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  1. Politics
4 December 2006

Poisoned sushi and asymmetric warfare

Where do the threats to our security come from?

By Martin Bright

The Sunday Telegraph splash is a classic case of the “timing is everything” school of journalism. Security experts and intelligence sources have been briefing for some time that the Islamic terror threat is not the only game in town. The spooks have been flagging their concern about Russian and Chinese espionage, but ministers and journalists have nodded sagely before getting back to obsessing about jihadis.

I remember a conversation with a former Ministry of Defence official recently, who said he was beginning to think that perhaps we have all got it wrong. What if we have shovelled all our resources into Iraq, Afghanistan and “the war against terror”, when the real threats are elsewhere: the former Soviet Republics, Russia itself, China and the various geo-political issues raised by global warming?

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