The UK is drawing up new preparations for a potential major conflict, according to Armed Forces Minister Al Carns, in remarks reported by Sky News.

Carns said the government is working at pace on what a whole of society response would require if tensions in Europe worsen. “The shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more. That is the reality. We have to be prepared to deter it,” he told the broadcaster during a visit to RAF Wyton. He added that civilians would have a role, stating that “societies, industries and economies win wars.”

Carns said planning now involves the Ministry of Defence, the Cabinet Office and other departments examining national readiness, including the responsibilities of the wider public should a crisis escalate.

His comments follow warnings from NATO leadership about the scale of the challenge facing member states. Earlier this month in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told myself and other reporters at NATO Headquarters that the Alliance is only at the start of a long effort to rebuild military readiness.

Rutte said ministers will review progress toward the commitment agreed at The Hague for members to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence, including 3.5 percent on core military capability. He described this as a strategic shift but cautioned that “this is only the beginning of a long road and we cannot be complacent.”

He highlighted the importance of industrial capacity, saying increased budgets must be matched by the ability to produce equipment at scale. “Increasing our investment is only truly effective if supply matches demand. That is why we are scaling up production capacity,” he said.

Ukraine will dominate discussions at the NATO Ukraine Council meeting, which brings together Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and the EU’s High Representative Kaja Kallas. Rutte condemned Russia’s intensified strikes on civilian infrastructure and stressed that Moscow’s partners were playing a critical enabling role. “Russia is not alone in this war, as China continues to be its decisive enabler and Iran and North Korea also provide support,” he said.

He noted that European and Canadian Allies have provided billions in equipment in recent months and suggested further announcements are expected. Rutte said maintaining collective pressure and accelerating preparedness are key to keeping NATO citizens safe.

George Allison
George Allison
George Allison is the founder and editor of the UK Defence Journal. He holds a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and specialises in naval and cyber security topics. George has appeared on national radio and television to provide commentary on defence and security issues. Twitter: @geoallison
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99 COMMENTS

  1. Does it urgently involve urgently spending urgent sums of money to buy urgently needed things?

    Or is it to urgently issue urgent sounding press releases about urgently thinking about urgently doing something in the far future?

    There FIFY!

    • Probably the latter, just read today how other European Countries are surprised that of the 5 rocket launcher companies given support status only Orbex hasn’t been given its full allocation of funds that the Govt controls with the uk claiming it is still analysing how it should allocate the two thirds of its total it hasn’t, unlike those given to the other launch companies, yet given to Orbex. Seems to mirror our military approach, after recent reorganisation of UK Space Agency which was claimed would help meet support for the sector met with an understandable level of cynicism from many inside the industry and that this development hardly helps to alleviate. Maybe pure coincidence but you lose trust very quickly.

    • It’s about preconditioning the populace for a change in what will be seen as unpopular.

      Defnce spending to go up at the expense of entities like NHS and education etc..
      Your clammour for big ticket defence items is comming home to roost … at last.

  3. The standard civil service response to an emergency – commission a report. Hopefully by the time it is finished in a few years time the crisis will have long gone away. Meanwhile our armed force get smaller every year, the rundown of the Navy since 2022 is scandalous, the Army is hardly any better off, and the RAF lacks key capabilities such as AEW or stealth fighter with stand-off weapons.

      • Umm…you jest, but perhaps not a terrible general proposition. The Swiss have constructed a shelter system w/ a capacity in excess of current population. Significant unoccupied real estate in Scotland and Wales suitable for large scale shelter construction? Huge potential civil engineering programme to stimulate economic growth, financed by the 1.5% of GDP allocated to defence related infrastructure development. Pair w/ sufficient GBAD, the Dreadnought programme w/ expanded warhead count, and the acquisition of dual-capable F-35As and a stock of B61-12s and/or sovereign weaps. At that point HMG would be in a credible position to diplomatically inform Mad Vlad, the Orcs, and frankly the remaining CRINKs, that they should f**k off. 🤔😉😁

      • 5 years ? I hope you have enough room to store all the water, beens and shit then !!!!!!

        Personally, I’m just going to stand outside and wait for the Tzar Bomba !

            • Yes, indeed you are. It’s a myth that you’ll survive very long even if you get to a shelter and even if that shelter is far from any blast.

