Rear Admiral Christopher Parry has argued that there is no need for "national service" as it has been revealed that people could be conscripted to fight if Britain enters into a war with Russia.
It comes as people in the UK have been warned that they could be called up to fight for the country if the war breaks out in Russia.
The Rear Admiral said: "We're faced with a recurrence of fascist and communist regimes in the form of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, we're going to have to rethink our security and defence posture.
"With the evidence of Ukraine, and we've had more recent evidence in Israel, where both countries are under severe threat, they've had to dig deep into the manpower associated with their reserves and their population.
Rear Admiral Christopher Parry explained that it is not about the numbers of soldiers
GB News
"I think the point is we're complacent. We think that war can't happen and that our opponents don't have hostile intentions towards us.
"I can tell you China, Russia, Iran, North Korea are all on a war footing now, and if they can use force, they will do."
When asked "Why now?" He added: "There's several reasons. One is that the fact is we have got complacent and weak in the West as our politicians have forgotten how to use statecraft and to threaten and to use force.
You look back into the 1950s. We had people who were familiar with Total War in the Second World War.
People could have to go fight for the country PA"They knew how to talk to their opponents, and they also knew how to say when we needed to threaten force to get our way and make sure that people didn't step over the line.
"We're allowing appeasement to happen. If you look at every crisis in the world today, you can lay it the inaction of President Obama and I'm afraid to say the Cameron Osborne regime.
"If you look at Crimea, you look at Syria, you look at Iran, every single crisis, including what is happening in the South China Sea with Taiwan and other things you can lay at the feet.
"I'm afraid that appeasing regimes that existed at the start of the last decade."
Rear Admiral Christopher Parry spoke to GB News
GB News
GB News host Andrew Pierce asked: "Isn't the answer rather than having an army of untrained conscripts who may not have any enthusiasm for the conflict to to do have a properly trained military capability, the army's at it's lowest level ever."
He explained: "It's not about numbers, it's about what you can do to the enemy.
"You don't always need lots of people. No, this country is a maritime nation.
"It's unusual, I'm afraid for it to have a large standing army. What we need to do is leave the Panzer stuff to the Poles, the Germans, and the continental powers that need to do that. They're our Nato allies."