“How can we democratically defend 100 percent of the UK population with only 0.7 percent actually doing the fighting?”
The 0.7 percent
The figures in the slide-show immediately above speak for themselves. In fact, on LinkedIn in the first version of today’s post — which contained the images in the slideshow above except for one that was incorrect (it was early in the morning, in my defence) — the calculation was wrong by a factor of 10. If only it was 7 percent of the population actively involved in the UK’s defence. But in truth, the revised figures deliver the full terror of this reality: and governments over the years will have known this to be the case. It’s 0.7 percent.
Background data
First, the notes I made on my phone and then corrected. Quoting from the corrected version:
Some thoughts I’ve just pulled together this morning as I’ve been considering seriously why #totaldefence in the #uk is the ONLY solution that exists for my homeland:
—– start of this morning’s journal notes
235,000 police
182,000 armed forces
12,500 MI5, MI6, GCHQ
figures range from early 2025 to current
a total between the three sectors of:
429,500
estimated population of the UK is:
69.5 million
figure calculated by the UK government office of national statistics (ons) for mid-2025
this means only 0.7 percent of the population is defending the 99.3 percent that forms the rest
—– end of this morning’s journal notes
How did we get here
Before we move on, we have to ask how we got here. It’s probably a result of believing that the only wars we faced would be conducted on traditional battlefields where the battle commenced with a public announcement, and on high streets that needed the force of law against organised crime more than the service of policing law-abiding communities. An “us versus them” mindset: in the end, we saw the citizens as part of the problem, never part of a new kind of solution.
But Putin, Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea to mention only a few respect no rules of engagement nor limit themselves to fighting for a geographical territory. For them, the cognitive is not only a domain but a way of understanding what you have the right to snatch from another. (I actually don’t believe it’s helpful to call it cognitive warfare, either: for me, the cognitive underpins everything we do in all aspects of life and death, including all other domains: https://i-ve.work/se/docs/machines. But that discussion would be suitable for an entire PhD thesis.)
In truth, we got here because we believed the best solution for a wider national security was for professionalised units and forces to be equipped for the two domains described — traditional and organised criminality (plus one not mentioned: espionage) — and for war against the UK to be a matter better hidden from the people. And the only way this could be achieved is to not engage them in any kind of defence at all. Not even that sort of defence we could argue they might be perfectly suited to. That of patriotically helping to harden their own cognitive, so that they didn’t any longer present a soft underbelly to the criminality of nation-states like China and nation-constructs like Russia out there.
What Secrecy One Ltd believes our next steps should be
Here at Secrecy One Ltd we don’t agree. I’ve read recently that 69 million compared to a Sweden’s 10 million explains why there they can advocate Total Defence and have government departments policy-making and delivering on the same, whilst here it’s enough to produce a war book encouraging us to stock up on tins of food and avoid dodgy links in emails scammers send. But this is no longer cybercrime. This has morphed into cyberwarfare already: https://secrecyone.co.uk/#problem.
We believe in a different approach. This is an approach we are refining with the Verify Suite of software applications:
https://secrecyone.co.uk/verify | https://secrecyone.co.uk/soon || The Verify Suite homepage and latest proposed soon-to-market iteration
https://secrecyone.co.uk/verify/home | https://secrecyone.co.uk/verify/plus || Verify Home and Verify Plus from the Verify Suite
https://secrecyone.co.uk/verify/away || The Verify Away proposal: a sophisticated platform for professionals of all sectors to detect and fight cognitive attack in all domains current and future
How Secrecy One Ltd differs from other cyber software
The virtue of our approach is that, through carefully innovative and cost-effective engineering, we have made it entirely legal and compatible with wider democratic principles of data detainment and storage to scan any device, any network, any individual, any organisation, and any digital context that aims to blur into the real world, potentially with a quite malicious intent and outcome.
Essentially, we propose that we don’t adjust the settings of our devices so much as detect where it’s digitally safer to be or not. But entirely democratically and with compliance to the fore. Something that not all governments have cared to do for quite a while.
Where we are different, then, is that we believe in everyone being everyone else’s keepers. This stretches back to my research in 2017 and my Criminal Justice MA on digital surveillance, and how such total surveillance as implemented undermined the traditional presumption of innocence:
https://secrecyone.co.uk/why | https://niokvinnor.com/2529/sin || Why work with Secrecy One Ltd plus the original Criminal Justice MA mentioned above
Next steps for us all
If you’re interested in finding out more about how we make it possible for total surveillance to support our democracies into being more democratic rather than compressing the citizen experience so much that it’s anything but — especially in the face of increasing levels of hybrid, asymmetrical and cognitive attack — do get in touch with us. We’re ready to work for a better world, and we hope you’re ready to do so, too.
Because we don’t need just 5 percent headline figures for NATO. If this is not backed up by at least a tenfold increase at home of the involvement and engagement of our own population including the 0.7 percent of the population already fighting, I honestly believe we have little chance of rescuing democracy from the jaws of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as those elements in the US — corporate (eg Big Tech) and public sector (eg Trump et al), both — who obviously seem to agree with the goals of those dismantling our democracies at the moment.
Total Defence In The UK: for a meaningful engagement of us all.
https://secrecyone.co.uk/#tduk | https://secrecyone.co.uk/#bp | https://secrecyone.co.uk/dev/vid/four
The ultimate headline objective
7 percent of the population in some way or another involved in the active defence of the country. 0.7 percent as it stands — police, military, espionage community — plus 6.3 percent from the ordinary citizens in some new and innovative set of Total Defence ways.
What do we think?
Contact us here for more:
General enquiries here: