Britain told to prepare for war as US's 70-year security guarantee 'no longer valid'

NATO’s Article 5 puts the US in a position where it would, in theory, be expected to respond to a Russian invasion of a fellow alliance member.

This assumption “no longer” has credibility, the paper warns, as the US has now put the “final nail in the coffin” to the post-Second World War settlement.

Civitas, the report’s publisher, said the international rules-based order was “effectively dead” and Britain must now “prepare for the worst; that is, we must prepare for the fact that the US may no longer be a reliable ally and may well become a separate actor, pursuing a narrow understanding of its national interests.

“Today’s US is not only no longer acting within the framework and constrains of its traditional alliances, it is already acting in a manner which can be perceived as being contrary to the interests of some of its allies.

“President Trump, it seems is even looking towards Russia as a potential business partner; the Kremlin and the White House appear to be quietly normalising commercial and diplomatic relations.”

The report, titled Understanding the UK’s Transition to Warfighting Readiness, was penned by MPs Bernard Jenkins, Derek Twigg and the former senior Nato adviser Chris Donnelly.

They put forward there argument that there needed to be a wholesale change to the Government’s “sclerotic” processes, which have not been exposed due to 70 years of peace and prosperity.

In a foreword to the report, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, a former Nato secretary-general and the chair of Labour’s recent defence review, said: “The UK is under-prepared and under attack.”

He said Britain must work to meet impending dangers head on as direct threats to its security, prosperity and democracy are growing increasingly troublesome.

The report also claimed there was “no sense of real urgency” within Government and that recent policy documents, including the strategic defence review, stand this up.

Its authors claimed the review did not acknowledge that “in many respects we are on the potential cusp of war and that kinetic war may come to us when we least expect it, sooner rather than later”.

The Ministry of Defence is up against it with an unenviable task of filling a £28billion hole in its plans over the next four years.

European allies want reassurances about the Royal Navy’s availability of ships.

Britain’s Army shrinking to around 70,000 regular troops is also a cause for concern for allies, who believe the number is simply too little.

Jets and armoured vehicles provide the military with “high end” capabilities, but these supplies are not available in high quantities.

The army would struggle to deploy a 25,000-strong armoured division for any length of time and the US is often called upon for supply trucks and other logistical elements.

Countries that consider themselves part of the West need to “dramatic measures very quickly, acting independently but increasingly in concert, before hostile countries can exploit the West’s disarray”, according to the report’s authors.

The authors also called for a whole-of-society mobilisation with adaptable governance.

Resilient financial systems and sovereign control over defence capabilities and critical national infrastructure are also among the changes advocated.