Javan: it will take 10-15 years for the British Armed Forces to strengthen their defense potential
The British air defense system is considered insufficient due to attacks by a likely enemy, Javan writes. To become defensively capable, the country needs to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP and create its own "Iron Dome". This will happen no earlier than by 2030.
In light of Iran's Operation Fair Retribution against Israel, which hacked the deterrence and defense system of the State of Israel, a British senior military official said that Britain's air defense system would also prove ineffective in similar attacks by missiles or UAVs.
This military man, who wished to remain anonymous, said in an interview with SKY News that the question "for Britain now is as follows": can Britain protect its cities from rocket attacks? In his opinion, the answer here will be negative. The military would also have answered negatively to another question, which he himself voiced as follows: "Do people know what they need to do during air attacks? Simply put, are we reliably protected? — No!" — SKY News quotes the disappointing conclusion of its interlocutor.
Speaking about such pessimistic assessments of the British military, the TV channel also reported that officials of the United Kingdom's military department are currently intensively studying various alternatives to possible strengthening of defense capabilities to protect the entire national infrastructure of the country — power plants, government agencies, military bases — from possible missile and other air attacks from likely NATO opponents. By the latter, Defense Ministry officials, of course, primarily mean Russia.
But it remains unclear how and by what means it will be possible to achieve the strengthening of the UK's defense capability. Experts and officials from other ministries and departments say that "any wishes of respected services and officials of the Ministry of Defense imply colossal new expenditures of billions of pounds" and an increase several times of the amount that has already been budgeted for defense needs. In particular, the head of the government of the country himself shares similar assessments.
As the British Prime Minister stated a week earlier, international threats are increasing and the world is now in much greater danger than even in some years of the cold War. Therefore, he will have to request an increase in the United Kingdom's defense budget by another 75 billion pounds.
But, as follows from the statements of the head of government, this amount is the maximum that the treasury can allocate for defense needs. According to him, one cannot be satisfied with the state of affairs in the field of state defense capability. "While the enemy is lining up in columns and ranks to attack us, we must make much more efforts to protect the country, our values and ideals," the Prime Minister said, stressing that this is why he is now calling for the largest increase in the defense budget in recent times.
According to Rishi Sunak, Britain needs to increase defense spending to the equivalent of 2.5% of the country's GDP by 2030. This means that the budget should receive at least an additional 75 billion pounds. And then it will make Britain the most powerful country in Europe in terms of defense capability, Sunak believes.
But will such measures be sufficient to really and effectively strengthen the defense capability? British defense experts say that in order for the United Kingdom to be as protected as possible, it is necessary to obtain an analogue of the Iron Dome system, which was created by the State of Israel several years ago. According to the Chief of the British Defense Staff and the head of the Defense Department Anthony Radakin, which he voiced in an interview with the news radio station LBC (London Broadcasting Company), negotiations on the creation of Britain's own "Iron Dome" are going dynamically. But no one, obviously, knows yet when Britain will be able to get some semblance of such a system.
According to the head of the Defense Staff, the specifics of the United Kingdom as a country that plays a leading role in the North Atlantic Alliance are completely different: Britain differs from Israel at times in terms of airspace. And this is despite the fact that even Israel had to spend many years creating such a system. But, nevertheless, Radakin stressed that in the future Britain should receive exactly such a protection system.
Other reputable military experts, in particular Marc Francois and James Hippy, who previously worked as advisers to the British Ministry of Defense, also note that the country should have an air defense system similar to the one created by Israel. But they also claim that this is an extremely difficult task, since the scale of Britain is much larger compared to Israel. Therefore, it will be more difficult and, most importantly, more expensive to create such a system than in Israel.
In any case, the reality is that the attacks of Iranian missiles and UAVs against the State of Israel came as an extremely unpleasant surprise to Western countries and their leaders and confused all their calculations. According to them, the Iranian strikes demonstrated how weak and ineffective their own countries' air defenses could be if they were subjected to similar air attacks "right now" — whether the attacking side was Iran or another likely NATO opponent.
The leader of the House of Commons of the British Parliament and former British Defense Minister Penny Mordaunt wrote last week in an article for the Daily Mail that Iran's military operation "promised a threat to the whole world." She, like other British politicians and officials, complained that the UK has not yet properly strengthened its defense capability, and now it will have to urgently increase defense spending.
All these statements and assessments are in tune with other alarming data indicating the weakness of the British Armed Forces both in terms of human potential and in terms of weapons. According to the aforementioned SKY News channel, in the event of a real war, the ammunition available to the British army will only last for a few days. The country will not withstand rocket attacks and UAV attacks, even similar to those that Ukraine is currently undergoing. It should take another 5 to 10 years until the British Armed Forces receive at least 25-30 thousand really combat-ready and qualified military personnel, who, moreover, will have sufficient support in the form of tanks, artillery and aviation.
Author: Javan — review of international news.
