Why Geopolitical Threats Demand a Robust Response
Adapted and expanded from her remarks at the Britain cannot ask its people to prepare for a crisis while failing to explain the danger. Honest leadership, credible defence and an informed public are now essential to our national security amidst escalating geopolitical risk.
Adapted and expanded from Lady Olga Maitland's remarks at the Resilience Conference, London, 7 October 2026.
The country needs to be told why it must be resilient. The government cannot call for national preparedness and then shrink from an honest explanation of the hostile threats and geopolitical risk that make it necessary. The public has a right to know what we face, why it matters and what is expected of us.
That was the argument I made at the Resilience Conference in London. It remains my central concern. Too often, the language of resilience is detached from the reality of the threat. We discuss plans, frameworks and future capabilities, while the essential question goes unanswered: are we moving with the urgency the situation demands?
My answer is that we must move faster. We must also trust the public enough to be frank. People cannot give their support to a national effort they do not understand.
We can cope with the truth. What we cannot afford is to discover the scale of our vulnerability only when the lights go out.
War in Europe is a warning we cannot distance ourselves from
War in Europe is here, and it is real. In Ukraine, the destruction reaches into the ordinary places on which civilian life depends.
In his recent interview with the Financial Times, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin had instructed military leaders to abandon the rules of war. The newspaper reported that pupils and teachers survived a strike on a Kyiv school by reaching its underground shelter. These are the human realities behind discussions of infrastructure and resilience.
My view is that Europe has been too slow to provide Ukraine with the means to defend itself. But we must also confront what its experience demands of us. The protection of homes, hospitals, transport, energy and communications belongs at the centre of national security.
Why, then, are we so ready to imagine that distance will protect Britain? Our island geography does not insulate us from cyber operations, sabotage, coercion or disruption to the systems that sustain our economy. A threat does not have to arrive as an invading army to do serious harm.
The warnings are explicit
Anne Keast-Butler, the Director of GCHQ, described the security environment in her May 2026 annual lecture as:
“A space between peace and war.”
In the same address, she warned of Russia’s expanding activity against Britain and Europe, “relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust”. Her warning encompasses the foundations of our daily lives and the confidence that holds society together.
Germany’s intelligence leadership has been equally direct. At the Bundestag hearing on 5 October, BND president Martin Jäger described Russia as Germany’s most dangerous adversary and warned that Moscow was testing Germany’s response. The parliamentary account also identified transport, defence industry and military infrastructure as targets of hostile activity.
These assessments should end the comfortable assumption that the danger is confined to Ukraine.
Sir Tom Copinger-Symes put the matter bluntly: “This is war.” I share the urgency of that assessment. When I describe an undeclared war, I mean a sustained confrontation in which hostile activity can damage national life without taking the form of the bombing campaigns of 1939–45. The distinctions between sabotage, criminal proxies and conventional military action matter. They must not become an excuse for treating the consequences as tolerable.
Must we wait for the lights to go out?
At a briefing on the Strategic Defence Review in June 2025, Lord Robertson put a question to me that I have not forgotten. He asked:
“Do I have to wait for the lights to go out, before the country realises we are in deep trouble, we are under threat, underprepared, under protected with a corrosive complacency about upgrading our defence capability?”
The force of that question lies in its simplicity. How much disruption must occur before preparation acquires the urgency it should already command?
It is no answer to say that speaking plainly might alarm the public. An unexplained emergency is alarming. The sudden loss of services, contradictory instructions and uncertainty about where to turn are alarming. Honest preparation gives people something more useful: understanding, practical choices and confidence in their ability to respond.
The government should tell us what it can, acknowledge what must remain protected, and explain what households, employers and communities can do. An honest account can distinguish known facts from reasonable concerns without retreating into bland reassurance.
Public trust is earned by treating people as participants in their own security.
Leipzig shows why deniability must not become paralysis
The Leipzig airport attack, is a concrete example of the danger extending beyond Ukraine. On 3 September, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office announced that it had summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires over the drone attack. The British statement attributed the attack to Russia and placed it within a wider pattern of efforts to undermine collective security.
That matters. Where the government is able to make an attribution publicly, the public should hear it clearly. We should understand the implications for the transport networks, logistics facilities and businesses on which our own security depends.
We must also be disciplined. An airport closure, railway fault or cyber incident is not proof of a hostile-state operation. Evidence must determine attribution. But uncertainty in individual cases cannot erase the wider threat described by our own intelligence leadership.
The response must combine investigation with protection. We need to identify weaknesses, clarify who can act, and ensure those responsible have the capability to do so.
The economic damage belongs in the national security debate
The costs extend beyond the immediate scene of an attack. Businesses can lose production, suppliers can lose orders, and public services can be diverted into recovery.
