The UK is stepping up its military presence in Northern Europe Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced.

More than 20,000 British troops will be deployed to the region next year.

Meeting northern European leaders today on the strategically important island of Gotland to discuss the challenges facing the region, as well as the situation in Israel, the Prime Minister warned that Putin’s failures in Ukraine were emboldening Russia’s irresponsible behaviour in other parts of Europe.

According to the Ministry of Defence here, he told leaders that while Putin had lost significant ground in Ukraine since he launched his barbaric invasion, allies and partners should not be lulled into a false sense of security.

“The Kremlin was reinvesting in military capability and turning to a diminishing number of malevolent and marginalised partners to try and rebuild its strength and undermine global stability. His warning came after damage was detected earlier this week to two pipelines between Estonia and Finland, and HMS Queen Elizabeth was forced to launch fast jets from her deck in the Arctic last week to escort Russian Maritime Patrol Aircraft that flew close to the Carrier Strike Group operating in the region. 

JEF leaders discussed today how they can address Russia’s sabotaging behaviour in the region, both through stronger defence collaboration and increasing industrial cooperation. The Prime Minister outlined how accelerating defence industrial cooperation within Europe and across the Atlantic was vital to ensuring nations maintain a technological advantage over Russia and protect partners from Russian attacks for generations to come. That acceleration will include sending more than 20,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and air men and women to the region next year, alongside 8 Royal Navy ships, 25 fast jets and an aviation task force of Apache, Chinook and Wildcat helicopters. They will take part in large-scale, multi-country exercises, as well as carrying out air policing and cold weather training.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said:

“This week, we have seen yet again that our security cannot be taken for granted. It is vital that we stand united against those with malign intent. As the international order continues to be challenged by desperate dictators, rogue states, and terrorist organisations – like Hamas – we must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our international friends and partners to defend our values, security and prosperity. 

Northern Europe is vital to our national security, which is why it’s more important than ever that we work with our Joint Expeditionary Force neighbours to protect our backyard and deter damaging hybrid threats.”

The news release also states that the UK’s Carrier Strike Group is already in the region for its autumn deployment, underlining the UK’s commitment to the area. The group is led by flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth and accompanied by five British ships, F35 Lightning II stealth fighter jets and Wildcat helicopters. The carrier group will return early next year to lead the UK’s contribution to the first phase of NATO’s most ambitious military drill since the Cold War, Exercise Steadfast Defender.

The operation will span almost six months and see 16,000 UK soldiers deploy to Estonia and Norway. You can read more here.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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114 COMMENTS

  1. The JEF is the perfect organisation for the U.K. to commit the army in particular. We can take a lead whilst being partners within a group of like minded allies.

  2. we should never have pulled out of europe in the first place but governments do not listen,because they were to busy thinking of all the extra cash they could pocket..We knew after options for change that it would only be a matter of time before a conflict broke out that would escalate,But no one took JHQ Rheindahlen serious, now look what’s happening..
    Meanwhile our military has been hollowed out, equipment out of date or past it’s shelf life and once again we are playing catch up trying to do more with less..
    Will we ever get a government that takes defence serious

    • I don’t think most of the equipment is that bad compared to Russian junk.

      I totally agree that we need many more troops.

      To be fair the reason army don’t have vehicle updates is because they messed up. They were given £5Bn to fix the issue and wasted a good portion of it before cancelling.

      MRLS – works very nicely
      AS90 – is still effective
      CH2 – still effective as the sniper tank
      NLAWS – excellent performance

      Things we don’t know about yet

      Apache – how survivable is it in a properly controlled battle space?
      Sky Sabre – how well does it sanitise the battle space?
      How much difference does fast air make armed with current weapons?

      • Let’s not forget about systems like Archer. Yes they are small in number for the moment but that piece of equipment in particular was brought into service very quickly and means that we could scale up at pace. Yes, they would have to be produced in the case of us requiring hundreds for war but I personally don’t believe the UK requires absurd amounts of artillery – rocket or conventional.

          • Archer – I think that Qty 14 was all the Swedes had to spare. They are not just ‘on order’ – they are now arriving in the UK.

            Artillery, and a lot of it, is vital in modern high intensity warfighting – look at the war in Ukraine. We don’t have much tube artillery at all.

