Another gazan waving a white flag being shot,
According to CNN - well-known supporters of Hamas, probably.
So it turns out that the Houthis are still not following with the script written for them by the US and the UK.
Bearing in mind that this was perfectly predictable what was the oil tanker doing in the Red Sea?
Obviously circumventing the Red Sea adds massively to costs but there is really no other choice.......other than the US and the UK pressurising Israel to comply with the Houthis demand of a ceasefire and allowing food and medicine into Gaza, but apparently that is a definite no-no.
One does have to wonder why all large ships are not just going around south Africa, rather than via the Red sea.
Bearing in mind that this was perfectly predictable what was the oil tanker doing in the Red Sea?
"The tanker was carrying Russian naphtha bought below the price cap in line with G7 sanctions, a Trafigura spokesperson said." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/26/vessel-on-fire-after-being-struck-off-coast-of-yemen-amid-houthi-threats
The rules are that you don't attack allies, such as Russia, Iran, China, etc. It's yet another dangerous mistake by the Houthis attacking a ship in international waters carrying what is probably an extract of crude oil and that could be highly volatile just because Trafigura have a London office.
This demonstrates the point that the Houthis aren't protesting the Israel-Gaza situation and are engaged in terrorism
You obviously watched a different clip to me timba.
I used your link. I didn't watch beyond the halfway point because it was so obviously one-sided.
"...a couple of guys in dinghies..." is plainly untrue if you look at the incidents including the Trafigura example that you're discussing above.
I get that you love a good argument but at least allow some facts to cloud your judgement
With all due respect to both you Klunk, and the Guardian, that’s old news. It was reported a while ago in the local East Anglian press that American nuclear weapons were coming (back). Although with the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House things might change.
Russian state representatives have been openly threatening Europe with nuclear weapons since they invaded Ukraine, e.g.
February 2022, President Putin, "“Top officials in leading NATO countries have allowed themselves to make aggressive comments about our country, therefore I hereby order the Minister of Defense and the chief of the General Staff to place the Russian Army Deterrence Force on combat alert,” Putin said in a televised meeting with top Russian defense officials on Sunday." https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/28/politics/russia-nuclear-threats-putin-what-matters/index.html
July 2023, deputy chairman of the Security Council Mevdevyev, ""Just imagine that the offensive… in tandem with NATO, succeeded and ended up with part of our land being taken away. Then we would have to use nuclear weapons by virtue of the stipulations of the Russian Presidential Decree," said Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, in a Telegram post" https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/31/europe/medvedev-russia-nuclear-weapons-intl-hnk/index.html
These are powerful people with the means to carry out their threats. What deterrent action did the world think the "west" would take in response?
The Doomsday Clock was at a record 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, which coincided with the breakup of the USSR. Granted that the criteria have changed, but it's been at 90 seconds to midnight in both 2023 and 2024. For context it was 7 minutes to midnight in 1947 when it started ticking.
The rules are that you don’t attack allies, such as Russia, Iran, China, etc. It’s yet another dangerous mistake by the Houthis attacking a ship in international waters carrying what is probably an extract of crude oil and that could be highly volatile just because Trafigura have a London office.
This demonstrates the point that the Houthis aren’t protesting the Israel-Gaza situation and are engaged in terrorism
What a strange assumption. Who came up with this "allies" theory?
And yes it has everything to do with the current slaughter of civilians the Israelis are carrying out in Gaza.
Support for the Palestinians is deeply embedded in the DNA of the Houthis and their current blockade of the Red Sea wasn't occurring before Israel launched its war machine on the people of Gaza.
Btw if you call not killing people 'engaging in terrorism' what do you call what the IDF are doing?
Just because nobody has died (yet) that doesn't stop it being terrorism by any definition. They're targeting civilian vessels with the express aim of causing economic disruption with no regard for those on board. Naptha is horrible stuff, I sailed with folk who knew folk that died on the British Trent.
Used to be pirates you worried about going through there, fire hoses aren't going to do shit against missiles.
IDF is a whole other level but it's not a competition.
@squirrelking, get with the program, the houthis are fun loving freedom fighters on the side of the righteous, forget about their previous attacks on other sovereign states, or the civil war in Yemen that they have been partaking in over the last decade or so that's cost tens of thousands of lives, they are good guys now, so just stop trying to call them terrorists!
Support for the Palestinians is deeply embedded in the DNA of the Houthis
"God is the greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam"
Something is deeply embedded in Houthi DNA, but I'm not sure it's specifically support for Palestinians.
