Britain must be prepared to fight a war in three years’ time and double the lethality of its army as the separate threats of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea come to a head, the new chief of the army has warned, APA reports citing The Guardian.
Gen Sir Roly Walker, the chief of the general staff, told reporters that the west faced “an axis of upheaval” with increasing military ambition and that a conflict involving one of the countries could lead to “a significant detonation” in another theatre.
The UK and its allies had to be ready “to deter or fight a war in three years”, he argued – a deliberately stark judgment based on China’s hostility towards Taiwan, Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Russia’s militarisation as demonstrated by its invasion of Ukraine.
Walker cited US assessments that China’s president, Xi Jinping, had asked for the country’s military to be ready to invade Taiwan in 2027 – as well as concerns that Iran could seek to break the nuclear deal that is intended to prevent it developing an atomic weapon while a war in Ukraine is continuing.
In a subsequent speech, Walker said he had “a bold ambition” for the army “to double our fighting power in three years and triple by the end of the decade”, not with extra resources but by using technology and techniques developed on the battlefields of Ukraine, such as drones and artificial intelligence.
Walker did not set out the nature of the global threats in the main body of his address, but in a briefing to reporters he argued that the interdependence between Russia, China, Iran and North Korea was growing, as seen in Ukraine, where Iran and North Korea have supplied weapons and China components to aid Moscow’s military effort.
“The problem is, the ability to manage any one crisis that involves any of those actors becomes much, much harder,” because they are increasingly supporting each other with weapons, components and intelligence, the general said.
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