          • The first few have arrived but the last ones are not being delivered until the end of Q1 2024.

            Presumably being overhauled and UK comms fitted?

          • Thanks. Swedes are best placed to overhaul if necessary as they have the expertise and the spares – and it would not be right to sell us kit that was sub-par. However Swedish army only received these from 2016, so most may not even be 5 years old. I doubt they have had much se either.

            UK will fit UK comms, BV and a few other things too, I am sure.

          • Agree….fast air seems to actually struggle on a peer battlefield..good for beating the crap out of a none peer with less risk to your own forces..but once it comes into contact with something close to a peer integrated air defence system it turns into “a force in being” issue that you cannot risk in large numbers…artillery on the other hand is clearly still the dominant factor on a peer battlefield….we need to take a page out of Finlands book…more fires than you can shake a stick at…

          • Is Russia peer?

            I think we can suppress their systems pretty quickly given what we have clearly told Ukraine about taking the Russia S400 out and they have executed so well.

            Same for the junk cruiser. That wasn’t just luck……

          • To be fair Ukraine was not really that close a peer to Russia but it’s still managed to force the Russia airforce to back away…so although I would say they are probably not, it’s best not to assume that they cannot make it difficult for fast air…our only real comparison is 2003 Iraq and the reality of that was from around 1998 onward the UN sactioned forces of the northern and southern no fly zones had been in constant engagement attritioning the iraq air defence system…that was effectively a 1960s system…so by 2003 it was effectively a shattered system that was not maintained and had suffered constant attrition and blockade of replacements.

          • Swedes could only spare 14. Army have already said they are looking to increase it to 24 for a full regiment.
            Sweden has 24 of the same Archers in service which they are looking to replace with Archer on a MAN truck.

          • Getting Archer has been a good move it’s a good platform , just need more which I believe is the plan at some point. 🙏

        • Looking at Ukraine I think artillery has proven it’s importance and that we’ve always underestimated how much we need. I don’t think that doubling our available artilley would result in absurd amounts – I think it is needed. Won’t happen of course.

          • Artillery was never obsolete, the fear and destruction that rains down on an opposition is awesome as you know. Keep the enemy pinned down I say!

      • I’m surprised and disappointed Sky Sabre has not been donated to Ukraine. a) to help the Ukranians and b) to see how it performs.

        It’s a brand new system, so I would imagine production lines are still hot and systems donated and can be replaced.

        • It is a state of the art system so we wouldn’t want it falling into other hands.

          There is also the issue of missile inventory as we have to keep something for ourselves.

          Poland want to buy a lot too so production capacity will be very stretched when coupled with deepening our own inventory and exports.

          So I’m not surprised TBH.

          • It shouldn’t be too difficult to donate a SAM system on condition it defends strategic assets well away from the front lines, negating the risk of it falling into enemy hands. I’m thinking power stations, logistical hubs, ports etc.

            As missile production is ongoing then it’s disappointing it has not been expanded to meet need. These are decisions that should have been made in 2021 when it became obvious some sort of war was going to take place.

            But as you said, I’m not surprised!

        • Why would we donate kit we have only just got? Mostly nations are donating their older kit.
          The British Army is desperately struggling to re-equip. Sky Sabre is pretty much the only new kit it has got, (plus a handful of Archer).

          • What the U.K. should have done and still should is order extra sky sabre units for Ukraine and the U.K.
            it’s such an own goal for U.K. industry and a good investment of money.

    • Well we did pull out and then we didn’t! Most if not all stuff being used by the BGs up North is from prepositioned stock in Sennelager and we still run the training area there. We still have RE s at Minden,so we are really still about👍

      • Yes, a skeleton infrastructure remain. Sennelager, the CHE store at Munchengladbach, and I think also the ammunition depot at Wulfen.

      • We still run the training area but the vast majority of the infrastructure was either handed back to the Bundeswehr or sold off to developers.

        The REs at Minden are Squadron strength, even when I was posted in Germany we still had two Brigades (1x armoured 1x logistic) in Germany.

      • In very small numbers.

