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- [00:02]
Host 1
What is the state of Britain's national defence?
- [00:05]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
When I joined the army, there are 150,000 people and 1,000 tanks. At the moment it's about 70,000 and 148 tanks. What he has done is stirred up European militaries and made people realize that actually we cannot rely on the us. We must produce our own military capabilities so that when the Russian president looks Western, he sees a credible defence. We are learning the lessons from Ukraine. 80% lethality from drones, 20% from conventional. We now know that certainly for the foreseeable future, the next decade or so, it's going to be an autonomous type battle. And unless we can operate in that, we're going to struggle.
- [00:49]
Host 1
Hey, Mr. Brett and Gordon, welcome to Trigonometry.
- [00:52]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, thank you very much indeed for having me. It's been a great ambition to come and do your POD at some stage.
- [00:58]
Host 1
Pleasure to have you. We want to talk the British army and also the evolution of warfare, the war in Ukraine. Perhaps we'll touch on Syria, which is an area of great expertise. Before we do all that, tell us a little bit about your story, your journey, your background.
- [01:12]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, I. I come from a. A real military family. I think I'm the fourth generation who've been through the academy at Sandhurst. A fairly. A fairly sort of ordinary academic life. At St School, I didn't really get many A levels. I did agriculture at the University of Reading and just scraped through and then went into the army, which a regular officer for 23 years, I was lucky in inverted commas. I sort of hit all the big matches, as it were. So I was a young tank commander in the first Gulf War and then did Bosnia war, Kosovo war, did a few UN trips in Cyprus, then was involved in the second Gulf War as well, and did a number of tours in Iraq when I was commanding my regiment, a number of tours in Afghanistan as well. And when I left the army after 23 years, I then got involved in Syria for sort of 10 years, in and out of there and to see Assad gone and a lot of happy faces in Syria is great. And after I left the army, I sort of got into a whole host of things, journalism as well, and, and writing books. So, yeah, I've had a. I've had a very fortunate life, I think, from a military perspective, and quite a lucky one. You know, I've. I've survived a few scrapes, so. And now. And the irony having somebody who did so badly at school. I'm also now a don at Magdalen College, Cambridge, which When they asked me if I would do it, I said, hang on, you got the wrong man here. You know, I've got one A level, you know, hardly any academics and a third class degree in agriculture. They said, hamish, you've got a lot of very clever people here at Cambridge. We just need a few with a bit of experience. That's where you come in. So that's, that's sort of my story in a nutshell.
- [03:01]
Host 1
Well, it's great to have you. One of the things that we've been covering and talking about a lot, and it's been a big discussion point in our country, as I'm sure you're well aware, which is the state of Britain's defense, the armed forces, the, the lack of funding and other issues that, that this country has been dealing with for a long time. What is the state of Britain's national defense?
- [03:24]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, I think it's, it's, it's a very easy one to decry and put down. I think like a lot of NATO countries, European NATO countries, our government so overspent the peace dividend after the end of the Cold War, that actually a lot of capability was denuded. A lot of people thought at the end of the Cold War, that was it. Then we got into all the counterinsurgency with Al Qaeda in Iraq and then the Taliban in Afghanistan that we focused very much on there, and we sort of lost the ability to do war fighting, as it were. And as part of that, what it meant is we diminished our skills. So where we find ourselves at the moment is a very small military. I mean, when I joined the army, there are 150,000 people and 1,000 tanks. At the moment it's about 70,000 and 148 tanks. Now, not necessarily that, that is a metric, but I think it just gives people an idea of what the contraction has been and the disinvestment. And it's not one individual government, it's been all of them over the last 20 or so years have disinvested. We invested in what we call urgent operational requirements for Iraq and Afghanistan. But counterinsurgency is a very different type of warfare. In the olden days, like our allies, like the Americans and others, the Australians, we could do it all, but we just focused on counterinsurgency. And I think morale in the British military also dipped. Now I talk about my Life up until 2012, where pretty much every year I was doing some sort of operational tour somewhere and some people thought, you know, crike, that's hard yards and you Know, certainly my family and my wife were completely hacked off with it. But actually, as a professional in whatever guys it is, as a professional soldier doing your thing every day, what keeps you sharp and keeps you going. Now, after 2012, when we sort of downscaled in Iraq and Afghanistan, young men and girl, men and girls in the British military were not going on operational tours, so they weren't getting that excitement. And I think morale dipped. And when morale dips and you're not being funding, you then reach a place. It is Only really since 24th of February 2022 when Putin invaded Ukraine, that suddenly countries like in Europe and Britain in particular realized, crikey, we don't have a credible conventional deterrence. So started to reinvest in it. But when you drop so low, it takes a heck of a long time to get back there. So very long. Answer to your question. At the moment, the British military and the British army and same within Royal Navy and Air Force are trying to recover from 20 years of disinvestment and low morale to get back to where we should be. And I think what we're learning in Ukraine and what the Ukraine military is showing us, you can get there and you can get there quickly, but it takes funding. And I suppose the final thing I'll say on this morale, we recruiting for the British military has until quite recently been dire and the whole lot of reasons for this, but, you know, unless you can recruit the right people at the right time, you, you are going to suffer. And that's what happened. The British army, there's so many great boys and girls who wanted to join the military but couldn't because of bureaucracy, you know, pathetic little medical issues that the computer said no. So in effect, we, a lot of the very best of British young boys and girls were not joining the military. Almost the second 11 were. I think that's sorted out now. And I'm still an active reservist, so I see these young men and women on a regular basis. And I think now we're getting back to where we should. Really talented young men and women, really driven, really motivated and they're starting to see the right kit coming through. They're starting to see the stuff they see on the TV and the stuff that you talk about in your podcast about how Ukraine is doing so well. They're starting to see that flow back into the British military, but it's been really slow. And I know a cavalry regiment who, reconnaissance regiment, it's all about drones now and integrating it with platforms are having to buy Their own drones with their own money to train on, which is absolutely bonkers. Which is why people like me and other military analysts who have columns like I do in a national newspaper decry this position. You know, we must give our men and women the right tools to do the job. And if they can, we can be as effective as the Ukrainian military and become a credible conventional deterrent. So it's dropped low. We're getting back there. But actually, even the funding that we've heard about in the defence investment plan is not going to be enough to realize the strategic defence review, which I think, which was the review of the British military on how we should provide a credible capability going forward. I don't think there is enough funding for that at the moment. But we have, we are learning from the lessons from Ukraine. 80% lethality from drones, 20% from conventional. But unless you fund it, you know, it's, it's a waste of time. And I'd say not a waste of time. Now, that's wrong. But at the moment, we're sort of funding to about 80%. And the great president of the United States. So I don't agree with a lot of the things he says. What he has done is stirred up European militaries and made people realize that actually we cannot rely on the US we must produce our own military capabilities so that when Putin or whoever replaces him looks Western future, he, I say she, there is no way in the world that a woman would ever run Russia. But that's another story. But when the Russian president looks west, he sees a credible defense and doesn't invade countries like Ukraine in future.
