The British military is a joke. That much should be clear to anyone who has paid the slightest attention to recent events in Ukraine, where we’ve made grand declarations about supporting a war effort we couldn’t sustain for more than a week if we ever got sucked into the fighting home. And yet, the powers that be insist on maintaining the absurd charade of a “modern” army—a bloated, mismanaged relic of an empire that no longer exists.

Meanwhile, our own country slides into chaos. Can the British Army prevent a terrorist attack in London? No. Can it stop knife crime in Birmingham? No. But could it be sent to defend the borders? Ah, well, that would be against “our values.” The only real purpose of the Army now is as a job creation scheme for the sort of people who can’t hack it in the private sector but enjoy wearing a uniform.

If we need an air force at all—and that’s a big ‘if’—it should be part of the Navy. The idea of an independent Royal Air Force is one of those holdovers from World War I that no one has had the sense to get rid of. In reality, most air operations that actually matter are either about securing naval superiority or supporting ground troops.

What does the RAF do today? It has a few planes that are occasionally sent to chase Russian bombers around the North Sea for the cameras. Beyond that, it’s another bureaucratic black hole, with overpriced kit and far too many officers pushing paper. Give it to the Navy. The Navy at least understands strategy, and merging the two would force a focus on real defence instead of meaningless prestige projects.

Britain doesn’t need a standing army. It needs an armed and trained citizenry. A militia system, where every able-bodied man receives military training and can be called up in times of genuine national emergency, would be preferable to the current model. It would mean that national defence is in the hands of people who actually have a stake in the country, rather than a professional class that treats war as a career move.

And how do we pick the officers? By lot. The moment you introduce career incentives into military leadership, you get the same rotten patronage networks and empire-building that have turned the British Army into the mess it is today. A randomly chosen officer class, drawn from the citizen militia, would be far more effective than what we have now.

Of course, none of this will happen. The establishment is too wedded to its toys and its pointless traditions. They’d rather let Britain drift into irrelevance than do anything that might disrupt their cosy arrangements. But if anyone were serious about defending this country—rather than LARPing about it—they’d see the sense in what I’m proposing.

So let’s spell it out clearly: scrap the Army, hand the RAF to the Navy, and let the people defend their own country. Anything else is just a waste of time and money.