We need more people ready to fight, military chief says

As the country tries to prevent a potential conflict with Russia, the UK needs

more people being able to fight for their country,

the military has said. According to Chief of the Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, a whole-of-society response was required, which included an increase in regular forces, cadets, and reserves. He also called for more school leavers and graduates to work in the defense industry. Although the defense chief said there was only a remote chance of a direct Russian attack on the United Kingdom, he told an event at the Royal United Services Institute that so-called hybrid attacks indicated the danger was getting worse.

Sir Richard said:

Sons and daughters. Colleagues. Veterans will all be able to play. To build. To serve. And if necessary, to fight.

And more families will know what sacrifice for our country entails.

The defense chief referred to a Russian spy ship that was recently accused of mapping undersea cables near UK waters.

Every day, the United Kingdom is exposed to an onslaught of cyberattacks from Russia, and we know that Russian agents are planning to carry out sabotage and have killed on our shores. At the same time, Russia's military had become a hard power [which] is increasing rapidly.We should be under no illusions that Russia has a massive, increasingly technologically advanced, and now highly combat-experienced military,

Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a tactical failure, he said. According to Sir Richard, who became the head of the defense forces in September, the UK must make itself a

harder target

for hybrid threats in order to prevent war. Building the nation's resilience went beyond strengthening the military, but it meant harnessing the UK's universities, oil and manufacturing industries, and the NHS. It also meant that industrial capacity was needed

to satisfy the demands in the United Kingdom and our allies' demands to re-stock and rearm.

In addition to building this industrial capacity, we need more students and graduates to work in this sector.

We need defense and political leaders to explain the value of the industry to the country,

he said, and schools and parents must encourage children and young adults to pursue careers in education. Sir Richard, who highlighted a skills deficit in the Royal Academy of Engineering's latest study, also discussed the importance of working with industry and young people, announcing £50 million for new defense technical excellence colleges. BothFrance and Germany have developed proposals for a voluntary national service in recent weeks. Last year, the then-Conservative government unveiled its own compulsory plans, which Labour dismissed as a gimmick. Sir Richard said he found himself in a situation where none of his predecessors had

looking at the possibility of the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the Cold War. At the time, the government revealed earlier this year that defense and security spending would rise to 5 percent of GDP by 2035.