Ex-MI6 head: Technology is now as important to the world as politics

Sir John Sawers warned that China is rising as a new global superpower, and the West is not in a position to address it

The rising populism and nationalism that define contemporary geopolitics are just symptoms of the themes shaping the modern world, said Sir John Sawers, former head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), at Digital Transformation Expo last week.

Sawers suggested that more disruption is on the way, referencing events like the Brexit debate, Hong Kong riots, Extinction Rebellion and the entire presidency of Donald Trump. He explained:

"[There are] three fields that I think are shaping the world. They are the return to what I call ‘Great Power' politics; the change in Western politics; and there is the rise of technology and how that is changing and transforming our lives."

With Great Power...

Great Power politics revolves around the concept of superpowers. The West has dominated, and to an extent dictated, modern history, but China's rise threatens the status quo. "China is now a rival and a competitor approaching parity with the USA, and the USA doesn't like it," Sawers noted. This applies not just to military strength, but also to China's technological prowess and the trade links formed through the Belt and Road Initiative.

Europe looks less relevant [in a Great Power world]

The Great Power world is driven by military might, which favours countries like the USA, Russia and China. It doesn't work for Europe, which has thrived in a rules-based world. "Suddenly," said Sawers, "Europe looks less relevant and less powerful; and certainly when we fail to develop the sort of global tech companies that both the United States and China have developed - well, Europe [including the UK] is in a weaker position."

...comes nationalism

The second theme is the change in Western politics, which is going through a populist period - although Sawers thinks this is past its peak, as shown during the recent European elections. It is only countries that avoided such movements in the 1930s, like the UK and USA, that are now afflicted by a surge of nationalism. This is mostly fuelled by rising inequality, which turns people against elites and scapegoats like immigrants.

"We joke about President Trump, but he has a serious agenda for the United States. He's been successful in promoting the American economy, but he's a very divisive figure, as well as a nationalist, isolationist American president."

The cyber sword

Finally, but just as importantly, is technology. MI6 is a "human intelligence agency," but under Sawers' leadership (2009 - 2014) the organisation increased its spend on tech from a third of the budget to half.

"Because technology was such a big driver of everything we did, the power of data analytics [is huge] in terms of piecing together puzzles about terrorist plots, identifying who was posing a threat to you, where extremism and propaganda was coming from. Data analytics was absolutely vital… We saw the role of cyber develop as both an attack tool and a crucial part of national defences during my years in the role."

Cyber is a two-edged blade, as demonstrated by Stuxnet. This was heralded as a successful Western attack (the USA developed the Stuxnet worm) against Iran's nuclear programme, but Iran later reverse engineered it and launched an attack against a Saudi Arabian oil company in 2012.

Stuxnet opened a Pandora's Box of cyber attacks against physical targets, and the world has been dealing with the fallout ever since.