With Europe on the brink and UK troops promised to Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, Chris Riches asks if full-blown conscription is the solution?
Cadets at Sandhurst commissioned as Army officers at the Sovereign’s Parade (Image: Getty)
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the US wading in on Venezuela and Iran, while flexing its muscles over Cuba and Greenland, WWIII has frighteningly never seemed nearer. But with Sir Keir Starmer also vowing to put British boots on the ground in Ukraine if a peace deal is agreed, how will our shrunken forces cope – and is conscription the only answer?
The UK has only ever had two periods of ‘conscription’, between 1916 and 1920, and 1939 and 1960 – but Britain has changed dramatically since then. In fact, due to rampant immigration, the nation has altered massively just in the last 15 years. I can pop to my local coffee shop, sip my flat white and listen to the resulting range of accents.
First of all, how would multicultural UK Gen Zs react to a ‘Britons – Lord Kitchener Wants You!’-style call to arms in 2026?
Last summer, an alarming Daily Express poll revealed 64% of Brits would refuse to join the Army, Navy or Air Force to defend our nation if Vladimir Putin‘s increased Russian aggression plunged Europe into WWIII.
Certainly, a recruitment boost is needed – Britain has around 141,300 full-time troops, a number dwarfed by Russia’s more than 1.1 million. From 1960 to the present, the number of UK regular troops has decreased by 74%.
To use a football analogy, the armed forces need ‘more than one Premier League transfer window’ to bolster their ranks, but do they need reluctant, begrudging Gen Zs?
Asking green-haired loony-left 18-year-olds to take off their ‘Trans Rights Are Human Rights’ T-shirts, remove cheek piercings (they catch on the assault course cargo nets) – and swap shredded tofu peanut ramen for bully beef and beans – is a cultural shock.
Imagine their drill instructor having to yell: “Right now you non-gender conformist, diverse lot – my next words may contain strong language some may find offensive!
“You are not here to kill but ‘cancel’ the enemy! March … or do not march. Whichever you feel comfortable doing. Anyone with white privilege, get down and give me 50 press-ups!”
Some hard-left Gen Zs on university campuses sound like Stalin’s commissars-in-training already – it might confuse them asking them to fight against Putin’s army.
Several European nations, including Germany and France, have moved to reinstate conscription to address their manpower shortages – and many defence commentators have urged the UK to consider following suit.
However, I cannot see forcing Gen Z to fight – and we may not have to.
British Army Recruitment Advertisement In Newcastle Upon Tyne (Image: Getty)
My dad did his National Service in the RAF and now, aged 92, he still talks about the camaraderie, the pranks and the experience.
He grew up in that time, but a modern National Service does not have to mean what it did in the 1940s and 50s.
At my school growing up, we had two choices on a Monday afternoon: you either joined the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) of the Army, Navy, or RAF, or you volunteered for community service.
Last autumn, I visited an Army cadet camp in Bovington, Dorset, and chatted to some of the young teenagers taking part, to see why they joined the cadets and if they could imagine enlisting in the regular Army when older.
Almost all the boys and girls we spoke to eagerly admitted they would love to join the armed forces when older. Some were from poor areas of the UK with high unemployment. Enlisting gave them the offer of a vocation and a future.
So if we had a one or two-year National Service for all, from the age of 18-20, how about those who are ‘not so keen’ on defending our nation being made to do two years of community work and volunteering instead?
Then, when two years are up, those on both pathways – the armed forces or community service – can either leave and look for a job, attend university, start an apprenticeship, or stay on to begin a career in either the military or community projects.
A University of Northampton study shows being an armed forces cadet leads to better resilience, school attendance, academic achievement, mental health and fewer behaviour issues.
We could end up with future UK generations brimming with resilience, national pride AND empathy – who Oscar Wilde would concede finally know the price of everything and the value of some of it too.
