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The United Kingdom and Europe will be dependent on US military support for many years, a former head of the British armed forces has claimed.
General, The Lord David Richards, a former chief of the defence staff, said the decision to raise defence spending over the next two years was a sound strategic move, but one that “almost certainly would not” be happening if it were not for US President Donald Trump placing pressure on Nato countries.
His comments follow the announcement by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer that the UK would reallocate aid funds to boost military spending to 2.5 per cent by 2027, following Trump’s demand that all European allies increase their defence contributions.
“It was going to happen, it’s now been accelerated by Donald Trump’s actions, and all of us, I think, would say not before time,” Gen Richards told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He added: “The one thing I’ve learned as a student of military history, but also from my own experience, you’ve got to keep close to America if you want to be genuinely credible in terms of deterring a potential aggressor.
“There is no way that Europe, at the moment, could worry Russia, for example.”
Gen Richards stressed the British Army was currently “very hollowed out indeed” and suggested the “Army isn’t big enough” for British troops to be part of a rotation of European peacekeeping forces.
He said: “When I was commanding an armoured brigade in the mid-1990s, I had 120 tanks, 24 big artillery pieces, two armoured infantry battalions and a lot more. Today, they (the Army) haven’t got as much as that available to them in the British Army and there were five such brigades in Germany at that time. The whole Army has less artillery pieces than I had in my one brigade.”
He also said in 1981 the then-Tory government was planning to reduce the Royal Navy’s destroyer and frigate fleet down to 55 ships but there was an outcry.
He added: “Today sadly the Navy is lucky to have 12 such ships at sea, the RAF is much smaller and hasn’t got some key capabilities so we are very hollowed out indeed.”
With reference to British troops being sent to Ukraine, he added: “We want something (a force) that can respond visibly in advance of Russian aggression and believe me they will test any such arrangement. They will be tested and they have got to be able to robustly defend themselves.”
He added that given the size of the Ukraine border with Russia a force of 100,000 to 200,000 might be necessary, which would need to be rotated every six months or so.
He added: “The idea that you’re going to send a few peace keepers with berets to reassure Ukraine is crass.”
The general also said that he believed that president Trump would not withdraw from Nato over the widening defence spending dispute.
He added: “I don’t think President Trump actually means to withdraw from Nato. He has sent a signal, which he sent first in 2016 and other American presidents have done so too. President Eisenhower said it in the 50s. We’ve been living on borrowed time, our bluff is now being called. So I think if we do what we are proposing to do, then America will remain locked into the Article 5 commitment.
But he added that European Nato countries would have to increase their collective defence spending to develop conventional combat power otherwise they could become too dependent on nuclear weapons.”
The decision to increase defence spending comes as Sir Keir is set to fly to the US for talks with Trump in the White House, to discuss the war in Ukraine.
But there is concern that the reduction international aid spending by Britain could result in the UK becoming less secure.
But Defence Secretary John Healey defended the decision, saying “hard power is now more important than soft power”, despite an outcry from charities and aid groups.
Asked whether he believed the UK increasing its defence contribution would bring Trump on side, Healey said: “I’ve never had any doubt that President Trump and the US administration… recognises that the UK is the US’s closest defence and security ally – they’ve challenged us to help lead in Europe.”
He added the PM could now tell Trump: “You are challenging Europe and the UK to step up on European security, on Ukraine, on defence spending, on reinforcing our industrial base.
“We are, and we will step up further.”
The UK would still spend £9bn on international aid, including in Gaza, Healey insisted, prioritising efforts to “deter conflicts that cause the biggest impact on many of the poorest countries”.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal says a major minerals deal with the US has been agreed.
Speaking to Ukrainian TV, Shmyhal said a clause said that the US was “supporting Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to build lasting peace”.
Media reports say Washington has dropped initial demands for a right to $500bn (£395bn) in potential revenue from the natural resources but has not given firm security guarantees.
US President Donald Trump said he was expecting his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to sign the deal this week, after the two leaders exchanged strong words about each other.
Without confirming that an agreement had been reached, Trump said on Tuesday that in return for the deal Ukraine would get “the right to fight on”.
“They’re very brave,” he told reporters, but “without the United States and its money and its military equipment, this war would have been over in a very short period of time”.
