Cyber Force UK?

I was doing some research for an idea that I had that involved the Norwegian Army, and found out that Norwegian Armed Services has five branches (in order of seniority):

• Norwegian Army (8,800 personnel)
• Royal Norwegian Navy (3,700 personnel)
• Royal Norwegian Air Force (2,300 personnel)
• Home Guard (56,200 personnel)
• Norwegian Cyber Force (1,500 personnel)

The country has a population of 5,096,300 and mandatory conscription, although only a small percentage of those eligible for service are actually conscripted. Conscripts have a nineteen month term of service with a twelve month service obligation, and approximately half of them enrol in the Home Guard, in which the service obligation is for a total of seven months spread out over many years.

I did a comparison with the UK (based on figures obtained from armedforces.co.uk), and if the same percentages were applied the UK armed forces, they would look like this:

• British Army: 109,120 personnel (Actual = 104,900 personnel)
• Royal Navy: 45,880 personnel (Actual = 35,430 personnel)
• Royal Air Force: 28,520 personnel (Actual = 40,090 personnel)
• Reserves: 0 personnel (Actual = 37,600 personnel)
• Home Guard: 696,880 personnel (Actual = 0 personnel)
• Cyber Force: 18,600 personnel (Actual = 0 personnel)

This is an interesting comparison and reflects the different strategic outlooks that the two countries have … but the provision of a Cyber Force is something that the UK has not – at present – replicated.

With the way things seem to be developing in the modern world, perhaps it should.