UK army would be destroyed in ‘six months to a year’ in war, says minister

LONDON — A British defense minister said Wednesday the British Army would be destroyed in “six months to a year” in the event of a major war.

Alistair Carns, the minister for veterans’ affairs, told a conference in London that the current size of the British Army meant its forces would be out of action within 12 months if there was a conflict on a similar scale to the war in Ukraine. He said around 1,500 Russian soldiers were killed or injured each day in that conflict.

“In a war of scale — not a limited intervention, but one similar to Ukraine — our army for example on the current casualty rates would be expended — as part of a broader multinational coalition — in six months to a year,” Carns told the Royal United Services Institute think tank.

Carns said it was important to have a high level of reservists who were “critical, absolutely central” in those circumstances. He said: “Without them we cannot generate mass, we cannot meet the plethora of defense tasks.”

“That doesn’t mean we need a bigger army, but it does mean you need to generate depth and mass rapidly in the event of a crisis,” he added.

Britain’s land army is at its smallest size since the 1700s, although Deputy Chief of the British Defense Staff Rob Magowan insisted last month that “if the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight.”