Nato lacks the resilience to take care of a protracted conflict with Russia, a top Royal Navy admiral has warned.
Mike Utley, who serves as a high-ranking maritime commander of the defence bloc, said that the West needed to be prepared for a variety of kinds of warfare, from military to cyber attacks.
While the alliance has superior capabilities to Russia’s war machine, Mr Utley warned that, because it stands, they might not endure a conflict for any length of time.
Nevertheless, he added: ‘But nations have very much recognised that and are prepared to take a position in those capability sets to grow our resilience.’
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to an internet
browser that
supports HTML5
video
The Royal Navy admiral told Bloomberg that he was a ‘realist’ and understood that Nato nations wouldn’t give you the chance to direct ‘every penny’ towards defence and that ‘prioritisations’ would should be made.
Mr Utley said that international interdependence on key assets similar to technology and provide chains would add further complications to any war.
Explaining it will be a marked difference from the Cold War, he said: ‘This challenge goes to get more complicated, more persistent and isn’t going to go away.’
In its maritime strategy published earlier this 12 months, Nato identified Russia and terrorism as its two biggest threats.
It also acknowledged ‘systemic challenges’ posed by China, citing Beijing’s military buildup within the Arctic and its partnership with Putin as causes of concern.
Nevertheless, Mr Utley said he remained convinced Nato was heading in the best direction as governments wake as much as the necessity to bolster defence.
Russia has continued to check Nato’s defences all year long, sending ships into British waters and dispatching drones into Poland.
Nato’s ‘Baltic Sentry’ operation was launched this 12 months to assist protect key undersea cables using data and cutting-edge technology to discover and intercept threats.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was formed within the aftermath of the Second World War and comprises 30 European countries in addition to Canada and the US.
While the latter has historically been the bloc’s fundamental contributor, Donald Trump’s national security strategy has sown doubts over his regime’s commitment to investing in European security.
Trump’s national security document set out a drastically different worldview from that of his White House predecessors, expressing willingness to work with formerly perceived hostile nations similar to Russia and China, while predicting Europe faces ‘civilisational erasure’.
But Nato’s Secretary General Mark Rutte said that due to the US president, the bloc is ‘stronger than it ever was’.
He told the BBC earlier this week that Trump was excellent news for ‘collective defence, for Nato and for Ukraine’.
Several European countries have yet to fulfill targets to spend two per cent of gdp on defence.
Members have pledged to extend this figure to 5 per cent by 2035.
World War III concerns
Concerns have mounted over a possible fresh global conflict amid several areas of tension, including the Israel-Gaza conflict, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and the situation in Venezuela amid US escalation.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to an internet
browser that
supports HTML5
video
Today, Ukraine’s forces struck a Kremlin-linked oil tanker a part of Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ within the Mediterranean, with Vladimir Putin vowing to retaliate during his annual, hours-long press conference.
Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Knighton revealed that the UK is working on an ‘Iron Dome’ system just like that pioneered by Israel.
President Trump has also unveiled plans for a £130 billion ‘Golden Dome’ to intercept ballistic and cruise missiles.
It comes as experts say that cyber attacks would form a serious a part of an outbreak of war, causing some similar impacts to the pandemic, similar to panic buying.
Researcher Dr Pia Hüsch warned that Britain could face a mixture of ‘kinetic’ or physical attacks similar to by missiles, along with cyber warfare.
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: British man who fought for Ukraine jailed for 13 years in Russian hellhole
MORE: Haunting stares of soldiers who fought on Ukraine’s frontline for 130 days
MORE: Russia behind 145 acts of sabotage across Europe since 2022 – here’s how