        British Army Germany (BAG) successor to the army part of BFG which was sucessor to BAOR – is commanded by a Colonel and probably comprises 100 or so personnel, mainly civil servants and German civvies – plus the one field force element 23 Amph Engr Sqn (Minden), part of a German Army amphib engr unit.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_Germany

      • 20 000 troups is a respectible number. Can UK really do this, without changing the size of the army? I remermber all UK ground forces could not fill Wembley. What would you do with other commitment, support, training and so on?
        Nevertheless, these words are step in the right direction. Let see how common équipements will be.

        • Hang on, Math – “20,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and air men and women” doesn’t represent 20,000 people in boots and helmets, doing the fighting. It would be interesting to see how many of the 20,000 are actually front-line fighters.

          • The share would be similare to other armies in Europe, a quarter of it. 20% if the model is closer to USA.

    • I agree with you Andy should never had left to come home just to go back over its been pointless.Remember Army General about 5yrs ago saying it’s not a good idea has Russia were starting to be more Aggressive of late.different is this time round we have a lot less platforms and man power whether it be an exercise or to be station .The good Equipment we do have is few in numbers. 🇬🇧

    • In a word no we won’t nothing will never happen until a cruise missile comes down the chimney at parliament. Our forces could be so much bigger and better than they are if the UK were to have a first buy option to buy any major pieces of American kit that they retire.

  3. 16,000 UK soldiers to Estonia and Norway, so where are the other 4,000 going?
    I find it hard to believe that they will be protecting vital national infrastructure in or around Estonia, Norway and ‘somewhere else’, which is what the linked reference says they are principally going there to do.

    Will the army drop some other tasks to accomodate this new task?

    I wonder what the impact will be on the rest of the army?

    What happens after the 6 month period ends? All back to the UK? That vital national infrastructure, whatever it is, is then undefended?

    • The 20,000 comment comes from Grant “RAF carriers” Schnapps (pun intended). I would assume he means Soldiers, Sailors, and aircrew.

      In which case a CSG or LRG deployed will easily make up the difference.

      • I don’t think it’s all that impressive to report we have 20,000 armed forces personnel in Eastern Europe. Consider the BOAR at full strength. Those 20,000 represent less than a quarter of our previous deployed strength in Europe.
        So Schapps is bigging up a deployment that isn’t all that impressive and probably represents close to our maximum deployed troop numbers

        • Mr Bell, No point harking back to Cold War days, well over 30 years ago. We were facing the entire Warsaw Pact, not just the USSR, not just Russia. We needed much mass then.

          Not sure of your BAOR maths – when I was frst posted to Germany (1976) we had 55,000 in FRG and c5,000 in Berlin. 20,000 is one third of that historic figure.

          20,000 soldiers deployed in 2023 terms (from an army of about 76,000) is impressive.

          • Thanks mate. Very sloppy MoD Press Release.
            But the media is worse – most talk of two RN ships deploying to the eastern Med, not two RFA ships. Won’t be long before some talk of the embarked RM company deploying on the ground to help the Israeli army take out Hamas!

          • Has the standard ever been so poor in defence journalism?
            Anyone interested in defence should just read this site, from the accurate articles put out by the sites writers to the comments from the community that is interested and has some knowledge and, or actual experience in the subject matter.

      • Thanks Dern. Shnapps (I like that) really is clueless – I count 4 gaffes so far, including mis-speaking that we are about to send trainers and advisers into Ukraine and he was slapped down by Sunak as soon as he said it.

  4. “Our security can’t be taken for granted”. Says the very last person who should be saying those words! A “man” who cannot bring himself to fund anything whatsoever that doesn’t enhance the wealth of his own minority of evil greedy elites.

  5. Wow! That is major. I can’t recall such a major deployment really since the BAoR in terms of the %age of assets being used

    • Beware of politicians double counting as others mentioned. Its over a *year* so maybe 5000 at one time.
      Plus its just pre election ‘announceables’ , for a khaki type election, which considering the record over last 12 years its laughable

  6. “20,000 British Troops to be deployed in Norther Europe”
    So… what 20,000 would that be then?

    As much as it pains me to say this, if it’s foot sloggers, the UK does not have them. Most Infantry Battalions are short on numbers, and in certain Battalions, as many as 60% want out.

