Chief of Defence Staff: Why this is the UK’s ‘most dangerous moment’

0:02Sky News, the full story first.

0:11The head of Britain's armed forces tells me the world has never been more dangerous and this is why.

0:22The most excruciating period of politics that I can ever remember. I have to say as a government minister, never quite sure what the Cabinet Office did, but just hold meetings. It's gone down like a bucket of sick. I kind of thought that decades of experience meant that you weren't swallowing this vapid... Oh, blimey! Hello and welcome to Electoral Dysfunction with me, Beth Rigby. Me, Ruth Davidson. Me, Harriet Harman. And me, Jess Phillips. Electoral Dysfunction, wherever you get your podcasts.

0:57Hi everyone, Neil here, and look, today we have something just a little different for you. Imagine being the person who has to tell a Prime Minister, this is what our armed forces can do, this is what they can't, this is what it'll cost to put it right, and this is what could go wrong. That responsibility falls to the Chief of Defence Staff, the uniformed head of our armed forces, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton. Ukraine, the threat Russia poses to the UK, how much money the Ministry of Defence needs, we were not short of topics to discuss when we sat down together. But before we hear from Sir Richard, let's bring in our Defence and Security Editor, Deborah Haynes.

1:36Deborah, let's just talk about Sir Richard just for a second because the biography I think is fascinating, coming as he does from an engineering background. It is, and people could ask, it's a bit high risk given the fact that the country is facing the potential of conflict. The person in charge of the armed forces is someone that actually hasn't fought on the front line. And there are those that I speak to inside defence who do wonder whether he is the right man for the job. However, there are others who do point to the fact that he has got this very strong track record when it comes to programmes, finance, the back office of defence, and how that actually, in terms of delivering credible fighting power is really important.

2:25But he is in that job at a really tough time. And you'd be hoping that he is having those uncomfortable conversations behind the scenes when it comes to making sure the ministers know that the risk that the country is currently holding, given the current state of the armed forces. There are any number of things that Sir Richard and I could have sat down and talked about, but in an interview like this, from your perspective as our defence editor, I mean, what are you most interested in? I mean, we've got a budget fast approaching, don't we? The fact that you've got the government saying that they need to be ready for war, and at the same time, they're not giving their military enough money to be able to do the fundamental training that the army needs.

3:09I'd be wondering how he can possibly be comfortable with that. I'm sure that he will put on a clear performance to say that, you know, that obviously he is speaking out and making sure the government is aware of the risks. And I think I've taken that from the way that his approach has been during this very difficult time with the defence, you know, he took over after the defence review was published and all through that uncomfortable period with the investment plan. And you do feel as though he sees his role as being stable continuity. Yes, things are tough, but he's the professional head of the armed forces and they understand tough.

3:51So I'd be wanting to know how he's dealing with that pressure, whether there comes a point that it is untenable to stay in place. Would he ever resign at that moment? I kind of think the answer would be no, but I'll be interested to hear what he has to say. Deborah, thanks very much. Let's take a listen to my chat with the Chief of the Defence Staff. Richard, well, I'm calling you Richard. Before we get started on all of this, what should I actually call you? Air Chief Marshal? Chief? Boss? Rich? What's easiest? Rich is fine. Rich is fine. Well, let's start with that. And look, clearly this is an incredibly busy time for you, for all your colleagues.

4:28Before we get into all of that, I'm going to be really selfish. Any opportunity I had to sit down with someone as senior as yourself within the armed forces, I promised myself I'd ask this question. What does constantly getting saluted do to your ego? What a great question. Well, the great thing is actually in the Ministry of Defence, most of the time we wear civilian clothes so you don't get saluted. You have to remember with a salute, the person who is saluting you is actually saluting the crown. It's referencing that. It's not about you as an individual. It's about what you represent as a servant of his majesty.

5:02So I would hope that it doesn't boost your ego. Well, we'll find out over the course of this interview, of course, Richard. But look, top of many people's list of concerns at the moment is the situation as regards the war between Ukraine and Russia. Do you honestly believe that Ukraine can win this war? I do. I've spent quite a bit of time in Ukraine in my first year as the chief of defense staff, six visits. And the resolve, the determination, the ingenuity, the remarkable hospitality that each time I visit Ukraine, I've experienced and seen gives me enormous confidence in Ukraine's ability to sustain themselves against Russian aggression.

5:46This week, we've seen from the Ukrainian general staff that Russia has sustained its one and a half millionth casualty. I mean, that is unbelievable pain that has been caused to Russian people. And so I remain optimistic and positive, but we also need to be realistic about the challenges ahead for Ukraine. Indeed. And even just preserving the country itself is an enormous achievement. But can Ukraine actually force Russia to end the war on terms that Vladimir Zelensky can accept? So alone, Ukraine won't be able to do that. They will need support. And we know that the US are critical to that. Putin's maximalist war aims don't appear to have changed.

