UK army is unprepared for war and would run out of ammo quickly, former defense official says

Thibault Spirlet
·2 min read
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  • The UK army is unprepared for any type of war, a former defense official told the Financial Times.

  • It would also run out of ammunition quickly in any large-scale operation, Robert Johnson said.

  • Former and current defense officials have raised concerns about the UK's war readiness.

The UK's armed forces are not prepared for any type of war and would quickly struggle with supplies, a former defense official said.

"In any larger-scale operation, we would run out of ammunition rapidly," Robert Johnson told the Financial Times.

In his previous role as director of the Secretary of State's Office for Net Assessment and Challenge, Johnson led a 25-person team charged with wargaming and using research, analysis, and external think tanks to ensure the UK's defensive capabilities were at "peak" performance.

After leaving the role in May, Johnson assessed that the UK military cannot defend the British homelands "properly" and would be underequipped for overseas operations of the scale of the Falklands and Iraq wars.

"Our defenses are too thin, and we are not prepared to fight and win an armed conflict of any scale," he told the FT.

The UK is a member of NATO and one of Ukraine's closest allies.

But Johnson cited the UK's "insufficient" air defenses to intercept long-range missile strikes, its navy's lack of ships to patrol the North Atlantic to monitor and deter Russian submarine activity, and its air force's need for almost twice as many fighter jets as it has.

The UK has also failed to play a global role and deter adversaries, Johnson told the FT.

"The government is not taking the public into its confidence about the scale of the threat because it knows it's not ready," he said, adding that being honest did not pose any security risks because "the Russians already know this anyway."

Johnson, who heads Oxford University's Changing Character of War Centre, is the latest defense official to have raised concerns about the UK's war readiness.

In a February report titled "Ready for War?", the UK's defense committee found British forces are not prepared to fight a "sustained, high-intensity" war.

Meanwhile, in an April comment piece for The Telegraph, outgoing armed forces minister James Heappey said the UK is a "very long way behind" its allies in preparing for war.

Johnson's assessment comes days before the UK general elections, which, according to polls, show the Conservative Party losing to the Labour Party after 14 years in power.

According to Johnson, the next government should hike defense spending to at least 3% of GDP.

"We have to cut our coat to fit our cloth," he told the FT.

Read the original article on Business Insider