chains, starting with the most basic of human needs: food.

During the First World War, German U-boats targeted Allied merchant ships carrying meat, flour, wheat and sugar. The country imported two-thirds of its food back then and had just six weeks of food left at one point in 1917, but took action and survived. The Nazis attempted to starve the UK again during the Second World War.

You might be surprised to learn our food self-sufficiency is better now than back then, with 46 per cent coming from overseas, and most imports come from reliable allies in Europe.

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That doesn’t mean we are safe. Online attacks are already being launched on major companies in our food chain. Just last month, a logistics firm serving supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Aldi was hit by one that risked vast quantities of food going to waste. Marks & Spencer and Co-Op have also been cyber victims.

Companies could completely lose coordination and control of supplies.

We are in a “grey zone” phase of hybrid warfare by hostile states or units of ruling regimes, and these risks could worsen long before any fighting started. Think of how, in 1973, Arab nations announced oil embargos on nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War, quadrupling the price of crude. The UK had to consider rationing fuel and inflation hit 24 per cent.

If China decided to enforce a trade embargo around Taiwan ahead of an invasion, stopping supplies of computer chips, it’s easy to imagine how we might find ourselves in a similar crisis now.

As the Prime Minister wrote in his introduction to the SDR: “Our experience of the pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of relying on international just-in-time supply chains.” The review called for the MoD to create a new counter-intelligence unit which would protect critical supply chains. But we need to do much more than that.

We must move from a just-in-time model of supply chains, to one of just-in-wartime.

The most practical step right now would be to establish a British supply-chain accreditation standard, aligned with national security.

Companies providing goods of vital importance to the country would need to win this kitemark through a transparent vetting process of who their suppliers are and where they are located.

They might not admit this, but many companies don’t know where their products and components originate from, even if they think they do. And if even they aren’t sure, how on Earth could the Government intervene and coordinate action in a crisis?

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Risks change over time, of course – for different products and different countries. Today’s allies and adversaries may look different tomorrow, and we shouldn’t overreact. I’m certainly not suggesting that we ban all trade with China tomorrow – of course not.

We’d need a national contingency assessment process to calibrate the risks – to judge how essential varying items are, examine any vulnerabilities in how they are sourced and transported, and assess the chances and consequences of serious disruption according to potential geopolitical dangers.

If we multiply the likelihood of this happening by the possible impact, we could rank products as green, amber or red. Amber might necessitate shoring up the supply chain through greater cyber protections, diversifying production locations, or only using approved transporters. Red would mean that serious, strategic action must be taken straight away.

Business leaders might complain about the extra expense and uncertainty, especially if they’re not as aware of the risks as political, military and intelligence chiefs are.

I hope they would realise that this is a means of helping them. If war breaks out with a country they buy products from, they would be in crisis. The scheme could also help them prepare for other dangerous eventualities, such as another pandemic or a natural disaster.

But the nation’s readiness is everybody’s business. To offer a credible strategic deterrent, our whole society needs to display resilience to all kinds of attacks. It’s the principle of peace through strength – and supplies.

As told to Rob Hastings

Dr Darren Mann is an ambassador for the supply chain risk management consultancy Achilles

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