- [09:12]
Host 1
Well, right. And actually, I just. To your point about President Trump, he, he may have stirred up people into realizing that you can't rely on America, but actually you're also going to be in a much more powerful position in relation to America if you're negotiating things or trying to do things together to be able to argue your case, if you have a strong military, which, as you say, we've run down. And is your assessment that the reason that's happened is we basically got very comfortable for a long time, is that fair?
- [09:41]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, I think priorities for the government have changed. And although you hear every prime minister since Winston Churchill say that defence and security is the number one priority for a nation, it's probably not since Churchill that we actually believed our leaders when they said that. So I think that has become an issue. And so much spending, when we're spending six times the amount on welfare that we are on defense, you Sort of think we've got the balance wrong here. So I think that that has really been the case, that it's been focusing on other things and, yeah, to a degree relying on others. Good old Uncle Sam. He'll always come steaming over the Atlantic to help us out. Well, actually, we now know that that might not be the case. I say might not be the case. And when you compound it with. Our European partners have done the same or even worse. I mean, the Germans, who have taken a lot of criticism for a whole host of historical reasons, obviously, but they were the worst. They're hugely wealthy country, massive potential, and actually had a large army, but they just didn't really bother. It's only recently 300 billion euros invested in German defense in the next couple of years. I mean, that is a real, you know, you can just see people in the Kremlin sort of going, flip an egg. Yeah, they are serious. And that's the sort of thing that we should do. So I think it's been collective responsibility in European NATO countries and its focus and the Defence Investment Plan, although I've criticized it, it is at least going in the right direction. We're at 2.6% of gross domestic product now, allegedly going to 3.5 by 2035. If we were going to 3.5 by the 2030, I'd say we're on track, but we are going in the right direction. And one can see, I mean, politicians, you know, sitting outside parliament, you, you almost feel the, the heat of their breath on the back of your neck, you know, unfortunately, their big focus is on the next election, which is two years time, what's going to get them reelected. And my experience of politicians, most of them are pretty insular and pretty selfish. So at the moment, well, possibly at the moment, defense might get them elected, but until now that hasn't been the case. It's not until The Security Service, MI6 and others say we're in a hybrid war with Russia. We see Russian jets dropping sensors around British navy ships this week. We see Russian proxy GRU agents firebombing the Prime Minister's house. We see cyber attacks, shadow fleet tankers. Suddenly people are going, hang on, maybe there is a thing about this. So I think we're getting there. Are we doing it fast enough? We shall see. But I know, I think going back to your first question, morale in the military is on the up and certainly the young boys and girls who I see on a fairly regular basis are really up for it. And as long as we make sure that they get what they require. I mean one final thing I'll say I find the irony about Russia because Russia is losing 30,000 people a month in Ukraine, only replacing about 25 to 30% of them. But the latest thing is pay. A Russian soldier gets paid $80,000 a year which is twice what a, at least twice what a British soldier gets. And you sort of think, you know, there is a balance here, that again, we need to get it right. And to contradict myself, I actually think the pay for the military in the UK now is pretty good. So, so we are moving forward.
- [13:23]
Host 1
Yeah, and I wanted to just. You mentioned about recruitment. One of the stories I read a long time ago, I think this was in, this might have been in the navy or in the Air Force, whichever one I think it was the Air Force, maybe it was the Air Force where a, there was a, a woman who was forced to leave because she refused to comply with instructions from above which said we don't want to hire any more use pilots. And this sort of fits into the broader theme of D I and sort of anti meritocratic initiatives which are about inclusion which you know, maybe there's areas where you might want to do a little bit of that, I don't know. But the armed forces don't strike me as the place that you want to be doing that. Has that played a role in recruitment issues and more broadly in the armed forces?
- [14:09]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
I mean that's, yeah, I mean that was very well documented and I, you know, I'm sure it was an error but again it's the sort of, it's politicians forcing, you know, their own agendas onto the military.
- [14:24]
Host 1
Right.
- [14:25]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
So in my guys and I've, I've served with every type of person on the front line, you know, whatever color, creed or whatever else. And you know, on the front line we're all colorblind, we're all blind to whatever your sex, sexual orientation is. It's all about the ability to fight. And, and I fought with them all and quite frankly that it makes no difference. Absolutely makes a difference that whether somebody is good or brave or whatever those sort of backgrounds. So I think that that is, that that is really dangerous. What is critical is that when people are recruited they pass the test. You know, if you're going to be an officer, you pass the regiment, the all our army selection board, fine, you're through. Same in the navy, same in the Air Force. There shouldn't be a different level for a different part of society. And I think people realize that. And, and it's ridiculous because it's actually what's in here, not, not what's on your, on your skin that's important. But I, I think recruitment has been an issue. I mean I, I could reel off many stories of people who should be in the military who are not. In fact, I sat next to a lady the other night whose daughter was a consultant surgeon in the nhs. She wanted, she's always wanted to join the army, absolutely desperate, but because she took some mental health drug and I have no clue what it was when she was 10 years old, she has been precluded from joining the military, which is completely bonkers. Some of the doctors, British doctors and American and others that I, I charged around Syria with had some massive issues, psychological issues, but by God they could, they do their job. So I think again, we're learning how to get around that. But I think the, the whole diversity thing is something that, that we're trying to swim through that sea, but because there's such a political bow wave in front of it, sometimes it's really difficult. But I'm, I'm hoping that people realize that, you know, it doesn't matter. It's all what's in here that's important. To be a soldier or fighter pilot or a navy guy or whatever.
- [16:37]
Host 2
I was reading in one of your articles that the armed forces have been underfunded to the tune of 28 billion pounds. That is a mind boggling amount of money. What effect has that had on the army, the personnel, the equipment, in real terms?
- [16:55]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, it's difficult to say that 28 billion is the shortfall from the strategic defence review last year which said what we need 80%, drones, 20%, whatever. And what the defence investment plan. So there's a 28 billion gap. Now that manifests itself in, as I said, cavalry regiments having to buy their own drones. It manifests itself. I've just Test driven Challenger 3, the new British tank that has what we call hard kill defensive aid suites against drones. And in order to operate in a drone infested battlefield, you need these defensive aid suites. But currently they're only going to fund something like one or two per tank, as it were, whereas you need four or five. So it's almost so again psychologically. And when you've been into battle, I was always confident the tanks that I were in, you knew that whatever you hit them, they'd take it up. So I can see in it from a morale perspective to your point, you know, if you're going into an environment where rather than being 100 certain you're going to survive whatever attack, you're 50%, that that makes it really, really challenging. I always, when I was trying to explain to people about the whole medical issue and I'm sure a lot of other your guests have talked about it when you, I think when we're professional soldiers, we're all happy to go and do what we're asked to do, but one of the key things is you want to know that if you're shot or blown up, somebody is going to come and sort you out. And that medical side, and certainly the British army and the American army and others were really, really good at that. So you know, we had some horrific times in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you always knew. Conversely, when I was in Syria, it was a different issue. Here you, you. And that's what people used to say to me. He said, you realize if you get into trouble, you know, there's no mert, there's no helicopter with medics flying over the hill to come and get you. There's no, no, you know, recon platoon or whatever is going to come and get you. And actually psychologically that was quite a, quite a challenging thing. And unless I, I think, unless we thought we were doing such a good, you know, such an important job, we might have gone, okay, maybe not. But so very long answer to your question, I think that's, that's where it manifests itself. Where we know the British. I served with the Australian army for a while and they, they had a sort of phrase of fitted for but not with, you know, it's great. The Australians always, always had some Gucci kit but didn't necessarily have the, the really top end of it, although there were sort of brackets on your vehicle or whatever else that were empty because we couldn't afford it. So I think that that, that is where it sort of fits in. That's where the gap is. But which is why we need it funded because a lot of that 28 billion is this sort of anti drone stuff. And we now know that certainly for the foreseeable future, the next decade or so, it's going to be an autonomous type battle. And unless we can operate in that, we're going to struggle.