              • Most people don’t even think about the greatest killer.. they get all up in arms about being blown up or dying of radiation poisoning or cancer from cell damage.. but the true killer from a nuclear war, the thing that will end human civilisation if we go for its the death of agriculture. They did some modern modelling using crop production and black soot production from a 100 tactical level weapon exchange between Pakistan and India.. it essentially destroys 10% of workwide crop production across Asia, Europe and North America, due to black soot in the atmosphere.. that lasts for up to a decade.. essentially 100 nuclear bombs dropping on combustible targets kills 10% of our food.. so let’s say Russia, the UK and France did a full exchanged.. with Russia keeping half its nuclear weapons back for China and the US..that’s probably about 600 warheads or 60% of the words food gone.. even North America would starve to death.. the international system of trade would collapse as half the world’s population starved to death. If you went for a full Russian nato exchange of a few thousand warheads there is simply no agricultural left and only a remanent hunter gatherer populations would remain civilisation shatters as everyone starves to death no matter where they are.

                • Ha, yes, there are many issues longer term but the imediate ones are the loss of Electric and Gas which will kill many within a week, then It’s the Food, Water, Heat and Sanitation that we all take for granted. Anyone in a known shelter will be a target and anyone on the surface will be fighting over whatever they can find.

                • Hi Jonathan. Thanks for that. Years ago my wife was very happy that I could walk to work everyday so she could use our car. Now I’m retired and she isn’t, but we still live where we have for decades.
                  Last week some bloke in Russia pointed out that my old place of work is one of 23 targeted for mushroom shaped free heating.
                  So she asked if we should move, I sat her down to and put “Threads” on the TV, afterwards she said I should get round to re decorating the dining room, but no hurry !🤷🏼‍♂️

                  • ABC, Argentina is the best place to survive a nuclear war. But you being Brit they would put in the Falklands with the sheep.

      • I’m thinking of moving to west coast Cornwall.. at present I’m a couple of miles from two strategic sites and up wind or Plymouth…

        • Come on chaps, no going West or heading underground…remember….”we’ll fight them on the beaches…” if we have too!
          Just get some bloody GBAD and more Shorad happening asap otherwise you mayn’t have that much to fight back with! 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 🇪🇺 🇺🇦

          • Ummm…believe W.S. Churchill was a significant advocate of civil defense during WWIi. Unfortunately, Civil Defence, virtually across NATO, has been an additional casualty of the “Peace Dividend.” Even now wonder whether the London Underground system, appropriately upgraded, might not serve as a mass shelter system? In any event, firmly believe WSC would have been a proponent of nuking the opposition back into the Stone Age for an unrestricted attack.

        • Cornwall doesn’t really have a west coast as such, just a silly bunch of rocks and a money making name. The best Cornish Coast is It’s East (or Devon as It’s named) .

            • Love the whole area, I’ve been lucky enough to live in a few great places in England and to travel all over the entire British Isles but North Devon has a special appeal and Jonathan shares that love too. So now there are 3 of us plus “Devonbloke” here.
              Give me a nice crisp sunny day and Exmoor is like a magnet for my Biking trips, sadly, It’s a long way away now though, luckily I have the Motorhome back on the road and I’ll be off down there soon with Bike in tow.

              Need to stock up on the Laver and Hoggs puddings !

  5. “Carns said the government is working at pace”

    Well that’s the end of that then….
    What does “at pace” mean these days, 8-10 years?

    • Could just be “slow” pace… With all this preparing for war talk shouldn’t they be majorily focusing on the right now to next 3 years on what can be incrementally or substantially improved on and not just on future “next decade” acquisitions?

  6. Canada is generating a 300,000 citizens army to quickly respond to a sudden conflict and they were amongst the least proactive NATO members, we won’t even have a Dads Army as things are. Mind you Canada is probably more concerned about the threat from the south, gun permits have apparently shot up, which hopefully will be the consequence for Trump’s private Proud Boy army if they get trigger happy and March north.

    • Shooting sports in the UK are ageing out. Its all the extra red tape. Oldies are used to it, the young are not. Even a simple shotgun/firearm renewal, with no changes, takes at least six months.

    • Spy, the only threats on Canada, Greenland is from their friend and ally, Trump – – constantly. Absolutely no threats from China, Russia, ever. Did you watch the baseball championship games, the National anthem was booed loudly.

