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Armed Forces Not Ready to Fight a War, Says Defence Secretary

by Will Jones
25 October 2024 9:00 AM

The Armed Forces are not ready to fight a war, the Defence Secretary has claimed, while a military source told the Telegraph, “We can fight” but we “might be left dangerously obsolete”. The Telegraph has more.

John Healey said the military had been “hollowed out” and “underfunded” under the last Government to such an extent that it would not be able to deter the enemy if war broke out today.

He said: “The U.K., in keeping with many other nations, has essentially become very skilled and ready to conduct military operations. What we’ve not been ready to do is to fight. Unless we are ready to fight, we are not in shape to deter.

“This is at the heart of the NATO thinking. We’ve got to not just be capable of defending our NATO nations, but more importantly we’ve got to be more effective in the deterrence we provide against any future aggression.”

This week, Vladimir Putin’s allies gathered at a summit in Russia in what the Russian president claimed was the start of a new world order. 

In attendance were Xi Jinping, the Chinese President, as well as the leaders of 36 countries including Iran, India, South Africa the UAE, Ethiopia and Egypt.

Military figures suggested Britain could fight but needed to ensure that it remained technologically advanced. A senior Army source told the Telegraph the British military was putting in the work to fight effectively in modern warfare. 

“We can fight, no question,” said the source, who warned that the risk the British military faced in war was that it “might be left dangerously obsolete” because adversaries were more advanced. 

“We’re ready to fight the last war. But we need to be ready to fight the next war,” he added.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: ArmyChinaConservative PartyLabourRussia

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17 Comments
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EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
6 months ago

Well that will boost morale and recruitment!

7
0
Dinger64
Dinger64
6 months ago
Reply to  EppingBlogger

Yes and isn’t the whole point of an ‘army’
to be able to fight and defend?
How many successive governments have taken their eye off this ball?

10
0
Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
6 months ago
Reply to  Dinger64

Their eye has been very much on the ball – that ball being the need to hamstring, emasculate and demoralise the Armed Forces to remove any threat that they might step in when Government policy can clearly be seen to be destroying the country (as almost happened under the Wilson Gov’t).

Their Commander-in-Chief (His Honourable Majesty King Charles III), is also well and truly on the side of those who would be, and are, busily engaged in exactly that destruction.

7
0
Heretic
Heretic
6 months ago
Reply to  Tonka Rigger

Britain Is Proof: Globalists Plan To Use Migrants As A Mercenary Army Against The West – Alt-Market.us

Importing a Mercenary Army while decimating the Armed Forces of the West.

It’s called Treason, Anti-White Genocide, and our politicians are complicit.

Many years ago, UK Column founder, retired Royal Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Gerrish described it thus:
“It’s as if a gigantic net is being slowly drawn around the British People”.

[And all the nations of the West]

Last edited 6 months ago by Heretic
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GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
6 months ago

“We might not be ready to fight but we’ve been working hard at the areas of highest priority.”

“Following intensive training exercises, I’m proud to say we can now identify our enemies’ pronouns from 2km away so there’s absolutely no danger of us misgendering them/zir/xey.”

9
0
Tonka Rigger
Tonka Rigger
6 months ago
Reply to  GroundhogDayAgain

Of much higher priority than say, oh, killing bad people for example.

That, and prioritising “representation” over competency and passion for the job in so many roles.

1
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago

Thank goodness we have those thousands of highly trained and committed britons from the Calais Yacht Club available to answer the call at short notice.

Whew!

4
0
Heretic
Heretic
6 months ago

comment image

Fury as number of troops in Army to fall below 70,000 for the first time since Napoleonic Era | Daily Mail Online

Last edited 6 months ago by Heretic
2
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
6 months ago
Reply to  Heretic

To be fair, we saw Napoleon off in 1815, and haven’t heard from him since..

3
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

😀😀😀

0
0
Heretic
Heretic
6 months ago
Reply to  NeilParkin

Remind me: To which country are we paying £millions to stop Third World Invaders from crossing the Channel?

2
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
6 months ago

Apparently Chuckles is saying we need to be paying “our reparations” bill. Well if that hasn’t come from uncle Klaus I’m a Democrat. Looks like Windsor estates are going to be announcing a big sale.

4
0
NeilParkin
NeilParkin
6 months ago

What worries me the most is that we’ll be poised for China or Russia to attack, and the real threat is being invaded by the Army of the Isle of Man. Look West, not East…

3
0
Monro
Monro
6 months ago

‘The Spanish infantry had no training to operate with tanks, and Arman had no patience to wait for them. So he ordered his company forward without the accompanying infantry. Of his 15 tanks, three were disabled almost immediately by mines on the road to the town……The poor coordination of tank and infantry at Sesena would prove typical of the Spanish experience.’

