The UK’s military is “not fit for purpose” and “can’t deal” with a North Korean nuclear strike, which could come within 18 months, a former head of Britain’s Joint Forces Command has said.
“All three Armed Forces are falling behind the rate of innovation you see in our peers,” blasted Sir Richard Barrons, a retired army general who rose to be one of the country’s most senior military chiefs.
Speaking to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, he explained how many in the military felt the same, but are not in a position to speak their minds like him.
“The people who are in defence, they have to keep going every day so they are never going to say publicly, or to themselves, or to their enemies, or to their allies that we’re broken.
“But when they fly, sail, or deploy on the land and they look at their equipment, they look at their sustainability, they look at the shortfalls in their training and they look at their allies, they know they are not fit for purpose.”
The Ministry of Defence is currently attempting to make £20 billion worth of savings, and the army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force have been told to make sweeping cuts.
As the military is cut back, Sir Richard said there are “clearly existential threats to our country” which currently “come in many forms”, specifically identifying Islamist militants, Russia, and North Korea.
He said: “They come in the form of Daesh [Islamic State], who if they could, would find weapons of mass destruction and apply them to the UK. We are locked in a daily confrontation with Russia, the prime minister said so herself yesterday.
“We are looking at North Korea which within the next 12 to 18 months will make a nuclear missile into an intercontinental range ballistic missile that could reach London and we can’t deal with that.”
He added: “We now live in an age where people who are not on our side have the capability that they could, I’m not saying they will, but could, inflict on the UK homeland at short notice which we can’t deal with.”
Just last week, a senior U.S. general warned against cutting Britain’s armed forces any further, saying the nation’s standing in NATO and the world could be diminished.