A top NATO commander says the West can no longer count on its homelands staying safe in future wars
In a serious near-peer conflict, Western countries can't count on their homelands remaining safe while their militaries fight overseas, a top NATO commander told Business Insider.
Air threats are more numerous and can reach much farther than when the West last fought a major war against a similarly capable adversary, Sir John Stringer, NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, told Business Insider.
Beyond traditional aircraft threats, powerful missiles and cheap long-range drones can now threaten places that once would have been considered safely in the rear.
The West had at least 20 years of fighting counter-insurgency campaigns, Stringer said. For the UK, that meant "we deployed 2,000 or 3,000 miles off the UK, fought and then we'd come back to a very secure rear area called the United Kingdom."
"Those days, sadly, are also gone."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/top-nato-commander-says-west-110501290.html