Chief of defence staff ‘confident’ that the UK could fight full-scale war

Chief of defence staff 'confident' that the UK could fight full-scale warSky News

Transcript

00:00Let's talk about our part in that alliance and whether we can actually

00:04play our part. Secretary of State for Defence said recently that he

00:10thought we aren't necessarily ready to fight a war at scale. Can you say

00:17confidently that Britain could fight a war at scale, that we could play our part

00:24as advertised and as our partners expect? Absolutely. So our servicemen and

00:33women will always be ready to serve their nation and to do as the government

00:38of the day directs us to do. If they have the capabilities. And we do

00:43have the capabilities. And then the reassurance is that we do that alongside

00:48our allies. And for those biggest fights, then we will always do them with our

00:54allies. But we're also being honest in saying we need to be even stronger

01:00in the future. So some of that is about having deeper stockpiles. Some of that is

01:05being better at bringing technology in, learning the lessons from Ukraine, so

01:11that we can continue to have an advantage over our potential enemies. And

01:16some of that is also recognising that you need to have a defence industry that

01:21can better support those demands. We're in a more dangerous world. This

01:26government has been really clear about that. The previous government was really

01:29clear about that. That means we need to strengthen our armed forces.