UK to draft veterans for war-readiness drill as MoD pushes wider reserve use
Some British veterans will be called up next year for a government exercise designed to test how the United Kingdom would cope in a war.
Some British veterans will be called up next year for a government exercise designed to test how the United Kingdom would cope in a war. The drill will put the Ministry of Defence under pressure “on a scale that we haven't seen for a very long time,” armed forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones told peers on Monday.
The exercise will draw on the British military’s strategic reserve, a pool estimated at 95,000 retired regular and reserve officers. The number set to be involved has not been disclosed. But the message from the government is clear: the reserve is no longer being treated as a dormant list on a spreadsheet.
A sharper role for the reserve
Sandher-Jones said the Ministry of Defence wants a “real step change” in how often the strategic reserve is used, after warnings over a workforce retention crisis. She said the planned drill forms part of that shift, with veterans to be exercised as part of next year’s programme.
The minister has personal experience of that pool herself. Before becoming an MP, she served in the British Army as an intelligence officer and later found she was still part of the strategic reserve.
“Certainly when I left the Army and found out I was in the strategic reserve, I just filed it away and never thought about it again,” she told the House of Lords national resilience committee. “We are definitely no longer in that space.”
Why London is widening the net
The move comes as governments across Europe and beyond reassess how quickly civilian institutions, armed forces and emergency systems could respond to a major conflict. Britain is not alone in facing that question. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed defence planning back up the agenda across NATO capitals, while militaries from the Baltics to Scandinavia have also been weighing how to mobilise reserves and support staff faster if crisis deepens.
Against that backdrop, the UK is trying to turn more of its retired military talent into a usable asset. That is the point of the strategic reserve: people who still carry military experience, but may have assumed their service was in the past. Not anymore, Sandher-Jones suggested.
The exercise is meant to stress-test the MoD’s reaction, not just its theory on paper. That means seeing how quickly it can identify, contact and use former officers when the pressure rises. It is also a test of trust. Can veterans be brought back into a national response at short notice, and will the system know how to use them?
The ministry has not said what form the exercise will take, or when next year it will happen. But the planning itself signals a broader shift in defence thinking: Britain is preparing to use its reserve more, and expecting some veterans to answer the call.
