How Britain’s biggest companies are preparing for a Third World War. (Part 1)
The year is 2027 and a major global conflict has erupted. Perhaps China has launched an attempted invasion of Taiwan, or Russian forces have crossed into the territory of an eastern European Nato country.
Whatever the case, Justin Crump’s job is to advise big companies on how to respond. And with tensions rising, a growing number of chief executives have got him on speed dial.
The former Army tank commander, who now runs intelligence and security consultancy Sibylline, says his clients range from a top British supermarket chain to Silicon Valley technology giants.
They are all drawing up plans to keep running during wartime, and Crump is surprisingly blunt about their reasoning: a global conflict may be just two years away.
“We’re in a world which is more dangerous, more volatile than anything we’ve seen since the Second World War,” he explains. There are lots of crises that can happen, that are ready to go.
“Chief executives want to test against the war scenario, because they think it’s credible. They want to make sure their business can get through that environment.”
The year of worst case scenarios
He rattles off a series of smouldering international issues – any one of which could ignite the global tinderbox – from Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to China’s threats to Taiwan, to Vladimir Putin’s designs on a Russian sphere of influence in Ukraine and beyond, as well as Donald Trump’s disdain for the post-1940s “rules-based international order”. Against this backdrop, planning for war is not alarmist but sensible, Crump contends.
With all these issues building, 2027 is viewed as the moment of maximum danger.
“The worst case scenario is that all these crises all overlap in 2027,” he explains.
“You’ve got the US midterms, which will have taken place just at the start of that year, and whatever happens there will be lots of upset people. It’s also the time when a lot of the economic disruption that’s happening now will have really washed through the system, so we’ll be feeling the effects of that. And it’s also too early for the change in defence posture to have really meant anything in Europe.”
Putin and Xi Jinping, the president of China, are acutely aware of all this, he says, and may conclude that they should act before the US and Europe are more fully rearmed in 2030. “In their minds now, the clock is ticking,” he adds.
He also points to major British and Nato military exercises scheduled to take place in 2027, with American forces working to a 2027 readiness target as well.
“There’s a reason they’re doing it that year – because they think we have to be ready by then,” Crump says. “So why shouldn’t businesses also work off the same thinking and plan for the same thing?”
He is not alone in arguing that society needs to start expecting the unexpected.
In 2020, the Government established the National Preparedness Commission to ensure the UK was “significantly better prepared” for the likes of floods, power outages, cyber attacks or wars.
It has urged households to keep at least three days’ worth of food and water stockpiled, along with other essential items such as a wind-up torch, portable power bank, a portable radio, spare batteries, hand sanitiser and a first aid kit.
“In recent years a series of high-impact events have demonstrated how easily our established way of life can be disrupted by major events,” the commission’s website says – pointing to the coronavirus pandemic, recent African coups, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East.
Britain is also secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia amid fears that it is not ready for war. Officials have been asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put the country on a war footing after threats of attack by the Kremlin.
All of this has led major businesses to conclude that perma crisis is the new normal, Crump says.
In the case of Ukraine, Western sanctions on Russia forced companies to choose between continuing to operate heavily-constrained operations in Russia, selling up, or walking away entirely.
Crump recalls speaking to several clients including a major energy company in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
He and his colleagues urged the business to evacuate their staff, at a point when it was still received wisdom that Putin wouldn’t dare follow through with his threats.
“I had almighty arguments with some people in the run-up, because I was very firmly of the view, based on our data and insights, that the Russians were not only invading, but they were going for the whole country. But other people in our sector were saying, ‘No, it’s all a bluff’.
“Their team came to me afterwards and said: ‘After that call, we were convinced, and we got our people out’. They got a lot of grief for that at the time, from people who were saying it was all nonsense.
“But then on the day of the invasion, they told me they got so many calls actually saying ‘thank you for getting us out’.”
Yet even in Ukraine, much of which remains an active war zone, life must go on – along with business.
“I’ve been to plenty of war zones,” says Crump. “And people are still getting on with their lives, there’s still stuff in supermarkets, and things are being made in factories – but that certainly all gets a lot more difficult.”
