British military commander says British citizens should be “trained and equipped” to fight in potential war with Russia as Russian government plans to “defeat our system and way of life” said.
Sir Patrick Saunders, the outgoing Chief of Staff (CGS), said building up the military’s strength for potential conflict needed to be a “national undertaking”.
The comments, first reported by the Daily Telegraph, are being taken as a warning that British men and women should prepare to be called into the armed forces if NATO goes to war with President Vladimir Putin.
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This comes as Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said in a speech last week that we are moving from a “post-war world to a pre-war world” and that the UK has “the entire defense ecosystem at the ready” to protect the homeland. This was after stating that it was necessary to secure the
But Downing Street ruled out any move towards conscription, saying military service would remain voluntary.
Sir Patrick has been a vocal critic of cuts to troop numbers and military spending.
Speaking at the International Armored Vehicles Conference in West London, he said Britain urgently needed to increase the size of its military from around 74,000 soldiers now to around 120,000 within three years.
But he said “this is not enough” and that training and equipping of “citizen forces” must follow.
Noting that this was happening across Europe, he told the audience, “Our friends in Eastern and Northern Europe, who feel the approach of the Russian threat more acutely, are already cautious. We are taking action and are laying the foundations for national mobilization.
“As the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee warned just last week, and as the Swedish government has done… it is now imperative to take preparedness measures that will enable our societies to be combat-ready when needed. Not just desirable, but essential.”
Sir Patrick added: “We are not immune, so as the pre-war generation we need to prepare as well and it is a national effort.”
“Ukraine brutally shows that regular armies start wars and militias win them.”
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Sir Patrick added that Ukraine is currently “a major pressure point against a fragile world order that our enemies want to dismantle”.
He added: “(The war in Ukraine) is not just about the black soil of Donbass or the reconstruction of the Russian Empire, but about the political, psychological and symbolic defeat of our system and way of life.
“How we respond as a pre-war generation will reverberate in history. For now, Ukraine’s courage is buying time.”
Sir Patrick also said that our forebears had “fallen into the most disastrous war” by failing to “recognize the impact of the so-called July Crisis of 1914”, which led to the outbreak of the First World War. He cited a series of diplomatic and military escalations. World war.
“We cannot afford to make the same mistakes today,” he added.
Sir Patrick will be replaced by General Rory Walker in June, but the announcement comes after reports that he had been forced to be sacked after making blunt statements.
Tobias Ellwood, a former defense secretary who served alongside Sir Patrick, said he should “listen carefully” to military chiefs.
“What’s over the horizon should shock us. It should worry us, but we’re not prepared,” he told Sky News.
The Bournemouth East MP said there was a sense that authoritarian states could “take advantage of our cowardice, perhaps our reluctance to really put out the fires” after decades of peace after the end of the Cold War. He pointed out that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“That’s why Patrick Sanders is telling us to prepare for what’s coming over the horizon. There’s a 1939 feel to the world right now,” he said.
“These authoritarian states are rearming, and there is a risk aversion in the West that wants to deal with this. World organizations like the United Nations are unable to hold these erring countries accountable. ”
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Elwood went on to say the military was “overburdened” due to pay and accommodation issues.
He said the navy as well as the army was “half the size it should be” and the Royal Air Force lacked the equipment it needed.
Warnings about the “downsizing” of the military were also issued by former army chief Lord Dunatt, who said its numbers had fallen from 102,000 in 2006 to 74,000 today and were still “rapidly shrinking.” “Decreasing,” he told the Times.
He drew parallels with the 1930s, when the “pathetic” state of the British military failed to stop Adolf Hitler, and said there was “a grave risk of history repeating itself”.
Speaking to Sky News about his comments, Mr Shapps resisted Lord Dunnett’s calls for an increase in the defense budget, but insisted the size of the army would never fall below 73,000 under Conservative oversight.
The government currently spends about 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on national defense, but some hope to raise it to 3%.
The government’s target is 2.5%, but Mr Shapps told Sky News on Sunday: “We are not there yet.”