18JUL

UK reopens War Book, hosts 30-nation Hormuz meet

4 min read

13:17UTC

The UK's Chief of the Defence Staff confirmed Whitehall is rebuilding the Cold War Government War Book, citing the Iran conflict as a driver alongside Ukraine. Three days later the MoD hosted 30 nations at Northwood to plan the Strait of Hormuz.

← Back to US bombing moves inland as blockade hardens Jump to analysis ↓

ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

The War Book is back; the planning conference it runs alongside is about Hormuz, not Moscow.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the UK's Chief of the Defence Staff since September 2025, told Sky News at the London Defence Conference on Friday 10 April that Whitehall is rebuilding the Government War Book, a Cold War civil-mobilisation framework covering military, police, industry and hospitals that was scrapped in the early 2000s ¹. Knighton cited "the ongoing conflict between the US, Israel and Iran" as a driver alongside Ukraine. The Cabinet Office leads the framework, coordinating the military, police, industry and NHS trigger chains. On Wednesday 22 April the Ministry of Defence hosted a 30-nation Strait of Hormuz military planning conference at Permanent Joint Headquarters Northwood in Middlesex, the UK's operational command centre, co-chaired by Defence Secretary John Healey with France; the remit covered mine clearance, freedom of navigation and protection of merchant shipping ². The MoD statement did not mention Ukraine or Russia.

The Ukraine supply line continues to run separately. On 15 April the MoD confirmed cumulative UK drones supplied to Ukraine had crossed 120,000 units and announced a £900 million contract for Army Apache and RAF Chinook maintenance. The 22 April Northwood planning did not touch it.

Two serving and former officers publicly graded the procurement base underneath as thin. General Sir Richard Barrons, former commander of Joint Forces Command, told CNBC on 22 April that "today's army can frankly do one very small thing" ³. The same report cited a £28 billion decade-long funding gap and the Ajax armoured vehicle programme's record of £6.3 billion spent against 165 of 589 vehicles delivered. Lord Robertson, commissioned by Prime Minister Starmer to review the armed forces, accused the government of "corrosive complacency". The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and associated emergency-powers statutes have not been exercised against anything resembling the threat mix Knighton is now citing. Two allies moved on the same Wednesday: Berlin published a Russia-facing doctrine naming the Bundeswehr's 2029 readiness deadline on the same day Whitehall's operational HQ ran the Gulf scenario. The Germany-Ukraine €4bn defence package signed on 14 April set the procurement baseline Pistorius now frames doctrinally; Britain has reopened a civil-mobilisation binder across a £28 billion funding gap.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

The Government War Book is a British planning document, last maintained during the Cold War, that sets out what the government would do in a major national emergency: how to requisition hospitals, direct industry, deploy police, and mobilise the military. It was scrapped in the early 2000s when planners assumed large-scale war in Europe was no longer a realistic scenario. Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the UK's top military officer, announced on 10 April that Britain is rebuilding it. Twelve days later, the UK hosted representatives from 30 countries at its operational command centre in Northwood, north of London, to plan how to keep the Strait of Hormuz open: the narrow waterway through which a fifth of the world's oil passes. Both moves signal that the UK is treating multi-front military contingency as a live planning requirement, not a theoretical one.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The War Book's abandonment in the early 2000s reflected a structural assumption: that NATO collective defence made national mobilisation planning redundant, since any large-scale conflict would involve allied burden-sharing. Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion exposed that assumption as incorrect not because NATO failed but because the timeline for allied mobilisation (weeks to months) and the timeline for a rapid Russian fait accompli (days) are incompatible.

The Hormuz planning conference at Northwood reflects a second structural gap: the UK's carrier strike group was not available for Middle East deployment for three weeks after hostilities began between the US, Israel, and Iran, because HMS Prince of Wales was in refit. A single carrier nation lacks redundancy. The 30-nation conference format attempts to aggregate capability that no single European navy retains independently.

Source Landscape

This story draws on mixed-leaning sources from United Kingdom and United States

United Kingdom

United States

Primary parallel: The UK's original Government War Book was compiled during the First World War and maintained through the Cold War, covering military mobilisation, police emergency powers, hospital requisitioning, and industrial direction. It was formally stood down in the early 2000s following the 1998 Strategic Defence Review's post-Cold War reorientation.

