The UK's "underpowered and dangerously slow" home defence efforts mean the nation faces critical vulnerabilities when compared to allied countries, experts have warned.
Home defence should be treated as a strategic necessity in the face of persistent and escalating threats to the nation from hostile states, according to a new paper which recommends urgent and decisive action.
It says current work is too fragmented and, without immediate clarity of purpose, strong governance, and rapid mobilisation of resources, the UK risks strategic paralysis.
The list of immediate threats confronting the country today is growing and includes cyberattack; sabotage; and attacks on critical national infrastructure or communications installations. In response, the paper outlines steps the government needs to take to rapidly operationalise home defence, within the broader 'whole-of-society enterprise' outlined in the 2025 Strategic Defence Review 2025.
The paper argues that practical steps should be taken to prepare the public. For instance, industry and organisations need to be supported to move away from 'just in time' responses to emerging crises and to build resilience and self-sufficiency now, including by stockpiling and reducing reliance on imports.
The report suggests that the Government should look to partners overseas for examples of best practice, including Finland, Poland and the Baltic Republics. It recommends the designation of a lead Government department with a clear mandate for home defence, with executive tasking authorities, adequate financial resources, and experienced and specialist staff.
It recommends that timelines for the delivery of a home defence strategy and its operationalisation should be set in months not years. This should draw upon existing capacity of central and local government departments along with law enforcement and emergency services already involved in crisis and resilience planning and response.
There should also be urgent work to educate the public to encourage them to actively play their part. Larger group training and education at scale needs to take place to include law enforcement and emergency services, local and central government officials, industry leaders and civil society groups.
The report, "Making Sense of Home Defence" was written by Frances Tammer, Harry Pitts and Gareth Stansfield from the University of Exeter with a foreword by the Director of the Centre for the Public Understanding of Defence and Security, Paul Cornish.
Professor Tammer said: "Direction from above and resource commitment are sorely lacking, which leaves the current approach to readiness looking amateur and without unifying purpose. The UK is at a standing start, whilst many of our allies are years ahead. The UK seems reluctant to have a proper nationwide conversation about defence, whilst others are not at all reticent."
Professor Pitts said "The essence of any 'whole-of-society' approach has to be to promote a sense of there being a coherent society to which individuals belong, and that the defence of it is something worth devoting their time and effort to. Otherwise, top-down rhetoric about home defence will fail to meet reality."
Professor Cornish said "As the SDR makes clear, the solution to the problem of improving home defence cannot be left to any one agency but must rest on closer collaboration not simply within defence, but between defence and all other departments of government responsible for home defence-related activity."
