US general warns British Army no longer top-level fighting force, defence sources reveal
A senior US general has privately told Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force, defence sources have revealed.
They said this decline in war-fighting capability – following decades of cuts to save money – needed to be reversed faster than planned in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Bottom line… it’s an entire service unable to protect the UK and our allies for a decade,” one of the defence sources said.
Ben Wallace was given a frank assessment of the army by a US general, say sources
The sources said Rishi Sunak risked failing in his role as “wartime prime minister” unless he took urgent action given the growing security threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
This should include increasing the defence budget by at least £3bn a year; halting a plan to shrink the size of the army even further; and easing peacetime procurement rules that obstruct the UK’s ability to buy weapons and ammunition at speed.
“We have a wartime prime minister and a wartime chancellor,” one source said.
“History will look back at the choices they make in the coming weeks as fundamental to whether this government genuinely believes that its primary duty is the defence of the realm or whether that is just a slogan to be given lip service.”
Offering a sense of the scale of the challenge faced by the army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, it is understood that:
- The armed forces would run out of ammunition “in a few days” if called upon to fight
- The UK lacks the ability to defend its skies against the level of missile and drone strikes that Ukraine is enduring
- It would take five to ten years for the army to be able to field a war-fighting division of some 25,000 to 30,000 troops backed by tanks, artillery and helicopters
- Some 30% of UK forces on high readiness are reservists who are unable to mobilise within NATO timelines – “so we’d turn up under strength”
- The majority of the army’s fleet of armoured vehicles, including tanks, was built between 30 to 60 years ago and full replacements are not due for years
European powers like France and Germany have announced plans to boost defence spending significantly following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
Putin ‘at war with the West’
The European Union has even said President Putin is now at war with the West and NATO.
But the UK’s chancellor-turned-prime minister just wants the problem “to go away”, a second source claimed.
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Mr Sunak has yet to make any meaningful pledge to expand his defence coffers, instead pursuing a “refresh” of a review of defence policy that is due to be published on 7 March ahead of a spring budget that will signal whether there is any new money for the military.
Rishi Sunak has yet to make any meaningful pledge to increase defence cash
While the picture is bleak across the military, the army is in a particularly bad place.
Plans exist to modernise the service with fighting vehicles, missiles and upgraded tanks but they were devised before Russia launched its war and the timeline to deliver the transformation is too slow to meet the heightened risk, according to the defence sources.
Such concerns are not just being expressed by individuals inside UK defence circles, with sources saying a high-ranking US general offered a frank assessment of the British Army to Mr Wallace and some other senior officials last autumn.
The general used a term to rank the strength of a country’s military, with tier one regarded as a top-level power such as the United States, Russia, China and France and a status the UK also seeks to hold.
Tier two would describe a more middling power with less fighting capability such as Germany or Italy.
According to the sources, the general, referring to the army, said: “You haven’t got a tier one. It’s barely tier two.”
One of the sources insisted that the US and the rest of NATO understands the UK is planning to rebuild its force.
“It’s now in a better cycle with a lot of new investment over the next ten years”, the source said.
“As long as they don’t screw up the procurement, they’re on track to be a modern army.”
But other sources were less confident about how the UK was being viewed by its allies.
A degradation in fighting-power has long been a concern
Defence crisis a long time coming
The crisis in defence has been a generation in the making following repeated reductions in the size of the three armed services since the end of the Cold War by successive Conservative, coalition and Labour governments to save money for peacetime priorities.
Compounding the impact of the cuts is a chronic failure by the Ministry of Defence and the army over the past 20 years to procure some of its most needed equipment – such as armoured vehicles and new communication systems – despite spending billions of pounds.
In addition, the need to supply Ukraine with much of the army’s remaining stocks of weapons and ammunition to help the Ukrainian military fight Russia has increased the pressure even further.
The UK is playing a key role in supporting Kyiv, with the prime minister becoming the first leader to promise to send Western tanks – a leadership role he appeared keen to highlight when he took to social media after Germany and the US followed suit.
“Really pleased they’ve joined the UK in sending main battle tanks to Ukraine,” Mr Sunak tweeted last Wednesday.
“We have a window to accelerate efforts to secure a lasting peace for Ukrainians. Let’s keep it up.”