    Within some of those Battalions, the MOD/Government are making redundancies. To give one example, a certain ‘premier’ Infantry Battalion has been told it no longer needs it’s MT section.

    Who knows, maybe they will get the Royal Mail, Serco, or even Group 4 to move their kit, equipment and their blokes about.

    Gotta love the tories…

    • Morning Tom.
      Will be interesting to see when the details emerge. As the GRF is currently being reorganised, 1 UK Division expanded, and 6 Division reportedly junked, maybe they see this as its first big test if the combat forces deployed are light/L Mech formations.
      Most will you’d assume actually be from the CS/CSS elements.

      • Morning M8. I have never served in the forces, but due to my career I’ve always had more than a slightly biased self interest in what happens. I don’t just focus on the equipment or the numbers but Geopolitics and Industry so I tend to take an Holistic approach to things.

        Now 80% of my focus has been to the Blue & White so if I get this wrong I know you will gently correct me. But I think my premise is correct and reasonable.

        I have to wonder if this isn’t the single greatest opportunity we have had in half a century to wake the Political elite up and get the People who serve in the Forces the real support, commitment and respect that they are due”.
        Recent polling is a bit odd and I suspect Labour have paid more attention to it than Sunak. At present 52% of U.K. voters support increased defence expenditure and I suspect that after last weekend that number is soft 🤔

        Since the temporary cease fire in the Cold War the UK has pivoted its basing away from Germany to the U.K. During that time we rehoused (badly) all the Troops and families in the U.K. The only large scale deployments were either actual short term wars or long term smaller interventions where the troops served a tour and rotated home.

        This one smacks of being a long term commitment. And feel free to correct me but 20k deployed doesn’t look to me to be sustainable with @72k bods (and far fewer combat bods).

        I just wonder if this is the point at which someone gives the PM a simple answer which he will not like. “Yes we can do this, but it’s a juster and will seriously impact us long term as the troops will probably leave ! So unless you stump up X£’s right now and commit to an increased budget we cannot sustain this beyond 6 months”.

        I can’t see the CDS doing it, nor the head of the Army (to much to lose).

        A bit of Saturday morning non PC culture.

        You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all: 
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. 
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace. 
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! "
But it's " Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot; 
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please; 
An 'Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

        It hasn’t changed much really 😔

        So what happens Monday morning if the CDS calls the PM and says “Sorry PM no can do, as the majority of the Troops just handed their notice in” ?🥴

        The world has changed a bit since the days of “Tommy” we have freedom of choice and quite how Sunak would react would be fun to watch.

        We have an all volunteer Army without a huge reserve force ( no safety net).

        Tommy and Tammy aren’t stupid and their families and loved ones are fed up. Housing is lousy, conditions horrid, pay is poor and the Army is the go to for every dirty job the Government needs doing because they have mucked up elsewhere.

        Now funnily another bloke from Kiplings era had a really appropriate saying. Teddy Roosevelt

        “If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

        • Hi my friend. Rushing out to an art exhibition, so will give your post the attention it deserves later.
          One thing, I don’t ever “correct” an opinion mate, we all have our views. 👍 only factual stuff I’m aware of, like the Point contract.

          • Just read the fine print it’s not 20K troops but 20K from all services. Its still a hell of a lot to ask in peace time when moral is pretty low and recruitment / retention is a massive headache.

          • We can deploy a weakish Division for a one shot big show. Beyond that, we can no longer roule a Brigade. Pre 2015 and the Strike debacle, we had 5 deployable Brigades so the rule of 5. Plus 3 Cdo with its 3rd “Green” Cdo and 16AA on top.

            The services are far too good at making do, with a can do attitude. You’re right, I’d love to see the CDS say sorry we cannot, not without breaking the army.

            With our record of yes men, who only complain after they have the pension, cushy consultancy job or a job with the MIC, we know it wont happen.

            I think it’s best until we see who’s involved and easier to judge. They do hype stuff up, it might get watered down. Some night also be reservists?

            I remember the Sief Seera ( spelling? ) exercises that were meant to test the JRDF every few years.

        • We are told that it will just be a 6-month operation. If however it turns into an enduring operation, then we absolutely can’t roule a 20,000 army force – no debate, its a fact. The army would struggle to roule a 5,000 force without some reservists and/or RM commandoes.