- [19:57]
Host 1
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- [21:26]
Host 2
Look, I'm going to ask a very layman question, which might seem ridiculous, but I think a lot of people wouldn't really understand this, but how important is morale to the army? Because we've already talked about it a number of times and what happens when you have low morale as opposed to high morale?
- [21:43]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Morale is to the physical tenets to one. I mean you and what I mean there is morale is essential, absolutely essential. If you know some of the stuff you do in the military is pretty difficult, it's not stuff that you would naturally do. So in order to do it, you need to have really high morale and leadership. And I think that's something that the British military and a lot of European, American military and others are really good at. The moral component, are you doing the right thing and then morale, you know, having, being having the right attitude to do it. So it is absolutely essential. And it's something that we, we focus so much time on to make sure that morale is best. And I think, you know, the there are so many sort of historical examples of where good morale has seen through. And undoubtedly when you see some great acts of bravery and all the rest of it, it is, it is all about morale that it's the thing that keeps you going forward when everything else is telling you not to. And it's also a collective thing. I think it's about really strong leadership. And in the British, in most Western armies, the officers lead they go first. It's follow me. Conversely, in the Russian army, the officers actually lead from the back. You go forward, chaps, and by the way, if you turn around, we're going to shoot you. Which is why, again, looking at Ukraine, one of the main reasons Russia is losing 30,000 people a month, 10 times what Ukraine's doing is about morale. It's also about training. But it is something that is built over time but is absolutely essential to be a successful, not necessarily individual, but a successful group. And that's where leadership comes in.
- [23:31]
Host 2
Because if you're thinking about this underfunding by this huge amount, if you're getting kit, that quite frankly isn't up to it, if you see friends of yours, because they become friends, die, and you think to yourself, well, if we'd been funded properly, that wouldn't have happened. I mean, that quite. That's gonna lead to resentment and then that's gonna lead to very serious problems within regiments.
- [23:56]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, absolutely. But. But at the moment, we are not at war, so. You're absolutely right. In the early days of Iraq and early days of Afghanistan, that was a problem. You know, I, I still. The most frightening thing I've ever done is driven around Iraq in. In what's called a snatched Land Rover, basically an unarmored Land Rover. Wow. When you know that, you know, people were dying, but in, you know, lots of. Lots of British soldiers are killed in these Land Rovers. And that, that was. That was really tricky, you know, when people were saying, right, you go out on patrol and you're so thinking, bloody hell, if I go over an improvised explosive device, I am toast. Now, by the time we got well into the Afghan campaign, we were getting protected mobility vehicles. I mean, I still do remember sitting in the back of a warrior driving from Lashkagar up to Sangin, when you're just thinking, you know, any moment this thing's going to go pop. But. But because it had the right kit on it, you sort of knew that you've got a good chance surviving. So to answer your direct question, because we are not at war now, that is what people like me are trying to beat the drum of people over there to fund. But whether we can get them to understand that, that is the key thing. But if next year we are at war, then absolutely nobody wants to go down that road in a vehicle they think is going to explode under whatever sort of attack and you won't survive. So it's essential. And what we're learning, and we're discussing it earlier, the great thing about Ukraine Is the pace of innovation spinning so quickly? And I'm sure we'll talk about the dreadfulness of the British army and military procurement system in peacetime. It's a flipping nightmare in warfare, as we saw in the Second World War. And I'm sure Jim Holland and others have talked about through it, and you'll, you'll be aware everything works so much more quickly. You know, in Ukraine, if you've got a good idea, it can be on the front line in, in weeks, maybe a month. You know, in the British military, I, you know, Ajax, the recce vehicle that's had a lot of issues, which, again, I test drove a few months ago. You know, it's 10 years in the making. It's still not on the front line. Had this been Ukraine, it would have been in the front line after a few months or so. So I think so. Probably not a good answer. You've absolutely put your finger on the issue here. But I am confident that certainly, because if we were at war, those situations would sort themselves out. Because once you're at war, then it is the number one priority. At the moment, it's not, but I think we've got the basis of a plan to get there. And let's hope it's not us going to war that gets us there more
- [26:47]
Host 2
quickly because there's going to be people listening to this interview who are thinking to themselves, look, all right, you make some good points, but if you look at our country, everything is underfunded. We're in huge amounts of debt, quite frankly, are we even going to be able to service that debt? I mean, there's a discussion around that. Can we really afford to fund the armed forces more from 2.8 to 3.5? Isn't that fundamentally unrealistic when you look at the current economic climate?
- [27:18]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, it is. No, I don't think so. Absolutely not. I think it is the number one priority. Other things have got to give. We know that we've got a lot of net zero projects, which I'm as keen as the next person almost on climate change. But I don't see why we're spending billions on that when we haven't got our fundamentals like defense and security pointed out, I think, and the fact that when it came to try and bridge that 28 billion gap that we've been talked about, defense, first of all, was told you find 10 billion. And to find 10 billion out of a 60 billion annual spend is challenging. I didn't hear the welfare budget, which is six times the amount being Asked to save any money. If we can't get 5 billion out of the welfare budget, then yeah, I think we need to get somebody in who can do it. So it's about priorities and I think this funding has to be. And I suppose like most taxpayers, I don't want to pay any more tax, but quite frankly, if it's the difference between the men and women in the British army getting the right drone or not, then I'm happy to do that. Although, you know, I'm sure a lot of others wouldn't. I think there is definitely the money there. The other element to it, of course, we keep hearing about growth. Now one of the great industries in Britain is its defense industry. And you know, if we spend our money there, that will generate growth. We just look at the Germans and the new British tank is being built by German company. I mean that must be bonkers. But, but, but, but having said that, you know, some of the British companies are, you know, have the potential to do stuff all over Europe. Now I know there are a few issues with the EU and Brexit and all the rest of it, but the fact we're making submarines for the Americans and the Australians, I mean there is, there is a real opportunity. Now one is hoping that with Andy Burnham coming in as Prime Minister, we don't swing too far to the left who traditionally, you know, have not seen the defence industry as, as an area they want to go to growth. But at the moment it is, it is a bit of a gold, you know, a golden goose for, for British, for Britain. And you know, if we spend our money on defense, it should increase the money within the government and if we make sure that we sell our capabilities appropriately again. So yeah, I think whatever else we have got to fund defense first, whatever that means to other projects or even if that means increase in tax.
