Lessons for the UK Strategic Defence Review 'Home Guard'

15 Sep 2025 04:41 PM

Establishing a new force with military status will help protect critical national infrastructure but needs to be more than an afterthought to Reserve force planning.

The 2025 Strategic Defence Review has recommended additional capabilities for the protection of bases and Critical National Infrastructure and the MOD has been directed to explore the development of a new Home Defence force. The proposed force, led by the Army, could be organised under the Reserve Forces structure, have basic arms and equipment, including drones, be locally recruited and employed and have a narrowly defined remit and training commitment. The media have characterised this as a new ‘Home Guard.’ The need to protect critical national infrastructure is clear, and this would not be the first time such a force has been raised in the UK. However, the track record of such organisations raised in peacetime has historically been poor. Some basic lessons, however, could maximise the chances of success this time, and could inform the response to the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendation that by 31 March 2026, MOD sets out its plan to “significantly enhance the skills, scale and agility” of the Reserves.

The Need for Home Defence Forces?

Article 3 of the NATO Treaty, requires that countries ensure their resilience to attack, a clause that comes before the article on collective defence – Article 5. With a deteriorating security situation, as well as the disinformation and cyber attacks (already routinely underway), a path to conflict might see adversaries launching conventional pinpoint attacks to highlight vulnerabilities and sway public and political opinion. This could include drone or sabotage attacks against CNI and various choke points critical to deploying British forces overseas, while the mere threat of this would require the UK’s already too small armed forces to spread themselves even more thinly. Politicians have a track record of holding back substantial trained military resources to defend the UK even when there was no actual threat (1914-1915 & 1941-1943), so a specific Home Defence force could alleviate these pressures.

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