Sitrep LIVE: Nato's top UK officer says alliance is operating in new security environment

Oct 16, 2024

The most senior UK officer in Nato says the world has changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and society needs to adapt.

Admiral Sir Keith Blount, Nato's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Dsaceur), was speaking at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (Shape) in Belgium for a special live episode of the BFBS Sitrep podcast – which analyses the top defence stories of the week and is available wherever you get your podcasts.

He told Claire Sadler and resident defence expert Professor Michael Clarke that "we're not on a bungee cord that's going to take us back to how things were before".

"The world has changed," he said. "And therefore, there is a lag in societies of orientating to that."

He said society needed to recognise there was a "new security environment that we are operating in", but stressed it should not be done in "a way that terrifies people".

He added that when people do understand the security picture, "then things like defence spending and the value of defence and security become easier for people to work out for themselves".

"At the moment, defence is arguably a bit of a hard sell to societies because people don't necessarily feel under threat," he said.

"You wouldn't think that if you were in the Baltic nations or Poland, you'd have a different perspective.

"So there's something about that lag that needs to catch up, not to terrify people, but just so that we are well postured societally, as well as through the militaries, to be ultimately ready to deter and keep us safe and maintain our freedoms."

Admiral Sir Keith also told the podcast there was "no question" Nato was ready to fight a war if needed.

It came after Prof Clarke said the alliance had let its deterrence slip.

"Deterrence is about the ability to show an adversary that we will not roll over and that we actually can hit back if necessary and we can defend what we say we need to defend," Prof Clarke said.

"And we've got to get back some of that deterrence. We let it slip.

"I'm sure we did. The fact that Putin did what he did in 2022 shows that we let it slip.

"We've got to get it back. And I think that's the big lesson of Ukraine now."

However, Adm Sir Keith Blount said it was "really important" that Sitrep listeners and viewers "feel very, very confident" Nato is ready to fight a war, but it doesn't want to start one.

"If we needed to defend the alliance, we want to be able to do it very swiftly and decisively and with a minimum loss," he said.

However, he did acknowledge that "one of the biggest challenges" Nato "ironically" faces is "now".

"We built up quite quickly from 1949 into a very strong political military alliance, the best, the biggest, the most successful in our history, for sure," he said.

"I sense that even though it was a very fragile period of peace throughout the Cold War, there was a rationale for the alliance.

"There was something that was very easy to understand in the way that it faced Russia.

"Now, since the end of the Cold War, what we're now seeing is a kind of a rebirth, if you like, of that collective defence focus," he said.

You can listen to Sitrep wherever you get your podcasts, including on the Forces News YouTube channel.

Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe to: