Sovereign Speckled Jim – defender of the Digital veto power?

by Brigadier (Retired) Sara Sharkey

The UK has spent a decade optimising digital services for speed and efficiency often by consolidating onto a small number of global platforms. It works brilliantly… right up until it does not. When critical systems depend on external jurisdictions, external control planes and a handful of suppliers, the real question is not “where the data sits” it is “who can ultimately decide what happens when conditions change.”

This article argues that we are entering an age of “digital veto power” the ability by law, policy, commercial decision, or crisis prioritisation, for an outside actor to constrain a nation’s essential digital capabilities. That risk does not just apply to defence. It touches healthcare, energy, identity, finance, and public trust.

Using recent events and uncomfortable real-world examples, the piece challenges comforting assumptions about “resilience, sovereign cloud” and data residency. It also asks what UK Defence doctrine can teach us about building digital systems that survive disruption.

We would not design a military plan with only one route, one supplier, and one point of failure, why are we doing it in digital? The article closes with a practical direction for what “sovereign options” should mean in system design and what the UK must decide before a crisis makes the decision for us.

Link to full article.