World faces ‘gathering storm’ that could lead to World War Three, British general warns

THE WORLD is facing a “gathering storm” that could lead to World War Three, a top British general has warned.

Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb, ex-director of Special Forces, said now was like the 1930s – when the world was hurtling towards World War Two.

“This is the 1930s,” he said. “If we don’t recognise that we are actually in a gathering storm…then don’t be surprised if we end up in 1939.”

He said the country was under constant attack in the so-called “grey zone” below the level of all-out war.

Grey zone weapons include hacking and fake news that sows doubt and division abroad. “Everybody assumes we’re in a peaceful state. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Lt Gen Lamb told a new Sky News podcast, Into the Grey Zone.

“We are being attacked. We’re being undone in a very different way.”

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “Every day we see our adversaries using cyber tools against us, using disinformation, in some areas using financial corruption, using organised crime to divide us, to weaken us or to compete with us.”

General Sir Nick Carter, the chief of the defence staff, said attacks left unchecked could “unravel our democracy from inside”.

He said the greatest risk of a grey zone attack was that it could “lights a fuse” and spin out of control.

“If you look back over history, it’s those moments of miscalculation which often precipitate what ends up being an uncontrollable state of war.

“And that’s the bit that we really, really have to watch,” he said.