Force Regeneration through the Veteran ID Card and Defence Gateway

Events in Ukraine over the past five years have marked the conclusion of the European Peace Dividend of the early 1990s, and the return of European Great Power Rivalry. The pace of the radical transformation in the technical character of non-nuclear warfare has left politicians and conventional military thinkers struggling to keep up, and to adapt decades old mantras and systems to the new realities of conflict. An overwhelming conventional strike on civilian ports, airfields, transport and communication hubs, food distribution warehouses, refineries, utilities infrastructure and healthcare nodes across the UK would lead to massive dislocation of an unprepared civilian population of ~70 million people.

We are now in a historical period which may be equated to the pre-war and phoney war conditions of the two world wars of the 20th century. However, any reliance on historical parallels to the effect that ‘we managed then, so we will manage again’, might be fatefully misplaced, given the speed and scale at which events can now evolve.

The Demands of Regeneration of Human Resources for a Future War

As in past major conflicts, a future major European war will require the full mobilisation of the nation’s human and material resources to endure and outlast the threat. Much work remains to be done (Mooney and Crackett 2018, Brazier 2022, Mundell 2025, Reynolds and O’Neill 2026). The reliable and trained human resource needs may be broadly classified as follows:

1. Combat power in four-dimensional warfare on land, at sea, in the sky and in space, with a new set of skills for survival and success in the age of drone and electromagnetic warfare.

2. Sufficient personnel for territorial defence and for the maintenance of public discipline and order in the face of chaotic conditions, to pre-empt the breakdown of social cohesion.

3. Adaptive training of the civilian emergency, life and infrastructure preserving services.

4. Engineering, construction and repair to optimise survivability and societal resilience.

And so the list goes on. We are now charged to rebuild a ‘Citizen’s Militia’ at scale and at the speed of relevance to demonstrate credible national resolve against the ill winds from the East. However, we know that we cannot hope to solve the manpower deficit by throwing money at it, and the topic of mobilisation is still politically very sensitive.

Throughout the 20th century, the Territorial units and their nationwide infrastructure provided the framework for force regeneration in 1914 and 1939, through the Cold War and in the Gulf (1990-1991), Iraq (2003 – 2009) and Helmand (2003-2013), prior to their disbandment a decade or so ago. They also infused intellectual and operational originality into the regular armed forces at war, as in the creation of the UK Special and Commando Forces during the Second World War.

Towards Strategic Force Regeneration with Austere Resources

The UK Armed Forces are steeped in a tradition and history of innovation and imagination to maximise strategic impact with limited resources. In the pressing mission of force regeneration at the human level, we have a number of factors in our favour, including:

• A strong tradition of volunteerism and public service in all communities. In 2012 we saw the rapid mobilisation of volunteer support to make the Olympic Games a success. It has also been evident in the formation of UK volunteer support networks for Ukraine since 2022.
• A modern digital framework for communication and organisation, both in the public sector around Gov.UK and its subsystems; in commercial computing and in evolving machine learning and artificial intelligence tools.
• An intellectual framework of rapid and cost-effective informatics development which is founded in the systems design principles of the Government Digital Service (GDS). These methods distil to the time-honoured military order of ‘load, test and adjust’.

The Veteran’s Card and Agile Iterative Experimentation in Force Regeneration

The starting point in the assembly of a new coalition of willing citizens should logically be among those former service personnel, whether Regular or Volunteer Reserve. The state has already invested substantial resources in their training, expertise, ethos and discipline, and they now live their diverse and productive lives within civilian communities across the UK and abroad. The adaptable skills and loyalties of past service life are more valuable than specific experience on outdated weapon systems and dated doctrines.

Importantly, courageous Ukrainians of both sexes have shown us that age and biology are no barrier to effective voluntary contributions to their war effort through intelligent re-employment and in societal and community leadership.

The practical technical mechanism to set this process in motion is now established in the national digital infrastructure, and it is at the fingertips and/or on the desktops of every digitally connected citizen.

The recently launched HM Armed Forces Veterans ID card now provides a simple and cost effective framework for the regeneration of a virtual reserve force across all defence services. It has the potential to keep track of individuals and their skills after release from Reserve or Regular Service, and to mitigate the potential for local chaos, such as that I well-recall from the rapid medical mobilisations of 1991 and 2003.

My proposed entry level solution to force regeneration lies in experimentation with the active management of the Veterans ID (VetID) Card (www.gov.uk/veteran-card) and its supporting data systems. The VetID is ripe for further promotion and exploitation, in that:

• Registration for the card is currently voluntary.
• It is issued on a one–off basis on request.
• It offers limited benefits which are poorly promoted.

I therefore propose that it should now be provided to every individual on the termination of service and distributed to all who have served and can be traced, including those who are in receipt of a military pension through those record systems.

The real benefit would flow from a design which obliged regular updating of the data set behind an individual’s VetID card with contemporary information, as to the recipient’s past military service, current whereabouts and contact details, state of health, current employment status, skills (computers, IT communications), hobbies (drone and model aircraft flying?), availability for renewed service or other contributions and in what circumstances.

Thereafter, the regular invitation and continuous facility to update a personal linked record through changing circumstances would produce a rich source of anticipatory human resource planning information. Much of this process could be automated, as could the analysis of the data returns with AI tools. This will keep administrative costs to a minimum, and make best use of nudge tools to maintain contact with the volunteer.

The Defence Gateway and the Virtual Training and Education Environment

Once the willing volunteer is enrolled in the system, the challenge arises as to how best to keep him or her engaged and informed on technical, operational and other matters which are relevant to their possible military roles.

In its early days, a decade ago, the Defence Gateway website provided a rich resource of interesting and educational content. This could have evolved into a gateway to a powerful, suitably adapted, continuously evolving, trade-specific Virtual Learning Environment for Veterans. Defence Gateway still needs a lot of work to realise this potential, but it offers a valuable development opportunity for an established framework system.

Many other public, institutional and commercial organisations could adopt similar methodologies to engage with their former employees or alumni to support civic needs.

In Summary

There is no simple solution to force regeneration at pace and scale. However, the intelligent use of informatics tools which already exist provides the framework for intelligent experimentation with the addressable post-service community.

There will be many questions to answer and trips, falls and adjustments on the way. However, the evolved result should be a dynamic, adaptable voluntary national service database, communications and virtual training system with wide potential.

This will give civil and defence planners much better tools to secure core force regeneration at the speed of relevance as national circumstances change, at very modest set up and maintenance costs.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Sir Julian Brazier, former Minister for the Reserves, for advice and support in the preparation of this manuscript.

© David Rew, 2026, published by RUSI with permission of the author.

The views expressed in this Commentary are the author's, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.

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