Britain is updating its contingency plans for a transition from peacetime to war as concerns grow over the possibility of a future conflict involving Russia and NATO.
The government’s so-called “War Book”, which sets out how Whitehall departments would respond to a national emergency and was first introduced during the First World War, has not been comprehensively updated since the end of the Cold War.
The review is expected to require every government department to examine how it would operate during a major conflict, according to reports. Officials and defence analysts have called for the plans to be modernised amid assessments that Russia could pose a direct threat to NATO before the end of the decade.
Al Carns, the former armed forces minister, said the work was expected to be completed by the end of this year.
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Speaking to Sky News’ Defence Insider, Carns said the exercise was likely to expose significant gaps in capabilities and resources across Whitehall and the wider public sector, potentially creating additional demands on government spending.
The Cabinet Office is leading the review, with the revised plans expected to be tested during a major home-defence exercise in 2027 announced by then-prime minister Sir Keir Starmer in July.
The exercise follows a Ministry of Defence announcement that retired service personnel are expected to be called up next year as part of preparations to test Britain’s resilience in a major national emergency.
The government said the review reflected its broader approach to national security.
A government spokesperson said: “National security is the first duty of government, which is why we are delivering the biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War and investing in the capabilities needed to keep the British people safe.
“Alongside strengthening our armed forces, we are preparing the country for a range of potential threats, including by updating departments’ crisis plans, known as the war book.”
But the renewed focus on national resilience comes as ministers face difficult choices over existing defence spending. The government has faced criticism after the Army was forced to reprioritise training as the Ministry of Defence seeks to operate within its available budget.
Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has defended the decision, saying Britain must “live within our means”, while rejecting claims that military exercises have been halted altogether.
Mark Francois, Conservative MP for Rayleigh and Wickford, questioned Streeting in the Commons over reports that Army training programmes had been cut.
Streeting argued that the armed forces needed to adapt quickly to lessons from the war in Ukraine, rather than treating existing training programmes as fixed.
However, reports that exercises were cancelled at short notice have highlighted the strain created by uncertainty over defence funding. Some soldiers were reportedly left “twiddling their thumbs” as the government negotiated its longer-term spending commitments.
The disruption has been linked to delays in Labour’s Defence Investment Plan, which was originally expected to be published in full last autumn. Prolonged negotiations between the Treasury and Ministry of Defence left military planners facing a funding gap after annual training schedules had already been established.
The government is also under growing pressure to commit to spending 3 per cent of GDP on defence by 2030. Prime Minister Andy Burnham has clashed with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch over the timetable, arguing that “serious threats to national security that cannot wait” require action.
Burnham has rejected Conservative proposals to fund higher defence spending through cuts to housing benefits.
“I don’t think myself that taking £4billion out of housing benefit is going to get the right consensus around this issue, because that would create levels of homelessness in this country that we wouldn’t have seen before, hundreds of thousands of children in temporary accommodation.
“We do everything to support our national security, but it can’t come at the expense of social security.”
The competing pressures were illustrated by one official’s description of the defence budgeting process.
“What that means is that all of the things that we had planned to do, we could not then afford to do with the very significant settlement we have,” the official told The Times.
“We have a duty to our taxpayers and to the rest of government to live within our means.”
Military planners were consequently forced to “look at the totality of where the £11.5billion they spend a year was going and identified those things that they would have to stop doing”.
Senior commanders were then required to “choose those measures that have the least impact on our operational capability and output”.
The contrast between a government preparing Whitehall for a potential major conflict while simultaneously asking the armed forces to reduce or reprioritise activity underlines the central challenge facing Britain’s defence policy: converting warnings about future threats into sustained resources today.
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