Is the UK preparing for war? What has actually happened — and what hasn’t

Why people are asking

In one week in September 2026 the head of the armed forces called this the most dangerous period of his career, the BBC published an essay asking whether Britain is psychologically ready for war, a social media post claimed the government had told people to stockpile food, and an opposition party called for a civilian “war register”. Each was reported separately. Read together, they produce a question a great many people are typing into Google: is the UK preparing for war?

The honest answer has two halves, and most coverage gives only one. This page keeps both, with dates and the primary sources, and is updated when something changes — the log at the top says what.

What has actually happened, in order

2 June 2025 — the Strategic Defence Review. The government accepted all 62 of its recommendations. It sits on a commitment to defence spending of 2.5 per cent of GDP by April 2027, with an ambition of 3 per cent in the next Parliament — since overtaken by the NATO target of 3.5 per cent by 2035 — and sets “warfighting readiness” as the direction of travel for the armed forces. For the homeland it recommended two things worth knowing: that the Ministry of Defence explore a new Home Defence Force — a reserve-based, locally recruited force to protect key sites — and a Defence Readiness Bill, which would give ministers powers to mobilise reserves and industry in a crisis. Neither exists yet; the MOD is due to present options for the force by December 2026.

24 June 2025 — the National Security Strategy. This is the document behind most of the “preparing for war” headlines, because of one sentence: “For the first time in many years, we have to actively prepare for the possibility of the UK homeland coming under direct threat, potentially in a wartime scenario.” It is a planning statement about possibility, and it is the government’s own words.

25 June 2025 — the NATO summit. Members committed to spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence and security by 2035: 3.5 per cent on core defence and 1.5 per cent on wider security such as infrastructure and resilience, reviewed in 2029.

8 July 2025 — the Resilience Action Plan. The civil side of the same picture: assess the country’s resilience continuously, build what it calls whole-of-society resilience, and strengthen the system. Its named spending is on floods, biosecurity and medicines manufacturing, not on defence.

14 July 2026 — the annual resilience statement to Parliament. The government said it had accelerated home defence planning, “including updating the government War Book” — the cross-department plan for moving from peace to war, dormant since the Cold War — with defence spending rising to almost £80 billion a year by 2029, and the largest home defence exercise “in several decades” to be held in 2027. We explain what the War Book is separately. The same statement announced a national resilience public-awareness campaign for later in 2026, telling the public “the small but important steps they can take” before severe weather or a cyber attack. It has not launched yet.

27 August 2026 — Russia’s threat. Russia’s foreign ministry said British military installations and equipment “in Ukraine and beyond its borders” could be targeted over UK-supplied missiles. Days earlier, in Kyiv, the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, had called Russia’s threats outrageous. It is the most direct statement Russia has made about the UK in this period, and it was about military targets.

16 September 2026 — the Chief of the Defence Staff. Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton said this is the most dangerous period of his 35-year career, that Russia is probing and testing Britain’s defences, and that society may face different choices and priorities. He gave no timescale and issued no instruction, though he said society needs to understand the risk.

What has not happened

No conscription. The defence minister Lord Coaker said in a written answer on 17 September 2026 that the government has “no current plans for compulsory military service”, and that since 1963 successive governments have relied on professional forces manned by volunteers. The national-service scheme in one party’s 2024 manifesto was never introduced and is not current policy.

No civilian register. The “war register” in the headlines is a Liberal Democrat proposal. There is no register to join, and no government statement on the idea has been reported.

No instruction to households. Nothing has been issued telling people to stockpile, shelter, or change how they live. The advice that exists is GOV.UK Prepare’s standing kit list, unchanged this year; the viral claim that the government had ordered stockpiling came from a social media post, not the government.

No shelter or evacuation guidance. The UK has published none for this scenario, and unlike Germany it is not mapping bunkers. Our page on nuclear bunkers in the UK explains what exists and what doesn’t.

No general mobilisation. The Armed Forces Bill now before Parliament does extend recall liability for the Strategic Reserve to age 65 and allows recall for “warlike operations” — but it applies to current and former reservists, not the public. The wider Defence Readiness Bill was not in the May 2026 King’s Speech; the government says it will come later in this Parliament. Emergency Alerts have been used only for weather and local incidents, plus two nationwide tests.

One thing did change, for a different reason. The UK terrorism threat level was raised from Substantial to Severe on 1 May 2026, after the Golders Green attack but not solely because of it — JTAC cited a gradual rise in Islamist and extreme right-wing threat. That is the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre’s assessment of the risk of a terrorist attack; it is separate from, and unrelated to, anything about Russia or war.

So what does “preparing for war” mean in practice?

Two different things are being described with one phrase. The first is military and governmental: spending, readiness, planning documents, an exercise. On that measure the UK is unambiguously preparing, in public, and has said so.

The second is societal: whether ordinary people are being asked to do anything. On that measure almost nothing has changed. The UK sits at the mild end of a European trend. Sweden posted its “If crisis or war comes” booklet to 5.2 million homes in November 2024. Finland has long asked households to be self-sufficient for 72 hours. Germany announced a multibillion-euro civil defence plan in 2026, including mapping its shelters. Ireland began posting an all-hazards emergency booklet to 2.2 million homes on 21 September 2026. Britain’s equivalent is a website and a campaign that has not started.

That gap is why the question feels unanswered. The state is visibly planning; households have been told very little. The campaign due later this year is the government’s attempt to close it.

What is actually being asked of you

The whole of it fits in a paragraph. Keep a few days of bottled water and food that needs no cooking, a torch and a battery or wind-up radio, a power bank, a first aid kit and any medicines you rely on. Know how to turn off your water, gas and electricity. Swap numbers with your neighbours and know who might need help. Write the important numbers down on paper. Our emergency kit list follows the official one item by item, priced; the kit builder sizes it to your household.

None of that is about war. It is the same advice for a storm, a flood, a burst main or a long power cut, which are the things that actually happen to British households every winter. Doing it calmly, once, is the entire ask.

What not to do

Don’t treat a plan as a prediction. Governments plan for war for the same reason they plan for pandemics and floods: so that they are not improvising. The existence of the War Book says nothing about the likelihood of its being used.

Don’t take a headline’s date as an official one. “Autumn attack” and “within days” have come from nobody in authority. The one dated assessment in circulation — that Russia could have the capability to attack a NATO member by 2029 — is NATO-agreed intelligence that the UK government also cites. It is about capability, not intention, and about NATO as a whole, not an attack on Britain.

And don’t give your details to anything calling itself a war or civilian register. There isn’t one.