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The Army’s force of tanks could be mothballed and put into storage as part of reshaping of Britain’s military capability. This follows the results of a defence review Boris Johnson hailed as the most important since the end of the Cold War. General Sir Mike Jackson, a former UK Chief of the General Staff, spoke to Times Radio about the reports, warning that it may not be recommended amid Russia’s expansion plans.

He said: “It seems strange that in a world that is not getting any more stable, and one could argue increasingly volatile, that we are looking fundamental reductions in military capability.

“The difficulty is that we can say we don’t need heavy amour anymore.

“Yet one looks at what, for example, Russia is doing.

“It has a brand new tank, well in development, the T-14 Armata as it’s called.”

General Jackson continued: “They’re also modernising its hundreds of current tanks.

“What do they know that we don’t? It’s concerning.

“With how this review is going to go, I’m pretty sure what’s going to happen is we’re going to start with a reduced bag of gold and be told to make the best of it that we can.

“Of course that’s completely logical in a strategic sense.”

The expert added: “We need to start with what is our national interest.

“What is the foreign policy to support those interests? What military capabilities are required to support that foreign policy?

“Then when you’ve got that answer you can cost it and enter your interesting negotiations with Her Majesty’s Treasury.”

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The review has already drawn criticism from the UK parliamentary Defence Committee.

They accused the Government of having a confused approach to the whole thing so far.

They released a critical report stating that to date the Integrated Review lacked leadership at a time when there were “significant geopolitical shifts in power”.

There was as yet no “coherent vision on how the Armed Forces will fight in the future”.

Additionally, it accused those conducting the review of not giving any idea of “the platforms, weapons and personnel” required.

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