Letter: National UK debate is needed on rearmament over supposed threat from Russia
A letter from Brendan O’Brien:
The Guardian recently carried an article headed ‘As defence chiefs, we must warn you about Russia’, written by the UK chief of defence and his German counterpart.
The sum total of evidence for a terrible threat from Russia is as follows:
“Russia’s military posture has shifted decisively westward”;
“Its forces are rearming and learning from the war in Ukraine, reorganising in ways that could heighten the risk of conflict with Nato countries”;
“History teaches us that deterrence fails when adversaries sense disunity and weakness.”
On the basis of evidence like this, Britain and the EU are planning to commit hundreds of billions of pounds to military spending while, here in the UK at any rate, we have squalor and danger in our prisons, a “broken” NHS with substantial numbers suffering and dying on waiting lists, homelessness, food insecurity and other suffering caused by poverty.
The generals say: “The path ahead calls for courage and an honest conversation with our citizens.”
There has been no conversation of any kind on this issue.
There ought to be a national debate about rearmament instead of which our national media has given their entire platform over to army generals and right wing politicians.
Brendan O’Brien, London N21