6:33Although the most recent visit by Steve Witkoff and Gerard Kushner to Moscow Moscow suggests that with a plan to start a formal process of negotiation, that there may be a route and a path to it. We don't really know what is in Putin's mind. We do know from what's written about him in history that what matters to him is his survival, his regime's survival. And as that pressure, economic and military pressure, domestic pressure mount, that might shift his calculus. But might is a very big word in that sentence, because up until this point, a million and a half kind of losses on the lines, but seemingly no change to Putin's willingness to carry on with this conflict.

7:18I would agree with that. I think right now you don't see clear evidence that he's going to do that. So the approach that we have as a country, our allies in Europe and actually the US have, which is to sustain and increase pressure on Russia and Putin, feels to me to be the right thing to do. We cannot allow Russia to redraw the boundaries of Europe three-fourths. Are we giving everything that Ukraine needs to achieve that victory? We've mentioned the United States a couple of times now. I mean, with respect, at points, it is felt that the United States has not been as full-throated in its support for Ukraine as it might possibly have been.

7:51I think today, right now, you see the US continuing to provide weapons to Ukraine, continuing to provide intelligence to Ukraine, and continuing to try to find a solution to the conflict, and to provide off-ramps for Putin, and to provide a way we can get to a settled solution. I was out with the Prime Minister in Ukraine just a few weeks ago. We spent some time with President Zelensky, and he's remarkably optimistic and positive. And we look at what has happened on the battlefield over the last few months. Russia's losses have increased and at the same time, the gain in territory has reduced.

8:30So these are all positive indicators. But as I say, we cannot be complacent. But if the United States were to change its strategy, if the United States were to stop supplying weapons, if the United States were to stop supplying intelligence as its president has threatened at points, what would we do? It would certainly be a significant impediment to Ukraine. But Ukraine is a very different place today to what it was two years ago or even a year ago. I was out there end of August last year and beginning of September. I've just been out again. And one of the things that really struck me was how much more self-reliant the Ukrainians had become, in particular in terms of their industrial capacity.

9:16Part of the reason why we've seen this really significant increase and escalation in the attacks by Ukraine on Russia and Russia on Ukraine has been because Ukraine has evolved and developed an industrial base that's been able to create and build an enormous number of really quite sophisticated weapons, which has been able to take the fight to Russia. And that has definitely changed the tone and to some extent the calculus, I hope, in Moscow. But when Russia starts, let's be honest about it, threatening the United Kingdom because weapons that we have provided are being used on Russian soil, does that not bring us awfully close to becoming a direct participant in this war?

9:56So we are clearly standing shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine. Well, I would say that you go right the way back to 2022 and the support that the UK provided and really led the way internationally in doing so. That elicited a rhetorical response from Russia, saber rattling. You recall periods where they talked about nuclear escalation. So there's nothing new in this from Russia. It's part of their playbook. But let's also be honest, we have seen in Europe that Russia has been willing through proxies to try to commit sabotage. We've seen prior to the war in Ukraine, Russia commit assassinations on our soil.

10:35So there's no question that Russia has some capacity and capability to do so. How much danger do you assess that we are currently in because of the Russian threat? Part of the reason I ask this is, of course, my colleague, Deborah Haynes, our defense editor, had a very successful podcast series, The War Game, now being turned into a television programme in which we gamed, no spoilers here, we gamed a Russian attack on British soil. Now that represents the more unlikely end of a spectrum of possibilities, but it is still a possibility, isn't it? One of the challenges when we talk about risk is we have a sort of, there's a bit of a tendency to tip into a black and white.

11:13We're safe, we're not safe. They're going to attack, they're not going to attack. They're going to attack by a particular date. The reality is it's much more complicated than that. I'm on record as saying this is the most dangerous period I've known in my working life, 35 years that I've been in uniform. And that's a combination of things. It's the volatility in the global situation. But also, Russia is more powerful militarily now than it has been for a long time. It has invaded another sovereign state in Europe and has declared openly that it wants to see NATO broken down. And so the point I always come back to is we should be asking ourselves, what is the trend in the threat?

11:54Is it getting more dangerous or less dangerous? And it is getting more dangerous. And that argues for us, I think, as a nation and as a set of allies, to respond to that. And that's why the calls for increases in defense spending and increases in capability are so important.

12:20I'm Sam Coates. And I'm Anne McElvoy. Britain has a new Prime Minister and every day from 7.45am we'll help you make sense of the day ahead in just 20 minutes. That means taking you inside Westminster with our forensic insight, sharp analysis and the stories behind the headlines. From the battles in Parliament to the conversations shaping government. We'll set you up each morning for the day ahead. In British politics. Hit follow and listen to Politics at Sam & Anne's wherever you get your podcasts.

