UK MUST BE READY FOR WAR WITH RUSSIA, BRITAIN’S ARMY CHIEF SAYS

Mon 15 November 2021:

The head of the UK’s armed forces, General Sir Nick Carter, told local media on Sunday that the country’s military will have to be prepared for a war with Russia, despite his “distinctly hoped” that such a conflict would not occur and that Russia “does not want to bring on a hot war.”

He went on to say that Russia was a bigger threat to eastern Europe now than it was when he initially started his job eight years ago.

The tension between Poland and Belarus, which is backed by Russia, is the backdrop to his remarks, as large groups of migrants have gathered at the two countries’ border.

Russian forces are also believed to be massing on the Ukrainian border. Britain has dispatched a small military force to Poland to see if it can help.

Former MI6 officer Christopher Steele has told local media that Russia believes it is at war with the United Kingdom and its allies.

He spoke amid tensions on the border between Poland and Russia’s ally Belarus over refugees stranded in camps, as well as signs that Russian troops could be massing along the border with Ukraine.

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Carter told Sky News: : “Russia probably regards the global strategic context as a continuous struggle in which, I think, they would apply all the instruments of national power to achieve their objectives. But in so doing, (Russia) don’t want to bring on a hot war.

“So, yes, in a way I think he (Steele) is right. The question, of course, is how you define war and I, as a soldier, would tend to define war as the actual act of combat and fighting, and I don’t think they want that. I think they want to try and achieve their objective in rather more nuanced ways.”

Later on Carter told BBC, that Russia was using a “hybrid playbook where you link disinformation to destabilisation and the idea of pushing migrants on to the European Union’s borders is a classic example of that sort of thing.”

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Responding to whether the situation in eastern Europe could develop into a hot war, Carter said: “I don’t know. I think we have to be on our guard and make sure deterrence prevails and critically we have to make sure there is unity in the NATO alliance and we don’t allow any gaps to occur in our collective position.”

Speaking to Times Radio, Carter said: “I just think that we’re in a much more competitive world than we were even 10 or 15 years ago. And I think the nature of the competition between states and great powers, leads to greater tensions. And I think that tension is the thing that one needs to watch for.

“When you and I were growing up, it was a bipolar world. Two blocs: Soviet Union and the West. We then went into a period where it was unipolar, and the United States was entirely preeminent. And I think we are now into a period where it’s more multi-polar, and I think in a multi-polar world with people competing for different objectives and on different agendas, there’s a greater risk of tension leading to the sorts of things that we are talking about.”

Carter also acknowledged that the situation in Afghanistan was “not good”, after arguing at the time of the Taliban takeover in August that the group had changed and should be “given space” to form a government.

He said there had been “ghastly images … of a potential humanitarian crisis” and admitted the Taliban had “a lot of things that had got to change”. But he still insisted the Taliban were different from how they were in 2001 and claimed “the moderate lot are probably privately arguing to be a different sort of Taliban”.

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