June 28, 2022 - 1:15pm
The war in Ukraine is not a brief and bloody spat in a faraway country of which we know little. Instead, as the new Chief of General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders warned in a historic speech at RUSI today, “This is our 1937 moment,” as “we are living through a period in history as profound as the one that our forebears did over 80 years ago.”
The harsh reality is that “the visceral nature of a European land war is not just some manifestation of distant storm clouds on the horizon; we can see it now”.
As a result of major state-on-state conflict on our home continent, at a scale vastly beyond our current capacity to sustain, including artillery battles with “ammunition expenditure rates that would exhaust the combined stockpiles of several Nato countries in a matter of days”, Britain therefore has no choice but to rearm: “Mobilisation is now the main effort.”
As it stands, our Army is simply too small to confront Russia. As Sanders warns, “if this battle came, we would likely be outnumbered at the point of attack and fighting like hell”. The decades of cutbacks that have diminished our land forces must end, now: “it would be perverse if the CGS was advocating reducing the size of the Army as a land war rages in Europe and Putin’s territorial ambitions extend into the rest of the decade, and beyond Ukraine.”
Similarly, so much of the Whitehall commonsense of the past few decades must be discarded as unfit for the present threat: the excessive focus on cyber capabilities founders on the hard truth that “Land will still be the decisive domain… to put it bluntly, you can’t cyber your way across a river.”
The Army’s Just In Time system of vehicle fleet management, once heralded as the means to greater efficiency, is similarly exposed as unfit for wars of sheer mass, in which materiel is deployed and swiftly destroyed on an industrial scale. “Having seen its limitations first-hand as the Commander of the Field Army”, Sanders notes, “I think we need to ask ourselves whether Whole Fleet Management is the right model given the scale of the threat we face.” Instead, we must “re-build our stockpiles and review the deployability of our vehicle fleet”.
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Subscribe“Top general: Britain must prepare for war”
It is always a good idea to prepare for war well before you enter into hostilities.
It is an even better idea to have some idea about what you are fighting for.
I was wondering about that last bit
Isn’t it obvious? The West is fighting to retain an exclusive monopoly on the right to invade other nations for no reason, destroy their countries and civilian infrastructure and murder hundreds of thousands of civilians.
Are you a UK citizen? If so, emigrate.
It was a perfectly fair point
Heavens! isnt it even better to do all you can to prevent it, and try to resolve the conflicts another way?!
Can a speech be described as historic if it only happened today?
No
Prescient.
“The warnings, and the advice, cannot be clearer: now it’s the government’s turn to show that it can meet the challenge of the troubled years rushing towards all of us”.
If it is now up to the UK (or any other European) government or the EU institutions to meet this kind of challenge then I do not have very optimistic feelings. Macron might be on the money in what he’s thinking but he’s got his hands full with matters in his own country right now. The EU is still a geopolitical pygmie and in the face of this crisis has set itself up for yet more intractable problems by giving Ukraine candidate status (so much strategic idiocy, so little time).
Heaven help us.
The EU is indeed a geopolitical pygmy. I can support giving all humanitarian assistance to The Ukrainians-weapons too, if that is what they ask us for, but I am far from convinced that we should be planning to enter into a conflict with Russia as an ally of a dysfunctional pygmy non-state. To put it brutally: Where exactly is our national interest in this? I am not pro-Russian, I am just not very keen on wars.
Me too! Why have we diminished our own military and our armaments been sent to Ukraine on this scale if we can’t afford to replace them promptly for our own defence? The EU countries are the neighbours of Russia and Ukraine yet many have dodged paying the full amount into NATO commitments. Most of us would not now be willing to sacrifice ourselves on their behalf as happened in WW2.
You could argue that by arming Ukraine, while it may leave us temporarily weaker, keeps the front line much further away from our shores then if we stockpiled weapons and allowed Ukraine to fall. It also outsources much of the actual fighting and potentially saves casualties to our diminished armed forces
Spot on. Why fight directly when you can rely on proxies to weaken your enemy. Ukraine is a great investment for the future of U.K. – at great mortal cost to them.
Hardly anyone is keen on war, but it has been the defining characteristic of humanity since time began. I believe we are still human, therefore, wars will continue.