12:55You've called on a number of occasions for a national conversation about defence. What is it that you think that the British public hasn't got, that they haven't understood? So I told this story a few months ago. I was talking to the Danish ambassador to the UK and she'd been in Estonia, then she'd been in Sweden and back in Denmark and now in London. And she said that when she was in Estonia, the threat from Russia, the implications for society was part of normal daily conversation. When she moved to Sweden, she started to see that emerge. She went back to Denmark, saw that emerge. She said she came to London and talked to people like me about it but it's not in the sort of daily discourse in society i came back from holiday with my wife i was at gatwick airport we my wife wanted a bottle of water so we popped into wh smiths and the two fellows working behind the counter and i thought we'd crack this national conversation at stage when i heard one of them say well i think is though defense is really important it's the foundation of everything and the other guy said yeah but you can't remember we haven't got all the money that we want and i thought we've cracked it it's two fellows working and WH Smith talking about defence, became apparent as the conversation wore on they were actually talking about their football team.

14:11So we've got some work to do to raise the prominence and profile of this. There's a really big problem with that. And someone very, very senior at the Ministry of Defence pointed out, your wife, you know, military chiefs repeatedly describe this increasingly dangerous world to the extent that people switch off. And for good reason. We don't want to live a life confronted by threats if we can avoid it at all. Yeah, and I think that's the really tricky part is how do you instill a sense of urgency without instilling a sense of panic? My view, and having looked at how the Scandinavian countries have done this, to some extent how this has been done in Germany and France, is a route into this is about the risks that we face in day-to-day lives.

14:55Yeah. whether that's flooding, whether that's power outages, whether that's phone network outages, because people can get their minds around that. They've experienced that. They can see that. But the actions that you take to make yourself as a family or as an individual more resilient also help us in a world in which we might face armed attack in the future. And so it's about raising the profile of those kind of things. All right. Let me put you on the spot then. Lead by example, as I'm sure you do with your colleagues in the armed forces. What have you done in terms of preparing this at home?

15:27What's in your emergency under the stairs cupboard? My wife and I were talking about exactly this issue the other weekend, and we were going out to buy some containers to store water. You tell me you haven't even started, you haven't got an emergency cupboard yet. We do not have an emergency cupboard, like most people I would imagine in the country. I'm breathing more easily about the threat from Russia if the CDS doesn't have a couple of bottles of water and a wind-up radio under the stairs. But let's be real. We talked about the remote possibility of Russia attack, but this kind of building societal and national resilience takes time.

15:59And there's the family human level, but there's also the infrastructure level. as we think about upgrading signaling systems on trains we need to think about how we make those more resilient if we think about more generally the infrastructure across the nation how we ensure that that is resilient and think about it from an armed attack perspective as well as all the natural disasters like flooding heat and loss of loss of power i was really taking a moment ago when you said that we don't want to alarm people i mean isn't this a set of circumstances in which if not causing out-and-out panic, that of course would be a bad idea.

16:36But we need to kind of impress upon the British people a sense of urgency about things, about having this level of preparedness. And I'm just wondering whether, you know, right now it might be a good time to alarm people just a little bit to get them moving. So we want a greater sense of urgency than we have today. I think people can see the impact on the climate of changes in the planet and they can recognize the importance, therefore, of taking prudent steps to ensure that they can deal with those and take those in their stride. And I think that my view is that that is a good way into that conversation.

17:15But we also do need to talk about the bigger picture, and that's something that clearly will be led by politicians. But I recognize that those of us in uniform bring a certain credibility and knowledge and understanding to help with that understanding. I was in Poland back in the last year, and they have a regular podcast there where they have people talking about military issues and a bit like the excellent Debs Haynes series, War Game, and the recently released app on Sky. All of that is helping us, I think, to build that understanding. And I think defense correspondents deserve a good deal of credit for raising this prominence of this issue and helping people understand that it's real.

17:57Well, if you ever fancy a weekly appearance on a podcast, I know one host who would gratefully accept. But look, a key difference between that time when you entered the forces and where you are now is that back then, arguably, we had a military that could cope with the scale of the threat that was being presented. We had significantly more in terms of the army. We had significantly more aircraft in the air, a huge amount more when it comes to the Navy. Right now, we cannot, with the way that the military is set up, deal with the threat that Russia is posing, can we? I really don't agree with that assessment.

18:32So we are part of NATO. It is the most successful defensive military alliance in history. Our strength is we're a nuclear power. We're a member of NATO. We are the closest ally of the most powerful nation on the planet, the United States. and it's that combination of things that keeps us safe. What's changing though is that the risk to NATO and therefore to the UK is growing and that's why we need to recognise that the peace dividend that we enjoyed since the early 90s is over and that's why the government's committed to spend more on defence and if we look across our allies in Europe, they have too.

