Walker claimed at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual Army conference that Britain must be prepared to fight a major war within three years, warning that Russia would seek revenge on the West for helping Ukraine, noting that Moscow could emerge as a “very, very dangerous” power after the end of the Ukrainian crisis.
He pointed out that there is no harm in preparing for any possible attack, although the conflict with Russia will not be inevitable.
He added that the Army needs to rapidly update its resources to double its ability to kill the enemy by 2027 and triple its capacity by the end of the decade.
He also claimed that there was a possibility of China attacking Taiwan, Iran wanting to develop nuclear weapons, and North Korea threatening.
“That’s why, by 2027-28, these challenges may reach a kind of mutual exclusivity and your ability to deal with them in isolation may diminish,” Rowley said, responding to his earlier claims. “A specific crisis that can be managed by a rules-based system, I think, has diminished significantly.”
“A problem in one region is likely to trigger a sympathetic outburst in another region, so it is a global problem viewed from different perspectives around the world,” he continued.
Walker expressed concern that the British military urgently needs to rebuild its ability to prevent future wars with a credible fighting force.
He also warned that the military would fail if it stuck to old ideas about war instead of adapting to new technologies that were changing the battlefield.
He added: “I am not saying that we are on an uncompromising path towards war, but what we have is an absolute necessity to restore our strength in order to ensure deterrence.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer promises to conduct a strategic defence review during the first year of government to set a path to increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP.
Egypt: The Telegraph
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2024-07-25 07:09:24