Is the West really looking at a Third World War?

As the head of Britain’s army says the nation must prepare for conflict on a global scale, Sean O’Grady asks if he is right

General Sir Patrick Sanders is right to be worried (Alamy)

The chief of the general staff and head of the army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, has given a valedictory address in which he describes the current population of the UK as a “pre-war generation”, and one that must now get ready to take “preparatory steps to enable placing our societies on a war footing”.

A “national mobilisation” against Vladimir Putin’s Russia is the sort of language that would have been unthinkable, if not alarmist or satirical, only a few years ago, but the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and a consistently bellicose stance from the Kremlin has suddenly made such notions mainstream.

What does Gen Sanders mean by ‘pre-war generation’?