Lord Sedwill, chair of the Atlantic Future Forum, has said Britain is already on the front line of hybrid war, citing Iranian bots that pushed Scottish independence until last year’s war with Iran, according to remarks made at the forum in Oslo.
Opening the forum on board HMS Prince of Wales, Sedwill said Britain faces daily hybrid warfare, from cyber attacks and bomb threats to drones, assassinations and dirty money in elections. He said: “I’ve heard some people say, ‘Well, actually, the UK is a long way away from the front line, and we’re therefore safe.’ Wrong. We are on the front line, and in hybrid warfare, we are engaged in conflict already”.
He said, referring to the story broken by the UK Defence Journal last year, that after the military action in Iran last year, the number of bots promoting Scottish independence “dropped off dramatically”, adding: “That wasn’t just because there were a whole load of people in Scotland who decided they weren’t going to talk about that anymore, it was because Iranian cyber operatives were seeking to disrupt the political cohesion of the United Kingdom. If they’re doing it, then we know the Russians and others are doing it too.”
Sedwill said that for Britain, Norway and Nordic partners the North Sea and North Atlantic are the front line against a Russia that is probing them every day, and argued that deterrence needs more than defence. He said: “NATO is a defensive alliance, but the most effective form of defense is often to cause a dilemma.” He asked how allies could present Russia with strategic dilemmas, “not simply leave the initiative to them and defend against it”, whether on land, at sea, in the air, in space, cyberspace or the information space.
The disinformation firm Cyabra also reported that a network of X accounts posing as Scottish independence supporters went silent after Israeli strikes on Iran in June 2025 cut the country’s internet, and found that 26 per cent of profiles discussing Scottish independence were fake.
A similar network fell silent again in January when Iran shut down international internet access. Sedwill, a former Cabinet Secretary and National Security Adviser, chairs the forum, which this year is co-hosted by Britain and Norway on board Prince of Wales in Oslo, the first time it has been held in mainland Europe.
France accused Iran of attacking commercial refrigerators -which made me think how absurd a title like this would be 20 years ago and how in 20 years from now we will have absurd ones for today.