How prepared is Britain for war? – with Gen Sir Nick Carter
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
General Sir Nick Carter, former chief of the defence staff, joins Tim Shipman to discuss Britain's military preparedness – or rather, lack thereof. While a friendlier US presence at the Munich Security Conference may have provided some relief, the military threats to the UK and to Europe presented are still stark. So what choices need to be addressed to ensure that Britain is equipped to deal with these threats? Is the government doing enough to address the awareness gap with the public? And how could AI change warfare?
Tim's cover piece, Defenceless: the grim truth about Britain's military, can be found here.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm Tim Shipman, political editor of The Spectator, |
| 0:09.0 | and I'm delighted today to be joined by General Sir Nick Carter. Nick was head of the army between 2014 and 2018 and then Chief of the Defence Staff, the top job in the armed forces between 2018 and 2021, man with |
| 0:22.1 | vast experience. And we're here to talk about the strategic picture, British military readiness. |
| 0:27.7 | And Nick, you've just been at the Munich Security Conference, which feels every year like an |
| 0:32.3 | increasingly important sort of event. It's the sort of Davos for the, for the armed forces, |
| 0:37.3 | essentially. What were |
| 0:38.4 | your reflections from what you heard over there? I think there was obviously a slight sense of |
| 0:42.7 | relief after the previous Munich Security Conference when people will recall that J.D. Vance |
| 0:48.3 | effectively gave Europe a good kicking on the basis of all sorts of things. Well, of course, |
| 0:53.1 | the American presence this time was probably |
| 0:55.0 | not quite as large, but was led by Rubio, the Secretary of State. And although he made similar |
| 1:01.4 | comments and observations, he did it in a much more tactful and diplomatic fashion. So I think people |
| 1:06.7 | were relieved in a way to hear that he certainly regarded Europe as still being America's ally, |
| 1:12.2 | but was, of course, encouraging Europe to step up to the plate and maximise its or begin to |
| 1:17.3 | realise its potential in terms of its power and certainly military power in relation to NATO. |
| 1:22.3 | I also think there was a certain amount of people trying to follow the sort of Mark Carney-Davos |
| 1:26.7 | Act, a certain amount of, you know, leadership trying of Mark Carney-Davos Act, a certain amount |
| 1:28.1 | of, you know, leadership trying to show that they got it and that actually we do need to step |
| 1:32.3 | up to the plate and show some leg on all of this. But of course, it's all slightly depressing in a way |
| 1:38.4 | because certainly from my perspective, it's the first time I've been to a major European event |
| 1:43.2 | when I've actually felt a bit dispirited |
| 1:45.3 | about being British because I don't feel that we're stepping up to the place as fast as we should be. |
... |
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