“Ridiculous” defence policy decisions leave Britain “exposed” in the wake of the war between Russia and Ukraine, the former head of the Army has said.
Lord Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff between 2006 and 2009, noted the Army – which stands at 82,000 troops – is now 20,000 personnel smaller than when he left his post.
“The conversation in 2015 talked about a resurgent Russia, well it talked about a resurgent Russia, but it didn’t translate into an arrest in the reduction of the size of the army and it didn’t translate into an investment into our land warfare capability,” he told LBC.
“Despite extra money going into defence last year the balance of that hasn’t benefited our land forces. Unfortunately we’ve been hugely exposed by what’s happened in Ukraine and our response is very, very limited now.
“Frankly what we’ve got to show is this country is determined, it’s prepared to support our allies and there is a cost to that support and we’ve got to be willing to pay it. We’ve made some ridiculous decisions as far as our land warfare capability is concerned and part of the cost is not only seeing energy prices going up across the land, we’ve got to see more money going into defence.”
