TOP points to NATO, Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace and the new Chief of General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders.
They very clearly and eloquently stated that Vladimir Putin’s murderous bullying of Ukraine and the West should stop – and that should be our mantra.
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General Sanders is right when he compares today with 1937.
At that time, in the aftermath of World War I – presumably the war to end war – everyone hoped for peace but did not prepare for war and in 1940 we were almost defeated by the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Today, after years of peace dividends and cuts to our defense budget – which act more like corporate poachers than defense investors – we now face a deadly and criminal Russian dictator.
Through his actions in Ukraine, Putin has shown his readiness to disregard international law and to attack other sovereign nations for his own purposes.
The inevitable inference is that we must quickly increase our defensive ability to deter and counter any further aggression by him.
NATO has boldly announced plans to deploy 300,000 troops ready to protect Europe’s eastern borders from Russia.
With the probable accession of Sweden and Finland to NATO, this border only became much longer.
We in the UK need to play our full role in responding to that challenge.
As things stand today, our Army is too small for all the demands placed on it and not equipped as it should be.
Although much has been said about adapting our Army to face new threats, it is a disappointing fact of life for the Chancellor of the Exchequer that our ability to respond to more traditional threats must also be maintained and modernized. .
And it’s an embarrassment that the British Army could not set up a single armored unit – a tank-based formation of 25,000 soldiers – while we set up four in the Cold War until the early 1990s.
The Government has a real dilemma here. Last year, it published the Integrated Review of Foreign, Security and Defense Policy in a document called Global Britain In A Competitive Age.
Many of the judgments in that review were sound – for example, the need to invest in cyber warfare, space security and greater national resilience.
It has set certain priorities for defense spending, particularly influenced by a policy towards the Indo-Pacific in the light of a strengthening China.
But hardly did our navy’s Carrier Strike battle group return to home ports before the realities of other problems surfaced.
First the chaotic evacuation from Kabul and Afghanistan then Putin’s attack on Ukraine.
TRADITIONAL THREATS
A ground war in Europe pulled up defense planners for a while.
For the Government, the choice is either to change its policy priorities away from the Indo-Pacific or to accept that the demands of a land war in Europe create a new and very dangerous situation to which we must respond.
So Ben Wallace is absolutely right to ask for an extra £ 10 billion for the defense budget and much of it needs to be invested in our army
As a start, we need to reverse the planned cuts to reduce the army to 72,500 and consider enlarging it beyond today’s size of about 80,000.
Cutting off our C-130 tactical airliners and some of our helicopters now seems like madness in the context of what’s going on in Ukraine.
And it is from the conduct of operations in Ukraine that we must learn lessons and act.
The brave Ukrainians are begging for more rifle and rocket artillery and ammunition, just as they were initially for tank and air defense weapons.
Despite the Russians’ mournful handling of their armor in the early stages of their campaign, the tank is still a major factor on the modern battlefield.
HEADS IN THE SAND
We need more than the 148 Challenger 3 tanks currently planned.
We need to reverse the decision to take our Warrior infantry combat vehicles out of service and refurbish them instead.
And just a casual look at the fighting in the Donbas region will reveal that it is artillery that is winning the battle.
Ukraine needs more artillery and so does the British Army.
In addition, we need a significant supply of ammunition to support the intense rate of fire in modern combat.
None of these realities, so sharply set out by the Secretary of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff, would be welcome in either No 10 or No 11 Downing Street.
But 2022 may indeed be our 1937 moment.
Do we walk to the board or do we stick our heads in the sand?
Winston Churchill is Boris Johnson’s hero – come on Boris, this is your Winston moment.
- General The Lord Dannatt GCB CBE MC DL was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009 and is the author of Boots On The Ground – Britain And Her Army Since 1945 (Profile Books) £ 10.99.
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