I fully agree that our armed forces should be expanded dramatically. Furthermore, I believe we should return to the days when many more young men and women do apprenticeships or (useful) degrees whilst in the military ready for a civilian career should they decide to leave the service after a few years. Military service is character-building and we could have access to an enlarged pool of reservists in time of need.
Rusia was once thought to be capable of taking the entire of Central Europe in under a week. We now find that three months after it attacked Ukraine it cannot even fight its was through one, modestly eqipped, Eastern European state. Russia is a paper tiger.
I believe that there are excellent reasons for increasing our expenditure on defence, but Russia’s military capacity / effectiveness is not one of them.
You might note that the paper tiger possesses one of the largest collection of thermonuclear weapons with the capability to deliver them, along with a world view antithetical to the west. I think it far better to confront the beast early rather than feed it.
Err, how is it’s worldview antithetical to the West? Communism is long dead, their oligarchs are equivalent to our capitalists. Their motivation is driven by the NATO threat. But do they really want to invade UK? I think not.
So, your argument is that we should ‘confront’ a nation with a massive haul of nuclear weapons, which you apparently believe it would be ready to use on us. What sort of ‘confrontation’ did you have in mind?
The attackar must, as a rule of thumb, bring 3-5x the force to bear that the defender can muster. The defender can stand in place, use the lay of the land, etc. This was why Germany attacking Russia in WWII was so foolish, as it was attacking a country with 2x it’s population.
Germany was also woefully prepared for attacking such a cold climate, and couldn’t commit its forces in enough numbers due to Britain not being under control and having to keep two fronts open. Their leaders impatience in trying to do both at once probably cost them the war in the long run
The General needs to be far more concerned at the abominable wokery that this goverment is imposing on Army training, and the appalling job that Capita is doing with recruitment: Potential Officers are having to wait months to do their Commissions Board tests, and Capita and The Goverment are deliberately trying to ” egalitarianise” Officer Recruitment, especially for The Household Division, by sequestering the initial process.
Due to fifty years of our civil servants doing nothing more than ‘managing decline’ we have armed forces that are merely adjunct to those of the U.S. It is now far too late for this to be redressed.
It’s never too late. It is a matter of will. That’s all that is lacking. It will be hard to turn around. But it is not impossible.
But I do worry that we might be on the last generation of top-class military officers and that we are slipping below critical mass. The current recruitment campaigns seem to be targetting precisely the wrong sort of people you need in the military.
I’d start by firing 20% of the MoD civil servants. Repeat until productivity improves. Put the money saved directly into the armed forces and not civil service overhead.
Agreed. Motivation is the key ingredient, but until the masses witness the horrors of war on the tube, or in their own towns, or summoned by a Churchill-like leader, it will be difficult to muster them.
Yes, yes and yes!
Personally I would prefer to see the establishment of a trained Order of Assassins tasked with taking out those leaders of countries that pursue an armed expansionist foreign policy such as Putin and those actively supporting him. Why kill those acting under orders when you can kill the real aggressor. It might make our own leaders more vulnerable just as Zelinski faced potential assassination during the early part of Russia’s invasion but it would make the rest of us safer.
The weapons industry votes no to that plan.
The fly in the ointment. Of course leaders who risk being assassinated would be against it too. Hence its rarity in history.
So if we attack other countries such as Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan (to name just a few) is it okay for a third country such as China or India (for example) to assassinate our leaders?
Or are the USA, UK and NATO allowed to use shock and awe tactics on whichever regime we take a dislike to?
The answer to that is clearly yes. If we believe Sadat Hussain is planning to develop weapons of mass destruction to attack other countries assassinate him don’t invade his country and kill his compatriots. We have to take the risk of counter assassination.
The USA (and, indeed, the UK under Blair) did not have the authority of the UN to invade Iraq but they invaded regardless, One of the atrocities of that war was the bombing of a civilian shelter and killing 200 women and children.
This was one of the atrocities told in an excellent WorldService documentary this morning (29/6/22) in which journalists and photo-journalists, who had covered many wars. gave a vivid account of the suffering endured by ordinary citizens and ill-equipped soldiers when western army generals and politicians whip-up support for invasions.
