The former head of the British Army Lord Richard Dannatt has agreed with General Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff (CGS) that “we will have to get involved” in fighting a war.

Lord Dannatt warned that we only have 75,000 soldiers and this “will not be sustainable.” For example Vladimir Putin has this amount of troops surrounding just one town in Ukraine.

General Lord Dannatt, said General Sir Patrick is correct to raise such a scenario, “if push comes to shove, as a population, we will all have to get involved and harness the manpower of the nation.”

He added, “If international circumstances deteriorate where this country finds itself at war, fighting with an army of 75,000 soldiers will not be sustainable.

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“Regular armies fight the opening rounds and the citizen army come in later and put on uniform; we saw it in the First and Second World Wars.

“That’s the reality, and it’s realistic to have these conversations. I certainly don’t criticise the Chief of the General Staff for doing so.”

General Sir Patrick said on Wednesday, “Ukraine brutally illustrates that regular armies start wars, citizen armies win them,” he said.

“We need an army designed to expand rapidly to enable the first echelon, resource the second echelon, and train and equip the citizen army that must follow.

“Within the next three years, it must be credible to talk of a British Army of 120,000, folding in our reserve and strategic reserve. But that’s not enough.”

Tobias Ellwood, the former chairman of the defence select committee, said, “We must get into a mindset that the world is moving dangerously in the wrong direction and it is now impacting on our economy, first in the Black Sea, now in the Red Sea.

“The post-Cold War period of instability is over, a new chapter has begun where a new alliance of adversaries are testing the West’s timidity.

“Britain has done well to rekindle its Cold War statecraft, but we can only continue to do that if we upgrade our defence posture.”