A former Nato chief demands more cash while fixing Britain\u2019s global role. Before billions are spent, ministers must define the purpose of its military<\/p>\n
George Robertson\u2019s claims about the prime minister\u2019s \u201ccorrosive complacency<\/a>\u201d over Britain\u2019s safety made headlines. But it is a howl of pain, not a sober security analysis. The former Nato secretary general and author of the government\u2019s strategic defence review<\/a> (SDR) wants Downing Street to back his view of Britain\u2019s role in the world \u2013 as Robin to America\u2019s Batman \u2013 with billions of pounds of cash. But his argument takes for granted what should be under scrutiny: Britain\u2019s global\u00a0military role itself.<\/p>\n Donald Trump\u2019s threats<\/a> over Greenland, his disregard for international law<\/a> and his U-turn over the Chagos<\/a> deal expose the fragility of Britain\u2019s defence assumptions. Before spending billions, those commitments must be re-examined. Lord Robertson\u2019s claim of a \u00a328bn black hole assumes that the current strategy is the correct one. But if that strategy \u2013 with its emphasis on global deployment and alliance commitments \u2013 is open to question, then the funding gap may reflect overstretch rather than insufficient spending.<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A former Nato chief demands more cash while fixing Britain\u2019s global role. Before billions are spent, ministers must define the purpose of its military George Robertson\u2019s claims about the prime minister\u2019s \u201ccorrosive complacency\u201d over Britain\u2019s safety made headlines. But it is a howl of pain, not a sober security analysis. The former Nato secretary general … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}