          • That’s after the election and someone else’s problem. Even if the Tories win, there will be a new Def Sec. We’ll be waiting on a new Integrated Review and a new Defence Command Paper and maybe even another projected ORBAT.

            It wouldn’t surprise me to see the army held unsustainably long anyway, stretching deployments like a CASD submarine.

          • And where has that got him ? In the U.K we have 75 years of History that is littered with serving or former Senior Officers that opened their mouths against cuts and got the boot (see Mountbatten for details).
            Non have ever been listened to 🥴

            Our closest Ally is the US and even them saying we are no longer a credible 1st Tier partner (nice way of saying laughing stock) has had zero effect.

            The Armed forces are now all volunteer and eminently employable in Civvy street. IMHO they are quite within their rights to hand in their notice. This isn’t Invergorden it’s just that they are being asked to go and deploy for an indeterminant period as a Political sticking plaster.
            The truth is the cuts have gone so far that the Army is no longer even a credible 2nd Tier land fighting force. And the intended “replacements” are a further down size to 3rd or 4th Tier.

            We are rebuilding 148 CR2 to CR3 that is our intended future force, it hasn’t been altered one jot by the Ukrainian wake up call.

            It isn’t just the Army but all 4 have been cut below the bone and had at least half a limb removed. Not fit for purpose !

            Finland (which is one of the places we may deploy to), has a population of 5.5 million. It has 200 modern Leopard 2 MBT’s hence why I say 3rd or 4th Tier.

            If the Government is determined to do this then they have to acknowledge that due to the situation we need to take extraordinary steps.

            Quick solution is mothball HS2 building and the planned uplift in Transport links for 5 years and divert the funds into a defence uplift.

            So yes if I was a serving member of the Armed Forces and being asked to deploy for 6 months (really 🥴) I’d probably just hand my notice in and tell the Government to “take my life seriously or go and get st****).

            Mr’s Sunak and Starmer would have no choice as I suspect the U.K. public would at long last scream Blue Bloody Murder.

            It’s probably the only way things will alter (every thing else has failed).

            Old saying if you keep on trying to do sometging the same way and repeatedly fail it’s time to try something else.🤔

    • Tom,
      Typically the Infantry represents about 20% of an overeas deployed army contingent. So perhaps 4,000 of the 20,000 might be Inf. But that’s just my guess.
      The 60% figure sounds too high – however even the disenchanted will be told to deploy of course.

      An Inf Bn will need its MT department – why would it not? Don’t understand that one.

      I have not heard of an announcement of the redundancy scheme – it might have to happen to get the army down to 73,000 but I had not heard the announcement.

    • “Who knows, maybe they will get the Royal Mail, Serco, or even Group 4 to move their kit…”

      LOL Tom! I wonder how much bubble wrap & how many stamps it takes to mail a CH 2 tank to Northern Europe? That tickled me.

    • Tom it’s always been an all arms battle, even more so nowadays and over the last 20 years. Out Inf Battalions have been shredded and nearly 2 thirds are undermanned and have no real kit or purpose. Sad to say IMO we need to reduce Inf by 5 Battalions, redistribute the men (not easy I know as I wouldn’t have liked to have been moved to the 1Bn Pie and mash) and re-equip the remaining with a little more than L/R/s and MAN trucks!

      Then if any PiDS remaining and cash, start to look at the battle winning units in the CS and CSS! Without either of them, us infantry big tashed under water knife fighting, grizzled, throat ripping cigar chomping, stunningly good looking Infanteers are just 36hrs away from being dead or prisoner!!!!! Cheers mate.

  7. The whole deployment will last 6 months which is about the maximum amount we can sustain a deployment.
    It would appear the UK is going back to North European field of operations, which calls into question the government’s rather week global ambitions.

