West must prepare for 'long term degradation' of living standards, ex-army chief warns
26 March 2022, 08:34 | Updated: 26 March 2022, 08:48
Western standard of living will nosedive amid Ukraine, ex-army officer
The former Assistant Chief to the Defence Staff warns the standard of living will 'get much worse' in the West as countries stand up to Putin.
General Jonathan Shaw joined Andrew Castle amid rumours that Vladimir Putin is contemplating a scaling back of his invasion of Ukraine.
Britain's former Assistant Chief to the Defence Staff stated that the attitude of the West in the conflict has failed to look at the bigger picture for far too long.
"We in the West have the wrong mentality about this.
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"We are obsessed with humanitarian concerns and individual suffering and that makes good TV, but the reality is this is far more serious than that."
He argued that the "real clash of values" on display in the conflict will lead to far more serious impacts on the every day life of people in the West.
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"We need to be psychologically preparing our people for a long-term degradation of standard of living and a long term confrontation with Russia," General Shaw warned.
"Our quality of life back home absolutely depends on them – cheap fuel, cheap access, doing deals with Saudi Arabia and things like that.
We've now decided that as far as Russia's concerned we're going to play geopolitics ahead of economics and we've to pay a price for that."
The former Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff warned "for the next few years we need to really buckle down and I don't think we're preparing our populations for that sort of hardship and that attitude."