IDF is a whole other level but it’s not a competition.
I totally agree - the IDF are on a whole different level and it is not a competition.
But the question remains, if we are going to throw around allegations of "terrorism" with gay abandon what would you call what the IDF are doing, genocide?
The actions of the Houthis and the IDF are connected. It is rather obvious who the IDF are terrorising but a little less obvious who the Houthis are terrorising.
Btw the Houthis are not currently designated as terrorists by the UK government. Interesting that some on here should take a harder line on the issue than a Tory government.
the houthis are fun loving freedom fighters on the side of the righteous, forget about their previous attacks on other sovereign states, or the civil war in Yemen that they have been partaking in over the last decade or so that’s cost tens of thousands of lives, they are good guys now, so just stop trying to call them terrorists!
It is attitudes like that that help to explain the long and inevitable decline of Western influence.
The Houthis are not very nice people. But their blockade of the Red Sea in support of a ceasefire in Gaza and access to food and medicine for its inhabitants has widespread support throughout the region and much of the Global South.
The US and the UK really seem to be on a mission to destroy Western influence. Everything that has been done in the last 20 odd years seems to be geared towards that. And now new nations such as South Africa are emerging as world leaders with moral authority.
Obviously that is not the aim of the US and the UK, but it is a consequence of preoccupation with domestic public opinion and winning elections.
What a strange assumption.
Which bit?
This demonstrates the point that the Houthis aren’t protesting the Israel-Gaza situation and are engaged in terrorism.
The Houthis have been trying to replace the republic in Yemen with either a return to the Zaidi Imamate religious system or a system similar to Iran with a supreme leader, Abdel-Malik al-Houthi. Google him...
The Zaidi Imamate was overthrown and on the 61st Anniversary (26th September) mass protests erupted against the Houthi rulers https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/09/yemen-wave-of-arrests-by-huthi-de-facto-authorities-following-demonstrations/
The Houthis aren't popular and are ruthlessly holding power through repression and terror https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde31/6189/2022/en/
On the face of it the Houthis are protesting for Palestine, but only because they know that the Yemeni people will support a pro-Palesinian cause and that diverts the people of Yemen from protesting against their Houthi rulers. The timing is perfect too, serious protests on the 26th, Hamas action on the 7th
Who came up with this “allies” theory?
Iran supplies Houthi missile tech, for example. It's possibly relevant that the declared intent of the Houthis is to attack shipping with "ties to Israel". Call me old-fashioned, but there's a link here too, "Houthi spokesman Muhammad al-Buheiti told Izvestia* last week. "As for all other countries, including Russia and China, their shipping in the region is not threatened."" https://maritime-executive.com/article/china-and-russia-get-a-free-pass-through-houthis-red-sea-blockade
*Izvestia is a Russian newspaper
Btw if you call not killing people ‘engaging in terrorism’ what do you call what the IDF are doing?
You need to separate Houthi repression and terrorism from what the IDF are doing in another country.
That's me done on this particular topic
The Houthis are not very nice people. But their blockade of the Red Sea [s]in[/s] is a pretence of support of a ceasefire in Gaza and access to food and medicine for its inhabitants has widespread support throughout the region and much of the Global South.
FTFY
It's a PR exercise is all. An excuse to paint themselves as the good guys.
Btw the Houthis are not currently designated as terrorists by the UK government. Interesting that some on here should take a harder line on the issue than a Tory government.
Who cares what those imbeciles think? It's not really difficult to join the dots. I don't need them to make a decision for me.
But the question remains, if we are going to throw around allegations of “terrorism” with gay abandon what would you call what the IDF are doing, genocide?
You ask that like the majority aren't going to agree with you. Yes, it's genocide. But I doubt the Houthis give a solitary **** about the Palestinians (especially the non-Muslims) other than as a vehicle for their own agenda. What's the armed equivalent of virtue signalling?
But their blockade of the Red Sea in is a pretence of support of a ceasefire in Gaza and access to food and medicine for its inhabitants has widespread support throughout the region and much of the Global South.
It is interesting how you attach so much importance to their motives. The effect of their actions is rather more important than their motives (although believe me they very strongly support the Palestinians)
"Of course, the Houthis have their own internal ambitions and punching western noses plays into that.
But make no mistake, among regional populations, the Houthis are seen, not insignificantly, as having chosen to back support for Gaza with material action.
America and the UK chose military action to try to stop the Houthi missiles. They chose to bomb the world's poorest nation with precision bombs. That's risky and optically awkward, to say the least.
