UK to mobilise veterans in major war-readiness exercise next year

The UK plans to call up some veterans as part of a major exercise next year designed to test the country's resilience in the event of war. The drill will examine how the Ministry of Defence would react on a scale not seen for a very long time, according to armed forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones. It will involve an unspecified number of people from the British military's strategic reserve.

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Sandher-Jones told the House of Lords national resilience committee that the exercise in 2027 will go through measures to call out, use and equip retired troops at scale if needed. She said the strategic reserve is now being treated as a real commitment rather than something people simply file away and forget. The reserve is estimated to include about 95,000 retired regular and reserve officers across the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force.

The plan forms part of a wider effort by the Ministry of Defence to make greater use of the strategic reserve after warnings about workforce retention. Earlier this year, ministers raised the age limit for the reserve from 55 to 65 and lowered the threshold for calling people into service. The chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, warned in January that there was not an effective system for engaging them.

The announcement comes as the government faces pressure to increase defence spending and improve readiness. Nato figures put UK defence spending at an estimated 2.4% of gross domestic product last year, while ministers are under pressure to raise it to 3% by the end of the decade. The exercise is also part of a broader push to prepare the public for emergencies, including possible disruption from extreme weather and cyber attacks.

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Sandher-Jones said Finland was "showing the way ahead" with Europe's largest civil defence exercise since the Second World War, which involved more than 2,000 people. Her comments suggest the UK is looking at how other European countries are strengthening resilience planning and civil defence. The strategic reserve itself is intended to provide a pool of trained personnel who can be brought back into service if circumstances require it.

What remains unclear is how many veterans will be involved, what exact scenarios will be tested and how the mobilisation would work in practice. The Ministry of Defence has not yet set out the full design of the exercise. The coming months are expected to bring more detail on the public awareness campaign and on how the reserve will be used in future planning.

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