At a CEPA briefing on Friday, 7 February 2025, panel chair Edward Lucas steered the conversation towards the challenges of enforcing a ceasefire in Ukraine.
The discussion quickly shifted to the broader issue of military capacity amid mounting pressures on Western forces, with former US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster offering a stark assessment of the state of British Army capabilities to the journalists present, myself included.
To add context to his views, it is useful to recall the background of H.R. McMaster. Born on 24 July 1962 in Philadelphia, McMaster hails from a military family and graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1984. During the Gulf War, then-Captain McMaster commanded Eagle Troop in the Battle of 73 Easting, where his decisive leadership resulted in the destruction of 28 Iraqi tanks in a mere 23 minutes—an achievement that earned him the Silver Star and established his reputation as a formidable tactician. This performance is still widely studied in military circles as a model of effective combat leadership.
After the Gulf War, McMaster furthered his education by earning a PhD in American history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His subsequent work, notably the bestselling book Dereliction of Duty, critiqued past military leadership during the Vietnam War and reshaped discussions on strategic command. He continued to command key units, including the 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment in Germany and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq, where his innovative counterinsurgency tactics proved decisive.
In February 2017, McMaster was appointed the 25th United States National Security Advisor under President Donald Trump—a role in which he emphasised strength and burden sharing among allies. Even after resigning in April 2018, he has remained influential as a lecturer and strategic adviser, lending considerable weight to his insights at forums such as the CEPA briefing.
Commenting on the capacity of European armed forces at the briefing, McMaster stated emphatically:
“Look at the British Army right now. I mean, it makes me want to cry, almost.”
He explained that while the British Army remains professional and capable, it now lacks the necessary capacity to sustain large-scale operations. He elaborated that this shortfall is not unique to the UK but is symptomatic of a broader issue affecting Western militaries—a consequence of post-Cold War defence strategies.
“We’ve been on this model for a long time that we could achieve security by investing more and more money in fewer and fewer exquisite systems. We traded off the size of the force for capabilities, but what we’re seeing in Ukraine is a return to the importance of force size. The capacity of the force matters.”
He warned that if the multinational force intended to enforce a ceasefire in Ukraine is not credible, it risks becoming “a really tempting target for Putin,” potentially undermining Western credibility. McMaster underscored that any such force must not only counter conventional military threats but also be resilient against hybrid warfare and non-traditional forms of aggression.
“Any force that comes must be capable of defeating all forms of Russian aggression—conventional, hybrid, and beyond. Without reflecting the military realities on the ground, there’s never been a favourable political outcome to a war.”
These remarks come at a time when European leaders, including those in Britain, are grappling with significant capacity challenges and contemplating major reforms to modernise their armed forces. McMaster’s pointed observation about the British Army encapsulated the urgency of reassessing defence capabilities in light of the current geopolitical landscape.
As the briefing concluded, the panel’s discussion on military capacity—bolstered by McMaster’s extensive military background and candid comments—highlighted a critical need for renewed investment and strategic planning among Western allies to ensure a credible deterrent and sustainable peace in Ukraine.
To add some balance here, I asked a currently serving senior officer about the remarks. Wishing to remain unnamed, he told me “The British Army is currently meeting every commitment we’re asked to”.
While we are meeting every commitment at the moment will we be able to meet the ultimate full scale commitment required for a general war?
Very doubtful for any extended period of time!
The simple answer, sadly, is no. Also we are only meeting existing commitments becayse they do not need forces at the same time. Rwenty years of shambolic politics have made a nonsense of our armed forces and I can’t see things getting any better.
Join the club.
Don’t push in line, there’s a queue for crying here
Yep tell us something we don’t all ready know…
Isn’t the actual problem that Army are after perfect systems that get in the way of good systems.
Perfect systems take forever to develop and are very risk then out of date when ready to be introduced and so cut.
There is a lot to be said for moving fast.
For example you end up deploying platforms using state of the art 1990’s electronics that are already hard to support as it is obsolete.
You wouldn’t dream of having a 1990’s computer at home for anything useful.
