Britain possesses an extraordinary heritage in clandestine warfare. The exploits of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War remain the gold standard for supporting resistance movements behind enemy lines. Our Security Service (“MI5”) and Secret Intelligence Service (“MI6”), plus the military special forces – the Special Air Service, Special Boat Service, Special Reconnaissance Regiment and their supporting units – have accumulated decades of operational experience that few nations can match.
The challenge today is not capability but political appetite.
For many years, successive governments have become increasingly constrained by legal caution and political risk. Oversight and the rule of law are fundamental to any democracy, but history reminds us that existential wars demand exceptional measures. During both World Wars, Britain understood that defeating tyranny sometimes required uncomfortable decisions in the shadows. Democracies survive not because they ignore the law, but because they recognise that extraordinary threats occasionally require extraordinary responses.
Ukraine has no such luxury of prolonged debate. It did not choose this war; it is fighting for its existence. Survival demands innovation, agility and calculated risk.
The Ukrainians also possess advantages that no Western intelligence service can easily replicate. They speak the language, they understand Russian society instinctively and appreciate the nuances of its culture and bureaucracy. They are therefore able to recruit sources, penetrate networks and operate inside Russia with a freedom that would be almost impossible for outsiders to achieve. Many Russians have Ukrainian family connections or quietly oppose Putin’s regime, creating opportunities for recruitment that simply do not exist for others.
Ukraine has also established itself as the world’s leading innovator in drone warfare. Necessity has accelerated ingenuity. Faced with overwhelming odds, Ukrainian engineers, entrepreneurs and soldiers have revolutionised battlefield technology faster than any military in recent history.
Could Britain match that pace? Absolutely, if faced with a similar existential threat. Britain has no shortage of brilliant engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs. The lesson from Ukraine is that governments must be prepared to harness civilian innovation far more rapidly than traditional procurement systems allow. Winning tomorrow’s wars will depend as much on software developers and start-ups as on soldiers and tanks.
The spirit of the Second World War SOE, that combination of ingenuity, courage and unconventional thinking, still exists within Britain’s national character. It merely requires the political leadership to unleash it.
The men and women of the SBU demonstrate extraordinary courage every day. Operating in the shadows, they accept risks few of us can truly comprehend in defence of their country’s freedom. While much of Europe debates strategy, Ukraine is fighting and dying, not only for its own survival but for the security of the entire continent.
History may well conclude that the intelligence war has been every bit as important as the fighting on the front line. The SBU has shown that imagination, audacity and determination can inflict strategic effects far beyond what conventional military power alone can achieve. That is a lesson Britain, and every Nato nation, should study very carefully indeed.
Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon commanded the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and his last appointment was as the assistant director intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance for the British Army