A Sky News military analyst has said the UK will likely need an army of citizen volunteers in the future as NATO faces the threat of war with Russia – but conscription remains unlikely.
Professor Michael Clarke made the comments after the British Army chief said UK citizens should be “Trained and equipped” To fight in a potential war between NATO forces and Vladimir Putin's forces.
General Sir Patrick Sanders' comments led many to wonder whether he was hinting at the need for conscription if the UK and its NATO allies end up fighting Russia.
Speaking at the International Armored Vehicles Conference in west London, Sir Patrick said the UK must urgently increase the size of the army to around 120,000 troops within three years – up from around 74,000 now.
Professor Michael Clarke
Professor Clarke told the Sky News Daily podcast that the UK would have to return to having a “citizen army”, adding: “This is not the same as conscription.”
He continued: “What Sir Patrick is saying is that we will have to go back to larger forces. It will have to be a citizen army, but a volunteer citizen army of the kind we have had in the past, and perhaps we will have to do that again in the future.”
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Britain recruited a huge army of citizen volunteers after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, with more than three-quarters of a million men joining in eight weeks.
Professor Clarke said there was a “really important distinction” to be made between conscription and a volunteer citizen army.
He continued: “We're not trying to get ourselves into a war mentality here. What it's saying is that we have to be prepared to send an army to Europe that is capable, really capable of fighting the Russians. So we don't have to.
He added, “If we send a paper army to Europe, the Russians will find out immediately. It will not have any effect.”
He added: “If we send an army to Europe that is truly capable of fighting with our allies against any Russian attack on NATO, the Russians will see that, and there is a fairly good chance that we will not have to fight.”
“So deterrence is key to this strategy.”
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Professor Clarke said deterrence must be credible to be effective, and the size of the British Army at the moment means “we are not credible” in this regard.
He added that the British Army had “never had” conscription in its more than 360-year history, adding: “So it is completely at odds with British thinking about the army.”
It comes as Admiral Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, told Sky News that the UK would have to “mobilize” in the event of a war between NATO and Russia, and hinted that citizen volunteers would likely be part of that.
“I think it's Sir Patrick,” said the peer [talking about training citizens] He is Because he thinks the military is too small and he thinks this is a way to highlight that.
“But if he really believes that we should go down the path of mobilizing volunteers… well, that's what we did initially at the beginning of World War I,” he added.
Admiral Lord West also said one way the UK and European countries could help prevent a conflict between NATO and Russia is to spend more on defence.
“Because when Putin looks, he thinks these people are taking it seriously right now,” he added.
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Meanwhile, former UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon told Sky News Daily that Sir Patrick's warning about the size of the army and the need to train citizens should be taken “seriously”.
He continued: “A Interestingly, a number of European countries are now considering partial conscription.
“Even France was looking to encourage some form of military service for young people when they left university.”
He added that the size of the army had become “dangerously small” and that the army needed to improve its recruitment process.
“Sooner or later, if the military cannot improve the way they recruit, obviously, if it comes to conflict, they will have to look to other methods,” Fallon continued.
Jim Townsend, former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, told Sky News' Foreign Affairs programme The world with Yalda Hakim That the British Army is still “first in rank” but there is a problem “in terms of mass”.
“There is not enough. There is not enough in terms of ships, aircraft, pilots and Royal Navy personnel,” he said.
“The United States continues to value the United Kingdom greatly, and it is important that the United Kingdom is on our side.
“But I think a lot of us would like the British Army to be a little bigger.”
