Introducing Into the Grey Zone
The Wargame
Sky News
4.5 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 January 2021
⏱️ 3 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sky News journalist Deborah Haynes explores this often invisible battlefield, where anything can be - and is - used as a weapon and anyone, anywhere can be a target.
The series examines grey zone assaults; from the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in the UK and the killing of a nuclear scientist in Iran; to attempts to influence elections in the United States; and a suspected North Korean cyber-attack on the NHS.
The podcast also includes interviews with spies and military chiefs who warn about the threat to daily life if attacks in the grey zone go unpunished.
In the words of one former head of the UK’s special forces: “We’re being boiled like a frog!”
Credits:
Written and narrated by Deborah Haynes
Edited and produced by Chris Scott
Production support from Sophia McBride and Victoria Seabrook
Additional voices provided by Cayetano Delgado
The head of Sky News Radio is Dave Terris
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The nature of warfare is changing. |
| 0:05.0 | An invisible enemy is on the rise, in a grey zone between war and peace. |
| 0:12.0 | Everybody assumes we're in a peaceful state. Nothing can be further from the truth. |
| 0:16.0 | It's a global battlefield that thrives on deniability. |
| 0:20.0 | The key point here is it's insidious. |
| 0:21.6 | You don't know that it's a threat. |
| 0:23.6 | The weapons of choice include disinformation, intimidation and cyber attacks. |
| 0:29.6 | Looking for a cyber Pearl Harbor, as people call it, one massive event to change the course of history |
| 0:36.6 | may actually be missing the point |
| 0:38.6 | that there's already so many smaller events happening that really should be stopped. |
| 0:44.7 | Anyone can be a target, soldier or civilian. |
| 0:48.2 | Somebody has posted to me that he was going to come to England in person and hang me up |
| 0:51.5 | next to the Queen, which I thought was kind of flattering. |
| 0:55.4 | My name is Deborah Haynes. I'm the Foreign Affairs Editor at Sky News. |
| 1:00.1 | I've been a journalist for more than 20 years covering conflict around the world, |
| 1:04.7 | and my new podcast goes into the grey zone to explore a murky evolution of warfare. |
| 1:18.6 | Over the course of nine episodes, I'll explain the covert tactics used by states, criminals and terrorist groups to deceive, gain influence and at times kill. |
| 1:22.6 | People are coming here to kill our people. |
| 1:24.6 | They are absolutely killing our way of life. We're being boiled like |
| 1:29.5 | a frog. You'll hear warnings from hackers, spies and military chiefs. So on the one hand, we might |
| 1:36.0 | wake up one day and discover that we are in a police state. The other end of it is that our opponents |
| 1:40.7 | will have found a way to unravel our democracy from inside. Without a shot being fired. |
... |
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