‘We’re not ready for war!’ Citizens will have to take up arms to stop Britain being ‘swept away’

‘We’re not ready for war!’ Citizens will have to take up arms to stop Britain being ‘swept away’

[Applause] the Prime Minister has warned Britain is facing its greatest threat since the Cold War how can we improve our resilience on the home [Music] front I’m Jerome starky this is World at War and my guest today is General Sir Richard Barons one of Britain’s foremost military mines and a former joint chief of Britain’s Armed Forces General Richard welcome to World at War thank you is Britain ready for the threats that we keep hearing that we are facing no of course Britain is is is not ready for the world our government is saying that we now inhabit the government is saying we we’re pre-war that we’ve got to deter countries like Russia and be prepared to go to war and if you go to war that means you must be capable of sustaining real hardship at home that’s what resilience is but the fact is for the last 30 years since the end of the Cold War we’ve not worried about being invaded or fired out or our daily life being taken apart and now we’re going to have to rethink that from scratch let me start there with the government’s assumptions are they scare mongering is this political maneuvering we’ve got an election coming up the conservatives want to look tough on defense we’ve heard about an increase in defense spending do you do you agree with their characterization of the threat is it accurate I I absolutely agree I think this is something that has been evolving for at least 10 years one Benchmark would be the Russian invasion of Crimea but the UK like our neighbors lives in a world of new existential risk and it’s a combination of a multi-polar world the rise of of China the behavior of countries like Russia but also the instability that’s going to be caused for sure by population growth and climate change and then all the effects of the digital age and the evolving proliferation of nuclear weapons so this is not the safe comfortable world that we felt when Russia quote went away in 1990 so what do we need to do about it what does this mean for the man and the woman on the street so the most important thing is every citizen in the UK has to recognize that we now live in a much harder world and it’s going to cause us to make different difficult choices about what we spend our money on so if you take the Armed Forces they are in a state the Cold War has left them they now need to be put in a state where they’re ready for this pre-war World particularly deterring Russia more money for the Armed Forces so that’s going to cause um the money what we spend now which is about 50 billion pound a year to be spent better and then there is going to have to be more money and when we think about that the bill is bigger because of the current state of the Armed Forces for reasons we can explain but no longer excuse but also because the us is going to stop paying so much of the bill the US pays about 70% of the bill for NATO right now the US has been saying for 10 years a wealthy Europe you’re going to have to pick up your end of the log and whatever the outcome of the US election this year that’s going to be true so the bill will get backer and then there is the other end of this which is the country has to be resilient and this is not something you just give to the government or the Armed Forces we need is that having is that having a torch in our in our Loft and a few bottles of water for an emergency or is it protecting the nuclear power stations from from cyber attacks no it means all of these these things so so the the way the UK lives its life is of course vulnerable to military action the sort of missiles that fall on ke could fall on London and ke’s air defenses are way way better and could they we’re just so far away from the countries which pose us threat I mean you know Russia has intercontinental ballistic missiles but realistically you know they haven’t used intercontinental ballistic missiles in Ukraine they they’ve used tactical ballistic and cruise missiles could those weapons they’d have to scramble aircraft down you know through through the Norwegian sea wouldn’t they I mean how are they how is Russia or China going to launch missiles at Britain so even a quite elderly Russian Cruise missile I’m going to site the k101 released from an aircraft over Western Russia arrives in London 90 minutes later with a 500 kilogram explosive Warhead and an accuracy of 2 meters so pick your door in Downing Street and they’ll come probably in clips of 60 to 90 at a time based on how Russia has performed now that isn’t imminent but that’s technically possible but but if you were wanted to fire at the UK you might fire from Russia but then you’ve got across Europe you’re more likely to fire from the at Atlantic from the Baltic Sea from the North Sea or use an aircraft so the UK can be attacked as an island 360° and could we defeat that attack as you know if that attack happened tomorrow morning could we defeat it no of course not so the UK does not have the AA missile defense that Ukraine has for now we’ve not needed it there’s a big conversation going on in government about how you do that it’s quite a big problem it’s probably a 4 billion pound problem but it’s going to be part of this of this age but that’s just the Armed Forces part what what we also need to think about are citizens who