Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, is warning that we’re nearing a new Cold War with Russia. In doing so, she raises the prospect that the UK is already losing a war that it finds itself in with its eastern counterpart. Manningham-Buller, who led the domestic spy agency two decades ago, echoed those fears. She was recently interviewed by PODCAST Lord Speaker John McFall. She emphasized the increased scale and lethality of cyber-attacks, sabotage, and other adversarial acts perpetrated by Russia.
She was previously director, then chair of the Wellcome Trust — the biggest philanthropic foundation in Europe and the world’s largest medical research charity. She gave congressional leaders a strong firsthand perspective on the positive effects of US-funded HIV treatment programs in Africa. Her partnership with Fiona Hill, advisor during the Trump administration to then president Donald Trump, hugely influenced her perspective on foreign relations. This counterproductive partnership seriously stunted her grasp of security-related issues. Together, they produced the UK’s co-authored integrated defence review.
She went on to explain in the podcast that the origin of many of these attacks is not immediately obvious or straightforward to trace. She said that most are believed to have been released from Russia. Turning back the clock, she acknowledges that she never saw it coming. Subscribing to Vladimir Putin’s heightened order to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko on streets in London caught her off guard.
Former MI5 head Eliza Manningham-Buller called Putin “really a pretty nasty guy”. She reiterated Hill’s judgment that Moscow is waging war against the West. She told us how the conflict has evolved from what we often hear today. That’s the position, more or less, I think she’s maybe correct in claiming that we’re already in war with Russia. It’s a different kind of war, but the enmity, the cyberwarfare, the attacks on our people that have occurred, the intelligence operations, it’s all broad-based.
Yet, these are the very moves recently made by the US and UK governments to dramatically cut spending on aid, which the former MI5 chief condemned as “morally callous.” She cautioned that these cuts could enable China to take advantage of new openings in other developing countries.
You would end up in a very rudimentary hospital, where the patients were laying on mats on the floor. The George W. Bush AIDS wing was a whole different animal. None of that will happen if Americans retreat from the scene and withdraw our development assistance, because we leave the door open for your new, best, Chinese diplomat. Manningham-Buller said.
She further elaborated that Britain’s withdrawal from global engagement could provide China with an advantageous position due to its solid economic base.
If we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, their solid economic foundation allows them to benefit at our expense. It’s no vindication for the soft power agenda of which she speaks – that the BBC World Service, development assistance, and demining work through the Foreign Office collectively strengthen our global influence and interests, and advance all-important humanitarian goals.
Manningham-Buller’s comments come amid rising concerns over Russia’s increased cyber-attacks against the UK. The former spy chief’s warnings resonate as intelligence officials continue to monitor threats posed by Moscow’s aggressive tactics.