Former Nato Secretary-General's terrifying warning about state of UK's defences shows why we need to 'wake up'
The need to increase defence spending is underlined by former Nato Secretary-General George Robertson’s warning that this country is ‘not safe’
Given he was a UK Defence Secretary, Nato Secretary-General and recently co-wrote a Strategic Defence Review for the Westminster government, George Robertson is worth listening to on military matters.
And, speaking in a debate on the review in the House of Lords, Lord Robertson stressed repeatedly that “this country and its people are not safe” because of the state of our Armed Forces.
“When we say in the report [the review] that we are unprepared, it is an understatement,” he warned. “We don't have the ammunition, the training, the people, the spare parts, the logistics, and we don't have the medical capacity to deal with the mass casualties that we would face if we were involved in high-intensity warfare.”
No more peace dividend
Not that long ago, the risk that this country might be involved in such a conflict was relatively small. The UK was, therefore, able to enjoy a ‘peace dividend’ that saw the size of our Armed Forces fall to historically low levels, with the money saved used for other public spending priorities. And that was a good thing.
However, the world has changed dramatically in three main ways: Vladimir Putin’s corruption of Russian democracy and his invasion of Ukraine; the rise of isolationism in US politics, as expressed by Donald Trump’s ‘America first’ slogan; and the increasing military might of China.
Suddenly the UK has found itself facing a possible future in which Russia defeats Ukraine and then turns its attention to the Baltic states, all Nato members; the US, under Trump or a fellow traveller, decides to leave Europe to its own defences; and China invades Taiwan.
The problem is few people recognise the potential dangers. Former Conservative defence minister Nicholas Soames said “unless the public has some idea of the sense of urgency, the only way really to wake people up is to establish either a minister or ministry of civil defence charged with training millions of people how to respond to an attack”.
Everyone hopes such talk is overblown. But, to paraphrase George Washington, while we can hope for the best, we really must prepare for the very, very worst.
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