The regular British army could be wiped out in as little as six months if forced to fight a war on the scale of the Ukraine conflict, a defence minister has warned.
Alistair Carns said a rate of casualties similar to that prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would lead to the army being “expended” within six to 12 months.
He said it illustrated the importance of having reserves in order to be able to fight in a “war of scale”.
Official figures show the army had 109,245 personnel on 1 October, including 25,814 volunteer reservists.
The United States has no allies. All we have are security dependencies. Even our relationship with the UK is a liability to American security.