  8. I think this is a clear example of cognitive dissonance within the UK government.At a time it’s reducing the size of the army to 73,000 its planning to have deployed 20,000 troops into Northern Europe over a year…that’s well over 25% of the total number of deployed into one region in one year. Then you add in the deployments to:South Sudan, Somalia,DRC,Mali,Cyprus the other British overseas territories, the Balkans..then the training deployments to kenya etc……the Government seems to be very keen on deploying forces and increasing the commitments the the army, navy and airforce need to cover but less keen on workforce…the trouble is recruitment and retention is not great..the more you nacker people out the worse your recruitment and retention becomes…it’s a cycle that begins by you expect to much of to few people…you end up with less people who become less productive ( they are nackered and demotivated ) and your not able to then do the job at all and cannot recruit even if you put in emergency resources ( cash) when you realise your deep in it ( it’s exactly what has happened to social care and the NHS..the government’s panic Ed and started throwing huge lumps of cash at it and the answer is…how are we meant to spend it when we cannot recruit….then it gets wasted on agency staff or stupid ideas because the government insist it has to be spent to look good) retrench…over commit and then panic…happens again and again.

        • I dunno. I thought Project Wavel would be announced by know, so god knows when the restructure will come into force :/

          Btw it’s ASOB not SOB, SOB is something we can’t put into print. 🙂 (Also I don’t think it’ll be part of the GRF)

          • I have read, unsure of its accuracy, that there will not be an announcement, or info document, on Wavell! That basically leaves people like us to pick apart changes as they happen and are noticed, individually.

          • That would be very irritating. It’s hard to see changes as they happen unless you have contacts in specific units.
            The Wikipedia orbats will be all over the place!

    • I call it grandstanding. Our P5 status, and the US main ally whenever there’s a spark anywhere see us step up and get involved.

      I support it, as it’s better than being a nobody sitting at home.

      But with the cuts at the same time, it is very annoying.

      • 100% agree, the current government seem rather too fond of spouting nonsense and exaggerating for their own political gain, with little or no consideration of the potential risks of their statements

        It does also rather highlight how careful and skillful Ben Wallace was with strategic messaging.

    • As Dern says, 20,000 is Army, RAF & RN. I’d guess if we had a 75,000 Army, then 20-25,000 combat troops could be the max troups we could field, the rest support, logies, training etc.
      We need bigger forces to give any weight to our voice globally. Otherwise we’re just background noise to any major aggressor. If we don’t take our defece seriously, why should anyone opposing us? Soundites, spin & empty promises cut no mustard.

  9. Hi folks hope all is well.
    On a similar theme considering numbers of troops, I’ve noticed over the last few days that MSM (main stream media) keep banging on about the UK sending Royal Navy ships and aircraft to the Med to support Israel. Which is fine and quite correct.
    The slure by media being made is what can the UK offer as Israel has a larger army than the UK has?

    Once again lack of knowledge about military issues by MSM. How can this be compared? Israeli army is mainly conscripts, as well and highly trained as they are, there is no comparison to the UK army? No doubt you experts can offer advice on this.
    Cheers
    George

    • Hi George, I think keeping the mainstream clueless is a good idea we may get more people starting to think we need a bigger military, would be nice to have large polls to see how people really think of the military, and it would be interesting to see if people actually keep up with what’s going on in the world and how dangerous it’s becoming.

    • I thought we were sending two RFA ships, not RN ships – or has Shapps mis-spoken yet again!

      We are not sending a compamy of RM to fight in Gaza!!

    • Comparing Armies is incredibly difficult, because fundamentally it will always be an Apples to Oranges comparison.

      The IDF ground forces are quite large, and have both a conscript and professional part (All SNCO’s and Officers are professionals while JNCO’s and Enlisted Personel are conscripts) and has a large reserve. They also have a lot of operational experience. They also have a very strong Armoured Corps.

      On the other hand they have very little ability to project force at reach, they’d struggle to maintain anything further away than Suez.

      Now does that mean that the IDF would turn down a British Light Mech Brigade being assigned to them? Of course not. They’d snap it up in an instant.

      Equally should we be putting boots on the ground in Israel? Hell no.

    • I actually think you just nailed it. I have said elsewhere that the happiest person on the planet regarding the diverted focus from Ukraine is Mr Putin.
      If you sit down and try to think of anyway to divert US attention away from supporting the Ukraine it is either China hitting Taiwan (which is out of his scope) or whack Israel.
      That allows him to concentrate all his energy on the Ukraine knowing full well the US will choose Israel every day of the week and twice on Sunday,

      However if you want to counter that and divert his sole focus away from Ukraine then just get European NATO to go romper stomping in Northern Europe.

