Britain’s Armed Forces are no longer credible amid cuts to record-low, warns ex-defence chief Lord Dannatt
BRITAIN’S Armed Forces are no longer credible, ex-defence chief Lord Dannatt has warned.
Cuts to a record-low of 72,000 troops mean we are unable to meet Nato commitments, he said.
Gen Dannatt said allies expect the UK to field 35,000 soldiers in a division of three brigades.
But he said: “Frankly, we can’t do that.”
“We would be struggling today to put one of those three brigades in the field.”
“The Army has shrunk to a record small size of 72,000 trained troops despite Boris Johnson‘s election promise “not to cut the armed forces in any form”.
And he said: “Underfunding of defence has resulted in cuts and it’s produced a capability that just isn’t credible at the present time.”
The RAF and Navy face similar crises, he said.
But the MoD insists the military “stands ready to defend the UK, including with Nato allies”.
Rob Johnson, the ex-head of an MoD unit that compared UK and rival armed forces, said: “We are not prepared to fight and win an armed conflict on any scale.”
Johnson told the FT: “The UK has reached a situation where it cannot defend the British homelands properly.”