19:11If NATO is the bedrock of our defence, what do we need to be contributing and when can we do that? In really simple terms, what the NATO plans say is that we need a set of armed forces and capabilities across NATO that really means each nation has to spend about 3.5 % of GDP. They've set a target of 2035 to achieve that, which is in recognition of the fact that you can't do that overnight. It takes time for industry to step up. And also to recognise that Russia right now is pinned down in a war against Ukraine. It's sustaining very, very heavy losses. And so our job is to build the capacity and capability in NATO over the next few years.

19:58And that trajectory to 3.5 % is one of the things that ministers will return to over the next year or so. You yourself have been on record a number of times now saying that we do need to significantly increase the amount of money that we are spending on our armed forces. At the same time, recently we had the news that what was described as non-essential army training was cancelled to save about£30 million. Were those reports accurate? What we had a situation for in defence this year is that we didn't actually have a budget at the start of the year that would be adequate for all of the things that we planned.

20:33and we didn't actually get the final budget until the defence investment plan was settled in June. That was a really significant uplift in defence spending and a very, very, very heavy uplift in what we call our resource budget, the thing that pays for operational expenditure. So once we had that, then the Navy, the Army, the Air Force and our Specialist Operations Command have to sit down and work out, okay, within that budget, because we owe it to the taxpayer to live within our means, what can we do? And so the head of the army and his leadership team will have reviewed his budget, looked at what they could do and focused the energy and resources on the things that mattered most and made the most difference to our ability to deter Russia.

21:19The MOD budget, published MOD budget for 26-27 is 68.3 billion. 30 million is less than 0.05 % of that. If you can't find 30 million quid for some training exercises. I think people just will struggle with the idea that we are increasing our readiness by cancelling training exercises. What is it that we must spend that makes the biggest difference to us and then draw that list up and things that we can't afford, then we don't do. And what happened is at the start of the year, we set up some plans before we knew exactly what the budget was. We've got the budget and then we've adjusted the plans to fit within that.

21:56But we ought to be honest that if you look at the strategic defense review, it was very clear that the armed forces were, as it described, hollow. And they've been hollowed out over a number of years. And to reverse that requires us to continue to invest more in defense, more in exercises, more in training. And that's what I expect and intend to do over the next few years. Clearly, we would want to do all the training that we legitimately could and should. But some things are higher priority. We do the higher priority things first. All of this, of course, goes to the longstanding arguments that have been going on between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury and Downing Street, let's be honest, as to how much money should be allocated to our nation's defence.

22:40All of this, of course, leading to the resignation of the former Defence Secretary, John Healy. Where were you when you heard that John Healy had stepped down as Defence Secretary? So I had been in a meeting with the former Defence Secretary until about 20 past 11. He then left that meeting, left the building without any indication to us that that was going to come. And then I think it was at 12 o 'clock the statement was made. In fact, I had a note handed to me in the next meeting I was in. That is quite something. Were you surprised that he didn't tell you he was going? I've spoken to John several times since that.

23:11I think it's a very personal, private decision. so I can completely understand why he wouldn't want to have discussed that with any of the staff in the department ahead of doing so. So, no, I've not been in this situation before, Neil. Fair enough. But when you heard of the resignation and, of course, the reasons behind it, I mean, you agree with the reasons that he stated for his resignation that the Ministry of Defence just wasn't getting enough money in that last budget round. For me as the Chief of the Defence Staff, My job is to provide military advice to the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister.

23:48My job is to set out what the risks are, what the opportunities are, and so that ministers can make the decision about how much money they give to defence. Quite rightly, in a democratic system where we have elected officials who decide how to spend the nation's wealth, it's for them to decide. My job is to provide advice on what the implications are. You did agree with him. On the day that he gave his Commons resignation statement, I mean, you were warning about having to reduce activity without additional resource funding being put in play. Correct. And what you saw is significant increases in defence spending or defence budget from what was planned in the previous spending review.

24:28And actually, from the point after which John Healy resigned, further funding was found for defence to go through that. So I've not had a substantive conversation with the Chancellor about defence spending since he took over. He's rightly been focused on his new portfolio, and I've rightly been focused on my role. Unless I've missed something, you know, John Healy, the Chancellor, is not offering what John Healy, the Defence Secretary, wanted. So I think you've got to wait until the spending review. I mean, that's the government's position. We do multi-year spending commitments through a spending review.

25:01It's that point at which the government will decide what the trajectory is to get to 3.5%. The reason I push you on this is you have talked very openly about funding, and the lack of it at times for your department. Yeah, and I'll be very clear. We have got the previous Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, current Prime Minister, said we would meet our NATO commitments. I'm very clear that that commitment is what we need as a nation to be able to provide the support to the alliance. And I'm also confident that the plan that NATO has is the best plan that we've got, and it's our best route to stability and security in Europe.