Soviet Tank Operations in the (1936) Spanish Civil War, Steven J. Zaloga

So the conflict in Ukraine in many ways is little different to the major European wars of 1914, 1936 and 1939.

‘The next war’ is already upon us. The Ukrainians are fighting it for us in line with the (so far) successful though unprincipled Western (and Chinese, whisper it) strategy of weakening Russia so that it can no longer invade its neighbours. If Ukraine crumbles, why would a Russia seeking to recreate itself with the scale of the USSR, to set itself up once more as a European superpower, why would such a Russia halt at Odessa?

Mr Healey is correct. We do not look dangerous to a near peer continental adversary.

How many armoured divisions do we have? None.

That must change.

Armoured divisions (remind me, how did Ukraine gain Russian territory?) with air superiority are critical as much in mobile defence as in manouevre assault. The divisional recce, arty and air defence elements of an armoured division have always been particularly important.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/10/02/the-ukrainian-army-rolled-all-of-its-best-swedish-and-german-tanks-into-russias-kursk-oblast/

But we’ve known all this since the British Army introduced a startled world to combined arms warfare at the Battle of Amiens in 1918.

What is now required is not some ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’.

That revolution has already happened. It’s rather like the last one, and the one before that.

Combined arms warfare requires the dynamic coordination of close air support (including UAVs), indirect deep and close fire support, shock action and direct fire in support of mechanised infantry assault, all enabled by the most modern and reliable command, control and communications technically available (digital).

Modern, as ancient, warfare (and particularly so deterrence) requires mass.

What is required is a politician of Mr Healey’s stature to restore Britain’s conventional deterrence.

Expensive as it will be, the cost in blood and treasure of actually having to fight a war is many orders of magnitude higher.

Plus ca change and so on:

‘The ‘Dogs of war’ are loose and the rugged Russian Bear
Full bent on blood and robbery, has crawled out of his lair
It seems a thrashing now and then, will never help to tame
That brute, and so he’s bent upon the ‘same old game’
The Lion did his best to find him some excuse
To crawl back to his den again, all efforts were no use
He hungered for his victim; he’s pleased when blood is shed
But let us hope his crimes may all recoil on his own head.

We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do
We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men’ we’ve got the money too
We’ve fought the bear before, and while we’re Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.’

Last edited 6 months ago by Monro
1
-2
psychedelia smith
psychedelia smith
6 months ago

If only they had more electric battlefield vehicles and transgender colonels..

8
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
6 months ago
Reply to  psychedelia smith

Yes those must be the answer to the issue, given the current strategies!

1
0
Monro
Monro
6 months ago

A key part of the ‘next’ war, already in progress, is the struggle for unmanned air superiority.

But, as Forbes notes, this is by no means a ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’

‘It was only a matter of time before, paralleling the development of military biplanes in WW1, we started to see dedicated FPV fighters emerge which will not only bring down enemy drones but also counter the FPVs on the other side. The drone air war is becoming an air superiority contest in its own right.’

And FPV drones dropping grenades through tank hatches resemble nothing so much as WW1 biplanes dropping bombs on enemy trenches by hand.

The battle for unmanned air superiority is not so dissimilar to the struggles at various altitudes between various Albatrosses, Fokkers, SPADs, Sopwith Camels, S.E. 5s and Bristol Fighters.

Drones are already being fitted with defensive aids to protect against FPV fighter interceptor drones.

As in WW1:

‘This contest has at least three possible outcomes:

One is that defence gets ahead, and reconnaissance operations continue as at present, but with a steady rate of losses. The battlefield will continue to be under constant surveillance by both sides.

Another is that offence will triumph, and neither side will be able to keep scout drones in their air. The omnipresent eye on the sky will disappear and operations will return to the pre-drone age.

The third and most likely situation is that one side will gain drone air superiority over the other. The winners will see and target the enemy, while remaining invisible and untouchable to long-range strikes from missiles, glide bombs and long-range drones. Perhaps worse, the losers will face heavy and continuing attrition of their ground forces from attacking FPVs without being able to strike in return.’

Strategic bombing seems likely to be dominated by now ubiquitous ballistic and scram jet cruise missiles. Close air support seems destined to be dominated by UAVs if they can survive interception by FPV fighter interceptor drones.

But Britain was being attacked by ballistic and cruise missiles in 1944 and 1945.

So not much is new.

Even so are our procurement systems of today, hedged about with regulation and bureaucracy, fit for the task of keeping up with the pace of development of unmanned aerial technology?

‘Nobody in the West has yet proposed putting defensive measures on small scout drones like the U.S. RQ-11B Raven. With the normal procurement process, implementation would likely take years.’

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2024/10/15/jammers-and-cameras-new-twists-in-drone-interceptor-war-over-ukraine/

Errr…..probably not……

Last edited 6 months ago by Monro
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