Gen. Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the British Army’s General Staff, delivered his first public speech since taking office yesterday, which addressed three things... Russia, Russia and Russia. Speaking to the Royal United Services Institute’s Land Warfare Conference, Sanders characterized this moment in history as Britain’s 1937 moment, a reference to a statement by then Brigadier Bernard Montgomery who wrote at that time that “We have got to develop new methods, and learn a new technique…” as opposed to doing things because they had always been done that way.
“For us, today, that ‘something else’ is mobilizing the Army to meet the new threat we face: a clear and present danger that was realized on 24 February when Russia used force to seize territory from Ukraine, a friend of the United Kingdom. But let me be clear, the British Army is not mobilizing to provoke war—it is mobilizing to prevent war….
“This is our 1937 moment. We are not at war—but we must act rapidly so that we aren’t drawn into one through a failure to contain territorial expansion. So surely it is beholden on each of us to ensure that we never find ourselves asking that futile question—should we have done more? I will do everything in my power to ensure that the British Army plays its part in averting war; I will have an answer to my grandchildren should they ever ask what I did in 2022.
“We have agency to prevent war now. But only if we take a new approach.”
Sanders concentrated the rest of his remarks on one area alone—mobilization—what he called Operation Mobilize. “From now the Army will have a singular focus—to mobilize to meet today’s threat and thereby prevent war in Europe,” he said.
