Weapons are one thing, but if war breaks out, Europe’s best resource is its people |
Wars, these days, target digital infrastructure as well as military installations. The very fact that large chunks of daily life can be knocked out without a single shot being fired is the reason Russia seems interested in doing exactly that. It is, for example, already dangerously interfering with aviation and shipping around the Baltic Sea.
Imagine the impact of larger, more successful cyber-attacks on our modern lives. Ordinary citizens would have to survive without texting, banking apps, public transportation and most modern office work. The government, though, would need to keep operating. In an offline world, the logistics of running a country would require many people. Some of these people, Sweden suggests, could ride motorcycles.
Sweden’s Volunteer Motorcycle Corps (FMCK), an auxiliary defence organisation, is training civilians as volunteer motorcycle couriers. In a crisis, these bikers would ferry crucial items between government offices and whoever else might need to receive them. (Drones, which adversaries can relatively easily tamper with, would hardly be safe enough for the delivery of crucial items in war.)
The idea is catching on. More than 250 couriers have already completed the course, and more are in training. Across Sweden, ordinary citizens are contributing their skills – from radio communications to dog training – to other auxiliary defence organisations which provide practical support........