The British Army would be wiped out in a year if it was sent to fight the Russians in Ukraine – and if the fighting reached peak intensity, which it is right now, it might not survive beyond six months. This is the view of the new junior minister for military personnel and reserve forces, Colonel Alistair Carns, who was awarded a Military Cross for gallantry in Afghanistan in 2011.
The prospects for the Army sound a bit like Ernest Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy, first you go bankrupt slowly, and then very, very quickly.
“Of course we wouldn’t fight the way they are in Ukraine,” said a senior officer at the meeting. “We would have a lot more air cover and air power – mostly from allies.” But later, he admitted: “Things in the Army are now dire.”
Alistair Carns was making a case for more and better-trained reserve forces to give credibility as well as capability to the Army. He gave his grim diagnosis at a workshop on reserves at the Royal United Services Institute, in a set-piece speech, which must have had government approval.
It is far from clear that any of the senior ranks in government are listening, however. The Starmer regime line is that all will be resolved in the Strategic Defence Review, originally due early next year, but now kicked back to the long grass of summer. Enthusiasm for the review has been blunted by the word going out to the services that they can’t expect more money for reforms – in fact, the Reeves Treasury is looking for that old favourite ‘economies and efficiency savings’.
In the election manifesto, and since, the Labour government has insisted that it is pledged to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP – “but only when the conditions allow”. This certainly isn’t going to this year or next, and maybe now it will be sometime, or even never.
This appears to be a symptom of what the commentator Helen Lewis and the satirist Armando Ianucci termed ‘Treasury Brain’ in their brilliant podcast Strong Message Here. ‘Treasury Brain’ – principal patron Rachel Reeves – apparently pervades Whitehall now. It says you may ask for anything you like, but unless you are the NHS, you get nothing, so dire is the fiscal inheritance from the Tories.
‘Treasury Brain’ has affected defence planning and policy for years. Years of underinvestment have left the Army underequipped, underfunded, and unloved. Shortages of essential equipment and ammunition are eyewatering, compounded by the generous donations to support Ukraine.
Army tanks now go up to the gunnery ranges at Castlemartin unable to fire their main guns – because there is no ammunition available – and have to practice merely firing their machine guns. The squadron of about 14 British Challenger 2 tanks now in Ukraine bristle with four or five antennae, local innovations for countering drones. The Challenger 2s back home with the Army in the UK have none of this.
They have insufficient ammunition for practice in the UK
The Army now has a mere 14 medium howitzers – the new Anglo-Swedish Archer design. They have insufficient ammunition for practice in the UK. The Infantry has no modern fighting vehicle, since Ben Wallace cancelled the upgrade to the Warrior in the last government. Standard CV432 personnel carriers, designed in the sixties, are being driven by soldiers less than half the age of the vehicle.
The lack of preparedness and ability to fully equip units sent to work with Nato allies in the Baltic states and Poland has been noticed by allies. The UK is now seen to be falling short on its Nato commitments. This has come at a time of new dangers, new threats, and new tipping points in crisis hot spots, according to the head of the armed forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, in his annual review speech last night.
“From Russia, we have seen wild threats of tactical nuclear use, large-scale nuclear exercises and simulated attacks against Nato countries, all designed to coerce us from taking the action required to maintain stability.” He called for speedy reform across defence.
The threats from Russia are growing stronger, as it approaches some form of tipping point in Ukraine. Just as worrying is the latest set of ‘Black Swan’ or ‘Friday Surprise’ events, unexpected shocks whose effects continue to ripple.
Most notable was the Houthi attacks from November last year on shipping in the Red Sea region. These are ongoing and to Britain, a major player in global maritime commerce, a direct menace. As a former senior British Intelligence boss put it, “we didn’t see this one coming”.
In the past ten days, we have had the guerrilla offensive by the HTS-led coalition in Syria, capturing Aleppo and now besieging Homs and Hama. “We had been watching, but completely surprised with the speed of their success,” a senior military intelligence officer told me yesterday.
And the Black Swan effect for the UK? Part of the insurgent alliance are the Kurds attached to the Syrian Democratic Forces. Turkey is trying to attack them as part of Turkish claim to parts of northern Syria and Ankara’s ongoing war against Kurdish nationalists. The Kurds hold some of the nastier elements of the Islamist IS groups in far from salubrious prison camps. A defeat here could mean hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, more refugees pouring out of the Syrian-Turkish badlands, heading for Europe.
That echoes with a third Black Swan, the consequences of a bad turn of events in Ukraine. Currently, the Russians are making ground on the battlefield – by pouring forward with sheer weight of manpower. This means they are losing roughly the equivalent of the whole of the British Army, roughly 70,000 plus, every two months. On the other hand, the Ukrainians are now losing more fighting soldiers than they can replace.
Vladimir Putin may decide to go for broke
With the end of the Biden era, the arrival of the new Trump presidency with all its uncertainty, the collapse of government in France and Germany, and the chronic indecision of the Starmer government in London, Vladimir Putin may decide to go for broke. This could mean smashing up Ukraine and beating up other trouble spots in the neighbourhood, Moldova, the Caucasus and Georgia.
In a worst case scenario, now actively considered by British analysts and advisers, we could now see a flow of four to five million refugees from Ukraine by the Spring.
In that case, the calculations and sophistries of Starmer’s Strategic Defence Review, with its jargon and policy buzzwords about ‘integrated forces’ and ‘budget-neutral reforms’, will become beyond irrelevant. The stability and resilience of Britain and its European allies are at stake. From what they have said to date, neither Donald Trump nor JD Vance seem minded much to help.
In policies for peace and war, and in between, Britain can no longer afford the tactical manoeuvrings and naïve camouflage of Hans Christian Andersen’s emperor with no clothes.
