This generation of Britons couldn't handle the death toll of a modern war |
Are we ready for war? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our writers tackle a grim question that, until recently, few had thought to consider.
• Ray Mears: This is the golden rule of preparing for war
• ‘Little green men’ and ghost fleets: How Russia could drag us into war before 2030
• The wartime scenario most worrying for the UK’s generals
• Britain is closer to nuclear war than you think. This is how it will unfold
• Britain is getting ready for war – and paying with Ukrainian blood
My school hall was dominated by a huge oak war memorial. Engraved in the wood were the names of all the old boys who had fallen in the First and Second World Wars.
There were hundreds of names. They were there on sunny days when the dust motes floated by, and on stormy days when the rain and wind battered at the high windows. They stood there on mundane days and exciting days. There they remained even on holidays, when nobody at all was there to see them.
We all learn the meaning of such memorials from a young age: that the cost of war, and the sacrifice of those who must engage in it, is vast and dreadful. From small crosses on village greens to the sombre heft of the Cenotaph and the quiet tragedy of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, our landscape is peppered with that message.
And yet, while we remember these facts, monuments and mantras, we have begun to forget their true meaning: the scale of sacrifice involved in war.
It has been over 80 years since this country fought a war with a near-peer enemy power. Yes, there have been numerous conflicts in which our servicemen and........