Britons could face being called up to fight in a potential World War Three, with the "whole of the nation" warned to prepare for conscription within six years. Security and intelligence expert Professor Anthony Glees issued the stark warning amid fears Britain could become embroiled in a wider conflict with Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Government urged to sign up volunteers
The University of Buckingham academic said the "whole of the nation" should be ready for the possibility of conscription, while urging the Government to begin signing up volunteers. Professor Glees told the Mirror: "The UK Government should plan to sign up volunteers now and over the next three years and 'the whole of the nation' should prepare for conscription within six years unless Putin were defeated."
His warning came after the then-head of the British Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, said the UK needed to prepare its population for the possibility of a major war because the military was too small. Professor Glees compared the situation facing Britain to 1937, two years before the outbreak of the Second World War.
Echoes of '1937 moment'
It echoed previous comments from Sir Patrick, who had described the challenges facing the West following Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a "1937 moment". Sir Patrick did not call for conscription but argued that a major shift was needed in the way ordinary Britons thought about defence and preparing for conflict. He instead called for a Finnish-style "citizen army" of around 500,000 people, encompassing regular soldiers, reservists and eventually volunteers and ordinary citizens.
Professor Glees suggested a more limited form of conscription could also become a possibility. He said: "I would see a 'limited conscription', a call-up of incentivised volunteers, as being very much on the cards if Putin is now thrown out of Ukraine. Obviously, if there were a wider European or world war, conscription would follow at once. Putin has repeatedly said he wants the post-1997 NATO states to be disarmed and brought back into the Russia orbit, re-creating the system of satellites that was the strategic policy of the USSR. There's not a snowball's chance in hell of Putin just going away."
NATO warnings and government stance
The comments came amid warnings from senior NATO figures over the possibility of a future confrontation with Russia. Admiral Rob Bauer, then chairman of NATO's Military Committee, warned that civilians would also have a role to play if a major conflict erupted. He said large numbers of civilians could have to be mobilised in the event of war and argued that governments needed to consider how such a process would work.
At the time, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said conscription was not on the agenda. The UK Government has continued to rule out a return to compulsory military service, saying as recently as October that there are "no current plans to reintroduce National Service". Britain instead continues to rely on professional regular and reserve Armed Forces, although work is under way to examine how the country could mobilise more people during a future crisis or conflict.
