Bernard Gray, the U.K.’s new defense materiel chief, began the year with a project that may be nearing the top of his priorities list: the £1-billion ($1.6-billion) Warrior Capability Sustainment Program (WCSP), a multifaceted plan to upgrade 600 Warrior armored fighting vehicles (DTI September 2009, p. 36). WCSP is the type of program that Gray, author of a critical report on defense procurement commissioned by the previous Labour administration, was appointed to assure never happens again.

Similarities between the Ocelot Light Protected Patrol Vehicle (LPPV) and a Williams Formula One racing car are hard to spot. As they sit side-by-side at the U.K. Defense Ministry’s Defense Equipment and Support (DE&S) campus here, the ultra-lightweight F1 machine barely reaches the height of the Ocelot’s run-flat tires, and the military vehicle’s 70-mph. top speed will never threaten a Grand Prix team. Yet Ocelot is the first fruit of Motorsport to Defense (M2D), a U.K.

There are few surprises presented in the U.K.’s Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR), but the elevation of cyberdefense to the top level of perceived threats seems to be one of them.