If you are looking for proof why the British military is a third rate organization that could not last a week on the battlefields of Ukraine, look no further than Colonel Richard Kemp, a columnist for the Daily Telegraph.
According to Wiki, “Colonel Richard Justin Kemp is a retired British Army officer who served from 1977 to 2006. Kemp was an infantry battalion commanding officer. Among his assignments were the command of Operation Fingal in Afghanistan from July to November 2003.“
His latest piece of shoddy punditry is representative of his previous efforts — banality filled with distortions and delusions. He also is a practitioner of psychological projection — i.e., attributing to Russia the shortcomings of his own nation. He writes concerning Russia and Putin that:
Its economy is flatlining and its leader, through incompetence, is systematically dismantling an army that was once so powerful that half a million US troops were permanently stationed in Europe to counter it. Russia’s demographic turmoil has long been a nightmare for Putin and all he has done is exacerbate it, as thousands of young Russians are slaughtered in Bakhmut and, according to Moscow’s media,upwards of 700,000 young men have fled the country to avoid mobilisation.
To many countries Russia is a pariah, with even its status as an armed gas station in ruins. It will probably never be able to recover from any of this and will struggle to betaken seriously – except by other rogue states who scent the opportunity to buy oil and gas at a discount, or perhaps a few fighter jets.
Yes, Moscow has nuclear weapons, and Putin never misses an opportunity to threaten to bring them into play, but he knows that China is unlikely to allow their use. That encapsulates the parlous depths that Putin has dragged his country down to. For the foreseeable future, Russia will be nothing more than a Chinese vassal. During his recent visit to Moscow, Xi Jinping’s barely-concealed disdain contrasted humiliatingly with his host’s lavish hospitality and knee-bending aggrandisement.
Let us start with his insistence that Putin is systematically “dismantling” the Russian military. According to a March 2023 report by Statista:
Russia’s total military manpower was estimated at 1,330,900 as of 2023. Of them, 830.9 thousand personnel were active, 250 thousand were reserve service members, and 250 thousand were paramilitary forces.
How does that compare to Britain? According to Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith:
The British Army is too small to effectively tackle threats to British interests. “It’s certainly highlighted the fact that mass and size are important. I’m not comfortable with an Army of just 73,000. It’s too small. That was never part of our proposition going into the review. In fact, I was working to direction that we regrow the Army to 82,000 – and we have done that successfully over the past four years.
What drugs is this man using? If we deployed the British Army to the University of Alabama’s football stadium, there would still be 27,077 empty seats. Send the Brits to Ukraine and their army would be gone in two weeks. Hell, the current force pales in comparison to 300,000 British troops rescued from Dunkirk 83 years ago. The fact that a man like Kemp could rise to the rank of Colonel helps explain the current abysmal state of the British Army.
It appears that Kemp is a fan of the late Senator John McCain. He trots out the silly meme that Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country. And Kemp insists that Russia is a pariah. I guess he does not read the Economist (probably too many big words for him). A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit in March noted that net support for Russia on the global scene has grown since February 2022:
“China remains the most significant country in this [Russia’s supporters] category, but other developing countries (notably South Africa, Mali and Burkina Faso) have also moved into this grouping, which accounts for 33% of the world’s population,” the EIU report said, adding these trends highlight Russia’s growing influence in Africa
While South Africa caused controversy in February by holding joint military drills with Russia and China on the anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor indicated that the “massive transfer of arms” from the West to Ukraine had changed Pretoria’s outlook and lauded the country’s “growing economic bilateral relationship” with Moscow.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad/39944Retired Colonel Kemp reminds me of Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes:
Kemp’s take on the summit between Putin and Xi Jinping shows he ignores news from the very newspaper that pays him to write this drivel. Does this look like a weak man sucking up to the Chinese: