A British military commentator who predicted in November 2024 that Russia could paralyze the United Kingdom in a conflict is now seeing his warnings taken more seriously by the government, as the Ministry of Defence prepares its largest civil defense resilience exercises since the end of the Cold War. The commentator, who posted a video titled “Can Russia Attack Britain? How a Conventional Attack Might Look,” faced criticism from viewers who accused him of needless scaremongering. He clarified that his video was not suggesting Russia would attack Britain alone, as that would trigger a full NATO response.
Instead, it examined how Russia could cripple the UK if NATO, including Britain, were already at war. He outlined that a combination of precision cruise missile strikes and cyber attacks would quickly destroy unhardened transport hubs, power generation facilities, and many military bases, causing widespread chaos. Food supply networks would collapse, ports and bridges would become inoperable, and phone networks would fail, inevitably leading to civil unrest. Now, the government and the Ministry of Defence are taking steps to launch exercises testing civil defense resilience against conventional and cyber attacks, the largest of their kind since 1991.
However, the commentator remains unconvinced that Britain’s small and underfunded army could do much in the event of a multi-dimensional attack. The Ministry of Defence is exploring how to rapidly expand the British Army in the face of such threats or if war actually breaks out. Much has been written in newspapers about the possibility of conscription or a return to national service, but the commentator argues that the last thing the army wants in a crisis is to train unwilling young people forced into uniform from scratch. The discussion centers on how the Ministry of Defence could expand the army quickly without the government ordering conscription—and if they did try to impose it, what that might look like.
Politicians frequently raise the idea of reintroducing national service, the compulsory military service for young people that existed in Britain between 1948 and 1963. Old footage shows what national service involved, with recruits receiving uniforms and weapons, with the basics remaining the same: turning an 18-year-old civilian into a disciplined, physically fit fighter within weeks before they serve in a useful role and return to society. Crucially, for any future emergency, national service provided a huge pool of trained ex-soldiers who could be called back if necessary—something the country lacks today. The training involved five weeks of intense basic military training, with sergeants taking control on the parade ground, establishing discipline, basic knowledge, and physical fitness.
The transformation in these men within just five weeks was remarkable, with upright posture and new confidence. Britain abolished compulsory military service in May 1963. Between 1948 and 1963, all able-bodied young men were required to serve 18 months in one of the armed forces. Before that, conscription had only been enforced during the two World Wars.
Britain has relied on a professional volunteer army since 1963. This raises an obvious question. With a British army so small that a former army chief said it would struggle to occupy a small town in wartime, what would happen if the government decided to commit the UK to a large-scale war? How would the army be expanded to provide a force large enough to have an impact?
The government would not start calling people up immediately. Instead, it would first exhaust its stock of reservists and veterans before moving to untrained civilians, because the army is backed by two groups of trained personnel who can be legally mobilized in emergencies. The regular British Army today numbers about 74,000 soldiers, representing around 13 combat brigades and divisions, and maintains two divisions ready for deployment. The first group of trained personnel who can be called up is the “Regular Reserve,” consisting of former regular service personnel who leave the army but retain a legal obligation to serve for a set number of years.
The commentator’s maternal grandfather faced this in 1950, having been a regular soldier between 1930 and 1946 before becoming a civilian after World War II, but was recalled to service from the Regular Reserve for the Korean War due to a shortage of experienced veterans. He ended up serving until 1960. The current strength of the Regular Reserve is undisclosed, with the last available figure from 2014 standing at 30,030 individuals when the regular army was much larger. The commentator conservatively estimates 15,000 regular reservists for 2026, whose call-up would raise the army to 89,000.
The next pool of trained soldiers is the “Volunteer Reserve,” formerly known as the Territorial Army or “weekend warriors” for being part-time soldiers—civilians in uniform. The Army Reserve would be immediately integrated into the regular army in the event of war, as happened with the Territorial Army in 1939, with all personnel and units distributed as needed. The Army Reserve currently numbers 25,700 men and women, though some would be medically unfit or exempted for various reasons. Most would likely be mobilized, increasing the army to 114,700—bringing it to the strength of the regular army in the late 1990s, perhaps enough to control three market towns.
At that point, trained manpower would be exhausted. The Ministry of Defence has pushed for a strategic reserve call-up to bring former soldiers back to service up to age 65, which would fill the ranks but with older, less fit individuals. Finally, civilian mobilization would be the last resort. This might begin with a national campaign calling for volunteers to join the army, similar to the Lord Kitchener “Your Country Needs You” poster.
But the commentator believes such a campaign would fail because people today are much less patriotic and more aware of what is happening in the world than the generations of the World Wars. Since the army already struggles to persuade people to join in peacetime, it is unlikely more people would want to join in wartime with its associated risks. The last resort would be conscription, whether reintroducing the national service of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the World War II call-ups, or some kind of draft system borrowed from the Americans like the Vietnam War lottery. It is unknown whether the same exemptions would apply.
If a major conflict occurred, the army would need a lot of manpower quickly. In 1939, men aged 20 to 23 were first required to register. Reserved occupations were legally regulated. Men working in essential industries such as coal mining, farming, engineering, and medicine were generally not called up, though they could volunteer.
Today, reserved occupations would not be the same. There is no coal mining industry anymore, farming is no longer labor-intensive, having shrunk to basically one farmer per farm, so that group of civilian labor no longer needs protection. The conscientious objector category might be reintroduced, with a tribunal system as in World War II to determine who has genuine moral convictions against fighting and who can be conscripted or imprisoned for refusing. Those classified as conscientious objectors would be given non-combat roles or civilian work supporting the war effort.
Whether women would be subject to military service like men this time is another question the commentator believes the government has not answered. The first stage would be limited conscription. In 1939, 240,000 men registered for service. However, this was later expanded to full conscription of men between ages 18 and 40, excepting the medically unfit and certain essential workers.
Later, conscription into the army was extended to age 51, and into some civil defense organizations to age 60, including police, fire services, civil defense work, and the Home Guard. Britain is not the only country considering reintroducing conscription. The United States recently ordered young people to register for the draft. Germany is seriously considering reintroducing national service, and Russia is seeking to mobilize up to half a million reservists.
The commentator notes it is certainly an interesting trend across many countries today.