What war could mean for life in modern Britain

Wartime Britain

It is 2034, and Britain is at war with Russia. After an uneasy peace with Ukraine, Moscow has sent forces into the Baltics, clashing with British troops based there to protect Nato’s eastern flank.

As fighting intensifies, cross-Channel shipping is attacked by Russian submarines, and long-range conventional missiles strike Dover and Southampton. Meanwhile, the Kremlin scrambles a Russian invasion force.

Right now, such scenarios tend to exercise only the minds of Ministry of Defence war-gamers and military thriller writers. But far-fetched as they might sound, General Sir Patrick Sanders, the head of Britain’s army, believes it is time we dwelt on them more.

Last week, he urged Britons to be “clear-eyed” about the threat from Russia, and said civilians should be ready to mobilise. “We won’t be immune,” he warned. “And as the pre-war generation, we’ve got to similarly prepare, and that is a whole nation undertaking.”

But can a nation that has known 80 years of peace rise to the challenge? Would we Keep Calm and Carry On, resurrecting the Blitz and bulldog spirit? Would we cope with rationing and an end to creature comforts? And in the era of “snowflakes” and “safe spaces”, could the “pre-war generation” handle war at all?

What war would look like

The conflict in Ukraine offers a glimpse of how Britain might prepare for self-defence. Checkpoints and pillboxes would be built at motorway junctions and city entrances. Public buildings and metro stations would be used as air raid shelters, while anti-aircraft guns might be hidden in parks.

Key bridges could be dynamited, airport runways blocked, and beaches sown with landmines. Schools and halls of residence would become barracks. The temporary “Nightingale” hospitals built to deal with Covid would be reopened – and the makeshift mortuaries nearby.

The problem with peace

Britain is unable to make steel from scratch, which presents a problem for tanks – Getty

While Covid was a useful exercise in Armageddon planning, 21st-century Britain is arguably less ready for actual warfare than it was even 30 years ago. At the end of the Cold War, most of the 100-strong network of nuclear bunkers were closed, along with around 1,500 underground posts for the Royal Observer Corps, a 10,000-strong volunteer force.

The decline in manufacturing means there are far fewer factories that can be converted to make arms, as happened in the Second World War, when car makers churned out Spitfire parts. And in a globalised world, many industries that are key in wartime rely on imports.

The decision of India’s Tata Steel this month to shut its two blast furnaces at Port Talbot, for example, means that Britain may soon be unable to make steel from scratch. Without steel, there are no tanks, no warships and no artillery shells.

Britain has also allowed ammunition supplies to dwindle to “dangerously low levels,” according to a Parliamentary Defence Committee report. Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the former head of the British Joint Forces Command, told the committee that he doubted there were “sufficient munitions to sustain a high-intensity conflict for more than about a week”.

‘Your country needs you’

Only one in five Britons would volunteer for service in the event of an invasion, says a study – Getty

Military kit also needs boots on the ground to operate it – hence Sir Patrick’s call for a “Citizen Army” to boost the regular Armed Forces. Whether people would be flocking into recruitment offices is open to question. According to a 2022 YouGov poll, only one in five Britons would volunteer for service in the event of an invasion.

“Psychologically, it would be devastating,” says Simon Moody, a lecturer in defence studies at King’s College London. “Also, the Britain of today isn’t as homogeneous as it was, with less sense of a shared vision. I think the majority would band around the idea of national unity, but a significant minority might push against it.”

The logistics of training a “Citizen Army” are also formidable, according to one former Territorial Army (TA) soldier. “If you are talking about mass mobilisation to defend the homeland, that is hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.

“It would take a month to train them to even the most basic level, and then there’s things like mental health and criminal background checks – you can’t just give anyone a weapon.”

Still, Ukraine’s example shows it can be done, with less capable (or dedicated) recruits assigned to non-front-line roles. Yet according to the former TA soldier, the idea that the “youth of today” are less sturdy than their predecessors is a myth.

“We have become so comfortable here in Britain that it’s hard to imagine young people fighting, and when I went to Afghanistan a decade ago, I didn’t think the youngsters of 18-20 would be up to much,” he said.

“But as it turned out, they were the ones who did all the fighting and often died selflessly for their mates.”

