UK 'preparing for last year's war, not tomorrow's'

One day, there were 12 ,000 drones in the air.Just comprehend that.12 ,000 drones in the air, and 90 % of all casualties are from drones.Not the rifle, not the grenade, not the tank, not the artillery, but from drones.What will it take, I ask the House, what will it take to realise these figures are not fiction?They're not an embellishment of the truth, but a hard fact born out of the blood and the steel of a hot war.

That is the maths of modern war.Millions of drones against high -end, sophisticated systems that deliver late, with huge levels of inflation and, importantly, cannot be reproduced at the pace required to sustain a conflict against a major adversary.What will it take to learn this lesson?Do we need to rerun the snatched Land Rover?Do we need to rerun the lack of body armour?Do we need to rerun the lack of protected vehicles in Afghanistan that I saw impact men and women in the front line?

We do not, and we should not.

Moreover, as the clouds of war darken Europe's border once more, do we need to learn the lessons our forefathers learnt in World War II or indeed the Cold War?This isn't about individual items of equipment or bespoke defence funding lines, but about preparedness, about unity of purpose, prioritisation and national resilience.We are no longer packaging up our military to deploy to a foreign field but being ready to fight from here, fight from the home base, for democracy, for the right to self -determination and for European security.The reality is we are spending too much time preparing for last year's war, not tomorrow's.