Britain 'is at war with Russia' and 'in big trouble' thanks to Donald Trump
The UK needs to adapt to the new world of warfare and prepare for its once steadfast ally in Washington to no longer come to its defence, a top defence analyst has warned
The UK is "at war with Russia" and "in big trouble" as the US pivots away from blanket defence of Europe, according to the author of a strategic defence review.
Fiona Hill from County Durham was the White House's chief Russia adviser, and claimed the UK was in a challenging geopolitical position - caught between "the rock" of Vladimir Putin and "the hard place" of Donald Trump 's unpredictable White House. The dual US-UK citizen has built up a major profile and was appointed as a defence reviewer appointed by Lord Robertson, a former NATO secretary general. She claimed Russia has "hardened" as an adversary in ways that have not been "fully appreciated".
Speaking to The Guardian, she said Russia has been "menacing the UK in various different ways". She cited "the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber attacks and influence operations".
In a harrowing conclusion, Hill said "Russia is at war with us". She made a similar warning in 2015 in a revised version of a book she wrote about Putin, which reflected on the invasion and annexation of Crimea.
Hill said: "We said Putin had declared war on the west." She argued Putin viewed Ukraine as part of a proxy war with the US and that he persuaded China, North Korea and Iran "to join in". She claimed Ukraine had been decoupled from wider US support as "Trump really wants to have a separate relationship with Putin to do arms control agreements and also business that will probably enrich their entourages further, though Putin doesn't need any more enrichment".
In a damning assessment of the current White House, she said the UK could not rely on Washington DC for military support and that Downing Street is having to "manage its number one ally". The defence review, published earlier this week, stated the UK's longstanding assumptions about global power balances and structures were no longer certain.
Hill would not be drawn on whether she has advised Downing Street on how to approach US President Donald Trump, instead stating: "The advice I would give is the same I would give in a public setting." She added the Trump White House "is not an administration, it is a court" where transactional arrangements are made.
In another bleak assessment of world affairs, she said: "We can't rely exclusively on anyone any more." She argued Britain would need to have a "different mindset" based on traditional defence.
She went on: "People keep saying the British army has the smallest number of troops since the Napoleonic era. Why is the Napoleonic era relevant? Or that we have fewer ships than the time of Charles II. The metrics are all off here.
"The Ukrainians are fighting with drones. Even though they have no navy, they sank a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet."
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