Why the West must invest in defence
A regular and surreal night-time discussion with friends at my expensive single-sex boarding school was what we would do after the four-minute warning went off. This was the public alert system, which from 1953-1992 would warn of an imminent nuclear strike by the USSR. Rather than seeking shelter, it was agreed the best course of action was to race down to the nearby girls’ high school. Given it was at least a three-minute sprint and willing partners were probably hiding away or in a shelter, the naivety of our tactical plan is obvious now. Yet even during the MAD era (mutually assured destruction, in a nuclear conflict), warfare was still conventional and consisted of throwing vast amounts of ordnance at the enemy from the land, sea and air, then putting in troops to take over. There was also a reasonable belief that the Good Guys – us, Nato and democratic allies – would win. Both of these are now in serious doubt.
Britain has been involved in armed conflict somewhere in the world every year since 1914, so the UK’s last five peaceful months since our and other forces were unceremoniously bundled out of Afghanistan are highly unusual. Politicians and military chiefs are keen that this 20-year conflict is forgotten,
