A leading military historian has warned MPs that the UK remains far behind Nordic allies in preparing society for the demands of modern conflict, arguing that government has failed to translate years of discussion about resilience into practical planning for mass mobilisation and replacement forces.
Appearing before the Defence Committee, Sir Hew Strachan said the UK needed to “move beyond talking to doing” on national resilience, adding that the country had failed to build on the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, when local communities demonstrated an ability to respond collectively to crisis.
Strachan said that while there was a genuine community response during the pandemic, it was “generated from the bottom up, not from the top down”, and that government had not succeeded in capturing or replicating that model for other national security challenges. He argued that resilience in areas such as cyber security depended heavily on individual behaviour, but said many people still failed to follow basic workplace disciplines, describing routine practices like password changes as “far too complicated” for many to consistently maintain.
Turning to defence planning, Strachan said that despite extensive discussion about technology, the UK remained “nowhere near having any concept” of how it would generate mass or replace its armed forces in a prolonged war. He warned that casualty rates seen in Ukraine posed questions Britain had not seriously addressed. Strachan said political reluctance to discuss conscription meant the UK was instead “going round the houses looking at other alternatives”, most of which still depended on some form of voluntary engagement.
He contrasted the UK’s position with Finland’s approach, saying the Nordic model was underpinned by “cultural awareness, a historical precedent and a discussion going on the whole time”. He noted that Scandinavian states were now increasingly coordinating their thinking, while grappling with practical issues such as where threats are geographically located, how conscripts would be deployed, and how reservists with specialist civilian skills should be prioritised in a crisis.
Strachan also questioned whether UK commitments to expand the cadet force were realistic, warning that adult volunteers were already in short supply. He said that without solving that issue, an expansion would not be deliverable.
While praising the contribution of volunteers, Strachan said the larger point remained that the UK had not yet developed credible plans for sustaining the force in a high-attrition conflict. “We are talking about lethality and attrition in current warfare,” he told MPs, adding that this carried unavoidable implications for how Britain would replace personnel and capabilities over time.
He has hit the various nails on the head there! This Government is no different to previous ones but the world is changing fast and they are all talk and no action. They are terrified of telling the populace that a time of reckoning may be coming and we had better get ourselves squared away or else we are in it deep. Now Starmer is only concerned with saving his own skin, getting the country off its knees will have to wait for another day, another year and and another government. We’re doomed….do yah hear what I say?……we’re doomed!
Now is Starmer fighting for his survival DIP will on the back burner.
We can look forwards to more delays more vacuous statements and no extra cash for day-to-day conventional forces.
It is now beyond silly…..a ramp up that should have started in 2014 and accelerated in 2022….hasn’t started and is prefaced by more…..cuts. You couldn’t make it up.
Action? Umh…have to think about that.😴
‘…build on the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic’
Hmm…Not exactly a ringing call to arms.
The covid ‘experience’ was, quite simply, panic in Whitehall/Westminster and most conurbations where, as a consequence of polluted air, diesel particulates etc., the elderly and infirm are most at risk from ‘Influenza Like Illnesses’ (ILI). ILI, every few winters, kill so many of the elderly and infirm, most with serious co-morbidities, in this country.
The ongoing political shambles in this country is largely a product of voters despair at the endemic incompetence in government which was, for so many, first evidenced without any possible room for doubt during the entirely confected common cold coronavirus panic of 2020.
That is precisely what is not required in defence planning in this country. What is required is the restoration of a verifiably credible conventional deterrent in Central Europe similar to the contribution this country made to ‘The Long Peace’ in Europe 1945-2014.
We know what to do. We have done it before. It works.