A US general allegedly told Ben Wallace, Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom, that the British Army is no longer regarded as one of the world’s top-tier combat forces, according to a Sky News report. Defence sources also said that the unnamed general allegedly warned the Defence Secretary, and sources also claim that he said the UK Armed Forces is “a service unable to protect the UK and its allies.”
Given the mounting security danger presented by Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the unnamed general told Sky News that Rishi Sunak ran the risk of failing in his duty as “wartime prime minister” unless he took immediate action.
The sources said this decline in war-fighting capability – following decades of cuts to save money – needed to be reversed faster than planned in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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He continued by saying that in the aftermath of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the UK’s declining warfighting capabilities, which had been the result of decades of budget cuts, needed to be reversed sooner than anticipated.
The general is alleged to have used a word to rank a nation’s military power, with tier one being thought of as a top-level power shared by the US, Russia, China, and France.
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Tier two would be used to indicate a more mediocre power with less combat might, like Germany or Italy. According to the sources, the general, referring to the Army, said: “You haven’t got a tier one. It’s barely tier two.”
(With inputs from agencies)
