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Why it may already be too late for the West to avoid war
| Britain has been choosing butter instead of guns for several generations. |
[Yahoo] For the first time in generations, Britain has been gripped by the fear of a third world war. It began when the Norwegian commander-in-chief Eirik Kristoffersen predicted that the West had “two, maybe three years” to prepare for war with Russia. He was echoing similar warnings from other Nato chiefs. Then Donald Trump triumphed again in the New Hampshire primary, thereby rendering a Biden-Trump rematch next November a racing certainty. This raises the spectre of chaos in Washington, with dire consequences for Ukraine, for Europe and the cause of democracy. And the week ended with the ominous appearance of Vladimir Putin himself in Kaliningrad, Russia’s fortified exclave between Poland and Lithuania. Putin’s presence there is a stark reminder that if Nato leaves Ukraine in the lurch, Russia is ready to move against the Baltic states too.
| After the latest round of cuts the Army will have a total strength of only about 70,000 combat troops. |
For some time our blood has been chilled by a series of philippics from senior military officers about the woeful state of our armed forces. Last month the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, spoke of living in “extraordinarily dangerous times” and asked: “Is the machinery and thinking deep within the British state truly calibrated to the scale of what is unfolding?”
Then, this week, a speech at a military conference in Twickenham by the head of the army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, was leaked to the media. He called for a new “citizen army” to be trained and equipped for the worst case scenario of a war with Russia.
Posted by: Skidmark 2024-01-29 |
