The government has committed to rewriting the War Books by the end of this year as part of an accelerated Home Defence Programme, with defence planning feeding into the work, according to a written answer published on Friday.
Louise Sandher-Jones, Parliamentary Under-Secretary and Minister for the Armed Forces, was responding to Stuart Anderson, the Conservative MP for South Shropshire, who had asked what progress has been made on ensuring plans under the programme meet needs in the event of escalation to war. She said the Ministry of Defence continues to update its own homeland defence and transition to war plans while playing a significant role in the wider Cabinet Office-led programme.
On the acceleration announced in July, she said: “A key element of this is the commitment to re-write, by the end of this year, the War Books. Defence planning is informing our input to these War Books as we support the Home Defence Programme focus on resilience and preparedness in the face of the range of threats and risks that the UK faces.”
Because homeland defence is an inherently whole-of-government effort, she said, the department is working closely with others to ensure all plans align in meeting needs in the event of escalation to war. The War Book is one of the oldest instruments of British government planning, originating before the First World War as a single volume setting out precisely which departments would take which actions, in which order, on the transition from peace to war.
The concept was maintained through both world wars and the Cold War, covering everything from the requisitioning of shipping and the imposition of censorship to the dispersal of government and the mobilisation of reserves, with each department holding its own chapter and the whole coordinated centrally. The practice fell away after 1991, when the prospect of a transition to general war ceased to shape Whitehall planning.
The Defence Readiness Bill
Running alongside the planning work is a legislative element, since the Strategic Defence Review committed the government to a Defence Readiness Bill, which the minister said is being developed in close partnership with the rest of government for introduction within this Parliament.
Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, set out its intended scope in a separate answer the same day, responding to Helen Maguire, the Liberal Democrat MP for Epsom and Ewell, who had asked about broadening it to cover national resilience and other risks in the national risk register. He said: “The legislation will help ensure the Government has the powers needed to respond to sub-threshold and hybrid threats, while providing a framework of reserve powers that could be activated during a national crisis or escalation towards conflict.”
On the question of scope, he said work is under way across government and that consideration is being given to how the legislation can support wider national resilience objectives. The risks being planned against continue to be informed by the National Risk Register, the public-facing version of the National Security Risk Assessment.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting told the Commons this week that he would report back to the House with plans for a national conversation about the threat, saying the aim is to raise awareness without raising alarm, after being asked whether Britain should run a public awareness campaign of the kind seen in Finland and the Baltic states.
This is a good idea if theyre going to fund it………
Fund it. It’s contingency planning updated, MoD have a plan for most occurrences. The War Book has been allowed to go out of date since the Cold War. Not sure it needs funding, just planning.
Hope it is better than the stuff they came out with in the 1980s. Each county council having to decide who will be in charge of digging the mass graves etc. That will be tricky nowadays as it would have been the highways department however as everything is outsourced and most people will be conscripted or dead I’m not sure a plan, even as bad as the last one, could be made to work.
The Cold War contingency plan involves the dispersal of government to various hardened bunkers that have mostly been decommissioned, so if they want to update their plan to acknowledge the resumption of basically the same threat then that would necessitate a huge amount of expenditure to render it credible. Unless it’s just a meaningless paper exercise by fundamentally unserious people of course.
I’d side with the latter. Bunkers are another of my interests, so I’m well aware of the RSG network that was thrown away post 91, and what residual remains.
I’ve read HMG have a right to requisition those still in good nick. But some are used as Data Centres, and 2 others museums so whatever, the secrecy has long gone.
I see little nuclear theeat, it’s the Cyber and sabotage in Grey Zone and Drone attacks on CNI that concern me the most.
Fair enough. Arguably the bunkers aren’t much use in the face of modern delivery systems either.
The issue is the agreed to this in the sdr they just seem ti dither and delay everything at this point, they especially dont want the national conversation to be about defence and security because they would them have to prioritise funding for it… which they clearly dont want to do and want to kick it down the road, already wasted over 2yrs on the sdr and dip, causing how many companies to leave or go bust? And damaged our standing with allies. All a joke really
This stuff hasn’t been seriously done for the mid 1980’s, i.e. 40+ years ago. So pre GPS (effectively), pre internet, pre-mobile phones, pre AI, pre mass EV’s, pre supply chain dependency on China, pre Trump, pre cheap drones and UCAV’s … . A complete re-write will be needed. But who has the skills, knowledge, expertise and security clearance to do this? Even getting the required info and asking the right questions will be tough. It’s hard to see risk-adverse civil servants wanting to take this on, so at many Departments the work is all too likely to end up being largely done by consultants. I fear the output will then be a very expensive, very nicely formatted and illustrated, and superficially impressive set of documents – which will fail like a house of cards when put under real world stress.
I don’t suppose you’re the only person who’s noticed what’s going on. What I’m seeing is a lot of work being done to catch up – sadly it is catching up, but the effort is clear. The 1930s parallels are depressing.
RB,
Agree w/ your sobering assessment.
Also pre-massed migration and subsequent generations.. how many ‘new Britons’ will actually comply/do their part?
Worried about black/brown Brits that remain a minority lol but no talk of ‘native’ Brits not taking up the jobs that are available And that we need. Also notable you don’t account for the report that the same (major) cohort do not want to go to war for their country. Not great…. Considering that, why would anyone else?
I think there’s more internal work to be done especially for our working class white kids than most black/brown Brits on average, according to the figures anyway
Seems like you’re focusing on the wrong things mate, that’s kind of saboteur-like if you imo
Pre supply chain dependency stands out for me. We need stronger/better DOMESTIC industry, badly. Perhaps re-shoring parts of industries?
More guff and spin by Manchester Andy and his absolute fear of the back bench rebellion! Wes Streating, shit the bed, an absolute political tool through and through with no concern or interest past mr Streating esquire!
Will this book be made available on Kindle?
When serving I well remember how thorough and well put together the MACA and MACC plans for a whole host of eventualities were. In one of my staff jobs, one element of it was to update the text relating to REME support of the various plans. I had no involvement in any MACP plans or the Government War Book. Hopefully the rewrite of the latter will also be thorough and done by the right people. What is of concern is the related activity for planning and executing homeland defence by the Services, which we used to call MHD, Military Home Defence. In General War, the core of the Army, that which is assigned to NATO, will be in Europe. Will what remains be sufficient and suitably well trained and equipped to defend the homeland? What will be the capability gaps? I guess one will be RA AD units! I am sure the other Services will have shortfalls too.
Obviously, no mate.
The “war book” use to have quite an influence in day to day life in the UK, from the siting of roads and the maintenance of those those roads (so they can be used by the Army and the RAF). The siting of the power network and how the power stations would be defended. The building of new housing near to military establishments. The design of new ships and aircraft so they could be of use in time of war. Lists of all the UK boffins who could/would make a difference in time of war, and a lot more besides. All that came to a stop in the early 1990’s, so now it is just a free for all when it comes to planning and designing new infrastructure and keeping new ship and aircraft designs capable of transporting personnel and heavy military equipment. It will take quite a bit of money to re-write such a book and a lot more money to make the UK able to step-up to a war footing.
The censorship will come very easily for them, they’ve being doing that with their accolytes in the media since they were elected 2 years ago.
The civil defence section should be a quick read. None.