Slow development cycles are a real issue. As you have to go round again to remove the obsolescence before prototype serials are produced.
Wow, retired General thinks Army needs more money, quick call the Daily Mail.
It often amazes me how apparent professionals can look at the war in Ukraine and draw comparisons with NATO forces. Like they seem to discount the fact that air forces exist and the army’s role in major conflict is of tertiary importance. They watch two third world army’s slogging it out with artillery and tell everyone how we can’t do that so we must be inferior. Iraq and Iran spent 8 years doing the same and NATO armed forces still cut through the Iraqi army in hours. We conquered the 4th largest army in the world and only used 60,000 artillery shells.
Very little of what you say is accurate. RUSMIL have extensive and truly integrated air defence systems, this means the air battle is likely to result in Russian air superiority behind the blue line of FLOT making our ground units critically important, and simultaneously placing them at considerable risk. HR McMaster is entirely correct when it comes to peer warfare – we (UK) are simply not capable of sustaining any action, in my opinion because we’ve been hollowed out since the mid 1990s and shaped for COIN operations.
Also, look up your definitions of first, second and third world.
Is your name Alan or Artificial Intelligence?
The USAF spent quite a lot of the gulf war, and a significant chunk of their training since, on SEAD and DEAD missions. I’d argue that the ELINT-aircraft-missile kill chain for missiles like AARGM is more refined and robust than the detection and firing systems in stuff like S400.
Their IFF systems are so bad they can’t even turn the radar on with friendly fighters around, and they have had even less practice against a NATO style combined arms approach.
I’m not saying that any aspect of our defence is infallible, but it isn’t as hopeless as you make out.
The issue is not so much can we defeat a Russian offensive, because the obvious answer is yes NATO could. But peers wars are not about the short war or one campaign. They are all about who wins the long painful slog. A peer existential war is not a competitive Martial arts scored bout , it’s a no rules fight between two heavy weight bare knuckle boxers hitting each other until one either gives up through collapse of political will or falter from strategic exhaustion.
The west has show that although it’s still the master of the short campaign, it has not shown evidence that it has the political will or the depth of resource for the long drawn out existential peer conflict. Infact it’s showing the opposite to its enemies and china and Russia both know this.
Is their SHORAD donkey based?
Quite agree Jim, as mentioned before, too much is said about our military in a negative way. When push comes to shove, the UK military pulls it off. Yes we have a small military, however, it’s one of the best in the world where many aspire to be. After all do we have a military so big that many would be just not doing much and watering down the skills set and professionalism.
Cheers
George
I would feel more confident if we had a well trained reserve force that we could call upon like Finland. Not sure that Fortnite and idolising Andrew Tate is probably the best preparation for that.
Very little of what he says is ever accurate!
Morning Jim, Unfortunately he is absolutely correct as the force levels required for Gulf Wars no longer exist, we cannot deploy our excellent forces in any meaningful mass in more than one place. And the bit that gets me is “Any force that comes, must be capable of defeating all forms of Russian aggression”, anything less is not a deterrent. It’s pretty obvious but the implication is it involves NATO having to deploy a full on mass “all arms force” complete with long term support, supply’s and accommodation on the Ukrainian / Russian DMZ.
So the bulk of the British Army would be deployed at the southern end of an 830 mile border and will be tied there (just like the US in Korea), which is a nightmare as Putins next target is supposedly the Baltic states, which is where we are supposed to be able to deploy in wartime.
Who’s Trump working for ?
I think it’s time to join him with the tissues. 😢
Well worryingly to add to his own dubious connections to Russia, Musk has dubious links everywhere especially with China, one of the Doge chipmunks had/has Russian websites and one of Musks prime appointees has just been revealed to have received $25,000 for appearing on Russian propaganda programmes. Oh and then there’s Tucker Carlson roaming around the White House well known for his insightful propaganda pieces about how wonderful Russian civilisation is. Indeed I’m sure a combination of Russia and China is the model for Making America Great Again either way once they have control of everyone’s data controlled by ai if Musk gets his way like those Countries the people will be mere cannon fodder. Actually the future reminds me of the final series of Westworld and I’m not usually cynical enough in my predictions.
I mean the current procurements of Boxer and Ajax now seem on track and we may well end up with 2 excellent vehicles.
It’s a massive issue that we have completely skipped a whole generation of armoured vehicles. The Warrior is 40 years old and the Bulldog— despite some upgrades 20 years ago— is over 60.
So it’s a race against time to get the new vehicles into service before the former become completely obsolete.
We need to get much better at buying off the shelf, spiral development and in service upgrades.
Simple fact is that we have gone too far in reducing the size of the army. Realistically the army would be totally unable to provide a reasonable size force in Germany, the Baltic/Arctic, home protection in a war situation and also protect our overseas possessions… we physically don’t have enough to cover all the bases. If it comes to war, we need to. If we want to deter the likes of Russia we need to show Russia we can. We can’t rely on America – under Trump they are worse than China – and do really need to make ourselves as self sufficient as possible. Will it happen? Course not.
We is the whole of Europe though.
There’s no scenario in 2025 where we fight Russia alone.
And certainly not without air supremacy.
Sam the problem is not the scenario where the whole of NATO fights Russia alone and stops any attack on NATO because the mismatch is such that Russia would have little chance of winning.
The two key questions are
1) how do we make Russia, a nation the size of a continent capitulate, instead of dragging into a long war which NATO may not have the political will to keep fighting.
2) There is a very good chance the next war will not be a Russia NATO war, but a wider world war..why would our enemies all wait for the west to win history in detail..we go to war with Russia, it’s very likely china will make its move in the western pacific then North Korea make its move on South Korea..Iran taking its opportunity for regional hegemony..that’s how world war 2 developed…it would be NATO and regional allies fighting china, North Korea, Russia, Russias 6-7 allied nations, wars and conflicts in Africa for resources..even possibly contagions into South America as china flexed its influence. How the hell do we win that war..how do we reduce half the world to strategic exhaustion or political collapse without suffering it ourselves.
These are core questions we have to consider.
Keep funding and supplying Ukraine.
Poison all the donkeys, so Russia runs out of re-supply.
Diplomatically isolate Russia from China.
Hmmm – I wouldn’t be so sure about ‘the whole of Europe ‘. If – and honestly I hope it never happens – there is a punch up with Russian forces, I wonder just how many Europe governments will actually approve of their forces’ involvement – especially when body bags start coming home. The UK, France, Poland, the Baltic states? – I would say yes but it will be wildly unpopular domestically. Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc? – no way. They will not get involved. Europe yes but the whole of Europe? – not a chance.
McMasters criticism of the size of the British Army is right- it is small with only limited reserves of personnel and weapons. But there is another question he should consider. What has the biggest defence budget in the world, the USA’s, actually achieved since WW2?
Uneasy stalemate in Korea
Defeat in Vietnam
Iraqi freedom that spawned ISIS
Failure in Afghanistan
Only Desert Storm was truly successful in its aims- the liberation of Kuwait.
The use of force only works properly if war aims are clearly defined and there is no better alternative. Having very large forces makes it more likely that a state will resort to their use when it might be wiser not to. Force size should be determined by clear definition of what is expected of it. Can the British Army defend the UK from conventional attack? Yes. Can it protect UK overseas territories? Yes. Can it play a major part in the defence of NATO allies? Not on the scale of the days of BAOR. But should it even try to? The real peace dividend has been the liberation of Eastern Europe and it’s joining western institutions. Russia now faces an alliance that even without the USA has a population and economy several times greater.
What Britain needs is the ability to scale up its forces in a crisis- bigger and better balanced reserves, rather than an increase in full time professionals.
And McMaster perhaps should recognize that it is largely the use of exquisite Western supplied PGMs that has allowed a much smaller weaker force to fight one of the worlds largest to a standstill.
That’s right Peter, as my reply to Jim. Many make fun of the UK military, and yes it’s small and could be larger. However to what degree should the size be? The UK when faced with a major conflict and defence of our interests normally pulls it off!
Cheers
George
I don’t think anyone is actually denying we don’t have professional soldiers well able to do their job!