Another course would have been to seek to remove the Houthi pretext by accelerating efforts to end the Gaza conflict and solve the Israel-Palestine question. But that's hardly likely quickly."
Obviously Joe Biden knows that designating the Houthis as terrorists and carrying out air strikes against them will make no appreciable difference.
He will have been advised by his advisors that the Saudis doing precisely that with US support for ten years had no significant effect.
But this about domestic opinion during an election year..... short-termism at the expense of long-termism.
You need to separate Houthi repression and terrorism from what the IDF are doing in another country.
You are Rishi Starmer, and I claim my five pounds.
Without Israel the Iranians wouldn't find volunteers to stuff envelopes, never mind launch missiles at tankers.
It is interesting how you attach so much importance to their motives.
More surprising that you don't think a bit more critically about them.
The effect of their actions is rather more important than their motives (although believe me they very strongly support the Palestinians)
The effect of their actions is terrorism, and we're back where we started.
Although believe me, like everyone else with power in that part of the world, they don't give a solid **** about the Palestinians. They're just a stick to beat Israel with.
the good guys.
Bit of a grey area these days.
More surprising that you don’t think a bit more critically about them.
What I think isn't important - they will do what they doing whatever I think.
On the other hand what is important is the effect their actions are having in the region and beyond.
And how you label the activities of the Houthis is also important, especially against the backdrop of what the IDF is currently doing in Gaza.
The Western powers are facing a historical crisis in the Middle East.
The first part of the crises is the consequence of the US's number one proxy state in the region slaughtering hundreds of innocent civilians, mostly women and children, every day.
The second part of the crisis is the significant collapse of the West's perceived moral authority. This collapse is the consequence of the undisputable hypocrisy which the whole world is currently witnessing.
And nothing exemplifies this hypocrisy more than how the West applies blatant double standards with regards to the Houthis and the IDF.
The IDF is slaughtering innocent Muslims on a daily basis and the West responds by arming them and calling them a friend and ally.
The Houthis attempt to blockade shipping in pursuit of demands which global public opinion supports, and the United States denounces them as terrorists and takes military action against them.
The message from the United States is absolutely clear - Muslim lives are really not important but consumer prices in wealthy Western nations are.
Whatever we discuss on here does not matter - people in the Middle East and the Global South are not fools.
Do you think the Houthi attacks are helping, or hindering the Israelis, because for me it clearly helps them, it brings in more nations to the conflict, with the US, UK and Saudi starting these operations and Iran doing their best to provide weapons to those against those nations, and widening the conflict, at a time when even the US is getting tired of Israel and their complete lack of care about what they're doing, internally Israelis are the same, but with wider conflicts, it just makes it even harder to get Israel to back down with the 'them against us' attitude, less chance of the US backing away from providing weapons and so on.
because for me it clearly helps them,
That's up you if think the Houthis are helping Israel, the reality is that they are seen as heroes throughout the region and much of the world. See my previous link, and this:
For a start as previously mentioned they are exposing before the world Western hypocrisy and what little value is attached to Arab lives in comparison to Western consumer costs. Sea lanes are important, the destruction of Palestinian hospitals and universities isn't.
Secondly they are increasing the disgust of populations in Israeli friendly Arab countries towards their own governments - I saw today that the Saudi government was fiercely denouncing Israel, I wonder why, the Saudi Royal Family hates the Palestinians whom they see as poor and dirty.
Everything Israeli government has been doing in the last four months is damaging them more and more, whilst their enemies in contrast are gaining more and more.
Which explains why some Israeli generals really aren't happy at all.
Moving back to Europe for a moment, and the possibility of a war there in the near future. I thought this take on it by Anders Puck Nielsen was interesting and a little depressing. Short version. It's possible, likely even that Russia would attack NATO but not in the way people imagine. Not declaring a war on the whole of NATO, because they know they'd lose, but a carefully considered limited aggression against a NATO country to test NATO's resolve.
Is it really a given that all members would willing to invoke article five in that case, whatever the paper obligation to do so? Would Turkey, Hungary even a Trump led US be willing to pile in to full scale war and the risk of escalation, if for example Putin annexed a few miles of unpopulated Finnish Lapland? Because if they didn't, NATO would be exposed as a paper tiger and dead in the water. If they did, a quick retreat and 'sorry guv, only joking' would probably end it.
I can see a gamble to undermine NATO in that way would very much be something Putin would consider.
