The Chief of the General Staff said the Kremlin was a ‘clear and present danger’ and predicted a conflict would start with something we did not expect.
‘They are not thousands of miles away, they are on Europe’s doorstep,’ he said in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute.
Britain’s ability to pre-empt or respond to the threat ‘will be eroded if we don’t match up to them now,’ he said, adding: ‘Russia could initiate hostilities sooner than we expect. General Carter’s major speech came as experts issued their own warnings about the threat from Russia and the need for Britain to spend more on defence.
The head of the National Cyber Security Centre warned that a major attack on the UK was a matter of ‘when, not if’. Ciaran Martin said Britain had been fortunate to avoid a ‘category one’ hacking attack. This is defined as one that could cripple infrastructure such as energy supplies and the financial services sector.
He suggested one was likely in the next two years, telling the Guardian: ‘It is a matter of when, not if, and we will be fortunate to come to the end of the decade without having to trigger a category one attack.’
And the former head of spy agency GCHQ, Robert Hannigan, told the BBC he was seriously concerned about Russia’s growing aggression in cyberspace. He said: ‘It’s the single country that’s kept me awake, because their intent has changed over the years.’
In his speech in London on Monday, General Carter said there were stark parallels between the situation before the First World War in 1914 and how Russia might view things now.
He said: ‘Our generation has become used to wars of choice since the end of the Cold War. But we may not have a choice about conflict with Russia. And we should remember Trotsky’s advice that “you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you”. He cautioned that hostilities would not start with ‘little green men’ – a reference to conventional ground troops in camouflage.
‘It will start with something we don’t expect. We should not take what we’ve seen so far as a template for the future,’ he said.
The Army chief said Russia’s doctrine for war utilises ‘all of the instruments of national power, not just the military’. He added: ‘The character of warfare is making it much harder for us to recognise true intentions and distinguish between what is peace and what is war.’
He said credible deterrence could be underpinned only by genuine forces and commitment ‘that earns the respect of potential opponents’.
To deter Russia in Eastern Europe, Britain and its Nato allies must improve their speed of recognising what was going on, speed of deciding what to do and speed of assembling forces if needed, he said: ‘The time to address these threats is now – we cannot afford to sit back.
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