The youngest participant in the course was 13-year-old Natalia, who, despite her age, was well aware of the threats her country faces. She had even woken up at 3 am for a four-hour journey just to take the course.
She said candidly that she believed “Poland is going to be next” on Russia’s list of countries to attack and that recent drone incursions were a warning. Natalia, a dual national who spent eight years living in Gloucester, believes Britain should adopt a similar scheme to W Gotowości.
Although the scheme is voluntary, Magdalena, a 40-year-old mother, thought that it should be compulsory for Polish citizens. Like many of those on the course, she was shocked at the fact that Britain didn’t have something similar.
Britain offers very little on these lines short of joining the reserve forces, especially to those in their 40s and 50s. With the British Army at its smallest since the Napoleonic era, we would struggle even to muster enough troops to train citizens in the basics.
Britain, like Poland, is being tested. We fail that test every single time. Russian ships firing their guns in the Channel and Russian subs prowling our critical undersea infrastructure should be all the warning we need.
Former chief of the general staff Sir Peter Wall, like many former senior officers, believes it has long been time to have a serious conversation about national resilience. I spoke with Sir Peter about Poland’s scheme, and he immediately praised the Polish army for imbuing its citizens with a “war-ready mindset”.
The former head of the Army said the UK now needs to “rediscover the spirit that was so successful during periods of duress”, such as the Second World War. He believes that as a society, we have “drifted away from self-reliance to a greater dependence on the Government for everything”.
The Government’s own Strategic Defence Review, indeed, says that for “deterrence to be credible” we must have “national resilience among civil society and communities”.
Britain needs to start implementing a homeland defence strategy now. The situation doesn’t need to escalate to Armageddon before we decide to act. Russia’s grey-zone warfare in our waters, cyberattacks on British companies, and assassinations on British soil by Russian agents should motivate our Prime Minister to put down his guitar and start a conversation with the public about preparing for war as being the best way of not having to fight one.