  8. Don’t panic chaps !!!

    Secretly, we have been building up all aspects of the armed forces, be it ships, aircraft or tanks and it’s all just an act of deception, to make our enemies think we are disposing of nearly all our ships, aircraft and tanks.

    Well we would have to be pretty stupid to get rid of all our ships, aircraft and tanks wouldn’t we ?

  10. It would have been sort of nice if they had done this about 10 years ago.. let’s just remember our even more skint grandparents figured out by 1930 they may be heading to war.. by 1932 they started spending more and by 1935 they had a full plan for rearming and the implementation started in 1936.. just imagine if in 1938 they had just started the conversation.. because that seems to be were we are now.

  11. Al Carns is one of the good guys and someone to watch. If he’s working on this, it will probably make good sense.
    The tragedy is that The Treasury is unlikely to cough up. In fact, all the signs are that they are taking money away from current defence plans. Also, I’ve read that they won’t allow the DIP to be published because of the immediate and future extra cost of everything proposed.

    • Ha ha ha what a load of horse shit! Even if this clueless socialist inept bunch of frothing fools in Government actually decided to suddenly plan for war, the Parliamentary Labour Party and the back benches would shoot down any plans immediately! They have an built ideology of the UK and the West being the bad guys, a party held together by harry maskers in the form of a very small majority, in a lot of seats, of a small minority of voters with a particular heritage, many of whom would love to see this country fail, and a fallacy of a thought process that being weak and defenceless, in the form of reduced military capability (also known as uni-lateral disarmament) will keep them safe!

      Also one other thought, the people who would mostly be called up to fight, that terrible bunch of facists and nationalist racists, who we know as the young white working class male, may not want to be called up due to being previously bring totally ignored, then abused, used and treated like scum in their own country! Fuck off and see how recruitment goes in areas like Rotherham, Birmingham, Leeds, Bradford, most parts of London and most other Islamic dominated areas!!!!!!!!

    • James, it would seem I replied to you in error, my post was a stand alone post, bearing no relation to your comment, just chunky finger issues 👍

  12. Correct me if I’m wrong however, there is no ‘Financial evidence’, that the UK is facing (other than cyber) any kind of threat at all.

    • Events dear boy events. Putin & Xi may not want war with the West, but they are happy to pull off armed incidents just short of war i.e. ship sunk, cable/pipeline damaged, factory burns down, aeroplane shot down,etc. The danger is that they get it wrong & a war does start.

      • Yes I see that but again, I see no financial indicators that the UK is amassing ‘weapons/equipment/materials nor personnel, to go to war with anyone. Whilst other countries are ramping up military production, recruiting more bods, the UK is doing nothing.

        We are still spending the same piffling amount of money on defence, as was being spend when the current ‘shower’ took office.

  13. Yawn.
    It seems nobody believes A WORD HMG say any more….
    What a surprise.
    Meanwhile, factories close, the forces get cut, and the rebranding continues.
    As for HMT, has the Security Service checked the backgrounds of just who is staffing that place?

      • It’s rich.
        The establishment has spent the last few decades utterly demonising nationalism, and now they want to prepare the country for war? How, with calls for patriotism and unity?
        Oh, the irony.
        Then of course the predominantly white armed forces will be sent out to fight, leaving the migrants safe back here? Yes? Those same armed forces for whom white recruits were not good enough for the CAS a few years ago? Yes?
        What planet are they on?
        As J often says, you need political will, industry, and society to all pull together, and haven’t we seen HMG over the last 30 years actively undermine every single one?

        • Government spokesman (sorry, spokesperson. he/she) announces “I would really like to come up with a plan but I am struggling in a morass of meetings so I don’t have time.The need is imminent but we have just spent the five billion we were going to spend on defence on benefits for Labour voters”
          “There is a plan to increase the size of the army but as it takes a year to recruit each person we doubt if there is much point now. Having said that we do have only four tanks and six artillery pieces so maybe we’ll manage after all. A lot of people are sick though”
          “The good news is that the RAF has some planes available but most programmes have been delayed while we make up and then change our minds. It is unlikely that anything will turn up in time so orders have been postponed as irrelevant.
          “The RN is our savior as always. We have a destroyer available and a couple of old frigates in an emergency. We could put a carrier to sea but the RAF insists on keeping the F35’s so…what can I do? Subs, ah no not really”
          ” There is good news though. We have at the latest count 563 trials going on , most of which will report quickly within five to ten years, certainly not in this parliament . Don’t want that”
          “Hey ho, Christmas soon.