The year is 2027 and a major global conflict has erupted. Perhaps China has launched an attempted invasion of Taiwan, or Russian forces have crossed into the territory of an eastern European Nato country.
Whatever the case, Justin Crump’s job is to advise big companies on how to respond. And with tensions rising, a growing number of chief executives have got him on speed dial.
The former Army tank commander, who now runs intelligence and security consultancy Sibylline, says his clients range from a top British supermarket chain to Silicon Valley technology giants.
They are all drawing up plans to keep running during wartime, and Crump is surprisingly blunt about their reasoning: a global conflict may be just two years away.
“We’re in a world which is more dangerous, more volatile than anything we’ve seen since the Second World War,” he explains. There are lots of crises that can happen, that are ready to go.
“Chief executives want to test against the war scenario, because they think it’s credible. They want to make sure their business can get through that environment.”
The year of worst case scenarios
He rattles off a series of smouldering international issues – any one of which could ignite the global tinderbox – from Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to China’s threats to Taiwan, to Vladimir Putin’s designs on a Russian sphere of influence in Ukraine and beyond, as well as Donald Trump’s disdain for the post-1940s “rules-based international order”. Against this backdrop, planning for war is not alarmist but sensible, Crump contends.
With all these issues building, 2027 is viewed as the moment of maximum danger.
“The worst case scenario is that all these crises all overlap in 2027,” he explains.
“You’ve got the US midterms, which will have taken place just at the start of that year, and whatever happens there will be lots of upset people. It’s also the time when a lot of the economic disruption that’s happening now will have really washed through the system, so we’ll be feeling the effects of that. And it’s also too early for the change in defence posture to have really meant anything in Europe.”
Putin and Xi Jinping, the president of China, are acutely aware of all this, he says, and may conclude that they should act before the US and Europe are more fully rearmed in 2030. “In their minds now, the clock is ticking,” he adds.
He also points to major British and Nato military exercises scheduled to take place in 2027, with American forces working to a 2027 readiness target as well.
“There’s a reason they’re doing it that year – because they think we have to be ready by then,” Crump says. “So why shouldn’t businesses also work off the same thinking and plan for the same thing?”
He is not alone in arguing that society needs to start expecting the unexpected.
In 2020, the Government established the National Preparedness Commission to ensure the UK was “significantly better prepared” for the likes of floods, power outages, cyber attacks or wars.
It has urged households to keep at least three days’ worth of food and water stockpiled, along with other essential items such as a wind-up torch, portable power bank, a portable radio, spare batteries, hand sanitiser and a first aid kit.
“In recent years a series of high-impact events have demonstrated how easily our established way of life can be disrupted by major events,” the commission’s website says – pointing to the coronavirus pandemic, recent African coups, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East.
Britain is also secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia amid fears that it is not ready for war. Officials have been asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put the country on a war footing after threats of attack by the Kremlin.
All of this has led major businesses to conclude that perma crisis is the new normal, Crump says.
In the case of Ukraine, Western sanctions on Russia forced companies to choose between continuing to operate heavily-constrained operations in Russia, selling up, or walking away entirely.
Crump recalls speaking to several clients including a major energy company in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
He and his colleagues urged the business to evacuate their staff, at a point when it was still received wisdom that Putin wouldn’t dare follow through with his threats.
“I had almighty arguments with some people in the run-up, because I was very firmly of the view, based on our data and insights, that the Russians were not only invading, but they were going for the whole country. But other people in our sector were saying, ‘No, it’s all a bluff’.
“Their team came to me afterwards and said: ‘After that call, we were convinced, and we got our people out’. They got a lot of grief for that at the time, from people who were saying it was all nonsense.
“But then on the day of the invasion, they told me they got so many calls actually saying ‘thank you for getting us out’.”
Yet even in Ukraine, much of which remains an active war zone, life must go on – along with business.
“I’ve been to plenty of war zones,” says Crump. “And people are still getting on with their lives, there’s still stuff in supermarkets, and things are being made in factories – but that certainly all gets a lot more difficult.”
25 days ago
