War with Russia is inevitable unless the UK stockpiles lethal weapons, the former head of the British Army has warned.
Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, who stood down as Chief of the General Staff (CGS) in June, said that if the UK fails to regrow its stockpiles in light of all it has gifted to Ukraine it will be at war in five years.
Sir Patrick said: “If we don’t regrow what are very, very, empty stockpiles at the moment and recapitalise then we risk making conflict an inevitability.”
It comes after Gen Sir Roland Walker, who succeeded Sir Patrick as CGS, last month warned that the UK needed to be able to fight a major war within three years because Russia would seek revenge on the West for aiding Ukraine.
Last year, Sir Patrick said the UK’s donation of 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine had left the Army “temporarily weaker” as the donation had left a “gap in our armoury”.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the UK has pledged £7.6 billion in military assistance, of which £3 billion is military assistance in 2024 and 2025. As well as tanks, the gifted weaponry includes air defence systems and long-range precision strike missiles.
However, Sir Patrick, who during his time as Army chief was openly critical about the cuts to troop numbers, also warned that the UK had been left vulnerable with fewer soldiers and lethal equipment in the store cupboard.
He told the Money Maze podcast: “We need to ensure we can operate at scale. That means regrowing our stockpiles, but it also means that the army, which is historically very small at the moment – in an era where we are returning to great power conflict – is capable of being grown rapidly.
“All of that will take us between five and ten years.”
He added: “The initial investments need to go into the sort of things that will make us capable of deterring Russia during this decade.
“There is a risk of an alignment, that ending the war in Ukraine, Russian recapitalisation and China saying the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) needs to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027 creates a point of acute danger in around 2028 or so.
“The best way to avoid that is by ensuring we are ready to fight, able to deter and prevent these conflicts from happening in this decade.”
Sir Patrick recently urged Britain to rearm its missile stockpiles.
He cautioned that the UK’s ability to defend itself in the “unlikely” event of a missile attack was “weak”.
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