Yet despite this tough talk, Mr Sunak failed to list fixing capability gaps in his own armed forces as being among his top five priorities in his first policy speech as prime minister in early January even as Russia’s war rages on in Europe.
“The PM’s wartime approach is currently to cut the army, hollow it out further by gifting [equipment to Ukraine] and with no plans to replace [the weapons] for five to seven years,” the first defence source said.
In 2020, Boris Johnson, as prime minister, increased defence spending by £16 billion – the biggest uplift since the Cold War, but not enough to plug the gaps.
Since then, rising inflation, foreign exchange rates and the need to accelerate modernisation plans in the wake of Ukraine will mean more cuts without new cash, the sources said.
‘Hollow force’
The chronic erosion has created what defence sources describe as a “hollow force”, with insufficient personnel, not enough money to train and arm those still on the books, out-dated weapons and depleted stockpiles of ammunition and spare parts.
It has long been a concern, but Mr Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has created an added sense of urgency – though seemingly not yet inside Number 10, according to General Sir Richard Barrons, a former senior commander.
“The money needed to fix defence is small when compared to other areas of spending like health, welfare and debt interest. So this is a matter of government choices, not affordability,” he told Sky News.
“Defence can no longer be left at the bottom of the list… Why is this lost on Downing Street and the Treasury, but not in Paris or Berlin?”
Mr Sunak has so far resisted calls to follow his predecessor, Liz Truss, to lift defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030 up from just over 2% at present.
The army is less than half the size it was back in 1990
NATO requires all allies to spend at least 2% of national income on defence – a minimum baseline that France and Germany have previously failed to meet but have pledged to achieve.
Army smallest since Napoleonic times
At just 76,000 strong, the British army is less than half the size it was back in 1990 and the smallest it has been since Napoleonic times.
The force is due to shrink even further to 73,000 under current plans that will be implemented unless new money is found.
Retired generals, admirals and air chief marshals have been sounding the alarm for years, finding their voices typically after choosing to stay quiet while in uniform.
Even serving officials have started to speak more bluntly about depleted capabilities
But unusually, even serving officials have started to speak more bluntly in public about their depleted capabilities – a clear signal of serious concern within the Ministry of Defence’s main building and at the headquarters of the three services as well as strategic command.
‘Known capability risks’
Appearing before a committee of MPs earlier this month, Lieutenant General Sharon Nesmith, deputy chief of the general staff, spoke about the army’s plans to modernise, which were set out in 2021 as part of a body of work that was done in line with the government’s integrated review.
It envisaged delivering a war-fighting division, supported by new armoured vehicles and long-range missiles to be created by 2030 – leaving an interim gap.
“There were known capability risks,” Lt Gen Nesmith said in her evidence to MPs on the defence select committee.
“I think that, through today’s lens of war in Ukraine, on land, some of those decisions feel very uncomfortable.”
A government spokesperson said: “The prime minister is clear that we have to do everything necessary to protect our people, which is why the UK has the largest defence budget in Europe and we made the biggest investment in the UK defence industry since the Cold War in 2020.
“We are ensuring our armed forces have the equipment and capability they need to meet the threats of tomorrow, including through a fully-funded £242bn 10-year equipment plan.”
Regrowing military capability – something most European nations are also having to do – is difficult, particularly because of the need to balance support to the UK’s own defence industry and jobs against securing bulk purchases at a competitive price.
A separate defence source said: “The defence secretary has made clear for years now, about the need to modernise our army to ensure it keeps pace with our allies.
“That’s why at the spending review in 2020 he achieved an extra £16bn… Reinvesting, learning lessons from Ukraine and growing industrial skills takes time.
“We are on track to start to see new tanks, personnel carriers and air defence systems by the year after next. Over the next few years, Britain will rightly regain its place as one of the leading land forces in Europe.”
Two senior Labour MPs have suggested the prime minister may have to go within months if the government continues to perform poorly.
Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates said his sources – a member of the government and a prominent politician – have “put Sir Keir Starmer on notice”.
Both warned that, if Labour performs badly in next May’s elections across Wales, Scotland and London, it could mark the end of his time in Downing Street.
Coates added: “The level of unhappiness and despair in parts of the Labour Party is so striking that right now, on the first anniversary, I am hearing from ministers in government that Starmer might have to go in months.”
