Is British defence ready for the 2020s?

What is the role of intelligence in defence? Knowing your enemy has always been vital in traditional warfare, but with the dawn of digital technology and social media, defence seems to have taken on a different character – one where information is not just vital to war and peace, but its defining characteristic.

Our relations with Russia is a case in point – though we are not at war, the British government is constantly battling information attacks from Moscow – whether in the form of disinformation campaigns, or cyber attacks.

To win in this new age of defence, Britain must establish what some have called ‘information advantage’. So how well equipped are we?

To answer this question, The Spectator has partnered with Leidos, a technology, engineering, and science solutions and services provider, in the latest Spectator Radio special. On the podcast, Katy Balls speaks to Professor Peter Roberts, Director of Military Sciences at RUSI; Dominic Nicholls, the Telegraph’s Defence and Security Correspondent; and Simon Fovargue, the UK and Europe chief executive of Leidos, which is sponsoring this podcast.