The British Defense Secretary’s harsh warning to Vladimir Putin to divert his spy ships from British waters or face the consequences was a very public attempt to contain the threat.
But unless John Healey backs up his rhetoric with much more urgency to push for rearmament and rebuild wider national resilience, there is a risk that his words will ring as hollow as his troops.
The defense secretary on Wednesday reiterated the government’s plans to increase defense spending and work with NATO allies to strengthen European security.
Image: Russian ship Yantar transiting the English Channel. File photo: MOD
Instead of focusing solely on the threat, he also emphasized how his plans to buy weapons and build weapons factories would create jobs and economic growth.
In a sign of the government’s priorities, job creation is typically the top priority in Pentagon press releases about recent investments in missiles, drones and warships, rather than why the equipment is essential to defending the nation.
When Britain converted its car factories to Spitfire production lines in the 1930s to prepare for war with Nazi Germany, it is doubtful whether expanded employment opportunities were the motivation.
But informing the public about what war readiness really means will certainly be important today.
Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: Reuters
Mr Healey has also chosen this moment of national peril to score political points by criticizing the previous Conservative government for hollowing out the military. The military was also underfunded during the last Labor government.
The then Conservatives accused Labor in 2010 of ordering more equipment for the army, navy and air force than they could afford, leaving a nearly $40 billion black hole in the defense budget.
But then a series of huge cost cuts were made to the military under David Cameron’s coalition government.
The report by a group of MPs, published on the same day as Prime Minister Healey’s warning to Russia, highlighted the scale of the challenge facing the UK.
Image: HMS Somerset next to the Russian ship Yantar near British waters. January 22, 2025. File photo: Royal Navy/PA
The government was criticized for lacking a national plan to defend itself against attacks.
The Defense Select Committee also warned that Healey, Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet were moving at an “glacial” pace to resolve the problem and were failing to start the “national dialogue on defense and security” that the Prime Minister had promised last year.
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The report supported findings from Sky News and Tortoise’s War Games podcast, which simulated what would happen if Russia launched a missile attack on the UK.
The series showed that successive defense cuts since the end of the Cold War had left the Army, Navy, and Air Force woefully ill-equipped to defend the home front.
READ MORE:Russia accuses Britain of being ‘provocative’ as scout ship approaches UKBriton who volunteered to spy for imprisoned Russia
But a credible national defense requires the wider nation to be prepared for war.
A set of plans specifying what should happen during the transition from peace to war was quietly shelved early this century, so there is no longer a rehearsed and resourced system to ensure that local authorities, businesses and the wider public know what to do.
Image: John Healy. Photo:PA
Mr Healy revealed that a Russian reconnaissance ship fired a laser beam to dazzle the pilot of an RAF spy plane that was tracking him.
“Russia’s actions are very dangerous,” he said.
“So the message to Russia and Putin is this: We see you. We know what you are doing. And if Yantar travels south this week, we are ready.”
He did not elaborate on what this meant, but it could also include attempts to block the passage of Russian ships or fire warning shots to force them to retreat.
Image: Russian ship Yantar docked in Buenos Aires, 2017 Photo: David Fernandez/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
But direct engagement could trigger retaliation from Moscow.
Russian ships equipped with reconnaissance equipment to monitor critical national infrastructure such as undersea communications cables have now moved away from British shores. The closest we got was between November 5th and 11th.
The military is still closely tracking the ship’s movements in case it returns.
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