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Pro-Iran armed groups under the banner of the ‘Islamic Resistance in Iraq’ have targeted US military assets through asymmetric attacks,” Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East security at UK-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), told Al Jazeera. Ozcelik explained that for Tehran, this both pressures US interests and undermines Iraqi Kurdistan’s reputation for stability by targeting its energy facilities and other key sites. “Kurdistan is a sensitive frontier for Iran in any case, given its proximity to Iran and the presence there of Iranian Kurdish opposition groups Tehran considers hostile.” Ozcelik said that while other Middle Eastern countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan, have also been pulled into the conflict, Iraq is different because Iranian influence runs far deeper there. Pro-Iran armed groups are not just present; they are entrenched and, in part, folded into the country’s security architecture, even as Iraq also hosts key US interests,” Ozcelik said. “That leaves Iraq far more exposed than most, and highly likely to remain in the crossfire long after [US President Donald Trump] claims the war has ended.”

The comparison with European national service systems is often misleading, as countries that maintain conscription today tend to face a direct land threat, often sharing a border with Russia,” he explains. “That produces a different strategic logic to Britain, as the UK does not face an immediate land invasion threat in the same way.” As an island in Western Europe, Mundell says we’d have more time to prepare for an invasion, so we, he thinks, can afford to have fewer people ready for combat than others. He believes our resources may be better used elsewhere; anti-submarine warfare, deep strike, air superiority, nuclear deterrence and advanced strategic technologies. “The UK should arguably prioritise investment in these areas rather than shifting resources towards building a mass conscript army.”

It’s an uncomfortable comparison because we spend several billion a year more than the French, and it feels like they get more out of it than we do,” says Savill. “I would say, though, that they have different gaps. The Charles de Gaulle, for example, is not available for a certain proportion of the year. Had it been unavailable now, they would have had zero aircraft carriers to send [to Cyprus]. “The French asked us to send support helicopters a few years ago to help them in Mali because they didn’t have enough of their own.”