How is this person the "head of the British army"?! I could not imagine the US chair of the Joint Chiefs saying such nonsense, or even addressing the topic without alignment with civilian policy.
Is there something about the UK's military personnel system that creates very independent-acting generals?
Am I missing something? Russia can barely defeat Ukraine and put up enormous losses doing it? Can't imagine a world war type situation could play out with Russia as the main adversary?
Either he's exaggerating Russia's military strength, or he's talking about other potential enemies?
CNN: "Ukraine’s ammo shortage becoming more difficult by the day. Around Bakhmut an M109 position we visited only got smoke rounds."
russia doesnt care about its own casualties, thats why they keep taking territory one costly tree line after another. NATO and EU inability to agree to anything to actually help Ukraine is only emboldening putin into planning for Estonia, Poland or Lithuania next.
Also, between the UK and Russia is all of NATO, including large segments of the US military. They far outweigh Russia in wealth and power (15x?) - IIRC, Russia's economy was the size of Spain's, before the sanctions. The Baltics, Hungary, and Poland have concerns, and NATO needs to defend them. How will Russia attack the UK with ground troops?
Russia's grand strategy is to foster domestic unrest and civil strife in other countries and leverage them as proxies. Their ground warfare game is mediocre, but they excel in information and electronic warfare.
I agree, but arming (and alarming) the British public and preparing them for war won't protect them. In fact, it would seem to futher Russia's aims of fostering uncertainty and fear.
Although the UK is less vulnerable than most Eastern/Central European countries. No Russian minorities to rile up, no local history of Russian anything (other than dissidents and wealth stashing) really.
A general rising at that role and level is basically a politician.
>Also, what career politician (of any prominence) is saying anything like that?
Almost all prominent ones have been pushing warmongering for at least 2 decades (remember Bush, Rice, Albright, Blair, and co?), and the UK and European ones, increasingly so in the last years.
> Almost all prominent ones have been pushing warmongering for at least 2 decades (remember Bush, Rice, Albright, Blair, and co?), and the UK and European ones, increasingly so in the last years.
They didn't say their citizens needed to prepare for an attack.
> A general rising at that role and level is basically a politician.
It's just an offhand comment, but there is only slight overlap. Generals are treated as professionals who give professional, expert advice.
G7 wants to wipe Russia from the trenches in Ukraine and take part of the bordering Ukrainian territory with Russia. All this article states is that it is a political message to British citizens to prepare for a war and prepare for the war to expand into a major conflict without mentioning how that could develop, it is essentially an over statement by Rishi Sunak.
I haven't done my research into foreign arms supply to Russia considering it pretends to be a world "super" power when it is not. They are importing ammunition and artillery rounds from North Korea, Iran, and Belarus. That's pretty pathetic for what was once a world "super power". Russia has a population of 143 million people and the United States and Europe have a combined population of 1.07 billion people. By the end of this century Russia will look more like North Korea than a modern European nation. Russia has more in common with North Korea than they do with the entire continent of Europe at this point, especially with their "current" government.
The Russian Federation's government is utter trash. Old, corrupt, white trash, still stuck in a Cold War mentality while forcing their entire country into their mantra of self destruction through forced conscription and a perpetual state of conflict with it's surrounding neighbors. The best solution for Russia's future is for them to overthrow their corrupt government like they did in 1989 and reinstate a democratic government that actually has the best interest's of it's own people in mind instead of sending them off into Ukraine to die en masse.
The United States and Europe are going to eventually send troops into Ukraine and it will be Europe first due to it being on the same continent as Russia with the United States guaranteeing that Europe and Ukraine take as little casualties as possible while guaranteeing the collapse of the Russian Federation's current government, this needs to be done with Putin as President as Russia so he can see the collapse of the Russian Federation like Adolf Hitler did in 1945, maybe we will get lucky and Putin will blow his brains out like Adolf Hitler did in the Fuhrer Bunker, most likely not. The Russian Federation will collapse after Europe and the United States attack Russian troops in Ukraine sometime this year or next in 2025. Once the Russians are being bombed and attacked by the United States the Russian front will collapse immediately.
I think that once the taboo of the United States attacking Russian troops in Ukraine that the Russian front line will collapse entirely as they will now know that the war is lost and that their current government is evil, ie including Vladimir Putin.
Note: This not an in-depth post or an analysis, this post is just a quick opinion to quickly add to the discussion on Hacker News.
Is there something about the UK's military personnel system that creates very independent-acting generals?