If they did, a quick retreat and ‘sorry guv, only joking’ would probably end it.
Which wouldn't need much input from NATO. So no, I don't think they will try it on in a NATO country. Then again Putin is a psychopath as is Trump so we could be in for some interesting times ahead.
Which wouldn’t need much input from NATO.
You misunderstand me. The ‘sorry guv, only joking’ option, would only happen IF NATO had the resolve to invoke article 5 and pile in. If they didn't, Russia wouldn't be retreating.
^^^ It's a balance because they know that NATO would be unlikely to cross into Russia; there's the concern that Russia would be more prepared to use nukes because they know that they'll lose a conventional war with NATO
Better that they quickly learn a lesson in Ukraine and don't extend their European tour
Better that they quickly learn a lesson in Ukraine and don’t extend their European tour
I agree. The problem for me is this niggling doubt created by the lesson of the Soviet-Finnish War. Despite overwhelming power and numbers which dwarfed Finland, the Soviets failed to effectively conquer tiny Finland and were repelled.
4 years later according to Winston Churchill the Soviets tore the guts out of the mighty, and up until then, unstoppable might of the Nazis war machine.
What if Ukraine 2022 is a clever Russian ruse as was Finland in 1939?
What undoubtedly massively helped the Soviets in 1944 was the huge miscalculation the Germans had made with regards how easy the USSR would be to conquer.
What undoubtedly massively helped the Soviets in 1944 was the huge miscalculation the Germans had made with regards how easy the USSR would be to conquer.
Germany couldn't clear and hold the terrain they won, the same is an issue for both sides in the current conflict, and it is an absolutely massive issue for Israel, which makes it all the more mental that they are trying to 'clear' Palestine, let alone try and hold it.
What if Ukraine 2022 is a clever Russian ruse as was Finland in 1939?
Not sure where you are going with this one?
That Finland was a clever ruse by the Soviets to...do what exactly? Look weak and invite an invasion before they were really ready?
Bearing in mind despite his rabid paranoia Stalin did trust Hitler it seems a bit unlikely.
The Soviets also werent repelled as such. They ended up with more territory than they had originally demanded although obviously it didnt really go to plan.
I think the main lesson is invading a country who arent keen on the idea and who arent stupid enough to fight to your strengths is hard.
Not sure where you are going with this one?
No further than what I said really. I basically very much agree with the point made by timba.
I consider Russia to less of a possible threat now than I did before their "special military operation". I don't understand why some people are using Russia's inability to fully achieve its goals, in a much smaller and weaker country, as evidence that there is an alledged increased Russian threat.
I mean it's not really very convincing, is it?
Finland wasn't clever or a ruse, it was invaded precisely because the Soviets thought it would be over in a couple of days. The Nazis almost walked all the way to Moscow and sheer luck and immense bravery stopped them before the winter and over-extended supply lines ended their ability to fight. Stalin was entirely fooled and was surprised in the days following the invasion he wasn't taken and hung by the people. Clever and Soviet did not go together and likely still don't if you see those in charge as a hangover from those days. It makes them very dangerous though as rational thought only plays a part.
was invaded precisely because the Soviets thought it would be over in a couple of days.
So why wasn't it? 4 years later their ability to tear the guts out of the nazi war machine seemed to impress Churchill.
I'm not making any claims btw, I just asked what if in the context of the present situation and how much of a threat Russia really is.
Anyway to answer to my own question I guess the real difference between Finland and Nazi Germany is that defending your own homeland is quite different to attacking someone else's homeland. A lesson which is probably being learnt again today in Ukraine.
Stalin was entirely fooled and was surprised in the days following the invasion he wasn’t taken and hung by the people.
He infamously locked himself away in a room for days after the invasion began as he basically lost the plot, leaving the country paralysed as no-one would risk making any decisions without his approval. For obvious reasons.
He also killed of most of his genuinely good military leaders as he saw them as a threat and replaced them with lap dogs.
We was even more incompetent than Putin but equally as ruthless.
4 years later according to Winston Churchill the Soviets tore the guts out of the mighty, and up until then, unstoppable might of the Nazis war machine.
The nazi war machine failed due to too many fronts and over extended supply lines, i.e. poor strategy.
Obviously circumventing the Red Sea adds massively to costs but there is really no other choice
I did read that Egypt realised this a long time ago, and set the Suez canal fees to approximately the cost of going round Africa. Of course even if it might be cost neutral for that trip, the delivery takes longer, and it keeps the ship occupied for longer when it would otherwise be able to earn doing other trips.
