In November 2024, I made a video warning that a determined Russian attack on Britain could cripple us within days. Precision missile strikes on undefended ports, power stations, and bridges, combined with cyber attacks, would shut down our food supply and phone networks, and civil unrest would follow. Many dismissed it as alarmist rubbish, but they missed my point. I wasn’t talking about a standalone attack on Britain that would trigger NATO.
I was talking about what happens if NATO is already at war and Russia turns its attention to us. Now it seems the government and Ministry of Defence have started listening. They’re planning civil defense exercises, the largest since the end of the Cold War, to test our resilience against exactly this kind of conventional and cyber attack. But I’m not convinced.
Our military is small and underfunded. If a determined multi-dimensional attack came, I doubt we could do very much at all. Which brings me to the question the MoD has been wrestling with: how do you rapidly expand the British Army when war breaks out, without resorting to conscription? And if you do bring back conscription, what would it actually look like?
Politicians love to talk about reinstating national service, the compulsory military service that existed between 1948 and 1963. Back then, every able young man served eighteen months in the military. The idea is simple: take an eighteen-year-old civilian, put him through a few weeks of basic training, and turn out a disciplined, fit soldier who can then serve his country. After he’s released, he forms part of a huge pool of trained former soldiers who can be recalled in an emergency.
We don’t have that pool today. The last thing the army wants in a crisis is to train unwilling young men forced into uniform. So if the government decided to commit us to a full-scale war, how would they actually grow the army? The regular British Army is today about 74,000 strong, roughly thirteen brigades.
That’s not much. A former army commander once said it would struggle to hold a small market town in a war situation. The first thing the government would do is not call up civilians. It would exhaust its supply of trained reserves first.
The first pool is the regular reserve, former regular soldiers who, on leaving the army, retain a legal liability to be recalled within a set number of years. My maternal grandfather faced this in 1960. He’d been a regular soldier from 1930 to 1946, then became a civilian, but was recalled to the colors for the Korean War because of a shortage of experienced veterans. He ended up staying on until 1960.
The current strength of the regular reserve isn’t made public. The last figure was from 2014, when it was around 30,000. To be safe, I’d halve that for 2026, say 15,000. Recalling them would swell the army to 89,000.
The next pool is the volunteer reserve, what used to be the Territorial Army, the weekend warriors. They’re part-time soldiers, civilians in uniform. In 1939 they were immediately absorbed into the regular army, and that would happen again if war broke out. Currently the Army Reserve numbers around 25,700.
Some would be medically unfit or excused for their jobs, but probably the bulk would be mobilized. That would bring the army up to about 114,700 personnel, roughly the strength of the regular army in the late 1990s. With that lot, you could probably take three market towns. After that, trained manpower is exhausted.
The MoD has pushed for a strategic reserve recall, calling back former soldiers up to the age of 65. That would fill out the numbers, but with older, less fit personnel. Finally, the last resort would be civilian mobilization. First, they’d try a patriotic campaign, calling for volunteers, the sort of “Your country needs you” appeal.
But I think that would fail. People today are much less patriotic and much more clued up about what’s going on in the world than the World War I and II generations. The army struggles to recruit in peacetime. Why would more people join in wartime, with the attendant risks?
And then there’s conscription. Whether it’s a rerun of national service, a World War II style call-up, or some American-style Vietnam War lottery system, no one knows. And we don’t know what exemptions would apply. If it’s a big conflict, the army needs manpower fast.
In 1939, men between twenty and twenty-three were first required to register. Reserve occupations were legally codified. Coal miners, farmers, engineers, and doctors were generally not called up, though they could volunteer. Today, that’s different.
We don’t have a coal mining industry anymore. Farming isn’t manpower intensive, essentially one farmer per farm. That whole pool of protected civilian labor no longer exists. The conscientious objector category could be brought back, with a tribunal system to determine who genuinely holds moral convictions against fighting.
Those judged genuine would be given non-military roles or civilian work supporting the war effort. Those who weren’t could be drafted or imprisoned for refusing. Would women be liable for military service this time around? The government hasn’t answered that question.
The first stage would likely be limited conscription, like 1939, when 240,000 men registered. Then it would be extended to full conscription of men between eighteen and forty, except the medically unfit and key workers. Later, it could be extended to fifty-one in the military, and sixty in civil defense organizations like the police, fire, and home guard. Britain isn’t the only country looking at this.
The United States has recently ordered young men to register for the draft. Germany is seriously considering reinstating national service. Russia is looking to mobilize up to half a million reservists. It’s certainly an interesting trend.
But for Britain, with our tiny army and no real pool of trained manpower to draw on, the question is simple. If war came, could we actually defend ourselves? I have my doubts.