- [30:00]
Host 1
That's why your point about net zero is so important because if you have the highest industrial electricity prices in a developed world, it's kind of hard to manufacture anything. Right? Just. I'm not an expert, but that seems reasonable to me. But I wanted to ask you about the technological side of things as they're developing. You've talked a number of times already about what's happening in Ukraine, drone warfare in particular, and if, if anyone's been paying any attention at all, and I obviously have family in the region. Even in this four year period, you've seen the technological transformation of the conflict. I mean, it's a different war to what it was four years ago completely. And one of the reasons, the high casualty numbers on the Russian side. As you. As you say, Russians are sending the troops in carelessly, but also they're being taken out by drones. I mean, you see videos of people, literally individual soldiers being hunted down. It's actually terrifying to think about being on the ground in that kind of environment. But what is happening with the technological side of warfare at the moment, in your assessment?
- [31:01]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, I think we all talk about drones. I had an experience of drones myself. I was, for two years between 2015 and 2017, I was the Peshmerga's chemical weapons adviser. The Peshmerga, or the Iraqi military who are fighting isis. And I remember we were near Mosul one day in. I think it was April 2016, and this ISIS drone flew over, and you can see it with a hand grenade on. And they were. They were trying to drop it on us. We flied thousands of rounds of ammunition. Didn't. Didn't hit it anyway. The thing couldn't. You know, it couldn't drop its thing. But that. That was 11 years ago or 10 years ago. You wind forward to now, and what we're seeing and what has really kept Ukraine actually in the game is, Is. Is the way that they have developed drone technology to an area where, you know, I find it really significant. You know, when Iran started firing drones and missiles at the Arab states, Zelensky and the Ukrainians were over there showing them how to defend against them, selling them Ukraine. Ukraine now makes 50% more drones than it needs, which is unbelievable. Ukraine has developed its own cruise missiles. You might have heard of the Flamingo, which has a range of over 1,000 km, a warhead of about 50 to 100 kg, not dissimilar from a Tomahawk cruise missile. And by the way, it costs $500,000, not $10.5 million, you know, and when you can do that sort of stuff. Now, I'm sure people might argue that a cruise missile is more effective than a Flamingo missile, but, you know, 10 Flamingo missiles, it's a bit like when I talk about tanks in the Second World War. There's a great. A great scene where Patton, who was commanding the Allied forces at Salerno in Italy, came up against the German general, whose name escapes me, and German general say, you know, Patton, you know, you're struggling, aren't you? You're losing 10 Shermans for every one of my Tigers. And Patton said, no, I'm not struggling. I've got so many more Shermans than your Tigers that ultimately we will win. Which of course they did. So goes back to my point about flamingos and the way at the moment Ukraine is using drones are just swamping, absolutely swamping. And what is brilliant, again, without wanting to go too much detail, they're also tying drones to weather balloons that fly at 10,000ft. 10,000 kilometers. Yeah, 10,000ft. And these drones are above the range of most of the Russian air defense except the S3 hundreds and S4 hundreds. These drones electronically look like big Reaper drones or small aircraft. So Russia is firing these 10 million or 5 million dollar missiles from S300 at 400 at a balloon. And while they're firing at a balloon, the real drones are sort of sneaking through, which is why Ukraine has pretty much destroyed 50%, I think it is, of the Russian oil industry. But on the technical side, the refining
- [34:15]
Host 1
side of it, not the entire industry,
- [34:17]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
sorry, you're right, the petrol. But when you come to the evolution of drones, when it first started it was all about the electromagnetic spectrum. You know, if you could control that, you could control the battlefield. Then we saw fiber optic drones which seemed bonkers. You know, I remember the first Gulf War, we, the Iraqis fired a lot of anti tank guided weapons at us and the whole battlefield was strewn with these sort of cables which were doing these anti tank guided weapons. And then, and then we overcame that. So now Ukraine is the use of AI and the use of mother drones that sort of get, get a fly, fly lots of smaller drones, thousands of kilometers and then through AI they light up and then hit targets. Now, you know, this is something completely uninvisaged four or five years ago. And you know, how can such a small country, small military like the Ukrainians be defeating, you know, the great Red army as it were, because of innovation and, and the other element, this is training. The other reason the Russians are losing so many people. An infantry guy, recruit, conscript is getting about a week's training. A lot of them don't even know how to clean their rifles. And when you've got a rifle, once you fired a couple of hundred rounds through it, it clogs up with carbon and you can't use it. So these guys, I mean if they had a couple of hundred rounds to use. So again, but that, that sort of perpetuates through the whole thing. You got, you've got these Ukrainian drone units, a lot of them sitting back, a lot of them with very untraditional military people in there. We go back to the whole diversity issue and all the rest of it. If you can fly a drone, then it doesn't matter. Even if you've only got one arm or one leg or whatever, you can do it. And I think actually in recent writing I've been saying to the British military, we don't all need to be able to lift heavy weights and run fast. You know, that's. We need a few of them.
- [36:22]
Host 1
Yeah. But the rest need to be good at Call of Duty, right?
- [36:25]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Entirely, Entirely. And I, in the video I made for the Telegraph about Challenger 3, you've got a sort of PlayStation hand stick that, I mean, luckily, because it wasn't too different from challenger two that I last fired about 10 years ago, it took me about two or three minutes to familiarize and then in the simulator to get a first round hit. But actually, had you been a kid who PlayStation, you would, you just got in there and you wouldn't even need any training at all. You know, it says laser line fire. I mean, dead easy.
- [36:58]
Host 1
Yeah. And I imagine AI is going to be another huge area where like if this war keeps going another four years, there might not be any humans on the battlefield. Perhaps exaggerating, but you know what I'm getting at?
- [37:10]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Yeah, I mean, I think as I talk about in the last chapter, you know, where we're going, it's about autonomy, autonomous vehicles, land, sea and air. We still need, we still need the human in the loop. And certainly the way we've issued with tanks, you'll have 1 challenger 3 or 1 Abrams or whatever, but then tethered to it will be hundreds of autonomous vehicles and that creates the combat power. So although at the beginning I've decried the fact we're only getting 148 challenger threes, if we have several thousand drones that can be controlled and manipulated by the Challenger 3s, then we can get there. And I sort of use Ajax, the recce vehicle, as an explainer, when all throughout my military career, our recce vehicle was something the cvrt, the Scimitar, fairly small recce vehicle with a few sensors, but a troop 3 or 4 cimeters would cover a frontage about 3 kilometers. Now, one Ajax with its digital turret, its sensors and its drones. One troop of three or four Ajax will cover 60 or 70 kilometers. So you've got massive increase sort of in capability there. So I think autonomous, the other element, the other human you need in the loop, ground. So you'll hear people saying, holding ground, you still need something physical there. It's, and it's about endurance. I mean, things are getting better. You know, one of my reasons for saying that the tank will endure. You know, I've been on operations in tanks where we haven't refueled or anything or stopped for 48 hours now. the moment, we don't have drones that have that endurance. I'm sure we will do, and we don't have other capabilities. So once you've held ground, you still need humans there. But I think autonomy is exactly where it is going and AI will enable it. But I'm no great expert on AI and all the highly technical things, and I'm sure there will be some, I hate to say nerd or whatever the politically correct term is, you know, sat in the back with his computer, that can probably do a heck of a lot more damage than I could in my, in my tank.
