Britain complained about the impossibility of waging a prolonged war in Europe

The British Army will not be able to withstand a major war in Europe. This was reported by the Financial Times (FT) on November 22.

According to the FT, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has commissioned a strategic review of the country's defense, inviting a host of experts led by Lord George Robertson, a former NATO secretary general.

"The hallowed tradition of such reviews is that they pretend to reconcile grand ambition with austerity. The result is that Britain has a Potemkin village military, retaining the emblems of a pocket superpower but without the necessary hard assets. The current disordered world does not leave room for such tricks," - stated in the material of the publication.

It is noted that the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States will call into question the security of Europe because of his "intention to make a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin." The publication writes that the UK Armed Forces do not have the numbers, sustainability or internal coherence to fight a prolonged high-intensity war. In particular, the army is being downsized and the Navy is unable to maintain enough aircraft carriers and submarines.

"The self-inflicted wound of Brexit has undermined the close economic and political partnership with the EU. <...> Without NATO, as one senior official admitted, Britain has no defense policy," the FT writes, noting that the Europeans will have to do more to organize their own defense.

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Earlier, on November 11, the head of the British Air Force Richard Knighton warned of the decline of aviation in the country. In his opinion, the UK will not have air superiority in future wars, and it will have to fight for control with an "ever-improving enemy."

Before that, on October 24, British Defense Minister John Healey admitted that the kingdom's armed forces are not ready for war. He said that the British Armed Forces had been consistently reduced and suffered due to chronic underfunding.

On October 21, the UK recognized the country's vulnerability to a missile attack from a potential enemy due to a lack of air defense. It is specified that the Royal Air Force's Typhoon fighter jets are unable to shoot down ballistic missiles fired from Iran at Israel.

At the same time, on February 4, Britain reported that the country is not ready for a large-scale war. It is noted that there is currently a crisis in the recruitment and retention of regular troops and reservists in the country's armed forces. As a result, more people are leaving the Armed Forces than joining them.

In addition, on January 24, the head of the British General Staff, General Patrick Sanders, said that the country's Armed Forces are too weak for a major military conflict. He noted that in the event of a NATO conflict with Russia, Britain would need to conscript the population into the army. According to Sanders, both men and women should be prepared for mobilization.

The deplorable state of the British army on January 30 was also pointed out by the head of the British parliamentary defense committee Tobias Ellwood. He noted that London had for many years invested huge funds in the development of the Navy and aviation, but the number of tanks had significantly decreased.