Wednesday briefing: Defence secretary Ben Wallace goes on the warpath over military spending

[Ben Wallace] made a speech to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) saying that the army is surviving on “a diet of smoke and mirrors”, among other unsubtly disgruntled formulations ... In a recent IFS podcast, Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director-General of RUSI, said that if funding increases, “in the short term I think making the force we have more effective is going to be a strong priority.” ... That was echoed by a speech to that same RUSI conference yesterday by Chief of the General Staff General Sir Patrick Sanders in which he said that “deterring Russia means more of the Army ready more of the time.” (“To put it bluntly, you can’t cyber your way across a river,” he added.)