MUNICH – The UK needs to take a “whole of nation approach” to defence, involving everything from universities to adopting national service, a former senior military official told The i Paper.
RAF Commodore Blythe Crawford, who joined the military as the Cold War was coming to an end, said the present moment is the most dangerous of his 34-year career.
Speaking to The i Paper at the Munich Security Conference, the commodore, who recently retired from his role as head of the Air and Space Warfare Centre, outlines four key steps needed to help reform defence in the UK.
Protect data, energy, commerce and logistics
The British public has become accustomed to wars being fought far from home, in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, but Crawford stressed that the homeland must be of growing importance.
He described national infrastructure as the “soft underbelly” of the UK, pointing to recent cyber attacks and sabotage on undersea cables.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies last year reported that Russia was already waging an “unconventional war on Europe”. It said it was doing this through sabotage, vandalism, espionage and covert action, aiming to “destabilise European governments” and undermine public support for Ukraine, as well as to “weaken the collective ability of Nato and the European Union to respond to Russian aggression”.
The HMS Diamond (foreground) shadowing the Russian reconnaissance ship Yantar, which has two uncrewed submarines thought to be capable of severing undersea cables (Photo: Ministry of Defence)“National defence is a national endeavour – it’s not just about warfighting,” Crawford said.
“We have not become the Department of War. We are still the Ministry of Defence, and that defence is not just about fighting, it’s also about those things that underpin it; data, commerce, energy and logistics. Those things also underpin our economy,” he added.
Work more closely with academia
Crawford said that “another area we really need to address is academia, because that is absolutely one of our strengths”.
He added: “Traditionally, a lot of universities have been more left-leaning than not, but I’ve seen a significant shift just over the last two years, where I’ve had multiple universities come forward saying ‘how can we help?’ because they recognise that this is a warfare-at-home scenario, rather than overseas.”
The UK military does have academic partnerships – including a new drone course, military academic fellowships and a university-backed department at the MOD’s staff college – but Crawford said there also needs to be new academic institutions to facilitate collaboration.
@theipaperA new drone school – supported by the British Army – is training the next generation in drone warfare. The £240,000 programme will train Gen Z soldiers and civilians in drones, which can be used for everything from parcel delivery to missile attacks, bolstering the economy and defence. Drones have revolutionised warfare in recent years and dominated the battlefields in Ukraine. The British Army is trying to stay ahead of the curve on these developments to give the UK a competitive advantage.
♬ original sound – The i Paper – The i Paper“I’ve been blown away by some of the work that’s been done,” he said, highlighting as an example a centre for underwater acoustics, which involves some of the top academics in the country. “If we came to a crisis, they would lean in and help the Government get after this,” he added.
“Why are we not doing that across other sectors? I aspire to do that for electronic warfare, too.”
National service – but not conscription
Some UK allies have conscription in place, having reintroduced it in recent years, including Lithuania, Sweden and Latvia, which brought back mandatory military service in 2015, 2018 and 2024, respectively.
Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkevics, said other European nations should “absolutely” introduce conscription to counter the threat of Russian aggression.
The UK, for its part, is launching a gap year programme aimed at bolstering recruitment, upskilling young people and engaging Gen Z.
Due to open for recruitment next month, under-25s will be able to join the Army, RAF or Navy for broad military training, with programmes lasting between one and two years.
Junior soldiers as they graduate from the Army Foundation College in Harrogate, which takes students from age 16 (Photo: Ian Forsyth/Getty)Crawford said that the gap year was a “good start” and would help to build personal resilience, but that the UK needed to go further in its national service plans.
“There is a sweet spot somewhere between a gap year and a full-blown, three-years subscription,” he said. “We need to work out what that sweet spot is.”
Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, said in December that more Britons must be ready to fight for their country, warning that “more families will know what sacrifice for our nation means”.
Reforming the purchase of weapons and tech
Crawford said that to scale up innovation and defence readiness, the UK must work out how to speed up its procurement of equipment.
“The blockers to that are primarily our bureaucracy and process,” he said.
Crawford believes the process needs to be streamlined, with a quicker and more open competition between suppliers to provide the best value and output for the Ministry of Defence’s needs.
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