Ukraine war puts UK at greatest threat of 'nuclear escalation' since Cold War
War in Ukraine has meant Britain is more under “nuclear escalation” threat from Russia than at any time since the Cold War, defence chiefs have warned.
Their long-awaited study of the future for UK defence notes escalating threats from Moscow whilst China poses a long-term challenge along with North Korea and Iran. And the spectre of terrorism is always a problem.
The Defence Command Paper says: “Europe has not seen this scale of conflict since the end of the Second World War. The threat of nuclear escalation is greater than at any time since the Cold War.”
It argues Russia’s air force and navy is still intact despite more than 500 days of brutal conflict in Ukraine. And the UK’s situation could worsen over Ukraine.
The paper - written by outgoing Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and his deputy, Armed Forces Minister James Heappey- announces a £2.5bn of extra funds for defence chiefs to boost dwindled ammo stockpiles.
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Mr Wallace, who has been Defence Secretary since 2019, said he will stand down as an MP at the next general election (Wiktor Szymanowicz/REX/Shutterstock)It says:“As Russia becomes more isolated internationally as a result of its actions and behaves more volatile so the threat to the UK and our interests will increase.”
Wallace, who presented his study to the Commons, said in the paper: “Our national security is intrinsically linked to the outcome of war in Ukraine.”
It says Britain’s armed forces, which is becoming leaner with several thousand less soldiers, are relying increasingly on resources such as special forces.
And Ukraine can give the UK’s military valuable insight into how to beat a numerically superior but relatively poorly-trained army.
He and Heappey suggested the Ukraine battlefield offered commanders lessons in modern warfare and “Some of them will be tactical, relating to a battlefield, that with trench warfare has disturbing echoes of the twentieth century, overlaid by twenty first century capabilities.”
Russia warns the West by releasing chilling new footage showing the launch of an 'unstoppable' Zircon [Tsirkon] nuclear-capable Mach 9 hypersonic missile (Russian Ministry of Defence/east2west news)Yesterday Wallace said he has not thought about his legacy.
Mr Wallace, who has been Defence Secretary since 2019, said he will stand down as an MP at the next general election.
Wallace said: “We started talking about this at the beginning of the year; there was a commitment to the integration of review refresh, which obviously was going to trigger this.
“I was determined that the lessons from Ukraine were brought forward and so that people now know what we need to do and I think that’s important.”
Mr Wallace said he arrived in the department with the view it was not “threat-led” enough.
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“I’d always arrived in the department with the view that, having been security minister, the department wasn’t threat-led enough. It wasn’t responding to threat quick enough. And I think we’ve laid that.”
Labour warned that the UK's defence plan was “not a good enough response to war in Europe” (Getty Images/Stocktrek Images)There has been speculation the Tories will cut to the Army’s size, with some reports saying it will shrink from 75,000 personnel to 73,000.
Labour warned that the defence plan was “not a good enough response to war in Europe”.
Shadow defence secretary John Healey said Mr Wallace “must explain if he is pledging new money for stockpiles or these are funds already announced.
“The British Army is being cut to its smallest size since Napoleon and there is still no plan to ensure our Nato obligations are fulfilled in full.”
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