The nazi war machine failed due to too many fronts and over extended supply lines, i.e. poor strategy.<br /><br />
Timothy Snyder on YouTube under his own name is a good watch for all things Ukraine/russia and is very educational, there is also his 16 odd videos of his Ukraine/Russia Yale university course, video 1 below
The Houthis have asked the Americans to launch a ground offensive as they claim it would give them more targets to attack.
So the US/UK policy of threatening the Houthis is working well then.
Have the lovely, cuddly Houthis turned the water back on for Taizz yet?
I could be wrong but I don't think there is anything cuddly about the Houthis.
Which is probably at least one reason why a US-UK ground offensive is highly unlikely.
torygraph giving a drum a good bang!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/28/putin-russia-ukraine-west-avoid-world-war-three/
(you can bypass its paywall by disabling javascript, there are plugins that'll do this for your browser of choice)
<h1 class="e-headline u-heading-1 " style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; font-size: 4.1rem; margin: 0px; padding: 24px 0px 16px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.17; font-family: 'Austin News', georgia, times, serif; font-variation-settings: 'wght' 525, 'opsz' 60;" data-test="headline">Why it may already be too late for the West to avoid war</h1>
Europe must rearm at once to prevail over dictators who threaten humanity
For the first time in generations, Britain has been gripped by the fear of a third world war.
It began when the Norwegian commander-in-chief Eirik Kristoffersen predicted that the West had “two, maybe three years” to prepare for war with Russia. He was echoing similar warnings from other Nato chiefs.
Then Donald Trump triumphed again in the New Hampshire primary, thereby rendering a Biden-Trump rematch next November a racing certainty. This raises the spectre of chaos in Washington, with dire consequences for Ukraine, for Europe and the cause of democracy.
And the week ended with the ominous appearance of Vladimir Putin himself in Kaliningrad, Russia’s fortified exclave between Poland and Lithuania.
Putin’s presence there is a stark reminder that if Nato leaves Ukraine in the lurch, Russia is ready to move against the Baltic states too.
For some time our blood has been chilled by a series of philippics from senior military officers about the woeful state of our armed forces. Last month the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, spoke of living in “extraordinarily dangerous times” and asked: “Is the machinery and thinking deep within the British state truly calibrated to the scale of what is unfolding?”
Then, this week, a speech at a military conference in Twickenham by the head of the army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, was leaked to the media. He called for a new “citizen army” to be trained and equipped for the worst case scenario of a war with Russia.
Meanwhile, a powerful voice from Washington weighed into this debate within the British defence establishment. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, the US Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, urged the UK “to reassess where they are today given the threats that exist”.
Del Toro is the most senior figure in the Atlantic alliance to have openly expressed his dismay at a decade of defence cuts that have left the army and the Royal Navy smaller than at any time since the Napoleonic Wars.
For at least a year, American and European top brass have been privately telling their British counterparts that the UK is no longer a top-level fighting force.
These warnings were the driving force behind a letter to The Times last Thursday from General Sir Richard Shirreff, a former deputy supreme commander of Nato, suggesting that Britain must “look carefully” at the reintroduction of conscription.
“To most professional soldiers (myself included), conscription is anathema,” he wrote. “However, if deterrence is to be effective, Russia deterred and catastrophe averted, it might be necessary.”
One huge obstacle to conscription is the lack of willingness to fight, especially among millennials. A GB News poll this week found that just 17pc of Britons say they would “willingly fight for my country”, while 30pc (almost twice as many) agreed with the statement: “I’d do whatever possible to avoid fighting for my country.”
In a dictatorship, such as Russia must surely be regarded, men can be conscripted by force. But in a democracy there must be broad consent, especially among the recruits – otherwise any government that proposed to reintroduce national service would not remain in office for long.
How big an army might we need to defend our allies and ourselves? James Heappey, the Armed Forces Minister, has spoken of the need for up to half a million troops, including reservists, to be deployed if Nato were called upon to fight a full-scale land war against Russian aggression.
Yet such numbers have not been seen since national service was abolished in 1960. After the latest round of cuts the Army will have a total strength of only about 70,000 combat troops.
The 20,000 personnel who have been committed to Steadfast Defender, the largest Nato military exercise since the Cold War, represent the maximum force that the UK is currently capable of deploying on the front line in Eastern Europe.
This number is in part dictated by the paucity of equipment. The Army has only 213 Challenger 2 main battle tanks and 625 Warrior armoured fighting vehicles altogether. How many tanks do the 90,000 soldiers in Steadfast Defender have between them? Just 133, plus 533 infantry fighting vehicles.