- [39:26]
Host 1
But.
- [39:26]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
But again, it's AI is, you know, anybody who's used AI will just see the, the power of it, you know, I'm a writer, I write books. I try and not go near AI at all anyway. But, you know, very occasionally, in fact, I had to write a eulogy for an uncle of mine who I didn't really know had served in the military for 40 years and had regiment that I didn't really know. And I reached out to his regiment and said, tell me about him. And I'd only met him once in my life, bizarrely. And I got 400 pages of stuff and I. And I had to do the eulogy in like two days time. And I just went right, chat GPT, give me a 50 minute eulogy of all this stuff. And it did, and it was brilliant. And I suppose even more. After I gave the eulogy, a number of people, some generals and others who served with him, said, hamish, you've got him absolutely right. I can't believe you only met him once. And I said, well, that's what people told me, but it was AI running
- [40:25]
Host 1
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- [41:37]
Host 2
so we've been talking about technical innovation. There's a lot of people going to be listening to this, Hamish, who are wondering, what is the existential threat that Russia poses to the uk? Because there have been talks about, I think it's Russian boats in British waters, et cetera, et cetera. Drones. What's the risk?
- [42:00]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
I think that is a great question and what I would say, I'm not sure it's existential, but it is certainly something that we need to face up against now. I live near Salisbury, and on the 4th of March 2018, we had our chemical attack Novichok in Salisbury. Sergei Skripal, a double agent, survived. Unfortunately, innocent civilian Dawn Sturgis died. But that type of hybrid asymmetric warfare is at the moment that we need to be most concerned about by the Russians. We are not going to see Russian paratroopers landing in the Mail. We are not going to see T90s driving up Constitution Hill. But what we know, or what the security service tell us, and I have no reason to doubt them, is that all the other attacks that are happening and the tests, and you may have seen in the press last week, the American government saying that the Russians were going to attack Poland or one of the Baltic states to test NATO to test us out. So when it comes to a threat, one doesn't see that the current Russian military in the position it's in, can really do much more than it's doing at the moment.
- [43:20]
Host 1
But.
- [43:20]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
But the tip of the Russian spear is not the Russian ground forces. The air force doesn't really exist and the navy doesn't really exist. It's everything else. What the Russians are really good at is the espionage is the asymmetric warfare, the cyber, and that is the big threat to us. That's what we must be resilient against. And I mentioned the chemical attacks because, again, it's an area of my expertise that I dealt With I commanded are the UK's CBRN and NATO's defense forces. So saw it firsthand and I saw it with the Peshmerga, with isis. And I think not a lot of people know. It hasn't been widely reported that. I've written about it quite a lot. Russia is using industrial amounts of chemical weapons on the front line in Ukraine, has been for a couple of years. Admittedly, it's something called chloropicrin, which was one of the first chemical weapons used in the First World War. Most people will know as CS gas riot control agent, but it is illegal under the Chemical Weapons Convention and has a similar effect. If you don't have a gas mask respirator. Anybody who's had any CS gas will know how really unpleasant it is. And what the Russians were doing is firing it into trenches. People were getting out and getting shot and they were making a bit of ground. Then through a whole host of various avenues, actually, the British, funded by others, gave gas masks to every Ukraine soldier. So then it didn't become an issue. But that's with something like chloropicrin. So what am I concerned if they escalated something like the Novichok program that we saw in Salisbury. Now, if chloropicrin is toxicity, one Novichok is 40,000, 50,000. So it's on a slightly different scale. So I think when it comes to what is the threat from Russia, it is those sort of threats, the asymmetric and the hybrid, that we need to. And we know the Russians will test all the time. And the Russian secret services, gru, et cetera, are still pretty good and still all over the place. And they are the ones that we must protect against, certainly from the home base. And I expect it's the same throughout Europe and to a slightly lesser extent, the US as well.
- [45:39]
Host 2
Because what's really fascinating, and you can talk about this, obviously with your background in chemical warfare, is the idea of a dirty bomb. And what are the risks to the UK from that type of warfare? Whether it's. I doubt it would be the Russians, but it might be the terrorist organization or just a lone terrace.
- [46:00]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, I think we sort of put them all together. Cbrn, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear. I think the dirty bomb is a radiological piece. I, I actually think it's a bit of a chimera, as it were. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's never been used, it's never been successful. Because actually, radiation is one of the good things about radiation. It's very easy to detect. I mean, I have been involved and no secret at all in helping the Ukrainians secure their nuclear power stations because there have been a number of occasions where the Russians have appeared to attack them to create an improvised nuclear device. And everybody knows about Chernobyl. You know, there are still sheep farmers in North Wales who can't sell their sheep because their grounds infected were from Chernobyl. But, but having said that, what if you can identify a threat, particularly radiation, you can avoid it. And without giving any secrets away, the United Kingdom, like the US and others, has a lot of monitoring capability around the place to detect anybody trying to move radiological materials. So. And if you blew up a dirty bomb in Westminster, it wouldn't have a great impact. It provide a bit of contamination. It would be hugely expensive. It is open source knowledge that every building in the City of London has to be insured against a dirty bomb because the only way you can decontaminate a building that has radiation in it is to remove it. And something like the Shard, which I think costs 5 billion to build, you know, the, if that became irradiated, you would have to take it down and build a new one, which presumably these prices would be double that. So I think it's, it's a real issue what, what concerns me. I mean the chemical bit. I think again, the chemical weapons we know are quite easy to identify and we know what to do. Although Novichok was designed so that NATO sensors couldn't detect it, which is why it took us 18 months to clean up Salisbury. But things have moved on. I think to me the real concern in this area is biological weapons and I'm.
- [48:19]
Host 2
Excuse my ignorance, what are biological weapons?
