The Daily Populous Monday May 20th, 2024 night edition
Authored by telegraph.co.uk and submitted by TheTelegraph

Britain may not be fully prepared to fight a full-scale war on its own, a general has suggested.

Maj Gen James Martin said the Army was trying to get “back on track” after years of focusing on counter-insurgency, which had left it in “in the process of losing the skills” to mount an all-out campaign.

Decades of fighting insurgents during wars Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan meant the Army’s focus was on those campaigns rather than major conflicts between states, he said.

With the war in Ukraine and the threat of Russia to the rest of Europe, the Army has shifted its focus to readiness for war, and this week thousands of British troops were in western Poland as part of Nato’s largest military exercise since the Cold War.

Nearly 2,400 British troops took part in Operation Immediate Response, which culminated in a complex river crossing involving more than 1,000 vehicles including Challenger II tanks, in 24 hours.

It was one of several exercises as part of Nato’s Exercise Steadfast Defender, a war game and the largest deployment to Europe in 40 years, involving over 40,000 personnel including 16,000 from the British Army.

Speaking at the end of the operation, near the small town of Drawsko Pomorskie, Maj Gen Martin who leads the Army’s 3rd Division, told The Telegraph: “After 20 years of counter-insurgency campaigning, we were losing this [war-fighting] capability... I think we are now very much moving back on track.”

ComprehensiveBig6215 on May 19th, 2024 at 15:10 UTC »

Neither were we prepared in 1914 or 1939.

The UK armed forces are an expeditionary force. Things have to go properly sideways before we're fighting in the UK against a ground invasion force.

Therefore it should be expected that we will fighting alongside the forces of whatever country we are in or in a coalition.

Sarcasm-Girl on May 19th, 2024 at 12:12 UTC »

Don't worry. Portugal and Britain have the oldest alliance in the world, and we'll make sure to keep our word.

Ofc you're still pretty much screwed if you're actually counting on our military forces, but you won't be alone!

Physical_Manager_123 on May 19th, 2024 at 11:10 UTC »

Why… would they be fighting a war alone?