Britain and its people are not safe, former Nato chief warns Parliament
Britain and its people are not safe, a former Nato general secretary has warned, as he told Parliament describing the country as underprepared for war is an “understatement”.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, who co-wrote the Strategic Defence Review (SDR), said the UK is lacking in ammunition, training, people, logistics, and medical capacity.
He told the upper chamber: “Bearing in mind the difficult world that we live in and have to survive in, this is what I firmly believe: we are underinsured, we are underprepared, we are not safe.
“This country and its people are not safe.
“The British people are faced with a world in turmoil, with great power competitions spilling over now into conflict, with constant grey zone attacks on our mainland, and with Russia – often with the co-operation of Iran, China and North Korea – challenging the existing world order.
“We simply in this country are not safe.”
Threats
The Labour peer wrote the review alongside the former commander of the joint forces command, General Sir Richard Barrons, and defence adviser Dr Fiona Hill.
Artificial intelligence, drones and a £1 billion investment in homeland missile defence all form part of the review’s plan to keep the UK safe in the face of threats from Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the rise of China.
As peers debated the review on Friday, Lord Robertson said: “When we say in the report that we are unprepared, it is an understatement.
“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.
“Over the years, and I suppose I must plead guilty to that as well, we took a substantial peace dividend, because we all believed that the world had changed for the better.”
He continued: “Sadly, we were not alone in that. There may have been over-optimism, but at worst, wishful thinking, but the brutal, full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Putin’s Russia three years ago was a savage wake-up call for all of us.
“This world we now live in has changed out of all recognition, and we have got to change as well.”
‘Confident’
Lord Robertson told the upper chamber he is “confident” the review will “intimidate our enemies, inspire our friends, invigorate our defence industry, and make our country safer”.
Conservative shadow defence minister Baroness Goldie pressed the Government to be specific about the amount of money and timing needed for defence spending to reach 3% of GDP.
She said: “In this exciting and brave new world for defence, the elephant in the room is money, and none of this excellent aspiration proposed by the review means anything without attaching pound signs to the proposals.
“Ambition must translate into specific financial commitment.”
Former military chief Lord Stirrup said the Government’s spending would need to be restructured to be “anywhere near 3.5% of GDP for defence by 2035”.
“There is no sign of any urgency on any side of the political divide on addressing this crucial matter,” the crossbench peer added.
Former top diplomat Lord Hannay of Chiswick said forms of soft power such as overseas aid and the BBC World Service should be prioritised alongside hard power.
“We really do need to take another look at the hard power soft power balance, recognising that we need them both,” the crossbench peer said.
Conservative former defence minister Lord Soames of Fletchling said the British people needed to be told what they should do in the event of a cyber attack that knocked out the internet and phone networks.
Attack
Lord Soames, who is the grandson of Second World War prime minister Sir Winston Churchill, called for the public to have food stocks at home.
He said: “I believe that 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.”
Meanwhile, Tory peer Lord Harlech, who is a reservist, said the Government needed to pay more attention to the Territorial Army and other reserve forces.
He said: “For too long, we have treated reserves as an afterthought. A just-in-case solution. Too often called on at short notice, handed out outdated kit, sidelined from training opportunities and then expected to deliver at the same standard as regulars.
“If we are to rely more heavily on the reserves, as the review suggests, then we must be honest about what that actually requires.
“It means giving them the same standard of equipment, no more trickle-down hand-me-downs. It means equal access to courses and training opportunities.
“Too often, reserves find themselves bumped off areas by cadets or even airsoft groups. That is not how a serious military trains.”
Labour’s Baroness Goudie criticised the review for failing to mention gender, adding: “The exclusion of women from peace process does not lead to stability. It leads to a relapse.”
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I am always concerned when people pontificate on military matters and advocate for increased spending on defence.
They often have an ulterior motive, having been part of the politico/military/industrial complex, moving seamlessly from government or armed forces into extremely lucrative consultancies. They are feted as “experts” whilst seeking vast sums from the public purse for their employers.
Time for some openness about this is well past, we need a register of interests.
One event pushed us closer to disaster and that was brexit. In that one event, putin won. And who was a big foghorn for brexit. The clacton wanderer.
Farage admires putin as well.
Funny old world in who pops up when foreign leaders need a country messed with. Must be coincidence.
52% voted for less safe in 2016. The promise of WW3 was a Brexit benefit for many.
How on earth do you connect Brexit to WW3? It is NATO, not the EU, that provides the defence co-ordination that deters Putin from attacking us. God help any country that ever has to rely on the EU to protect it – its wheels of power turn so slowly that any war would long be over before the Commission gets approval to release its first sternly-worded press statement, never mind deploys a single soldier. Given several EU member states are friends of Russia, the EU will never be an effective defence militarily or diplomatically. You will notice the relative importance… Read more »
So your solution is to ignore the EU? Yes, it’s under armed and slow but it is a Union and that is part of the solution. It knows it is under threat and that will spur it into action quicker. The UK is on its own and doesn’t have the resources the EU has, the stupidity of Brexit saw to that. The EU needs to strengthen but ultimately it seems humanity is just on course for another world war. We never learn.
Nowhere have I suggested ignoring the EU. But unlike some others on here, I don’t feel the need to bang on about Brexit incessantly and pretend it is the cause of everything that ever goes wrong in the world. I’m sure you’ll agree it gets a bit tiresome.
“… the resources the EU has…” You are joking?? The EU relies too heavily on the United States military to defend the EU’s rear end.
You’re confusing defence with partnership. If everyone is friends with everyone else there’s no need for defence. That’s why Putin and others have been seeking to break up this friendship because the economic alliance was a threat as much as the defensive alliance.
Project Fear warned that leaving the EU would destabilise the region, empower and embolden our adversaries and push the world towards WW3.
They’ve been proven right.
Proven right by what exactly? The fact that several years after Brexit, Putin invaded Ukraine? You might remember he also invaded Ukraine in 2014 (i.e. before Brexit) – so by your ‘correlation equals causation’ logic, can I deduce that the UK’s membership of the EU was the root cause of Russia’s capture of Crimea? Do you honestly believe the world was a friendlier place before Brexit? Seems like selective memory to me.
You can measure friendliness by defence budgets and there was no talk of 5% back then.