Gen Mark Carleton-Smith will say in first speech that army must ‘place big bets’ on tech

British forces must shift their focus to include confronting adversaries in the virtual world as well as on the battlefield, according to the army’s new chief of the general staff, Gen Mark Carleton-Smith.

Carleton-Smith will make the call during his first speech in the role, at the closing of a two-day conference on land warfare.

The London conference, organised by the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, was dominated on Tuesday by warnings about what the rise of cyber and electronic warfare, drones and autonomous vehicles means for future conflicts.

UK defence policy is in the middle of a tug-of-war between those at Whitehall who want to see a rapid shift towards smaller, tech-savvy, intelligence-led forces that can be deployed quickly and those reluctant to let go of conventional warfare.

Carleton-Smith will say on Wednesday that “the nature of warfare is broadening beyond the traditional physical domains”, and the changing battlefield will require skills beyond those normally associated with careers in the army.

“We need a more proactive, threat-based approach to our capability planning, including placing some big bets on those technologies that we judge may offer exponential advantage because, given the pace of the race, to fall behind today is to cede an almost unquantifiable advantage from which it might be impossible to recover.”

His speech reflects a push by the UK and Nato to find better ways to deal with Russia. Since being wrongfooted by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, the UK and Nato have struggled to cope with Russia’s use of hybrid warfare, which aims to create confusion and spread disinformation, for example, by deploying soldiers dressed as rebels, with all actions deniable.

Carleton-Smith will also talk of a “darkening geopolitical picture” and say “we live in exceptionally unstable times and the world has never been more unpredictable”.

As part of the shift in focus, the army is to conduct an experiment in November, testing a range of prototype, unmanned aerial and ground cargo vehicles in combat zones. It will also test surveillance capabilities to help with targeting.