  14. ‘Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said the government is working at pace on what a whole of society response would require if tensions in Europe worsen. “The shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more. That is the reality. We have to be prepared to deter it,” he told the broadcaster during a visit to RAF Wyton. He added that civilians would have a role, stating that “societies, industries and economies win wars.”

    Great. HMG should start with getting the Armed Forces to prepare a plan to defend the country with military assets, then patch in the wider society involvement as a second string of staff work.

    Mention was made about delay in publishing the DIP, but also where is the Defence Command Paper?

    • I find it inconceivable that the War Book was just lost after the end of the Cold War. There must be stuff of value within it?

      • I agree that both the DIP and CP are inevitably constrained by the budget, and I’m very much in the camp (who isn’t?) that defence spending should be higher — on the armed forces themselves, not by rebadging wider security spend to inflate the headline figure.

        That said, this was Labour’s first SDR since 1998. There’s been a lot of commentary and signalling around the 2025 SDR, but what’s missing so far is a clear statement of intended force structure. I’d like to see that set out in a Command Paper, so it can be compared directly with the last one.

        • That’s ok, Greg. I suspect that HMG do indeed avoid publishing hard force structure decisions as it’d just expose them.

    • Graham, Interesting question about the Command Paper. Over my lifetime every major defence review has been followed by either a White Paper/Command Paper setting out force structure and capability decisions. The 2025 SDR is the first where that follow-on document hasn’t been confirmed or even mentioned as far as I’m aware?

      We’ve also never had a Defence Investment Plan before. The Defence Equipment Plan is the closest historical equivalent, but it’s not the same thing.

      For me, that suggests one of two things: either the DIP is effectively substituting for a Command Paper, or the Government is avoiding publishing hard force-structure decisions.

      • I think DIP and CP are both heavily reliant on the budget. The MoD can aspire to put both out as much as they want, but without a budget it’s probably all just guess work.

        • I agree that both the DIP and CP are inevitably constrained by the budget, and I’m very much in the camp (who isn’t?) that defence spending should be higher — on the armed forces themselves, not by rebadging wider security spend to inflate the headline figure.

          That said, this was Labour’s first SDR since 1998. There’s been a lot of commentary and signalling around the 2025 SDR, but what’s missing so far is a clear statement of intended force structure. I’d like to see that set out in a Command Paper, so it can be compared directly with the last one.

  15. There’s more conflict in the Labour party then in Europe. Left hand, slightly further left hand, hard left hand ….don’t know, don’t care, don’t have the money.

    • Not ideal. But neither were the so called “Conservatives” before them, Geoff. Which is why this useless bunch of charlatans is in power, too many Tory voters went to Reform.

      • No argumnet from me, my friend. I could count on one hand the number of politicians I might trust with defence, and probably get change!!

  16. Might be cheaper to arrange for the likes of Putin to take a flying lesson from the 15ht floor than having a war. Remove the top guys, by whatever means

  17. The plan to cut everything; frigates, Typhoon numbers, tanks, IFVs, C130s, troops, MCMV capabilities is fully underway. Potential war with Russia????

  18. Given it’s been over 30 years since The War Book was last updated that is going to be a mammoth task given the profound changes in the U.K. since then.

  19. As an ex military man this guy is a joke. Everything the government he is part of is doing on defence is to come tomorrow. It’s all planning, it’s all reviewing it’s all an aspiration meanwhile bugger all is happening. Thank God those countries closer to Ivan are moving quicker than we are.

  20. all we know for sure is the swivel eyed russophobes, (coalition of clowns), provoking this war won’t be the ones doing the fighting, and if they do succeed, better to be ruled by russia than dead, why should ordinary people have to fight a war for the elites, let the ones stoking the fight also be the ones doing the dying

    the single important truth is, since the warsaw pact collapsed in 1990/91, it’s nato that has crept eastwards across europe up to the very borders of russia, despite all the assurances the west gave to russia this wouldn’t happen !

  21. WW1 was due to Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism. Europe is in the same direction these days. M– more than 5% military spending. A – – – Europe had far too much of Nato alliances. I – – Europe allows US to be an Imperial power. N – – every nation is turning inward, putting themselves first : M A G A.
    Russia was cornered by Nato, the most dangerous is a cornered enemy.

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