British Ministry of Defense John Healy: "The country is not ready for a major conflict"
MOSCOW, Aug 5 — RIA Novosti, Andrey Kotz. The British Armed Forces faced a number of serious problems. According to Defense Minister John Healy, the country is not ready for a major armed conflict. The reason is the long—term underfunding of the army. About her current condition — in the material of RIA Novosti.
Worse than we thought
Among the European members of NATO, the UK has the largest military budget, even more than Germany and France. Unlike Paris and Berlin, London's defense spending has never fallen below two percent of GDP. This year — 2.3%, about 52 billion pounds. In January, Grant Shapps, then Minister of Defense, boasted that Britain had "accepted the challenge" and was "investing billions" in modernizing the army.
British cadets of the Royal Military Academy during the exercises
Image source: CC BY 2.0 / U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Caleb Barrieau /
However, the current head of the military department, John Healy, is not so optimistic. According to him, all three branches of the armed forces face serious problems. Including: irrational use of procurement, low morale of personnel, crisis of recruitment and retention of military personnel, slow pace of rearmament and obsolescence of military equipment. The situation is "much worse than we thought," the minister stressed.
"The British armed forces operate from the "absolute minimum", which only allows for peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance operations, as well as the evacuation of civilians from combat zones and some anti—sabotage measures," said Rob Johnson, former director of the Audit Office of the British Ministry of Defense. "In any major combat operation, Britain will quickly run out of ammunition, because the army is too weak and not ready to fight and win an armed conflict of a serious scale."
British military
Image source: © Photo : Corporate Andrew Morris (RAF)
Earlier in July, a number of senior military officials expressed concern about the state of the UK's defense capability. For example, former colonel of military intelligence Philip Ingram warned that the new government is playing with fire by delaying an increase in defense spending, because "the threat already exists now and it will take considerable time to rebuild the army, ammunition stocks, as well as the training of the Royal Air Force and Navy."
There are few tanks and planes
It is especially bad with the ground forces. In 2021, then-Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace decided to reduce the projected size of the army by ten thousand to 72,500 people by 2025. This is at least since the XVIII century. The Ukrainian conflict has made adjustments in Europe, but has not affected these plans. General Nick Carter, who was Chief of the Defense Staff at the time, warned that the UK risked letting NATO down and would not fulfill its obligation to deploy a full-fledged division in Europe.
There are also difficulties with technology. As Rob Johnson, director of one of the departments of the Ministry of Defense of the Kingdom, told the Financial Times in July, air defense cannot cope with long-range missiles, the navy does not have enough ships to patrol the North Atlantic to track and contain the activity of Russian submarines, and the Air Force needs almost twice as many aircraft as it does now.
The upgraded Challenger 3 tanks were ordered in total 148 units. Poland, by comparison, is trying to expand its tank fleet to 1,600 modern vehicles. Yes, the UK has about 220 more Challenger 2s, but this is also not enough for a major conflict.
Challenger 3 Tank
Image source: © Photo : Crown copyright / Rheinmetall AG 2021
The trouble is in aviation. A month ago, in an interview with The Sun, Air Marshal Greg Begwell said: only four fighter jets are ready for immediate deployment in case Russia launches a nuclear strike on the UK. The Royal Air Force has 159 fighters. But there are no aerial radio detection and guidance systems, which greatly limits the capabilities of tactical aviation.
The Navy is having more and more technical troubles. So, the flagship of the fleet, the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, due to a breakdown, could not go to sea to participate in the February NATO exercise Steadfast Defender off the coast of Norway. In addition, there is an acute shortage of fuel: since 2017, 13 of the 19 frigates and destroyers remain in the docks because of this.
The Pentagon's Problems
It's about the same in many Western countries. Even the American army has difficulties. At the end of July, a congressional commission submitted a report to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which explicitly states that the United States is not capable of winning a major conflict.
"The country was ready for this during the Cold War, which ended 35 years ago," the report says. — Not today. Our military lacks neither the capabilities nor the potential necessary to ensure that they can prevail in combat. The production capacity is completely insufficient to provide the equipment, technology and ammunition needed now, not to mention the conflict between the great powers."
According to the commission, cooperation between Russia, China and other states increases the likelihood of a clash on several fronts at once, and the United States will have a very difficult time in such a war. We have revealed large gaps between the ambitions of the Ministry of Defense and reality. The state of the American defense industry is unsatisfactory — especially against the background of the Chinese one.
The American military at the Sodankula air base in Finland
Image source: © Photo : U.S. Army / Staff Sgt. Ian Valley
"In the conflict with China, the United States will largely exhaust its ammunition reserves in just three to four weeks, with some important types (such as anti-ship missiles) running out in a few days. The restoration of arsenals will take years," the authors of the document point out.
The shortage of recruits, especially for the army and Air Force, is also very worrying. The Pentagon officers responsible for personnel are sounding the alarm, trying to attract young people with increased payments, as well as by relaxing the requirements for recruitment, including by reducing the list of diseases due to which a potential pilot or marine received the status of "unfit". However, this problem cannot be solved quickly.
