A former NATO general secretary has warned that Britain and its people are not safe, and that the country is not prepared for war.
Lord Robertson of Port Ellen told the UK Parliament that Britain is is lacking in ammunition, training, people, logistics, and medical capacity. He added that describing the country as being underprepared for war was an “understatement”.
The Independent reports: 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.
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“This country and its people are not safe.
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“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.”
The Labour peer co-wrote the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) 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.”
