23JUL

UK reopens War Book, hosts 30-nation Hormuz meet

4 min read

19:27UTC

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.

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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

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Sky News· 24 Apr 2026

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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

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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

India

India buys more Saudi crude than any other country and has 2.5 million nationals working in the kingdom, so a $100 Brent and a live strike on Saudi tankers reach New Delhi through both fuel bills and remittance risk. Neither channel has an alternative route the way Saudi Arabia's own pipeline does.

Qatar

Qatar co-authored the four-mediator ten-day ceasefire proposal alongside Egypt, Pakistan and Oman, centred on resuming Hormuz navigation, while separately pursuing its dated compensation claim against Iran at the UN Security Council filed on 21 July. Doha is mediating and litigating in the same week.

Israel

Israeli intelligence, reported by the Wall Street Journal, assesses Iran moved thousands of centrifuges and part of its roughly 440kg enriched-uranium stock into Pickaxe Mountain after the June 2025 strikes on its three main nuclear sites. Some of the US refuelling aircraft now deploying to the region are bound for Israeli bases and Ramon Airport.

Houthis

Yahya Saree announced the missile and drone strikes on the Encelia and Layla on 22 July as enforcement of the embargo his forces had declared by radio warning alone two days earlier. Six vessels already turned back on the broadcast; the strike shows Houthi forces will use weapons once warnings stop working.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia's state news agency confirmed only a fire on the Encelia's bow, with the crew safe; the Layla strike remains unconfirmed by Riyadh. The kingdom built its Petroline pipeline specifically to bypass Hormuz through the Red Sea, so the tanker fire lands on the route Riyadh had already spent billions escaping.

United States

Washington is weighing both ten-day proposals but wants a longer truce than either offers, and moved F-16 and F-35 jets plus refuelling aircraft into the region while it decides. That deployment, not Trump's Pickaxe Mountain remarks, is the measurable US action, buying options for the day talks fail rather than betting on them.