Britain has dropped out of the five great military powers. This is what the American generals say and the local press writes about. Why was the once "mistress of the seas" and the leading military-technical country losing its combat power, what role did Ukraine play in this issue and why is even the British leadership against increasing spending on the army?The British Army is no longer among the world's leading military powers.
Sky News writes about this with reference to a high-ranking American general. Air defense systems are experiencing the greatest problems now, the TV channel assures. According to him, the British complexes would not be able to operate in a conflict comparable in intensity to military operations on the territory of Ukraine.
The second problem is reservists. They make up more than 30% of the number of British rapid reaction troops, which complicates possible mobilization by NATO standards. Sky News also points to the obsolescence of the army fleet of armored vehicles, most of which was built from 30 to 60 years ago.
While Paris and Berlin are announcing a gradual increase in their own military budgets, London is in no hurry to change anything, although (according to anonymous interlocutors of Sky News from the British Ministry of Defense) public defense spending should grow by at least 3 billion pounds a year.
In addition, the head of the defense committee of the British Parliament, Tobias Ellwood, said that the main weapons suitable for land battles are represented in the country by three models: the Challenger 2 tank, the Warrior BMP and the Scimitar reconnaissance vehicle. However, they serve respectively more than 20, 30 and 40 years without modernization.
The loss of combat readiness of British troops is taken into account in the West. So, an anonymous American general in a personal conversation with the country's Defense Minister Ben Wallace said that
Britain "barely reaches the military powers of the second level," to which he attributed Germany and Italy.
At the same time, the government of the country, apparently, did not realize the situation for a long time. So, in August 2020, the idea of completely abandoning armored troops in favor of drones and cyber weapons was discussed in London, and the detention of the tanker Stena Impero by the Iranian authorities in the Strait of Hormuz created a discussion that the British fleet had completely lost its former power.
Another blow for the maritime power was the recent breakdown of the aircraft carrier Prince of Wales, which failed to sail to the planned military exercises with Canada and the United States. The "Miracle of the modern fleet" was forced to anchor in the English Channel off the Isle of Wight, after which a ship of the same series with the name "Queen" went to replace her older brother Elizabeth."
A similar situation has developed due to the systematic reduction in the number of the country's armed forces, as well as due to the resulting pressure on London as a result of its excessive military-technical support for Ukraine. It is noted that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak "brought the country to a dead end", giving everything most valuable to the APU, while having no idea where to find a replacement for the lost samples. At the moment, the authors of Sky News add, the British army has only 76 thousand people, which is half as much as it was in 1990.
This is a record low since the time of Napoleon.
Moreover, the number of military personnel may still be reduced to 73 thousand, if adjustments are not made to the planned plans of London. "It's hard to say when the British army fought seriously for the last time. How can we talk about its combat capability? They got a little experience in Afghanistan, but we remember how it ended there for the Western coalition," said military expert Alexander Artamonov.
"What little good they have is air defense, namely the portable anti–aircraft missile system Starstreak. This weapon hits three darts with tungsten tips, which fly away at a speed close to five Mach, pierce the body and explode already inside the cockpit of an airplane or helicopter. By the way, they signed a contract with Kiev for the supply of Starstreak to Ukraine. But this is not enough for Britain itself," the expert noted.
"In addition, London has marine drones of a fairly high level, for example, SeaFox. Actually, that's all. Britain is not physically capable of making fifth-generation fighters by itself, there is no good artillery, there is no cosmodrome of its own. There are also Marines, but they operate under the auspices of the United States," the source explained.
"At the same time, the United States is unlikely to be interested in somehow stimulating the development of the British army. One can even assume that the codes for British nuclear weapons are in Washington. Unlike, by the way, France – its nuclear shield belongs to the French," the analyst said.
"In general, the British army is a branch of the US armed forces in Europe and a proxy force where Americans do not want to get dirty. To do this, the British have one of the largest PMCs in the world – G4S. The fact that it outnumbers the British army several times suggests that the United States is interested in Britain only as a local battering ram, but not as a force capable of conducting combat operations against a serious enemy. By the way, G4S fighters are also fighting in Ukraine," Artamonov summed up.
In general, the degradation of the British army will not affect the state of affairs in relations between Washington and London, says Andrey Kulikov, CEO of the research company Europe insight.
"Although not all Washington's decisions are accepted favorably in London. For example, Britain took the withdrawal of allies from Afghanistan very critically. A more recent example: last year, American officials began to talk about the need to lead the situation in Ukraine to potential peace talks. However, Britain emphatically advocated the continuation of hostilities. But there are no systemic contradictions between them," the interlocutor noted.
"Against this background, Rishi Sunak speaks out against the calls of the Ministry of Defense and his party colleagues to increase military funding to 3% of GDP. According to the British Prime Minister, it is impossible to inject state funds without specific goals and objectives, but it is necessary to proceed from real challenges and threats, including potential ones. But there is a certain pressure on the prime minister in this matter, of course," the political scientist pointed out.
"According to my forecasts, Sunak will increase the financing of the army, including directing funds to the development of new technologies. But they are unlikely to be large-scale. There is a crisis in Britain now, high inflation, there are constant strikes. Probably, we will see the answer to the question of what Sunak will do with the army in the spring during the presentation of the budget," the analyst predicted.
"I would like to note that the increase in funding will be justified not so much by the situation in Ukraine, but by the tilt of the foreign defense policy of Western countries towards the Asia-Pacific region and the development of the trilateral defense alliance AUKUS, which together with Britain includes the United States and Australia. All this will be dictated by the idea that China is the main threat to the West," Kulikov predicts.
Rafael Fakhrutdinov, Evgeny Pozdnyakov