- [48:21]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Biological weapons are pathogens. People are plague. Plague which. Covid, mate, Covid plague which killed half of Europe in the Middle Ages. Anthrax, the Amerithrax. Anthrax attacks in the US after 9, 11. Some people think Covid, but Covid is so Covid is very. Until Covid happened, me as a biological weapons expert, I discarded that as an issue because biological weapons take quite a long time. What we call the incubation period of most pathogens like anthrax or plague or whatever else, or Ebola are about four days. So if you want a big bang, people aren't going to be ill for four days. Always thought, well, yeah, it's not something a terrorist would want. But Covid, a very, not very virulent pathogen, death rate less than 1% brought the world to a standstill for three or four years. Now if you think if you were a terrorist and you could do that, that's pretty good. Annie Jacobson wrote a brilliant book last year or the year before called Nuclear War, which goes through a scenario of how nuclear war can start. Now I'm just reviewing her book that's published in two weeks time called Biological War. And a lot of it comes actually from, from COVID A little bit of work I did at Cambridge. We with the explosion in synthetic biology enhanced by AI and now that we know the genome DNA so well, you can actually manipulate things. So we did a tabletop exercise at Cambridge of whether we could splice Lassa fever, which is a hepmorrgic fever. And there was an outbreak in, in Suffolk a few years ago. Luckily it only killed three people, but only three people caught it and it killed them. 80% mortality rate. Could you splice that with COVID which is very transmissible. So you had a very transmissible but 80% death rate and you probably could or you certainly could in the near future. So once you get into that sort of vector. Now in Annie Jacobson's book she talks actually it's about plague that's been manipulated. And if anybody has not read the book I Am Pilgrim, which after you bought my book, you must read it. I think it's the greatest book ever written. It is fiction, but it's about jihadist who manipulate actually the smallpox vaccine. And it potentially brings the world to a standstill. So all these shock horror stories, the thing that would keep me awake at night is the bio threat because of everything that's gone forward. It's a cheap person's nuclear weapon, if you like. And the reason that people like I are concerned is, is we spend virtually no money on trying to prevent it happening. So the Chemical Weapons Convention, which has done a great job and removed 90% of chemical weapons from the planet, we spend half a million $500 million a year to make sure that it doesn't happen. The Atomic Energy Agency, non proliferation, we spend billions on it. But the Biological Weapons Convention, I think we spend $100,000 a year on it. A lot of it is because, and I might be being disingenuous to big Pharma, a lot of it is because big pharma doesn't want us poking around in its laboratories that it's making stuff that's going to make a fortune on. But I think what we, we need to get really serious about biowarfare. And I think once people have read Annie Jackson book and read I Am Pilgrim. They will agree with me. But again, it's not any threat. It's a threat you ignore that is really dangerous. The threat. You focus on that and any threat can be suppressed. You just need to put effort and money into making it happen. So that along answered your question on biological warfare.
- [52:18]
Host 1
It's interesting you mentioned that, because my father, he was a biochemical engineer in the Soviet Union. And one of the things he always said to me was, this is the thing no one's talking about. But biological weapons are the most dangerous weapons that people will ever make, and they may well be coming. I was. It's interesting. I sort of made it as half as a joke about COVID But there's. I mean, we've had Lord Ridley on the show and others talking about the origins of COVID as your perception of someone who's an expert in this area. Did you think this was a virus that was likely manufactured? Perhaps not as a weapon, but manufactured nonetheless?
- [52:56]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, Matt Ridley and I have very similar views on this.
- [53:00]
Host 1
So you do then.
- [53:00]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
And his book is, is. Is excellent. I, I don't think it was deliberate, no. But a little bit like Annie Jacobson's book. There are so many, what we call biosafe laboratories around. Biosafe Laboratories go from 1 to 4. BioSafe 3 and 4 is where the really nasty pathogens are kept. Places like Porton down in the south of England, Edgewood in Maryland, and they were military research places. In the last 20, 20 years, we've gone from about 10 of these labs around the world to about a couple of hundred. And that's level four and level three. There are now thousands. So there are thousands of laboratories around the world, a lot of them in some of the dodgiest places in the world. And there are millions of scientists, completely unregulated, who are dealing with these pathogens. Now. A lot of it is big pharma trying to make sure that we have the medical countermeasures to deal with them. But not all, but the opportunity for accident and the way that things developed in Wuhan, it must absolutely, must have come from the laboratory. All this stuff about hemorrhagic fever coming from wet markets and eating bats is, you know, I don't get it. And I don't think anybody who, who understands the basic gets it at all. But the fact that it spread so readily and the fact that Bay is a threat today because we, we move around so much, you know, the plague, the Black Death in the Middle Ages took ages because people were basically traveling at 3 kilometers an hour. We're now traveling at 600 kilometers or whatever it is. So. So the ability to spread it around, they're in the issue. So I think I. There is, I agree with, with people like Matt Ridley that, yeah, it must have been an accident from Wuhan, and, and I think most people, except for the Chinese authorities, accept that, which is why going forward, we must make sure it doesn't happen again. And the answer to that for me are twofold. First of all, regulation that we haven't bothered with, and the other one is monitoring. Now, I was involved post Covid with helping the government. Others come up with schemes. How could we have prevented Covid? Well, we didn't have the technology at the time to do it. Everything was happening so slowly. You were given a sample, and 24 hours later, you were either clear of COVID or you weren't. When Omnicron arrived in the UK from South Africa, it took us five weeks to work out that it had arrived and where it come from. Actually, we have now developed sampling techniques where we can almost do DNA analysis in real time or near real time. So the scenario I always paint that aeroplane that came from South Africa, if you could have tested everybody, because all you need to do is test the air that they're breathing very quickly. If there was this new virus on the plane, you could have then quarantined them and dealt with it five weeks later. When we knew it, 400,000 people had come from South Africa, and those 400,000 people had traveled the world and spread Omicron around the world. But if you could have stopped what they call patient one, then you could prevent it happening. We have the technology to do it now. And a few years ago, well, when, when the report's done, to provide this sort of technology and monitoring system in the UK would have cost about 10 billion pounds to set up and a billion pounds a year to run. Now we now think, well, at the time think, well, Covid's over. It's not worth it. If Covid becomes something like plague, spending that money would be insignificant. So that's, I think, the area where we can do stop all these things. But we go back to this business about where do we get 20 billion for defense, where do we get 10 billion to make sure that a pathogen doesn't bring us to our feet again? Might be easier to get that money probably more than defense, because one would expect industry and the economy to be happy to pay for it, but at the moment they're not.
- [57:23]
Host 1
And it's easier to scare the public into wanting it as well. Because I mean, if you look at Covid on your telling and Matt's telling, it's the most deadly, one of the most deadliest events in human history, but it's an the deadliest industrial accident by a long, long way in the history of humanity. And that was not something people wanted to believe for a long time. But I'm glad we're finally coming around to the realization.
- [57:48]
Host 2
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- [59:46]
Host 1
We wanted to talk a little bit about Syria before we wrap up, which is a place you spend some time in. You mentioned Al Sharah, who's the new leader, some some questions about him, but you mentioned you were Actually pretty, pretty happy with the way things have turned out.
- [60:00]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Yeah, very. I mean, I. I first started going into Syria in 2012, 2013, sort of purely slightly by accident. I'd spent an awful long time in Afghanistan and my wife had sort of had enough said right here, time to do something else. I've only had two good ideas in my life and both were in Afghanistan. One was, we had to deal with a whole lot of chemicals from the Taliban, which they use to synthesize poppies into heroin. And we found about 100 tons of this stuff and it was basically acids and alkalis. It's the recipe for a massive fertilizer bomb. And it was outside the barracks in Lashkigarh. If it had blown up, it would have killed everybody there. So I was actually there in an intelligence role and I remember a guy from MI6 coming up to me and said, we understand you're the world's expert in chemical weapons, you've got to deal with this. I thought I was going, oh God, I'm not, I'm not, I'm really not. But anyway, it's got a very long story short. We had this issue. There's a lot of fighting going on at the time, porting down the medica. The laboratory down in Wiltshire were telling me to take it into the desert and blow it up. And I was going, you must be joking. There are 3,000 people, 3,000 Taliban between me in the desert. No way. And then I sort of said, well, hang on, we've got 50 tons of acid, 50 tons of alkali, why don't we mix them together and turn it into pH7 water? And the great brains at Port down about a day later came out and said, yeah, that might work actually. And it did. The other thing that I was doing in Afghanistan was using DNA to track terrorists down. And because when we were doing biological weapon analysis, we were basically doing something called pcr, which is DNA analysis. And in Afghanistan we were sending all the DNA off terrorists we were capturing back to the UK and it was taking 14 days to come back. I suddenly went, well, why don't we get this kit out here and we can do it in a couple of hours. So we did. So we turned a 14 day process into a three hour process. And we were, you know, you made that bomb, your DNA's on it, you know, off to, off to jail sort of thing. And then. And somebody said, well, that's great, we can commercialize this. But once I left the army, then a great mate of mine who was an ex Soldier was running security for CBS News, and he said, hamish, we've got this chemical attack, we think, in Aleppo. Can you take our guys in there and do it? I thought, oh, yeah, sounds like a lot of fun. So we did that, and it was the first major thing.
