One of Britain’s top generals received backing on Thursday after calling for a “citizen army” to guard against a potential war with Russia, despite being slapped down by Rishi Sunak.
Experts said the call from General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing Chief of the General Staff (CGS), would avert the need for all-out conscription by providing the stretched Army with enough “second echelon” reserve forces of up to half a million trained volunteers.
General Sir Nick Parker, a former Commander Land Forces, said the Army chief was encouraging a much-needed debate despite No10 making clear on Wednesday that the PM does not endorse his call.
The “political narrative at the moment is very short term” and Sir Patrick was looking to the longer term, the retired commander told Times Radio.
Britain cannot automatically rely on the United States, Sir Nick said, with Donald Trump eyeing a return to the White House on an isolationist platform that could include withdrawal of US funding for NATO.
“Russia is camped in a fifth of Ukraine,” he noted. “The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries are more vociferous. It just feels as if the old situation that we were in after the Cold War, with very dominant Western democracies, is changing.
“And in those circumstances, surely we in the UK need to make sure that we are as resilient as we possibly can be, and to be prepared to question whether the forces that we have are the right ones for what may happen in the future.”
Professor Michael Clarke, of the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, said on Radio 4’s Today programme that Sir Patrick was “telling truth to power”. He conceded that the retiring general could be repeating the standard plea of top commanders for more resources.
“But that doesn’t change the reality that what he’s saying is, if you look at warfare in the past, and as it’s developing for the future, and Ukraine was a very good example of this: numbers matter.”
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps has warned that the West is "moving from a post-war to pre-war world" - but played down concerns that the number of full-time trained Army personnel is set to fall to 73,000 in 2025 after years of poor recruitment.
He said on Sunday “the lethality of your armed forces - that is what really matters” in terms of new aircraft carriers, advanced jets and land-based weaponry.
But in a speech on Wednesday, Sir Patrick said Britain could not rely solely on its naval and air power, arguing “we must be able to credibly fight and win wars on land”.
He said: “We need an Army designed to expand rapidly to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon and train and equip the citizen army that must follow.
“Within the next three years, it must be credible to talk of a British Army of 120,000, folding in our reserve and strategic reserve.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said “hypothetical scenarios” about potential future conflicts were “not helpful”.
On the possibility of conscription in future, he added: “The British military has a proud tradition of being a voluntary force. There are no plans to change that.”
Prof Clarke said “absolutely nobody” in the military wants conscription.
“But what Patrick Sanders is saying is if we don't create an army which is capable of being expanded as a volunteer citizen army, you may be faced in the most dire of circumstances with the necessity of conscription, which we all want to avoid.”
Armed Forces Minister James Heappey tweeted: "Firstly, conscription. Nobody’s ever mentioned it, nobody’s even thinking about it. CGS didn’t say it. It’s all nonsense."
He said: "We’ve long had plans for remobilising service leavers & mobilising volunteers. Similarly requirements for industrial mobilisation. So this isn’t new and were in both Reserve Forces 2030 review & Defence Command Paper refresh [two Government papers]."
Britain's adversaries should understand that "we’ve not only got 1st echelon forces they don’t want to fight but that as a nation we’ve got staying power to stay in fight", the minister added.