By comparison, both sides in the Russo-Ukrainian war are believed to have suffered staggering losses – more than 300,00 Russian casualties and 70,000 Ukranian – and are running out of men.
Both have been forced to rely on conscription and are now recruiting both older and younger soldiers than previously. At least half of Ukrainian troops are thought to be aged over 40.
But it is the attrition of equipment that is having the most direct impact on the conflict. According to US intelligence, the Russians have lost at least 2,200 tanks in two years of war, but they still have well over 1,000 in the field.
By contrast, the small numbers of modern tanks supplied by the UK, the US, Germany and other Western countries were insufficient to enable Ukraine to succeed in its counteroffensive last summer. The West is either unwilling or simply incapable of responding to this rate of attrition on the battlefield.
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/content/dam/business/2024/01/26/TELEMMGLPICT000343778100_17063033782000_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqbRJKWhcMdxw5raWg35Kf1Vx0vitBIW5mwRMm3pKFkxI.jpeg?imwidth=960 960w,
/content/dam/business/2024/01/26/TELEMMGLPICT000343778100_17063033782000_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqbRJKWhcMdxw5raWg35Kf1Vx0vitBIW5mwRMm3pKFkxI.jpeg?imwidth=1280 1280w" data-sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 960px, (min-width: 768px) 680px, (min-width: 480px) 480px, 100vw" data-alt="Challenger 2 main battle tank" data-width="2374" data-height="1484" data-js="LazyImage" /><figcaption class="e-caption u-meta e-caption--has-separator " style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 8px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 1.2rem; font-family: 'Telesans Text Regular', Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;" data-js="caption">The Army has only 213 Challenger 2 main battle tanks CREDIT: SSgt Dek Traylor/MoD</figcaption></figure>
A comparison with the two world wars is illuminating here. In August 1914, a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was sent to France and Flanders, consisting of seven divisions of infantry and one of cavalry – initially some 84,000 men.
Adopting the Kaiser’s insult to this “contemptible little army” as a badge of honour, the Old Contemptibles played a significant role in stopping the German advance on Paris. However, not many of the original contingent made it to the end of the year: though steadily reinforced, by the end of November the BEF had sustained 90,000 casualties.
The BEF that was dispatched to France in the Second World War was larger: some 390,000 men by May 1940. It was also more fortunate, in that its casualties were “only” 66,000, mostly captured.
The “miracle of Dunkirk” rescued the surviving 338,000 British and French soldiers. But they lost all their equipment, forcing the country to rely on the Royal Navy and, of course, the Royal Air Force to defend it in the Battle of Britain.
How would such a British expeditionary force fare today? A British Nato contingent similar to the one now participating in Steadfast Defender would be fortunate if any of its troops at all were to survive the first few weeks of a war against Russia – even assuming that only conventional weapons were used.
We can be confident about this rate of attrition because we can see the scale of losses on both sides in Ukraine. Russia lost nearly 30,000 soldiers plus more than 400 tanks in December 2023 alone, according to the Ukrainians. Even if these figures are exaggerated, they put the unprepared state of Western – and especially UK – defences into perspective.
The truth is that the British defence establishment – above all the civil servants at the Treasury and the MoD – have for too long concentrated on equipping our forces with small quantities of over-engineered and extremely expensive armaments, which look impressive in theory but often prove less than robust in practice.
The shrinking size of our peacetime services has been determined by the diminishing quantities of equipment that the Treasury decides is affordable. Even when politicians are persuaded to invest in vital new technologies, the financial constraints remain and so we rob Peter to pay Paul.
A striking example of this phenomenon came to light earlier this month when the Royal Navy was forced to decommission a number of perfectly serviceable warships in order to find enough sailors to crew its latest frigates. Recruitment for the Navy fell by 22.1 per cent in the year to March 2023, making it the worst of the three armed services.
The Navy is also planning to leave our two capital ships – the aircraft carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales – bereft of supply vessels, while the Royal Marines look certain to lose their two ageing assault ships, Bulwark and Albion, without any replacements.