are braced for this sort of difficult world where maybe they wake up one morning and there’s no electricity or there’s no water or the supermarket Distribution Systems have been broken or the banking system is down or the Wi-Fi doesn’t work and and they need to play their part in because you can’t just ask the government to fix that although the government’s got a big role to play I mean is that just a state of mind that people got to be you know do mean the the scouts me M ality so I think it is there a big state of mind and and we should recognize that for for all the reasons we talk about every day in this country since the Advent of the smartphone as it happens we’ve produced some young adults who have never been further away from that state of mind so we may have a journey to to travel here but it is a state of mind it’s also some practical things like having some food and some water and a and a torch and a torch battery and then knowing what to do if the country’s having a really bad day it’s not the end of the world it’s just a difficult day and everyone then plays their part in fixing it and and this happens in the physical Arena you know um safety the functioning of infrastructure it happens in in in the cyber world the networks we rely on and then vitally it happens in the cognitive domain the things we get from our phones and we have got to be resilient enough to either trust or not trust what what our phones are telling us and and behave as responsible adults and I think some of the Scandinavian countries have encouraged people to get radios oldfashioned s transistor radios what simple steps could people take in this country what I mean what what tell me what what do you do to be in order to be resilient so without becoming the total prepper um I think it’s important that people recognize our modern daily life is quite fragile so just have a few things in the cupboard that will get you through 48 72 hours of the shops being shut or no water or no power but mostly this is about adults thinking well this actually could happen um and and our part in it is to be resilient in the same way that we need companies and institutions and governments to be ready for their part in a harder world this this is a team effort is the government ready I read really alarming uh reports uh recently that there is no National plan for how to sort of COPE in this kind of attack well we haven’t had to think about it for more than 30 years in the in the Cold War there were plans for the continuity of government and for sustaining critical services to the to the public we haven’t needed to think about that actually there are two Dimensions to it there’s a military Dimension which is how do you fend defend the UK as part of NATO deterrence because it has to be credible and if necessary a NATO uh military operation that’s for the armed forces and it’s not something they’ve had to think a lot about for some time and then there is this vital part that the UK must recognize that if you’re a country like Russia and you want to deflect the UK from asserting its interests and and its values Target is not going to be the armed forces the target is the man and woman in the street who who if they’re not strong enough simply complain to the government and ask them to just give up that that is not in the UK’s interest that man and woman in the street do they need to be ready to take up arms and fight are we at that point so if you look at the war in Ukraine we’re being reminded that really big Wars for the survival of your country are for won and lost by Civil Society mobilized and uh and Industry and the regular armed forces have an important part to play but it’s quite a small part to play so we need to recognize that it is possible in this Century it’s not imminent that we might have to mobilize more military effort and if you do that then you ask for volunteers and you need the Armed Forces to have a mobilization plan supported by industry none of which really exists right now and then just just as Ukraine is finding out now if that war goes on long enough and is hard enough then you have to mobilize people frankly whether they’re volunteers or not that’s called conscription it’s the last resort but if the alternative is that your country is swept away that’s what you’re going to do J Richard Barons thank you very much we need to be more resilient prepared to be resilient and perhaps if I understood correctly ready to take up arms to serve the country in extremists uh my name is Jerome Starker you’ve been watching World at War and if you’re watching this on YouTube and you have any questions please ask them in the comments below and we’ll do our best to answer them next week

‘We’re not ready for war!’Citizens will have to take up arms to stop Britain being ‘swept away’.

Sir Richard Barrons spoke to The Sun’s Defence Editor Jerome Starkey on The Sun’s brand new show ‘World at War’ to discuss the threat of a world war and the state of the UK armed forces.

– Contents of video –
00:00 – 00:16 – Introduction to World at War
00:16 – 02:22 – Is Britain ready for a ‘pre-war world’?
02:22 – 03:12 – Britain needs defence cash
03:12 – 06:12 – Could the UK be attacked with missiles and devastating cyber attacks?
06:12 – 08:17 – How can Brits be more resilient?
08:17 – 09:21 – Should Brits be ready to take up arms?
09:21 – 09:41 – Final comments
ENDS

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