CGTN Europe interviewed Sean Bell, a retired Air Vice-Marshal and military analyst.
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00:00Let's talk now to Sean Bell, who's a retired Air Vice Marshal and Military Analyst.
00:05Good to see you again, Sean. Welcome back to the programme.
00:08Given the circumstances in which Europe now finds itself, it's refocusing on its defence capabilities.
00:14What's your assessment of where they might currently fall down?
00:19Good afternoon. I think the big thing is that ever since the fall of the Cold War,
00:24for the last 35 years, Europe, certainly the UK, has been focused more on wars of choice
00:29rather than wars of national survival. Most of those have been overseas, expeditionary in nature,
00:34so our armed forces have to be able to travel both at air, land and sea and then operate sustained from a distance.
00:41Well, of course, now the emphasis has changed. We're looking much more at a war of national survival.
00:47And all of a sudden, the threats, the gaps, the capability gaps that have not been invested in for the last 35 years are laid bare.
00:54One of them is a good example is ballistic missile defence.
00:57You'll remember that when the Iranians launched a massive wave of missile attacks against Israel,
01:03America was the only nation that had the capability to knock those out of the sky, and Russia has been doing the same to Ukraine.
01:10And it's quite a surprise to many that we don't have that protective capability in the UK.
01:14When I was serving, we had bloodhound missiles and other such capability,
01:18but because over the years we thought that the UK wasn't in danger of attack,
01:22we've let some of that slip, and I think Europe, therefore, has got real gaps to focus on.
01:28The other thing is language. We used to literally be more worried about redundancy, survivability,
01:33because we weren't sure where we were going to be attacked.
01:35The last 35 years, it's all been about efficiency, consolidating, putting most of your military resources on a single base, logistics just in time.
01:44So there's a culture around this which has to change, not just the military capability.
01:50When it comes to revamping that military capability, that's obviously going to cost money.
01:54The UK, one country promising to spend more on defence, 2.5% of GDP is what the Prime Minister announced yesterday.
02:00Is that enough?
02:03Well, bluntly, no. And I think what's been fascinating from as I sit in the UK,
02:08for the last few months of the relatively new Labour government in the UK,
02:14they've been saying we've got to let the Strategic Defence Review work its course before you finally decide how much money you're going to spend.
02:20Then all of a sudden, in a rush, the announcement was the answer is 2.5%. What's the question?
02:26The Strategic Defence Review almost certainly will result in a much larger number than 2.5% being required.
02:32In the Cold War, let's face it, we were spending over 4%.
02:36But I think we should be careful here not to ignore the politics.
02:39President Trump, when he first came into power, said that NATO wasn't paying its way.
02:44Two-thirds of the countries in NATO were failing to spend 2%, which was always meant to be a flaw, not an aspiration.
02:50He returned to office four years later, and sure enough, there's still a third of NATO not paying their way.
02:56He probably quite justifiably thinks America should not be providing a security umbrella for NATO
03:03if NATO members are not prepared to pay their way.
03:06So this is all a way to shake the tree, make sure that all of the European nations pay their way.
03:11And he set some outrageous targets, 5%. I suspect a number near 3, 3.5% will be what we'll settle on eventually.
03:18But whatever it is, it's going to be very uncomfortable for political leaders
03:21because there's a lot more money going to need to be spent.
03:24Sean, great to talk to you as always. Thank you for coming on the programme.
03:27That's Sean Bell, retired Air Vice Marshal and military analyst.