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/content/dam/business/2024/01/26/TELEMMGLPICT000347561048_17063032394460_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=680 680w,
/content/dam/business/2024/01/26/TELEMMGLPICT000347561048_17063032394460_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=960 960w,
/content/dam/business/2024/01/26/TELEMMGLPICT000347561048_17063032394460_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=1280 1280w" data-sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 960px, (min-width: 768px) 680px, (min-width: 480px) 480px, 100vw" data-alt="The Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales alongside HMS Queen Elizabeth as the Prince of Wales departs from Portsmouth Naval Base" data-width="2500" data-height="1563" data-js="LazyImage" /><figcaption class="e-caption u-meta e-caption--has-separator " style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 8px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-size: 1.2rem; font-family: 'Telesans Text Regular', Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.5;" data-js="caption">Royal Navy aircraft carriers HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth lack crew and aircraft CREDIT: Christopher Pledger</figcaption></figure>
Another consequence of the misguided policy of overengineering has been that our ships keep breaking down, malfunctioning or colliding. The Prince of Wales has been so plagued by mechanical defects that she has spent most of her short active life being repaired in dock. Where human error is to blame, it is often the result of inexperience at sea.
There is indeed, as Admiral Beatty said at the Battle of Jutland, “something wrong with our bloody ships”. But an even bigger problem is that there is something wrong with our bloody politicians.
Indeed, the unspoken reason why the two carriers are both at anchor in Portsmouth, at a time when British naval and air forces are engaged in the Red Sea and Nato is making a show of force in the Baltic, is that senior ministers have vetoed their deployment.
These warships too are short of crew members and aircraft, but the mere presence of a carrier task force in the Mediterranean would have sent a strong signal to the Houthis and their masters in Tehran.
In fact, neither Queen Elizabeth nor Prince of Wales has ever been allowed near a conflict zone. Instead of being deployed as they were intended, to project sea power on a global scale in defence of the West, the MoD treats these carriers like Ming vases — too precious ever to be put at risk.
The salience of drone warfare, which has played a key role in Ukraine and Gaza, has evidently spooked Whitehall into turning Britain’s most powerful naval assets into the liabilities that their critics always accused them of being.
In contrast to the great naval commanders of the past, who were given discretion to send their fleets into action wherever necessary, today the heirs of Nelson are seldom allowed out of port.
As First Lord of the Admiralty (in effect Navy minister) in both world wars, Winston Churchill was bold to the point of recklessness, sometimes with serious consequences.
One thinks of the Gallipoli campaign in the First and the Norway campaign in the Second. He felt stricken by the loss of great ships, such as the “Mighty Hood” (sunk by the Bismarck) or the Prince of Wales and Repulse (sunk by the Japanese air force).
But Churchill nevertheless trusted his naval commanders. Admiral Jellicoe, who commanded the Grand Fleet in World War I, was “the only man on either side who could lose the war in an afternoon”. At Jutland, the only trial of strength with the German High Seas Fleet, Jellicoe saw them off for the rest of the war. Against the Nazis, the Royal Navy won the battle that could have lost the war: the Battle of the Atlantic.
More recently, in the Falklands War Margaret Thatcher, too, had confidence in her operational commanders – even when it had political consequences for herself, as in the sinking of the Belgrano.
Between the politicians and the generals or admirals, there is now a loss of confidence, a refusal to take advice and even a breakdown of trust. Hence the decision by so many senior officers to go public with their concerns.
The plight of the British armed forces is not unique, of course. In France, Emmanuel Macron is regularly accused of betraying the military.
As a result there is now much martial rhetoric from the Élysée and the new Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, has been tasked with rearming French forces to prepare for war.
However, Macron’s guiding principles appear to owe less to the strategic genius of Napoleon than to the duplicitous diplomacy of Talleyrand.
As for Germany: the Bundeswehr has a long history of incompetence and penny-pinching, especially among its political masters.
Ursula von der Leyen, now President of the European Commission, has never been allowed to forget the fact that, during army exercises while Angela Merkel’s defence minister in 2015, she ordered her troops to use broomsticks instead of rifles.
The invasion of Ukraine prompted a major rethink in Berlin, the so-called <em style="background-repeat: no-repeat; box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Zeitenwende. After yet another defence minister became a laughing stock, in January 2023 Olaf Scholz finally appointed a serious person to the job: Boris Pistorius.
In just over a year, Pistorius has transformed the country’s reputation at home and abroad, making Germany the major European supplier of arms to Ukraine.
A leaked strategy paper (of which more below) revealed that he had ordered the military to prepare for war with Russia by 2025, but this week Pistorius went public.
He warned recruits in Hamburg that peace in Europe was “no longer an irrefutable certainty” and asked: “Are we seriously ready to defend this country in an emergency?” Raising the possibility of reintroducing conscription, he continued: “And who is this we? This debate has to be had.”
