Vadim Khludzinsky14:29, 02/04/24

The shortage of personnel and equipment must be quickly addressed, lawmakers said.

The UK’s armed forces will not be ready for a “high intensity” war unless shortfalls in personnel and equipment are quickly addressed. As the BBC reports , this is stated in the conclusions of the House of Commons Defense Committee.

They say: the British military is leaving the ranks of the armed forces faster than they can be recruited, and the “offer” for them needs to be improved.

The vicious circle “would need to be broken so that the UK could face “increasingly complex” threats,” the MPs said.

At the same time, the Kingdom’s Ministry of Defense also says that increasing the recruitment and improving the maintenance of the military should be a priority.

The publication notes that last month General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the army and former chief of the General Staff, called on the country to train a volunteer “citizen army” ready to fight a land war, warning that just increasing the number of reservists “will not be enough.”

Sanders highlighted the threat posed by Russia following its invasion of Ukraine and pointed to steps other European countries are taking to put their populations on “war alert.” He also called for more to be done to equip and modernize the Armed Forces.

The committee’s report said MPs were “increasingly concerned” about a “crisis” in the recruitment and retention of both regular and reservist staff as operational demands made recovery and training difficult. As a result, “it is not surprising that more people are leaving the Armed Forces than joining them.”

“Despite the fact that the government recognizes the problem and plans to solve it, it has not yet moved at the necessary pace to do so,” the parliamentarians state.

The committee also argues that the £1.95 billion allocated to increase ammunition stockpiles in last year’s budget could be used to cover existing resource shortfalls rather than replenish them.

(C)UNIAN 2024