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THE UK must prepare for all out war and shift away from our peacetime mentality amid rising fears from superstates Russia, China and Iran, the head of the military has said.
Military chief warns threats to UK are ‘rapidly intensifying’
Mr Carter said, in his first lecture as Chief of the Defence Staff at the Royal United Services Institute, that Russia and China had “studied our strengths and invested carefully in new methods and capabilities that are designed to exploit weaknesses”.
These included ballistic and cruise missiles, low-yield nuclear weapons, cyberweapons, space and counter space weapons, and electronic warfare.
The UK must now shift away from our peacetime mentality and embrace the innovation to stop these threats to our national security.
He said the UK needs to take risks and experiment with new technologies.
The military chief said: “We are in a period of change more widespread, rapid and profound than humanity has experienced outside of world war.”
The UK must prepare for all out war against China, Russia and Iran (Image: GETTY)
General Sir Nick Carter warned Russia, China, Iran are a colossal threat towards the UK (Image: GETTY)
Britain’s security, stability and prosperity are being challenged by the “ambitious” superstates (Image: GETTY)
Mr Carter added: “It inevitably brings instability which requires a different approach to the traditional peacetime mentality.
“We need to recreate the innovation and ingenuity seen in wartime to succeed in this environment.”
He empathised: “What constitutes a weapon in this ‘grey zone’, below the threshold of conventional war, no longer has to go ‘bang’.”
Looking to the future, he said the UK military would be “digitally enabled and integrated”, and change how it fights and develops capabilities.
The Chief of the Defence Staff also said Iraq and Afghan war veterans were “pitied” by the public rather than respected.
The UK needs to take risks and experiment with new technologies (Image: GETTY)
He said the younger generation of veterans are misunderstood because of dramas, documentaries, films and even charity campaigns that portray them as “scarred for life”.
He said the imaging was making it harder for the military to recruit.
In a bid for support he said: “While our servicemen and women appreciate public support, they want to be valued and respected – not pitied – in other words, it’s about empathy, not sympathy.
“The respect and honour shown to our Chelsea Pensioners proves that as a nation we value our older veterans.
“But we also have a generation of younger veterans from more recent campaigns who are subject to misconceptions.”