- [62:35]
Host 1
I can see why your wife gets annoyed.
- [62:38]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, it gets worse. It is all in my memoir, Chemical warriors, so I'm not breaking any confidentialities, but actually, once we did that because Syria was really difficult at the time. Lots of this is under Assads. This. This is 2012, 2013, very much. Lots of aid workers were being picked up by ISIS and Al Qaeda and killed. So it was really difficult. But once I'd done that, then the BBC got onto me and said, oh, God, can you take one of our teams in? And this. So I then sort of thought, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's only a couple of weeks. And. And the. The slightly funny, Funny sort of inverted common story is I was. I was with the BBC in a place called Sarakheb in May 2013, covering another chemical attack, and somebody came into my wife and said, julia, what's Hamish doing in Syria? She said, he's not in Syria, he's in France. And they went, well, I think you ought to turn on the BBC. And there it was, and Hamish, Brett and Gordon from Syria. Oh. Anyway, that was that. That took a bit of explaining, but. But then when I got back to the UK and I came here, embraced people, they just weren't interested. And somebody said to me, and we had a vote in part, it was a big chemical attack. You might remember 20 in September 23, August 21, August 2013, when 1500 people had died and the British government were voting whether to go with the Americans and flatten Assad's chemical weapons program. And I was in Parliament and briefing the Prime Minister and everybody else, and they voted not to. For Ed Miliband, that was his fault. And I just. And people said, no, we need evidence. So I went back into Syria. We set up something called the CBRN Task Force, which was all about treating casualties, but probably more important, collecting evidence. So we set up this network to collect evidence of the chemical attacks, which we did from 2014 up until when Assad fell. And, you know, the proudest thing in my life is that the evidence that the UN has, the evidence the French government are using to prosecute Assad now has my DNA on it. So that, to me. And it was when. When Assad fell in November 2014, I was in. In December, I was the new Government got in touch because a lot of the new government were guys that I'd been in idliff with and said, you must come to Damascus. And in December 2014, 2024, Russia Today put out this big piece saying it was my fault that Assad file. I was the reason I said I went. I certainly weren't. If I had any tiny bit to do with it, then I'm delighted. I said, it's the Syrian people. Assad killed half a million of them. That's why they rose up. And once they rose up, they realized that the Syrian army was useless and the Russians faded away as quickly. But it was going to Damascus and meeting a whole bunch of ministers and getting the word from the ministers and via them from Al Sharra. The line was, isn't it strange, Hamish? We've been trying to kill you for 10 years, and now we've invited you back for you to give us advice. I think you Brits call it real polity. But I'm, you know, despite I. I first saw HCs, as it were, Al Qaeda turned into HCs in about 2015, so. So life became a little bit easier after 2015 because although they were Al Qaeda, they weren't. They weren't trying to. Well, people like me, as a very dear Assyrian friend of mine called Ghana, who, who is a doctor and, and still lives in this country, but spends a lot of time in Syria, He. He always says to my wife, you know, I. I could have. I could have got $10 million for your husband, and we would have split it. And Julia always said, yeah, yeah, I'm happy that $5 million. And in fact, funny enough, he. He took me back there. He was part of the team. We went in in January 2025, and they all joked, yeah, your wife could have had $5 million and she would have been very happy. But anyway, I'm. I'm being slightly obtuse, but now going back there to see so many happy faces, being able to go around the country without fear of your life, and, and there's real opportunities and it is a secular place. I talked about going into the oldest church in Christendom with the Imam of Homs and then the Bishop of Homs, showing me around the main mosque in Homs. So I'm very confident and very hopeful. But the west is not interested in Syria. Syria is sort of sorted. And the British government hadn't even opened an embassy yet. I've actually told the Prime Minister, I need to be the ambassador. Let's open an embassy. Oh, it's too dangerous. We haven't got a building. I actually rang up one of my Syrian friends the other day. Any chance getting a building for British Embassy in Damascus? I can offer you five or six different buildings that we'd see. Anyway, I live in hope, but Syria is a wonderful place and 99% of the Syrian people are wonderful.
- [68:05]
Host 1
I realized before we wrap up, we should talk about tanks very briefly, because our booker, Billy, who, you know, we were sitting around, I think it was on one of our America trips, and I was like, well, you know, looking at the stuff in Ukraine, the tank is kind of obsolete anyway. No, it's not. And I think he got that energy from you. So why is the tank not obsolete?
- [68:27]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, that is a really good question. What I would. I'd try and frame it. The tanks have been around since basically 2016. 1916.
- [68:37]
Host 1
Yeah. World War I. Yeah. Yeah.
