UK Defense Chief of Staff Nick Carter has said that Moscow poses a greater threat than extremism. According to him, Russia allegedly uses non-standard ways to confront its opponents, including cyberattacks and the creation of a migration crisis on the borders of Europe.
At the same time, Carter acknowledges that London should conduct a dialogue with Moscow for better mutual understanding. Experts partly associate such rhetoric with the geopolitical consequences of Brexit: after leaving the EU, the United Kingdom is aligning itself with Washington. At the same time, anti-Russian hysteria serves as a convenient excuse for the collective West, including Britain, to make aggressive moves towards Moscow.
This is how Carter put it: “We are living in an era of phenomenal change. I think that the world is changing more and more rapidly today than during both world wars of the last century. When I became Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces in 2014, we argued whether the threat was coming from violent extremism or from Russia. Then it seemed that from extremism. But then, in 2018, the Skripal family was attacked in Salisbury. It has become abundantly clear that Russia poses the most critical threat to our country.”
According to him, the “Russian threat” is also a top priority of the British Prime Minister’s National Security Advisor Stephen Lovegrove. The general believes that Moscow today is behaving provocatively, which could lead to “catastrophic” misunderstandings and to a conflict.
Nick Carter also stressed that Russia should not think that the “West is dead” following the recent failure of NATO and the United States in Afghanistan. According to him the North Atlantic Alliance remains united, and he cited a significant number of American exercises to be held in Europe over the next two to three years as proof of this.
“The main question is whether they initially wanted to act as they are acting now, or whether it is our policy of containment that prompts them to behave in this way,” the British general said.
In this regard, he stated the need to carefully analyse the emerging situation in order to avoid incorrect assessments and loss of control over events. Indeed, as Carter previously noted, there is now a fairly high risk of an “accidental” war with Russia. At the same time, in his opinion, it was the destruction of the bipolar world and the competition for regional influence that has led to this state of affairs.