      No one likes a war on 2 fronts but it gets way worse when one of them is only 90 miles from St Petersburg.

      It may just be that Mr Putin has stung the west and it is stinging back.

      • Putin doesn’t give a stuff about NATO, Russia’s western border is virtually undefended. All his posturing and threats is simply to provide a bogus justification for invading Ukraine i.e. pretending that Russia is threatened by NATO.

        Going loudly romper stomping in the Baltics plays into Putin’s narrative. The covert attack on the Finnish gas pipeline is a blatant provocation to NATO and we should not be drawn into an overt overreaction, because that’s exactly what Putin wants.

  11. Take the numbers being mentioned with a large pinch of salt. I know from experience that those given in a press release often seem to bear no resemblance to the numbers actually involved when you look around.

    • True. Already it is being established that it is not 20,000 troops but 20,000 service personnel from all three services.

  12. Do have that many that are not on the sick, over weight? I guess we might scrap enough kit for them ride in even if its 40 years old. I bet its not fully eqpt

    • Typically 10% of the army is non-FE; few of them will be over-weight.
      I didn’t understand your other two sentences.

      • i meant we might scrape enough tanks and AS90s and some near 40 year old Warriors together. i have my doubts. working Challanger 2s are hard to find. And the ammunition for them is no longer made.

        • Thanks for the clarification. I was confused by the word scrap when scrape was meant!
          I too wonder how many of our 213 CR2 tanks are battleworthy. When I was serving in REME, 70% of such kit had to be available immediately, rising to 90% after 24hrs concerted REME work.

          • i think no way 70% of any think is working not as things are, there are not 213 C2 left, 146 are being turned to C3, 15 went to Ukraine, i very much doubt the Army could could get 100 if it tried

          • Martin, why do you think that the army has less than 70% availability of key battle-winning equipment? Do you have a link to a reference?

            Following SDSR 2010 the active tank fleet was reduced from 386 CR2s to 227.
            We gifted 14 tanks to Ukraine (not 15) leaving 213 tanks on the active list.

            From here on in, 148 of those 213 CR2s will be converted to CR3, as you say – but work is at an early stage – prototypes are only just being built now – they won’t all 148 be converted and fielded until 2030 (FOC).

            Anyway, the FS Orbat which the army is migrating to has just two tank regiments ie 112 tanks plus some for the Trg Org, RP and Attrition Reserve.

  13. So do we now have a contingency plan to boost forces numbers for a war footing in case we need to deploy meaningful battlegroups in support of Eastern Europe or UKR?
    Or are we still delusional about a “peace dividend”, seeking further cuts & wearing out our already overstreched guys?

  14. I would respectfully suggest the British Government to start rearming immediately before it’s to late! Aircraft, Tanks, vessels, Anti Aircraft BBC and missile defence etc as well as large combat forces!

    Nick

  15. For good or bad, since WW2 the UK government and MOD have refused to consistently favour and prioritise one service (RN, British Army, RAF) over the others – excluding the impact of nuclear deterrent on first the RAF and then the RN. Each major defence review has arguably had winners (or at least worst loser), but never(?) twice in a row!

    • You seem surprised or disappointed. Why should one service be prioritised over another? Should that favoured Service always be favoured at each Defence review at the expense of the other two services?
      [The army manpower figure has been cut once or twice a decade since the end of the Korean War!]

      • I’m neutral. But I remember a 1991/92 editorial in the Economist that declared that in the Post Cold War Pax America the UK no longer needed or could afford a strong navy. They recommended cutting the RN to just a fishery protection force, with a token few frigates “to keep the Admirals happy”. The Royal Marine Corps would be disbanded or transferred to the Army. Instead the future was an expeditionary RAF and Army tailored to supporting UN mandated operations around the world. It seemed to make some sense in the afterglow of Desert Storm/Op Granby.

        • Richard, you astonish me! The Economist is not usually ‘as nutty as a fruit cake’ – it seems they were on one occasion. Absolutely none of those ideas make any sense to me. I wonder why they made sense to you!

  16. Given the state of the European continent at the moment it makes sense although I doubt that the numbers are the best

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