Your point about always managing to “pull it off” is probably why we are in this state now,BUT there will be a point where we cannot manage to do so!
You forgot their superb invasion of Grenada ! Their only successful stand alone victory since WW2 was a tiny Commonwealth island that they neglected to tell us about ! Oh and the Iranian Hostage Rescue / Fiasco.
Quite agree Jim, as mentioned before, too much is said about our military in a negative way. When push comes to shove, the UK military pulls it off. Yes we have a small military, however, it’s one of the best in the world where many aspire to be. After all do we have a military so big that many would be just not doing much and watering down the skills set and professionalism.
Cheers
George
Russia are using donkeys and camels to re-supply ammunition.
The mistake would be to stop supporting Ukraine now even if USA do and take a crazy Trump plan for peace.
Dont give Putin a chance to re-arm or re-group.
Observation: Before 1916 the British armed forces were volunteers. That year saw the creation of the largest land force this United Kingdom ever fielded. It was even so, much less than those of France, the major combatant force on the Western front, and the Imperial German Armies by orders of magnitude. Prior to that conflict, the U.K. used expeditionary forces of much smaller size to achieve effects against largely native fighters with markedly inferior abilities technically; in many of these conflicts native forces recruited locally and British led achieved many of the outcomes. Since Blenheim in 1704 and all subsequently Continental wars, Great Britain and latterly the United Kingdom, fought as part of an Alliance. !791 was disaster since Great Britain had managed to alienate everyone; more isolated in fact than in 1940. The U.S.A had a tiny army in 1942 and has since maintained much larger forces to fight wars chiefly alone on other people’s lands. Today our former colonies maintain forces of their own; Canada was a notable though frequently ignored, component of the Allied effort through World War One & Two, as were the Australians, most overlooked in the successful campaign in New Guinea. A unique histrocally series of political catastrophes in Europe from the second half of the 19th century, unlikely to be repeated, led to a re-shaping of the world order that followed the Congress of Vienna 1815, through German agression against its neighbours. The end of Empire would have always led to a smaller army as commitments diminished and abilities of allies developed. Even so, there are different ways yo skina cat; the U.K. has fought (‘contained’) several ‘bush fire’ conflicts since 1945 in some contrast to the performance of the U.S.A.
My typing is draedfool.
Still not sure that history lesson really illuminates the overall state of our army presently. I also would not be quite so optimistic about potential lack of political and divisive ructions and new dangerous alignments in Europe. As for across the pond which pretty much dictates everything they probably at best have two years to prevent a developing coup engineered by Musk and co taking complete control with a demented President who is either to dumb to see what’s going on or thinks he is in effective control of it. I think there is a Newsweek cover coming out with Musk sitting at the Presidents desk while he and Tucker are presently parading around the Oval Office in oversized MAGA caps reminiscent of the spoof version of Darth Vaders helmet. Oh well at least the caps aren’t reversed yet, they leave that to the teenage mutant turtles with deeply suspect social media profiles who are acquiring all the Govt and voter data it needs to give front man Presidential candidates a victory akin to Putin.
Oh and if Reform get in I fear we will be about as Independent as Belarus is to Russia with Farage as Quisling… assuming Musk doesn’t prefer Lord Binface to be in charge. As Trump would say it’s a very beautiful future, a beautiful future the world has never seen before.
I think we all weep esp at the procrastination of yet another review to help avoid urgent decisions.
“The British Army is currently meeting every commitment we’re asked to”. …so he agrees then ?
We in the west have forget a few realities with our obsession with exquisite capabilities and the short war, which along with an obsession with cost control has reduced the deterrent effect of our military. Our enemies on the other hand still read history and view war differently.
The west view of war:
1) “The end of history and the last man” this piece of writing profoundly impacted on the west and its view of future wars. Unfortunately it suffered from the same issue as all “political movements” only the people in it believed it or took any notice. But essentially the west sculpted the deterrent aspect of its military on the premises the the “liberal democracy” model had won and that all nations not following a model of liberal democracy would naturally over time become liberal democracies because it was superior in every way ( essentially the same sort of trap the Soviets fell into). Trouble is the other half of the world thing the whole idea of “liberal democracies” is not only weak, but a threat to their own systems and beliefs.
2) war and peace are completely separate..you are either at war and shooting kinetic effectors at people or your at peace.. this is mainly because since the end of the Cold War Western Europe, liberal democracies and the US have been isolated from war, yes we send our militaries off to fight, but we don’t really know war anymore. War to the west is telling its military to go and kill some people using a massive edge in capabilities to minimise loss of life in our military..essentially PAX Americanas 21c version of PAX Britannia’s gunboat diplomacy…. This is the character of the nations that uphold and live in a PAX…the problem with this is we live in a time when a PAX is breaking down and may even no long live in a PAX..and we are if we are not very lucky just about to get a profound understanding of war when you don’t live under a PAX.
3) The short war, for some bizarre reason after spending almost a century fighting very long wars to strategic or political exhaustion ( including the 45 year long Cold War) the west decided that wars are short sharp beheading campaigns..even after it then spends decades fighting wars in Afghanistan ( which it absolutely lost) and Iran ( which it really did not win) and then watching Ukraine and Russia fight for a decade (even with one of these nations have 10 times the power and mass of the other). This delusion of the short war came essentially because of a belief in point 1 and the lived reality of the west’s populace from point 2. Basically we assumed that if you chop the head off the body will automatically become a western democracy( which is utter BS and never happened in history) ..instead of growing a new head and fighting until complete destruction ( which always tends to happens) and our high capability western militaries are very very good at chopping off heads.
So this these points 1-3 are all well and good if you live in the middle of a PAX where you enemies actually acknowledge your overwhelming power and are deterred from an all out existential war. But are profoundly damaging if you’re not living in a PAX and your enemies decide they are going to fight an existential war to destruction.
So what do our enemies or even the rest of the world think.
1) Well they generally cannot abide Western hegemony and are in no way sold on the idea of Liberal democracies being the superior and natural form of government. Infact they actually see western liberal democracies as politically weak..and many of our enemies especially china believe that the key characteristics of winning any existential war is the Political domain..if your political system collapses, can no longer get the population to support a war or is unwilling to continue to suffer to prosecute a war..you will lose and this is infact true throughout human history, a huge number of wars are lost through political defeat..the latest example is Afghanistan and we have essentially seen the same thing happen in Syria..if a government is unwilling or the population is unwilling the war is lost.
2) war and peace are a continuation of the same process of conflict, essentially peace is the continuation of war by other means. China and Russia have continuously attacked the west since the early part of the last decade and they have been slowly upping these attacks..they use a combination of different political domain attacks..such as causing mistrust and misunderstanding across societies as well as dependency on supply chains..the west only really now understands war in the kinetic sense…which is bizarre considering is waged a 45 year long political war against the USSR and won…but it was so taken by the idea of the end of history I simply stopped fighting wars outside of the kinetic.
3) the long war..china essentially considers the idea of the short war to be almost delusional..Mao essentially said, the short war is a lovely idea but it’s not how you win. Almost all wars that matter ( existential wars) are always long drawn out grinds of suffering until one side either fails politically or suffers strategic exhaustion…even if you win the initial campaigns and think you have had a short war you are inevitably drawn into a long war you have to win.
So the west needs to really think about what it’s enemies are thinking and develop its deterrent forces to counter that thinking and essentially that means big armies, big navies, big airforces and then rubbing them into our enemies faces hard, while engaging in whatever nasty political warfare is needed..essentially what we did in the Cold War.
“major reforms to modernise their armed forces”
That is the same old issue. Reforms and modernisation are the endless excuse for cuts.
The military needs to grow.
Not one politician is listening or acting on it.
Maybe you should add you weight behind a petition to these people then ?
I think you may be making some assumptions about what people do or don’t do without actually knowing what they do or don’t do.
We have an opportunity. The UK needs to do two trade deals; one with the EU and one with the US. In both cases the ‘price’ of favourable terms is an increase in defence spending. Starmer, Lammy, Reeves and Healey need to earn salaries. How difficult can it be?