Defence Supplementary Estimate 2021-22

That is a really fair point. That was the whole point of enforcing things such as the Ranger battalions, but it was founded really on something that is not true, which is that mass is irrelevant—it is not. Data, technology and all this stuff is important. But look at what is happening in Ukraine now. Why are the Ukrainians holding out when everybody talked about how they were going to get flattened by the Russians? They are holding out because warfare has fundamentally changed: it has changed from the cold war—this is not the cold war reheated—and it has changed from Iraq and Afghanistan. These are Ukrainians, not Iraqis or Afghans riven by tribal disputes. It is fundamentally different and the technology has changed it. What can be done with an NLAW—a next generation light anti-tank weapon—is so different. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) was in the Army, much like when I was, people had to fly an anti-tank weapon—it actually had a wire coming out the back—and basically steer it on to the tank. The chances of doing that in combat were pretty slim—