UK needs to reform its military as world enters third nuclear age, military chief warns

The Chief of the Defence Staff has warned that the international community is entering a third nuclear age and stressed the need for reform in the UK Armed Forces.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin was speaking at the Royal United Services Institute in London and, while it isn't common for senior officials to address the nuclear threat to Nato head-on, he clearly defined where the UK once stood and where it stands now.

He described the Cold War as the first nuclear age, governed by the risk of uncontrollable escalation, while disarmament efforts defined the second age – and that takes Britain to now.

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"We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age, which is altogether more complex," he said.

"It's defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before."

The Armed Forces chief mentioned Russia's threats of tactical nuclear use, weapons development in China and North Korea and Iran's failure to comply with the UN nuclear watchdog.

Adm Sir Tony also proposed a safe-to-fail approach for certain UK defence projects.

"Safe to fail may require defence to think and act much more like an investor, willing to fund 10 high-risk, high-potential programmes in the knowledge that nine out of 10 may fail," he said.

"But the one that succeeds will deliver a step-changing capability."

Adm Sir Tony said smaller Nato members could adopt this stance, rather than becoming 'Mini Mes' to the American military.

Alongside the CDS's stark warning of the threats facing Britain and its allies, he did say there would be only a "remote chance" Russia would directly attack or invade the UK if the two countries were at war.

His speech, laying out the landscape of British defence, came after Veterans Minister Al Carns warned the Army would be wiped out in as little as six months if forced to fight a war on the scale of the Ukraine conflict.

The admiral cast doubt on the possibility, however, telling the audience Britain needed to be "clear-eyed in our assessment" of the threats it faces.

"That includes recognising that there is only a remote chance of a significant direct attack or invasion by Russia on the United Kingdom, and that's the same for the whole of Nato," he said.

Moscow "knows the response will be overwhelming", he added, but warned the nuclear deterrent needed to be kept strong and strengthened.

Adm Sir Tony said the UK's nuclear arsenal is "the one part of our inventory of which Russia is most aware and has more impact on [President Vladimir] Putin than anything else".