Civil unrest

Looting

Violence might not be confined to the front line. The Covid lockdown, which saw fights breaking out in queues at supermarkets and garages, was a glimpse of how trouble can spark during times of nationwide panic. There would also be concerns about looting, especially if food shortages started to bite.

Even during the London Blitz in 1941, nearly 5,000 looting cases came before the Old Bailey. If law and order really began to break down, security forces could be authorised to use lethal force against looters; neighbourhood vigilante groups might spring up.

“The Blitz spirit was a bit of a myth in some ways – many Britons were pretty miserable and just worried about where they were going to get food,” says Mr Moody. “I’m not sure we do have much resilience, and my personal sense is that people might behave very selfishly.”

Another potential threat could come from anti-war politicians, whom Kremlin propagandists might seek to incite. However, don’t expect to see Jeremy Corbyn being carted off straight away. In extremis, a wartime government could inter anyone deemed a threat to public order or the war effort.

But if Ukraine’s experience is anything to go by, the threat posed by a common enemy could have a unifying effect. Kyiv’s politicians used to be notoriously fractious – not least because of divisions between the pro and anti-Russian camps. Once Putin rolled his tanks in, pro-Russian sentiment largely vanished.

In a major war, most people are kept busy anyway. A large diversion of citizens to military duty would leave gaps in the workforce to be filled, be it guarding food warehouses or building trenches and bomb shelters. Retired members of essential professions – doctors, nurses, morticians, police – would be urged back into service. As in Ukraine, office techies could be in demand to operate drones on the front lines and to fend off cyberattacks.

Digital Doomsday?

True Russian cyberwarfare capabilities have proved something of a damp squib in Ukraine. Far from crippling the entire national infrastructure, the worst they are known to have done is briefly disrupt power and mobile phone networks. That, though, is partly because Ukraine had already learnt from previous Russian cyberattacks over the past decade.

“At a national level, I think Britain would be relatively OK, as GCHQ is constantly monitoring this, but at the local level, emergency services, hospitals and town halls are still using legacy software that could be vulnerable,” says Jake Moore, a digital crime expert with ESET, a major European cybersecurity firm.

He points out that our digital networks are mainly cellular in structure, making it almost impossible to wipe them all at once. Last month, though, Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister – who as Minister for Disaster Preparedness is our “Doomsday Tsar” – urged Britons to stock up on old-school FM radios and spare batteries, warning that society was too “reliant on digital infrastructure”.

Rationing

Ration book

Even if cyberattacks didn’t wipe out Netflix, wartime Britons would still face a life without luxuries. While the Channel has long been the country’s greatest defence, it makes it hard to import in times of war. As well as curbs on foreign consumer goods, there’d be runs on more basic products like medical kits, fuel canisters and masking tape to stop windows shattering during bombing raids.

If the Channel Tunnel were closed, the only way of getting imports into Britain might be by wartime naval convoys. That would force the country to become more food self-sufficient, as it was during the Second World War, when food imports were halved. There could, however, be benefits: just as Britons enjoyed their healthiest diet ever during that time (partly due to a lack of sugar imports), the absence of less processed foods could curb the nation’s obesity crisis.

Finest hour?

Indeed, for all the foreboding about societal collapse, facing a common threat could give Britain a new-found sense of unity – something many Ukrainians speak of. Just as there was the “Clap for Carers” during the pandemic, similar rituals might take place for those serving at the front. And for every shirker or draft-dodger, others might take pride in national duty, be it manning a machine gun post or cleaning the streets.

“Covid showed our ugly side, with people getting upset when all they were being asked to do was sit on the sofa at home,” said the former TA soldier.

“But I do think that, under threat of invasion, Brits would pull together, just as Ukraine has done. It might be for the best in some ways – right now all we do is bitch and complain about things.”

But be we warriors or wimps, now is the time to start facing up to the prospect, says Ed Arnold, a European Security Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute. “Personally, I’m very sceptical that we are prepared. If we took casualties at the rate the Ukrainians are taking them, the NHS would immediately be overwhelmed, and for years we’ve missed recruitment targets for the Armed Forces.

“It’s not to say war will happen. But it’s important to start the conversation – and to say that these risks aren’t hypothetical.”

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