The decision to scrap it in 2004 followed the assumption, embedded in the 2003 Goldsmith legal advice on Iraq, that future UK military engagements would be expeditionary and coalition-based rather than national mobilisation events. Knighton's revival confirms that assumption has been retired.

Counter-parallel: Australia's 2020 Strategic Defence Update reactivated its own mobilisation planning framework in response to regional threat assessment changes, including a 2030 force structure review.

The Australian process was funded and resourced from the start; the UK's War Book revival was announced before any Treasury commitment to the resources required to operationalise it, suggesting the British process may follow the announcement-without-resourcing pattern that produced the Ajax failure.

Consensus view: Lord Robertson, commissioned by the Starmer government for a root-and-branch armed forces review, accused the UK government of 'corrosive complacency' on defence.

General Sir Richard Barrons, former Commander of UK Joint Forces Command, told CNBC that 'today's army can frankly do one very small thing': a direct reference to the capability gap opened by £28 billion in decade-long underfunding and the Ajax armoured vehicle programme failure (£6.3 billion spent against 165 of 589 vehicles delivered). The War Book revival and Northwood conference represent institutional planning activity, not restored capability.

Counter-view: The Henry Jackson Society argues Knighton's War Book announcement should be read as a political pressure instrument as much as an operational plan: by using 'War Book' language in public, the CDS creates a justification for the Treasury to release defence funds that it has resisted handing to the MoD over procurement failures. The announcement is the beginning of a budget negotiation, not the end of a planning process.

Key tension: Knighton cited both the Iran conflict and Ukraine as drivers for the War Book revival; the Northwood conference was solely focused on Hormuz mine clearance and freedom of navigation. Whether the UK's actual operational planning prioritises the Iran theatre over the Russia-Ukraine theatre: or whether the institution is genuinely dual-tracking: remains unresolved.

First Reported In

Update #14 · Kyiv's Druzhba gambit unlocks €90bn loan

Sky News· 24 Apr 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Carnegie: Iran war masks Kyiv's oil strike cost

UK Hormuz planning is framed as the same economic logic in reverse: if Hormuz reopens, oil prices fall and Russia's fiscal squeeze tightens.

Occurred 22 Apr 2026

Read story →

This Event

UK reopens War Book, hosts 30-nation Hormuz meet

Britain is reactivating a Cold War civil mobilisation framework while its operational headquarters runs an Iran scenario, revealing which theatre Whitehall is actually planning for.

Different Perspectives

International Group of P&I Clubs

The Group has kept its Hormuz war-risk exclusion in force through the entire shipping recovery, even as London hull war-risk premiums fell to about 2% of vessel value. A burning LNG carrier off Limah is now the fresh case for holding that line, with mutual pooling meaning one hit reprices the strait for every owner at once.

Jordan

Jordan's government said no threats existed at Aqaba hours before Iranian missiles landed there, and has not addressed the IRGC's claim that Jordanian civilians and soldiers supplied targeting intelligence for the strike. Amman hosts forces it does not command and is saying as little as it can.

United States (CENTCOM)

The Pentagon named two of the seventeen American dead, 1st Lieutenant Tyler Feehan and Private Isabella Gonzales, both killed at Jordan's Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, days after its Amman embassy had warned citizens away from Aqaba's airport and seaport. Washington is naming its own cost while flagging threats it declines to attribute publicly.

Iran

Iran said on Monday it disabled two oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz without its permission, asserting a right to license passage through the strait it borders. Tehran named neither vessel, and CENTCOM had already denied a comparable Iranian claim on 18 July.

Qatar

Qatar moved from summoning Iran's deputy ambassador on 8 July to a dated written claim at the UN Security Council thirteen days later, citing Resolution 2817 and reserving its Article 51 right of self-defence. Doha is building a permanent record while still hosting CENTCOM's forward headquarters and mediating with Tehran.

CENTCOM

CENTCOM confirmed a third American service member died in northern Iraq on 19 July clearing unexploded ordnance from a downed Iranian drone, and recovered unidentified remains at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. The Pentagon has framed its Khuzestan strikes as degrading IRGC capacity, a rationale that stretches to explain a reactor foundation with no nuclear material in it.