The Daily Mail’s report on the “Putin Tax” brings that economic burden into the public debate. The underlying study, published by Graeme Downie MP with Dr Dominic Reed, puts the annual cost of Russian and Russia-linked hostile activity at an indicative £2–£2.5 billion.
The authors acknowledge gaps in measurement and attribution. Their estimate is not an audited government total, and their scope includes Russia-linked actors as well as state activity. Its value is in pressing a question that the government should be able to answer more systematically: what is this hostility costing the country, and where would investment most effectively reduce the damage?
The wider cyber picture reinforces the need for action. The 2025/2026 Cyber Security Breaches Survey found that 43% of businesses identified a breach or attack in the preceding year. That proportion covers incidents of differing severity and origin; it does not establish that all were major attacks or linked to Russia.
Accuracy strengthens the case for resilience. We do not need to attribute every hack to Moscow to recognise that business continuity, cyber protection and secure supply chains are national concerns. Nor should we pretend that security spending is somehow detached from public wellbeing. The services and livelihoods we wish to protect depend on systems that must be able to withstand disruption.
Defence promises must become operational protection
Defence of the realm is the duty of the government. That duty cannot be discharged by announcing capabilities that remain years away.
Former ground-based air defence commander Air Vice Marshal Colin Da Silva warned the Financial Times of Britain’s “extremely limited capability” against ballistic missile threats. That assessment deserves a clear response about what can be protected, what remains exposed and how quickly the gaps will be closed.
The 2025 Strategic Defence Review announcements included up to £1 billion in new funding for homeland air and missile defence and £6 billion for munitions during this Parliament. The distinction between a funding commitment and an operational capability is critical. We need to know when money will become equipment, trained personnel, usable stocks and effective protection.
The Guardian reports a thinktank’s call to shift military resources towards domestic defence. The argument should prompt rigorous scrutiny of priorities. My position is that a secure homeland and credible support for our allies must reinforce one another. Britain cannot afford weakness in either.
In my conversations with port operators, I have heard repeated concern about the ability to counter hostile drones. Those concerns require practical answers about detection, authority, safe intervention and responsibility. Technology has to reach the people who need it, with the training and powers to use it effectively.
Fine words for the future are no protection for today.
Bring the public into national preparedness
Some of our European partners are willing to address their citizens directly. Sweden’s official “In case of crisis or war” brochure explains preparation in plain terms. The title itself conveys a seriousness that British public communication should be willing to match.
There is work under way here. The Government’s 2026 resilience implementation report describes a Home Defence Programme, national and local capability assessments, and a planned public engagement campaign. It also acknowledges gaps between local and national planning identified through those assessments.
Recognition must now lead to delivery. Plans should be tested against difficult conditions: disrupted power, damaged communications, overstretched responders and people unable to access online advice.
Forces News reports that Exercise Albiston Shadow is planned for 2027 to test a hybrid threat scenario. In that report, Lord Toby Harris calls for a mature public conversation, while Elisabeth Braw argues that demonstrating the ability to keep the country functioning can strengthen deterrence.
That is the point. An exercise should expose weaknesses and lead to action. Its announcement should not reassure us into waiting. Preparation must proceed now, in workplaces, local services and communities as well as Whitehall.
A robust response requires leadership and a national mandate
First, the government must explain the threat honestly and consistently. The public needs to understand why resilience matters, where to obtain trusted information and what practical steps to take. The existing GOV.UK Prepare guidance offers a starting point; leadership must connect that advice to a sustained national conversation.
Second, defence and infrastructure commitments need accountable delivery. Where capability is missing, name the responsible authority, establish the timetable and report progress. Operational secrecy is necessary. Avoidable obscurity about responsibility is not.
Third, businesses must treat continuity as a leadership responsibility. Boards should know which dependencies could halt operations, how staff would be supported, and when recovery arrangements were last tested. Public bodies should be held to the same practical standard.
Fourth, exercises must connect the whole system. Government departments, devolved administrations, local responders, infrastructure operators and voluntary organisations need to practise together. Lessons must result in changes to resources, decisions and behaviour.
Finally, we must defend public trust. My concern about hostile manipulation is inseparable from my concern about physical disruption. A society divided by suspicion is harder to mobilise and easier to intimidate. We should challenge manipulation with evidence, protect open democratic debate and refuse to turn national preparedness into another partisan quarrel.
The Resilience Imperative is deliberately non-partisan. People of many political colours believe passionately in a strong defence and a resilient country. That shared conviction should provide the mandate for action.
A weakened, bullied and intimidated Britain must never become an accepted prospect. Whoever is in government bears responsibility for our security; all of us have a stake in demanding that responsibility is met.
Our island waters will not do this work for us. Public confidence cannot be summoned at the last moment. Capability cannot be improvised after a crisis has begun.
We have heard the warnings. We should not have to wait for the lights to go out before we act..
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