Grant Shapps wants Western nations to increase their military spending ahead of a possible conflict.
British defense minister Grant Shapps has predicted a global conflict between the West and Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, within five years. Shapps has called on Britain’s allies to increase their military spending in response to this so-called “existential threat.”
In his first speech as defense chief on Monday, Shapps described the UK as a leading global military power, citing the country’s record £50 billion ($63 billion) defense budget, its recent airstrikes on Houthi forces in Yemen, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s announcement of a £2.5 billion ($3.2 billion) military aid package for Ukraine last week.
Shapps vowed that he would further increase Britain’s military spending, and that he would “use our influence to ensure other allies and friends… match our commitment.”
“In five years’ time we could be looking at multiple theaters [of conflict] including Russia, China, Iran and North Korea,” he said. “Ask yourself, looking at today’s conflicts across the world, is it more likely that that number grows or reduces? I suspect we all know the answer. It’s likely to grow, so 2024 must mark an inflection point.”
The UK spends more than 2% of its GDP on defense and aims to increase this figure to 2.5%, Shapps said. NATO requires that its members spend more than 2%, but only a third of its 31 members actually meet this requirement, according to a bloc report released last summer.
Shapps is not the first senior UK figure to predict that the country would soon be involved in a large-scale war. Britain’s chief of the General Staff, General Patrick Sanders, declared in 2022 that “there is now a burning imperative to forge an army capable of fighting alongside our allies and defeating Russia in battle,” and that preparations must be made to “fight in Europe once again.”
However, the UK’s allies have doubts about Britain’s fighting ability. Early last year, a senior US general told Sunak that Washington considers Britain “barely a tier-two” military power, closer in stature to Germany or Italy than “tier-one” powers like the US, Russia, China, or France, Sky News reported.
Shapps said he aims to “turn the defense tanker around” with sustained spending hikes after the British military ended 2023 with its lowest number of active-duty personnel since the end of the Napoleonic wars, and ammunition stockpiles so depleted that soldiers would reportedly run out of artillery shells after 22 hours of full-scale combat.
The American general who spoke to Sky News estimated that it would take the UK between five and ten years to build a new warfighting division of 25,000 to 30,000 troops backed by tanks, artillery and helicopters.
Speaking to reporters after his speech, Shapps did not elaborate on how a potential conflict with Russia, China, Iran and North Korea could develop. He said that “the whole purpose of this speech today is to ensure the whole of NATO does indeed share that burden” by upping military expenditure.
I bet he won’t be fighting.
UK Column News – 17th January 2024
https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/uk-column-news-17th-january-2024
All consumers of pot, xtc and cocaine……
Another fool showing ” muscle”
Let’s see IF New Zealand’s (s)elected ‘new’ government opts-out of the coming conflicts, and declares Neutrality.
What we need is a concise mandate for Armed Neutrality, modeled after the Swiss example of the same.
That would mean repealing the semi-auto arms legislation, as these would be needed by the Citizenry and Veterans to defend against an invasion.
New Zealand DOES NOT NEED to follow the rest of the world under in the support of criminal, genocidal Israel, and neither should we send our troops and young people to fight in another Globalist proxy war in behalf of Israel and the Zionist monetary social construct.
We’re done with that!
Luxon either needs to stand for New Zealand, and begin the process of declaring Armed Neutrality, or resign.
Winston has been strangely quiet about the Gaza and West Bank, and the fact that Netanyahu has now threatened Iran directly.
Netanyahu is a psychopath, and even his shrink had to leave Israel based on the horror that Bibi the Terrorist displayed on the couch.
Bear in mind that most ALL of the Biden Cabinet in the White House are all J3wi$h! That explains their cooperation and lack of action in stopping the genocides, murders, and crimes against humanity.
Blinken is a side show of smoke and mirrors, and he is simply distracting the nations in the area from acting in behalf of the Palestinians, with who knows what blackmail, bribery, and compromise that the Mossad had put in place years earlier among the so-called ‘leaders’ of the Western and Arab Nations!
Al-Jazeera is blatantly accurate in showing the delusional lies that the so-called ‘Israeli Leadership’ is showing in full view of the world with regard to Israeli IDF criminal actions in the occupied regions.
There will NOT be a ‘Two-State’ solution; only a ‘Final Solution’ where the Palestinians get their land back, and the ‘Nation / State of Israel’ is dissolved at the UN, Geneva, and the ICC & ICJ.
The ex-Israelis can the move to Siberia, where Russian President Putin will insure that the Israelis and their psychopathically-damaged minds can never threaten anyone ever again!
After all, their ilk in the form of Joseph Stalin built Magadan and the Kolyma with the slave labour wrought from the Red Terror, GULAGS, etc. to the tune of 65 million Russians murdered by J***** Bolshevik Communists, as noted by Aleksander Solzhenytsyn.
The EU is getting nervous that their child trafficking and murder for adrenochrome, and biolabs in Ukraine are being exposed. So, what to do? Let’s create a war so that nobody asks questions. Let’s back Marina Abramovich (a Spirit cooking Satanist) and George Soros (who “fundamentally hates humanity” [Elon Musk]) so that their “civilization of darkness” of viruses and child torture and murder is not destroyed.
ALWAYS question the motivation of what we are being manipulated to think and to do from the MSM (mainstream media). Almost everything is a psyop and has been for a long time, at least since Roswell in 1947 – “it’s a weather balloon”.
Wars are easy for people not directly involved, unless you are maimed or killed, then it’s personal and affects the rest of your life and your family. Thinking is more difficult and can lead to breakthroughs in understanding of the manipulation.
Biolabs in ukraine were US biolabs.
Illegal in the USA, so they took their dirts elsewhere. Just like Guantanamo is illegal in the USA and implemented on Cuba territory. The USA would be better represented as a Vulture instead of an Eagle and with the words ” in guns we trust”
Nasty hypotrical thiefs and warmongers
Anyone who supports a war should donate every dime they have FIRST, before asking taxpayers for support.
Would he like to be the first on the front line…if not then my advice, sit down and be quiet…..