Reform UK is surging in the polls in Wales, while Labour faces a threat from left-wing parties such as the Greens in London.
It comes as the prime minister made it clear that Rachel Reeves has his “complete support” as chancellor and remains integral to his project, Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby understands.
She looked visibly upset during Prime Minister’s Questions, with a spokesperson claiming she had been affected by a “personal matter”.
A day earlier, Sir Keir’s controversial welfare bill was passed despite a sizeable rebellion from Labour MPs, with major U-turns meaning a new £5bn black hole has appeared in the country’s finances.
One senior figure told Rigby that the pair were as “as close politically” as any chancellor and prime minister have ever been.
“She is going absolutely nowhere,” they added.
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Welfare vote ‘a blow to the prime minister’
Ms Reeves’s tears sent markets spiralling, with the value of the pound and long-term government bonds falling sharply.
Later in the day Sir Keir, said Ms Reeves will be chancellor for a “very long time to come”.
The prime minister said it was “absolutely wrong” to suggest her tearful appearance in the Commons related to the welfare U-turn.
“It’s got nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with what’s happened this week. It was a personal matter for her,” he said while speaking to the BBC’s podcast Political Thinking with Nick Robinson.
“I’m not going to intrude on her privacy by talking to you about that. It is a personal matter.”
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Asked if she will remain in post, he said: “She will be chancellor by the time this is broadcast, she will be chancellor for a very long time to come, because this project that we’ve been working on to change the Labour party, to win the election, change the country, that is a project which the chancellor and I’ve been working on together.”
He said Ms Reeves has done a “fantastic job” and added: “She and I work together, we think together. In the past, there have been examples – I won’t give any specific – of chancellors and prime ministers who weren’t in lockstep. We’re in lockstep.”
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, also offered a strong defence for the prime minister and chancellor.
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Health Secretary: Reeves is ‘resilient’
He told Sky News this morning that Sir Keir has been “consistently underestimated” and was “of course” safe as prime minister.
And he said Ms Reeves was a “tough character” who was ” resilient” and “here to stay”.
Despite making “significant improvements”, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has lost the “trust and confidence” of some victims of grooming gangs, according to a report by the police watchdog.
Michelle Skeer, His Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, said that since 2019, when GMP started to review its non-recent child sexual exploitation investigations, “the force has improved its understanding and approach to investigating allegations of child criminal and sexual exploitation”.
The document, published today, said police have live investigations into “multi-victim, multi-offender” child sexual exploitation inquiries, involving 714 victims and survivors, and 1,099 suspects.
Grooming gangs scandal timeline
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‘Our chance for justice’
But despite recording improvements, a report by His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) also identified:
• Various training gaps within the investigation team
• Lack of consistency in evaluating case files between social care, health and police
• Failures to initially support victims meant they had “lost trust and confidence” in police
The report was commissioned by the Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham in 2024 to evaluate whether police, councils and health services can protect children from sexual exploitation in the future.
Its release comes days after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was launching a new national inquiry into grooming gangs after previously arguing one was not necessary,
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Starmer to launch new grooming gang inquiry
The findings were issued as the final part of the CSE (child sexual exploitation) Assurance Review process which started in 2017. The first three reports examined non-recent child sexual exploitation in Manchester, Oldham and Rochdale.
Mr Skeer said that the force has been trying to improve its service to those who have experienced sexual exploitation, but previous failings have badly affected trust in GMP.
He said: “For some, trust and confidence in the police had been lost, and the force would not be able to rectify their experiences.
“It is vital that improvements are led by victims’ experiences, and if they do come forward, they are supported, protected and taken seriously.”
A recent report by Baroness Casey found a significant over-representation of Asian men who are suspects in grooming gangs in Greater Manchester, adding though authorities are in “denial” more needs to be done to understand why this is the case.
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Teen caught in child sex exploitation
Inspectors also said there were “training gaps” in some investigation teams and issues with data sharing, with local councils sometimes not willing to provide detectives with information, leading to “significant delays in investigations” into grooming gangs.
It cites problems with intelligence provided by Manchester City Council, which took months to arrive and “was so heavily redacted that some pages contained only a few words”, the report said.
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GMP is the only force in the country to set up a dedicated team to investigate grooming gangs. Called the Child Sexual Exploitation Major Investigation Team (CSE MIT) it has about 100 staff and a ringfenced budget.