- [68:39]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
110 years. The first big tank battle was the battle of Cambrai. Interesting. One of the big issues of my. It was the Royal Tank Regiment, the regiment I commanded. One of the big issues with tankies at Cambrai was the Germans throwing grenades and sticky bombs onto the top of the tanks or its weakest. So they built metal cages to prevent that happening. Wind forward to probably about 20, 24. And FPV drones dropping hand grenades onto tanks put cages on. But literally the day after Combray, everybody's saying, that's it, the tank is dead. You know, and. And that's been happening throughout history. What has happened as the tank has evolved? The tank originally was there to sort out a problem of machine guns. So how could the infantry cross the trenches to attack the enemy without being mown down with machine guns? Well, a landship, as they were. The Royal Navy actually started, but Winston Churchill, who started off tanks and tank was. Was a OPSEC operational security acronym for what it actually was. But it did what it did. I mean, a few years before, it was gas. So when the Germans started using chlorine, that was terrible. And the Germans made a lot of ground, but then we got gas masks. So the tank was there to prevent that. The Second World War, things developed and evolved. Better armor, quicker. The holy trinity of firepower, mobility and protection still sounds good today. So, yeah, a lot of people are saying, where does the tank fit in? And you see so many tanks brewing up, as we call it. Well, Russia has lost about 5,000 tanks in Ukraine. Now, I explain it because the Russians aren't big on protection. They like firepower, mobility. They're not too bothered about the people inside it, they can be washed out in a new lot, put in sort of thing. Whereas Western tanks, the American, Abrams, German Leopard, British Challenger protection is a big deal. So despite the fact the Brits only gave the Ukrainians 14 challenger 2s, 13 of them still exist and are driving around. And I think the way the things have evolved, I mean, again, the Ukrainians have been brilliant with their tanks, certainly the Challengers and the Leopards. If you believed every report coming out of Ukraine's social media, There are about 5,000 challenger tanks in Ukraine. They're here, they're there, and again, people are fixated by it. And the way that the Ukrainians are using these Western tanks are sort of like long range snipers because they're still really effective. You know, if you can suppress the drone threat, the ability to knock out another vehicle at 3-4 km is still there. And you don't see British, German or American tanks brewing up because, you know, we protect our ammunition inside. I think the way we're going forward and the way I describe in the final chapter of the book is although it's all autonomous, we said before, you still need a human in the loop. So I think going forward, you'll see much fewer tanks. Challenger 3. I think Challenger 3 is probably the last, it might be the last man tank we ever produce, or certainly the last tank with four people in it. You probably don't necessarily need four in future, but it's. But Challenge three is the first digital tank so that it can work with all these other drones seamlessly. I mean, it's bloody difficult. I mean, as a young tank commander, even with the year's training, it is quite a difficult job. You know, I sat and challenged the three and Ajax and I'm just covered with flat screens of sensors and everything else. And people are complaining about these new tanks, make you sick. And I go, yeah, bloody hell. You know, maybe for not youngsters like, like Billy and others and you guys who are used to, you know, on your phones and laptops all the time, but you know, for us old fellas driving around with all these screens make it difficult. So I think, I think the tank will still have relevance. When we think about firepower, protection of mobility, you still need to be able to hold ground. And if you can increase its lethality through autonomy, autonomous vehicles in the air, on the ground, then I think they will evolve. And the final line in my book is that I am sure in 100 years from now somebody like me will be talking to somebody like you about Something called a tank.
- [73:00]
Host 1
It's really interesting you say that. The reason I, I was more skeptical about it I guess is if you, if a $50 drone or a 500 drone can blow up a multi million dollar tank, that seems like a losing battle over time, right?
- [73:13]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Yeah, but I, I would counter that by saying it can't now. So a 50, $500, maybe not a 500 drone dropping a, a hand grenade or a 2 or 3 kilogram explosive or something would not take out a Challenger 3 because the Challenger 3 will either shoot it down before it even gets there or with its defensive aid suites, it wouldn't penetrate. So now if we're talking about something like a cruise missile, so we're getting is a $5 million cruise missile, could that take out a $5 million tank? Yeah, probably could. But then again, to my eyes that's sort of evened up. Are you going to use your $500 cruise missile that's really designed to attack headquarters and all the rest of it to try and find a tank in the ulu? Maybe, maybe not. It's a balancing thing. And I think until fairly recently, say the last 12 months, absolutely, the drones have had their way. And I think that is right. What I'm seeing now with the development of hard kill defensive aid suites, the drone is becoming less the FPV drone and the electromagnetic spectrum again with the jamming and everything else. Now no doubt people would get rounded, but the focus on Ukraine at the moment is deep strikes with flamingos and others and all the rest of it. Yeah, they're not really worried about Russian tanks now. I suppose the final bit I say on this, if you can start maneuvering again. We've had a static trench warfare in Ukraine for four years now. But if you could maneuver a bit like you might remember the kursk offensive in September 2024 when actually a bunch of tanks and loads of drones broke into kursk, took about 1,000 square kilometers of land and held it for three or four months. Now if you could do that now and then multiply it, you could then see that what we call maneuver coming back in there and you could gain traction at the moment that, you know, Ukraine is quite happy Ukraine's doing the deep battle. And I would say that maybe in their strategic planning, once they've won the deep battle, they'll then focus on what we call the close battle and maneuver. And if you think Ukraine's been really clever, they've cut off Crimea, they cut off routes into the Donbass. Russian logistics, the front line are running out. They can't get ammunition and fuel through Crimea and they can't get it through the Donbas because they're being suppressed by drones. Now, I personally think, and Ukrainians seem to be much better than this than any of us lot. There may be a time when actually Ukraine decides to break through and break out. It's creating the conditions to do that. They'll still need the ability to maneuver with tanks. And we've seen the US Leopard infantry fighting vehicle has been tremendously successful in Ukraine, and none of us really saw that. So. So that is why I still think there is a role for something that's armored, that can maneuver in future. But it's trying to spin the innovation to stay one step ahead of the enemy, which at the moment the Ukrainians are doing. And we need to learn every bit of that as we go forward.
- [76:47]
Host 2
Well, Hamish, thank you so much for coming on the show and for making Billy's Day. I haven't seen him look this happy in years. Final question is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?
- [76:59]
Host 1
Before Hamish answers the final question at the end of the interview, make sure you go to triggerpod.co.uk where you'll be able to see this.
- [77:07]
Host 2
Is manning a tank now one of the most dangerous jobs a soldier can do after Ukrainians demonstrated that a drone or two can destroy tanks with relative ease.
- [77:17]
Host 1
Do you think there's a concerted effort to undermine the military by the left wing of politics?
- [77:21]
Host 2
If a major conflict involving NATO were to begin in the next year, what would be the single biggest weakness of Britain's armed forces and that the public, that the public either don't know about or doesn't fully appreciate? And what's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be?
- [77:38]
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon
Well, I. I suppose I was going to say the bio threat. I think that's. That's what really concerns me. And we've covered that in quite a lot of detail, so. And one doesn't want to overly terrify people. I think if you accept my premise that there is mitigation to every single threat, but you just have to look at it head on to do it, then that's what I'd say. On the bio side, I think the other element that we're not really talking about, and probably for good reasons, is the clandestine world, the espionage. And it's something that Russia has invested so much time and effort in, but actually, I think they are losing the war. The human intelligence, the spies and all the rest of it. And I know it's changing, but I think Russia traditionally really punched above their weight because that was their world, the whole espionage. And of course, Putin, that's the world he comes from. But I think they're losing the war. I think Ukraine is showing us how the SBU are just unbelievable. People remember Operation Cobweb, where they attacked the Russian strategic aircraft 2000 km into Russia by hiding drones in a truck and then attacking it? That was the Ukraine Secret Service who did that. And I think that unseen and unheard world, it's going on all the time, all around us. I think one thing where Britain probably punches above is our weight. And I know that a lot of US military people say that, but I think in the security world, I think we're still getting there. So, not that we should talk about it, but there is a lot that goes on under the surface that people don't see. And it's really part of the whole defense and security piece, that part of our defense and security must be absolutely funded because it produces such huge capability. But I suppose when it threatens and all the rest, Bio, to me, is. Is a concern. And when people have read my book, do read Annie Jacobson's Biological Warfare when it comes out, and Iron Pilgrim, which I think is the greatest book ever written.
- [79:59]
Host 1
Hamish, thank you so much for coming on. Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk, where Hamish is going to answer your questions.
- [80:07]
Host 2
I know what's probably a very disconcerting question. If the UK cannot restore its military cap ability to protect power, should it consider negotiating with Argentina the status of the Falkland Islands?