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/content/dam/business/2024/01/26/TELEMMGLPICT000326257144_17063037399140_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqRbhc5V7kUtrB_UgV-vALC47PRSMmxwY_k-xuJYNqXBk.jpeg?imwidth=960 960w,
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Pistorius is now certainly the most popular member of the German government and perhaps the most admired politician in the country. The unpopular Scholz is now fending off demands to make way for a man who has shown real leadership.
There is an historical precedent: another Social Democrat, Helmut Schmidt, made his name as defence minister. After the Chancellor Willy Brandt was hit by a spy scandal in 1974, Schmidt replaced him.
But even a highly competent leader such as Pistorius cannot reverse overnight decades of decline in German defence spending.
A few years after the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, Europe’s largest economy was devoting nearly 5 per cent of GDP to defence. By the time the Wall fell in 1989, it was about half that level.
This lack of investment explains why the West is so ill-prepared for the return of a threat which most experts believe is no less dangerous than at the height of the Cold War.
The primary reason for the present war scare is Putin. He has seized the opportunity offered by his “special military operation” in Ukraine to create a war economy in Russia that simply has no counterpart in the West.
Even the sanctions regime has been turned to advantage, providing the regime with a convenient excuse for imposing a siege economy.
Russia is now producing war materials on a scale that is forcing Nato to follow suit. From the beginning, the war in Ukraine has been about munitions: “I need ammunition, not a ride,” Volodymyr Zelensky famously told the Americans.
Last summer the Ukrainians were able to keep up with the Russians, but they are now running out of ammunition. On average Putin’s guns fire 10,000 rounds a day, compared to just 2,000 by Zelensky’s artillery.
Nato is now stockpiling 220,000 shells for the 155mm batteries that have proved most effective in the war, while also stepping up production to meet Kyiv’s needs too. But it is unclear whether even the United States has yet made the decision to put its arms industry onto a war footing.
Back in 1940, Franklin D Roosevelt knew what had to be done. A year before the US entered the war, the president made a celebrated broadcast in which he demanded that “we must be the great arsenal of democracy”. He warned that “if Great Britain goes down, the Axis powers will control the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia and the high seas”. Ultimately they would turn on the United States.
The impact of Roosevelt’s rearmament programme was immediate. Within a year, by the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour, the US had hugely increased arms production, thereby reducing the unit cost of each aircraft or tank, ship or shell.
Not only did the mighty American war machine make a huge contribution to winning the war, saving first Britain and later the Soviet Union, but it enabled the West to win the Cold War without firing a shot.
Now the West faces a comparable challenge. The Chinese have built up the largest army and navy in the world, menacing Taiwan and the Pacific. Rogue states such as North Korea are enabling Russian aggression from the Arctic to the Black Sea.
And non-state actors such as Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis are destabilising the Middle East, forcing the US and its allies to divert resources from Eastern Europe and the Far East.
There is no doubt that, on paper at least, the West has the ability to rise to the challenge of this new axis of aggression. Nato has reinforced its northern flank by acquiring Sweden and Finland as member states – although Turkish obstructionism is still impeding Swedish accession.
But time is running out for the alliance to create genuine strength in depth, both by recruiting and training hundreds of thousands of new soldiers, and by harnessing Western technological dominance to build up an arsenal.
How long have we got? “Alliance Defence 2025”, the secret German strategy document leaked earlier this month, suggests that this year Putin will prevail in a spring offensive against Ukraine, then destabilise the Baltic states and create a border incident in the strategically crucial Suwalki Gap, Poland’s border with Lithuania.
Having deployed new forces to the Kaliningrad exclave and Belarus, Putin would leave Nato with a dilemma: send reinforcements and risk World War Three, or abandon the Baltics to their fate.
This German doomsday scenario envisages a confrontation not later than May 2025. If that date is correct, it is already too late for the West to do much to alter the present balance of power on the battlefield.
But a concerted campaign of rearmament, embracing not just Nato but the entire free world, would demonstrate to Putin, Xi Jinping and leaders of other authoritarian regimes that the West is ultimately invincible.
The Anglo-American naval action in the Red Sea is a reminder that only the West cares about preserving peace and the rule of law. We are very efficient at dealing with the likes of the Houthis.
Now it is time to show that the West – including all who share our values – is capable of dealing not only with pirates who threaten trade routes but with dictators who threaten humanity. If we cherish the peace that has prevailed over most of mankind since 1945, we owe it to posterity to prepare for war.