So can I presume you favour the Order of Assassins as a rational alternative to warfare – not many others seem to.
I believe in diplomacy. I would only support military action if me or mine were threatened.
The Charter of the UN made it illegal to invade a sovereign state. This was a primary aim of the Charter because the League of Nations (set up after WW!) failed dismally to protect small countries by the dominant.
The invasion of Iraq (illegal) started the precedent for such invasions.
In order to make this and other invasions (Lebanon and Syria) legal Article 2 of the Charter was altered (in retrospect) and now intimates that “if a sovereign state is not willing or in a position to protect its own citizens” then military action could be taken. However the decision to invade has been taken by the USA for political reasons and not by the majority of people within the sovereign state.
Naturally, the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is to be condemned but it is hypocrisy on the part of American-led NATO to make this a unique violation of sovereign rights.. .
Please tell us the last time the U.S. or GB “attacked” another sovereign land with the intention of incorporating it during the last century? Please stop comparing apples with lemons.
But they would have taken out Blair and Bush
Very replaceable.
Aris Roussinos wrote, “American military aid is necessary now, but in the medium term it will be Europe’s job to safeguard Europe’s own security: the Americans will soon be distracted by their own great confrontation in the Pacific, and we must rely on ourselves to meet the great challenge ahead.”
Outsourcing the military defense of Europe is an error in judgment. Outsourcing the military defense to the United States is an even greater error in judgment. By 2040, the United States will cease being a Western nation and will become a Hispanic nation due to its open borders. Hispanic culture will dominate, and Western culture will be rejected by a majority of Americans.
Boris Johnson should work with Emmanuel Macron to establish a European security architecture that is independent of both the United States and its extension known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Johnson should also share his plans with Marine Le Pen. The latter is a strong advocate of Western culture.
Collaboration among the British, the Germans, and the French on developing the next generation of weapons would be helpful. This collaboration must specifically exclude the Americans.
Get more info about this issue.
Here we go again, shoehorning in your page about Hispanics in America in an article about land wars in Europe
So NATO hasn’t worked for the last 70 years ?
I know who I trust to work with on defence matters. For all their faults, I’d rather be allied with the US than France or Germany. They are much closer to the UK in their “gut reaction” and instincts and also act quickly and decisively.And they don’t like appeasement.
If you knew anything about the defence equipment industry, you would know how much collaboration and cross-ownership there is between the UK and US – and how well this works.
This Hispanic stuff is just nonsense.
The French are good and professional soldiers…as for the rest of the Nato armies, bar a few former Warsaw Pact countries… useless.
LOL. That provided a smile this morning.
And Europe will be Muslim, so no worries.
You talkee the big silly, yes?
General Boris Johnson says we must continue to cut our Army numbers and rely on his hot air to repel the Russians. As he is out of the Country more than he is in it he’ll be safe
O, please twitter your comment lol – don’t keep it within the rarified confines of unHerd.
General lobbies for more resources.
People think that’s news?
Roussinos is emerging as one of the few “adults in the room”. Look at Donbas. An artillery war. It’s about range. About mass. About war stocks. About endurance. About the industrial ability to sustain attrition. It’s obvious. But not to our politicians . A generation ago I was in the front line. Now it’s the next generation. Never has the Roman dictum “if you want peace, prepare for war” been more apposite.
Our dear Tabaqui. What a war the GB Army can win nowadays without sitting on the shoulders of Big Cousin? Don’t fool yourselves. The guys in flip-flops have just made you squeak and run (along with the cousins BTW).
Britts pretend to have some kind of their own policy but in fact we surely know where the call is coming from. It’s fine to pretend that “our policies completely coincide” but you need to remember that someday you might be brutally left to pick up the check.
In such a storm you have to be on the right side and in the current scenario I would not be placing bets on GB stuffing Ukraine with weapons to kill as many Russians as possible. If Putin wins the hot war, when he wins also the energy war (and he will because he owns the f***ng resources), when he (potentially) wins the food war, there will be a nasty afterparty.
How about if captured British weapons would eventually end up in Belfast? Just a matter of time. Send more, fools.