Ban the Burka? Absolutely.

The row in Reform has highlighted yet again, the Burka. The Islamic supporters and the freedom advocates are up in arms at the thought that Reform would ban an article of clothing. After all, we don ban Swastikas. Yes, they're regarded as bad taste, but they are not banned.

So what is it about the Burka that is different?

It's what it stands for. Not the Islamic faith, let's get that straight. I'm not an Islamophobe I have a rather rational fear of Islam.

You have to remember Islam is not just a religion, just as the headscarf is not just an article of clothing. Islam is a religion, but it is also an ideology and a political movement. Islam in the very writings of it's holy book demands followers to grab positions of power. 

The headscarf is also a political statement of that ideological power struggle. Young girls don't wear the Burka because it it a pretty article of clothing. It is their statement of political support for the ideology. It is also virtually required by others within Islam that girls wear the Burka or Hijab. 

It is a statement of power. Social, Political, ideological power.

Do you ban it? 

Well, in order to weaken that power, then yes. That's why Muslims hate the ban so much. It's a dilution of that power. Women who would normally not wear the burka but wear it because of pressure from others get to feel the freedom from political and social oppression. 

That freedom from oppression is a way to reduce the oppression within the Islamic community. A ban on the burka serves as a message to the Islamic political forces that you are not supreme, we call the shots and you will not oppress people inside our borders.

I'd take it further and make it illegal to have more than one wife. Bigamy is a crime in the UK and the blind eye we turn to UK citizens taking more than one wife should be stopped. It should be clear that it is a crime. It's a crime for a UK citizen, it should be impossible for a person with more then one wife to become a UK citizen (we shouldn't be encouraging people to commit a crime by becoming a UK citizen). There should either be a time limit on foreigners bringing multiple wives into the UK, or there should be a legislation that states that they can only bring one wife into the UK.

That Zia Usef has resigned from Reform over Reform considering the burka ban, shows the power of that iconography, the political power of the burka. 

Nigel Farage always says that he's pissing the right people off, and in this case he's absolutely right.

The Changing Face of Warfare.

The attack on Russian Airbases by a Ukrainian drone swarm the other day signals a wake-up call to military defence planners across the globe.

It has changed the face of warfare, especially the defence of military assets at home as well as in theatre.

The fact is that even small countries have the ability to hit large military forces in home territory. The reach of the Ukrainian military is effectively global, thanks to the advent of cheap global internet from satellites.

I've already surmised that the sinking of the Ursa Major in the Mediterranean was an act of offensive power, rather than sabotage. Basically the ship being sunk by an Unmanned Surface Vessel launched by a Ukrainian vessel placed in the med. 

And when I say vessel, it could just be a yacht or a fishing vessel. Something just big enough to carry a couple of jetski-sized USVs. 

That was a precursor to taking the remote vehicle fight to land. Russia pulled it's bombers and AWACVs aircraft back thousands of miles from the Ukrainian border several months ago when it became clear that Ukraine could launch Unmanned Ariel Vehicles into Russia from Ukrainian soil and attack aircraft.

Now it seems that Ukraine have found a way to bridge that gap of thousands of miles and smuggle fake containers filled with UAVs into Russia, far behind the front line and attack important assets.

But how does this change warfare? I hear you ask.

Well, let's say you are America, fighting a war in the middle East; lets say with Iran. Previously your assets in America were safe. You had enough defence assets to detect incoming bombers or ballistic missiles and if necessary intercept them. In effect the only way to attack America was to deploy extremely long-range weapons that took a great deal of money to develop and deploy. 

Not any more. Now an adversary can pack a load of drones into a shipping container, send it across the world via several safe countries to reduce the risk of detection and interception and deliver the container right next to an American airbase. The container can lay in wait for as long as the batteries supplying the command, control and drone charging system can last. With Lithium battery technology, that can be a very long time. 

As a what if: What if the farms next to American airbases bought buy Chinese entities one day receive containers, with orders to place them in a corner of the farm? Those containers  could lay dormant for months and then one day, the containers could unleash a modern-day Pearl Harbour type attack on American soil, just before they (for instance) hit Taiwan. 

It adds another level of alertedness required to Police not just the battlefield, but home soil as well. 

Modern day intelligence needs to keep abreast of these changes to modern warfare and the capability of small countries to now take the fight to home soil. 

I've already talked about the threat from major military players like Russia and why we should have a robust air defence network at home, but now that defence grid needs to reach down to the micro level, not just the long-range macro level. 

I just hope the stuff-shirts in Whitehall defence understand the consequences of the past week. You never know, maybe they were involved at some level with the planning. Certainly we were "advising" at an early stage regarding the USVs. 

Hopefully there will be threat assessments being done as we speak and intelligence will start to identify foreign actors that are currently or attempt to place themselves in strategic positions in future. Certainly America should be looking closely at the Chinese assets in place close to their military bases. I've already commented about the threat of signals intelligence and interception of communications between bases, but now the threat is more kinetic.

Certainly it's been common knowledge that modified commercial short-range drones have been used in smaller theatres of warfare for the best part of a decade, but now the threat has significantly expanded in range an capability. With subterfuge, the threat range is now global. 

Also thanks to modern communications, the threat is documented in video and shown all over the media. It would behove military planners to take note and not ignore this new level of threat.