Technology can win but our numbers are thin

18th July 2024

In June 1940, the Wehrmacht embarked on Operation Barbarossa, an audacious attempt to conquer The Soviet Union by ground offensive. The offensive line stretched from the Baltics to the Balkans and was manned by 3.8 million German/ Axis soldiers.

In all, 10 million soldiers fought in this five and a half month battle.

Meanwhile, Britain's armed forces totalled 2.2 million personnel in 1941 and peaked at 2.9 million in 1945.

Today, the UK's standing army totals 144,000 with Army, Navy and Airforce combined.

Compare that with Russia's current 1.32 million regular army and an additional 2 million conscripts and reservists, the USA with 2.07 million regulars and China with 2.03 million, and we are tiny in manpower, even on the sliding scale of total populations versus the percentage of personnel. In relative terms, the USA and Russia's armies are three times larger than ours and in real terms, 10-15 times larger.

You might say, "so what, why is this important in this day and age?". Well, firstly, you may have been hiding under the covers, but the world is as close to the precipice of a global war as it has ever been.

Secondly, thanks to Lise Meitner and her colleagues, and subsequently, J. Robert Oppenheimer, we have a huge deterrent to not engage in a war that would mean mutual destruction for all, with nuclear weapons currently possessed by 9 key countries, notably China, Russia, USA and the UK.

Therefore, as we have seen with the war in Ukraine, countries have subsequently taken to a more conventional style of war. There are huge technological advances in this field of conflict, but nonetheless, manpower is key.

Some believe that Putin's war with the Ukraine is merely a training ground for his swelling army (now nearly 4 million in total with reserves and conscripts) so that they can then continue westward. When you consider Stalin managed to mobilise 34.5 million Soviet citizens in the second world war, and there is no reason Putin could not do the same, given the grip he has on Russia, then you begin to realise the scale of the war machine that Europe might face, with a potentially neutral USA sitting on the sidelines.

With the current EU forces totalling just 1.4 million personnel, even technology won't make up for such a deficit, particularly as Russia is not that far behind and can soon catch up given Kremlin funding.

If China were to ally itself to Russia, then the picture becomes even more worrying given that China's population is 10 times that of Russia and their ability to mobilise under communist rule, even more apparent. I don't think that is likely at all, but you know what they say, "hope for the best, plan for the worst."

On this subject, I feel some brutal honesty may actually incentivise some of the younger generation in Europe to embrace military service, for a year at least. In 1940, Hitler's plan to invade Britain by ground, sea and air, was quite a bold one considering he had far less of a navy. However, had he been able to land troops on the beaches of the UK , it could have been over very quickly with a far superior ground forces total of 4.5 million, more than double our own.

People need to realise that our cosy western existence has only been in place for 70 odd years, a tiny amount of time in history, and just as the Belle Epoque period came to a brutal end with the advent of WW1, we are not immune to the same fate, and if it does happen, we need to be ready to defend our shores and the wider Europe.

Let us hope it never comes to this, but we need to plan at least.

G. Hoff - Editor