The British Army is looking at ditching its tank regiments and spending the money on keyboard warriors instead, according to reports.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has been ploughing ever more time and effort into all things cyber, most recently raising a dedicated Security Operations Centre regiment after a previous Chief of the Defence Staff called for fat and wheezy techies to join up as cyber-squaddies.
Current Army thinking is that “digital”, “cyber” and “autonomous” capabilities will be more valuable in future wars than battalions of riflemen or regiments of heavy armoured vehicles. They’re not alone: earlier this year the Royal Navy issued a tender for robot submarines capable of withstanding depth charges.
Rob Pritchard of the Cyber Security Expert consulting firm, an associate fellow of the Royal United Services Institute think tank, opined: “This pervasive idea that investing in vague ‘cyber capabilities’ can somehow replace actual defence spending on things that are useful for defence has gone on way too long. When Putin sends tanks rolling across the eastern European border I’ll be interested to see how much effect the 101st Hacking Division has against the heavy artillery.”
www.theregister.com/2020/08/25/british_army_scrap_tanks_cyber/