In October 2024, the force told inspectors there were 59 live multi-victim, multi-offender child sexual exploitation investigations, of which 13 were being managed by the CSE MIT.
The report adds: “The force fully accepts that it made mistakes in the past.
“It has taken positive and effective steps to learn from these mistakes and improve how it investigates recent and non-recent child sexual exploitation.”
Separately, the Baird Inquiry published in July 2024 found officers at GMP were abusing their power – making unlawful arrests, unlawful and demeaning strip searches, sometimes treating victims as perpetrators, and traumatising those who have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence.
The health secretary has offered a strong defence of the prime minister and chancellor – ahead of Sir Keir Starmer setting out his 10-year vision for the NHS.
PM ‘might have to go in months’ – politics latest
Wes Streeting dismissed suggestions the prime minister could be forced out in months following the toughest week of his premiership yet, and described Rachel Reeves as “resilient” and would “bounce back” following her tearful appearance in the Commons on Wednesday.
Overnight, two senior sources – a member of the government and a prominent politician – told Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates that they had “put Sir Keir Starmer on notice”.
The health secretary, who was speaking as Sir Keir prepares to set out his 10-year vision for the NHS, said the prime minister had been “consistently underestimated”.
Asked by Kamali Melbourne on Sky News Breakfast whether Sir Keir was “safe”, Mr Streeting said: “Of course.
“Keir Starmer has been consistently underestimated. I wonder when people will learn.
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Reeves has ‘complete support’
“They said he couldn’t win the Labour leadership, but he did. They said he couldn’t change the Labour Party, but he did.
“They said he couldn’t take the Labour Party from its worst defeat since the 1930s to election victory last year. And he did and now the cynics say he can’t change the country, but he will.”
As for Ms Reeves – whose tearful appearance in the Commons spooked markets after the prime minister initially failed to back her, Mr Streeting said the chancellor was a “tough character” who was “resilient and she will bounce back”.
The health secretary declined to expand on why Ms Reeves was in the chamber at all yesterday, repeating that it was a personal matter.
“Rachel Reeves as chancellor is here to stay,” he continued.
“We need her to get the economy from strength to strength, to make sure that family finances are in better health than we were when we came into office.”
Speculation about the futures of the two most senior members of the government threaten to overshadow the announcement today, which the government says is “one of the most seismic shifts” in the health service’s history.
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Why has Starmer axed NHS England?
Sir Keir will pledge three main facets of the plan: moving care into the community, digitising the NHS, and a focus on sickness prevention.
The prime minister will announce neighbourhood health services will be rolled out across England to improve access to the NHS and to shift care out of overstrained hospitals.
Sir Keir has already promised thousands more GPs will be trained, and to end the 8am “scramble” for an appointment.
He also previously said his government will bring the NHS into the digital age, with “groundbreaking” new tools to support GPs rolled out over the next two years – including AI to take notes, draft letters and enter data.
And he will promise new contracts that will encourage and allow GP practices to cover a wider geographical area, so small practices will get more support.
Unite, one of the UK’s largest healthcare unions, welcomed the plan cautiously but said staff need to be the focus to ensure people are better looked after.
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‘Reform or die’
Sir Keir said: “The NHS should be there for everyone, whenever they need it.
“But we inherited a health system in crisis, addicted to a sticking plaster approach, and unable to face up to the challenges we face now, let alone in the future.
“That ends now. Because it’s reform or die.”
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Neighbourhood health services
The newly announced neighbourhood health services will provide “pioneering teams” in local communities, so patients can more conveniently access a full range of healthcare services close to home.
Local areas will be encouraged to trial innovative schemes like community outreach door-to-door to detect early signs of illness and reduce pressure on GPs and A&E.
The aim is to eventually have new health centres open 12 hours a day, six days a week to offer GP services as well as diagnostics, post-operative care and rehab.
They will also offer services like debt advice, employment support, stop smoking help or weight management.
More NHS dentists
Dentists will also be part of the plan, with dental care professionals part of the neighbourhood teams.
Dental “therapists” will carry out check-ups, treatments and referrals, while dental nurses could give education and advice to parents or work with schools and community groups.
Newly qualified dentists will be required to practice in the NHS for a minimum period, which they have said will be three years.
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