16 July 2023 , 14:04
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Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has raised fresh fears of a Cold War with China and a confrontation with Russia before the end of the decade.
The outgoing Cabinet Minister announced he will quit his post at the next reshuffle - expected in September - and leave Parliament at the next election, due by January 2025 at the latest.
Repeatedly tipped as a future Tory leader, he twice ducked entering the party’s leadership races last year.
His hopes of becoming NATO Secretary-General were dashed when US President Joe Biden refused to back his bid.
Instead, former Scots Guards captain Mr Wallace, 53, intends to bow out of Parliament when voters go to the polls, expected in autumn 2024.
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Mr Wallace, who marks four years as Defence Secretary on July 24, said his biggest worry as he prepares to stand down in the middle of a war in Europe was a military conflict with Moscow.
Kremlin tyrant Vladimir Putin is 'not done with us yet', the UK Defence Secretary warned (ALEXANDR KAZAKOV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN POOL/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)"If Putin loses in Ukraine, he will be deeply wounded," Mr Wallace said.
"He's still got an air force and he's still got a navy, and we see his navy do quite aggressive manoeuvres.
“Putin is not done with us yet. There is an ability for him, in the next three or four years, to lash out.”
He also highlighted a potential standoff with Beijing, which has vowed to retake the breakaway island of Taiwan by 2050, by force if necessary.
"We could see a total breakdown of politics in the Pacific," he said.
"You could find yourself by 2030 in a position of Cold War."
Warning of greater global instability in the coming years, he added: "Towards the end of the decade, the world is going to be much more unsafe, more insecure.
“I think we will find ourselves in a conflict.
“Whether it is a cold or a warm conflict, I think we'll be in a difficult position."
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Meanwhile, he revealed he used whisky code words to disguise British weapons shipments to Ukraine.
Mr Wallace told how he texted his Ukrainian counterpart Oleksii Reznikov to pledge missiles for Kyiv.
But before secure communications were set up, Mr Wallace referred to the weapons systems Britain would supply to Ukraine as if he was dispatching a cache of Scotch.
"I just picked whiskies. So the NLAW [Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon ] was Glenfiddich and Harpoon anti-ship missiles were Islay,” he told The Sunday Times.
“I would text him saying, 'I've got some whisky for you' or, 'The whisky is on its way'.
“We just picked codewords, minister to minister.”
Just before Russia invaded, Mr Wallace travelled to Moscow to meet Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who claimed there would be no invasion.
But the Defence Secretary said: “We were exchanging gifts and I gave him a bottle of Glenfiddich. He didn't know what it meant. The joke was on him."
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