Must the United Kingdom make sacrifices for war?

Recently, the Chief of the General Staff for the British Army gave a speech directed to wider audiences stating that Britons would soon need to make sacrifices for a time of war, and that political leaders would have a ‘frank conversation’ with the wider populace very soon. 

It was unclear exactly what either of those things meant. Indeed, it is one thing if his speech seeks to break in the populace for further cuts to public services and social security. It is another thing if he means the British population will be mobilised to take part in direct warfare. 

At the start of the year I wrote about the need for communities to consult their informal networks and prepare for ‘tempestuous futures’. Now the British and Irish governments are encouraging people to stockpile. I have heard anecdotes of military or emergency workers advising their churches on preparation. The Red Cross societies are notably reformulating strategies and operations to meet extreme weather emergencies. 

Broadly speaking, financial resilience is worse now, as more households can't save or invest. Easing measures such as the bus fare cap in England or the VAT reduction on electricity bills in Northern Ireland help, but do not ensure improvements in community resilience. 

Indeed, the British Security Services listed the most serious, hostile threats facing the United Kingdom as coming from Russia and Iran through grey and hybrid warfare, and the far right and AI as rising threats. Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England warned that there could be serious financial impacts for the wider economy, emanating from shadow banks. 

This gamut of highlighted threats by top leaders in the UK seems to contradict the narrative given by the Army Chief, full of sacrifices and frank conversations. Indeed, if the Defence Investment Plan is anything to go by, there will be no mass mobilisation, but instead a focus on UAV and sensor technology, procuring British-produced goods, and reducing procurement inefficiencies. 

So, what exactly are communities supposed to sacrifice, and what frank conversation must we listen to? Either this speech was dramatic, or there is an expectation of a rapid change in the global operating environment in the coming months. Perhaps the Army is not clear where exactly this change will originate from, even if effects can be predicted. 

In Kleptopia, Tom Burgis attributes causality of global dynamics to interactions between five different powers. The British Establishment, which excels in providing financial, communication, and legal services globally. Russia, head of an unholy union between organised crime and private intelligence and security. American Nationalists, who are conservative and symbiotic with US private industry. Petro-states, particularly those involved in the extractive industries. Finally, the ‘Red Nobility’ faction of the Chinese Communist Party. 

In The Establishment, Owen Jones details how much of the national legislative agenda in the UK has been set by lobbying groups and privately owned mainstream media since the 1980s, while Sam Fowles details how the Establishment manipulates the legal system in Overruled. 

Craig Unger in House of Trump and Catherine Benton in Putin’s People detail how Putin’s Russia makes use of mafias, private security firms in Africa, and other crime groups in former USSR countries to exert coercive and intelligence power. Indeed, disinformation operations in the online space and the use of ‘cleanskins’ to commit terror attacks in Britain demonstrate the reach available to this power-centre. 

Farell and Newman detail in Underground Empire how symbiosis between the state, ‘Tech-bros’, Israeli lobbying actors, and big industry permits American Nationalists to abuse US hegemony over telecommunications, data centres, and financial systems and manipulate global events. A clear and recent example is Trump/Musk’s recent order to ‘slow down’ Starlink.

Petro-states such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Iran make use of warfare by proxy, striking backroom deals and seeding influence around the world, and indeed state-sponsored assassinations to maintain their power-centres.  

The Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping’s command uses aggressive influence and coercion operations via the rubric of the United Front System. As Desmond Shum details in Red Roulette, Xi Jinping’s China thrives on ambiguous and blurred rules and processes, which, as a principle, extend into his faction’s international behaviours.

By the admission of a national security assessment, ecological collapse and food security are now a considerable threat to the United Kingdom and Ireland. That threat is a direct consequence of the Kleptopia model just described. 

Perhaps the right question is not whether the British public needs to sacrifice at all, but if the Chief of General Staff has the right sacrifices in mind. It is no longer relevant if the public must accept cuts to public services or sign up for gruelling military campaigns. Europe is not fighting against the Russian Army, but rather a bundle of democracies fighting against psychopathic authoritarians who have no rules or boundaries. 

Worthwhile sacrifices would involve British and Irish communities accepting a limit to technologies and services available to them, such as American-produced social media and AIs, or Chinese products from Temu and Shein. They may have to accept that Britain will need to rejoin the EU common market. They may have to accept that previously desired career paths are no longer viable and accept roles in their local communities focused on operations.

However, it works both ways. British and Irish communities require resilience-building support; independent and sustainable energy supplies, food supplies, shelter, civil defence, healthcare, and water-sewage supplies cannot be set up without greater financial backing. This will inevitably involve the haves sharing some of their resources with the have-nots through a viable medium – loans, redistributive taxes, or even confiscation. 

Rather than asking for more sacrifice from everyday communities, it is time to have a frank dialogue about the need for a new covenant in British and Irish societies. In return for a good and sustainable standard of living in everyday communities, communities will support a well-planned, specific, and whole-of-society response to the authoritarian advance. 

Not all of us must sign up to the Armed Forces and march into Russia, as cathartic as that may be for some. Instead, we must contribute our abilities to a stable and controlled deconstruction of the current Kleptopia. The two most important things – our environments and our everyday lives – depend on it.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Anidaat

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