UDSS Co-Founder and Co-Chair General Sir Richard Barrons will reprise the role of Chief of the Defence Staff in a landmark four-part television adaptation of Sky News’ award-winning podcast, The Wargame.
Due to air on Sky and NOW in September, the series will place some of Britain’s most experienced political, military and intelligence figures inside a simulated national crisis of extraordinary scale.
Set six months in the future, The Wargame explores how the United Kingdom might respond to a Russian attack on British soil. Combining constructed documentary with drama, the programme will take viewers inside a sealed, COBR-style crisis room as its participants confront rapidly evolving threats, incomplete intelligence and decisions with potentially far-reaching consequences.
Experience at the Heart of the Simulation
General Sir Richard Barrons will serve as the exercise’s Chief of the Defence Staff, providing military advice to a fictional Cabinet led by Lord Gove as prime minister. Nicola Sturgeon will appear as deputy prime minister, with Dame Penny Mordaunt taking the role of defence secretary.
General Barrons brings exceptional authority and realism to the series. Before co-founding Universal Defence and Security Solutions, he served as Commander of Joint Forces Command and as Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff for Military Strategy and Operations. His career included leadership on operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as responsibility for directing UK military operations worldwide.
More recently, General Barrons was one of the three external leaders of the UK’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review. At UDSS, he continues to advise governments, defence organisations and businesses on national security, military capability, strategic leadership and the transformation required for warfare in the digital age.
His involvement in The Wargame reflects the practitioner-led approach at the centre of UDSS: applying experience gained at the highest levels of defence to the complex security challenges facing governments and society today.
Decisions Under Pressure
Rolling news reports, military assessments, intelligence briefings and unexpected interventions will confront the participants with minute-by-minute dilemmas. The programme will examine not simply what decisions leaders might make, but how those decisions are reached when time is limited, information is contested and the consequences could affect the entire country.
Other participants include Baroness Harman, Baroness Warsi and Jim Murphy. Lord Darroch will assume the role of national security adviser, former intelligence officer Christopher Steele will act as the UK’s intelligence chief, and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci will portray the US secretary of state.
A team of Russia specialists led by author Keir Giles will challenge the Cabinet throughout the simulation.
Preparing for the Challenges Ahead
The television adaptation builds on the success of the original Wargame podcast, in which General Barrons also served as Chief of the Defence Staff. Its move to television will bring the realities of strategic decision-making—and the importance of national preparedness—to a much wider audience.
For UDSS, the questions raised by the series are both timely and essential. Modern conflict extends far beyond the conventional battlefield, encompassing cyber operations, infrastructure, information, supply chains and national resilience. Preparing effectively requires clear strategy, credible capabilities and leaders able to make difficult decisions under intense pressure.
Through General Barrons’ central involvement, The Wargame will offer viewers a rare opportunity to see how decades of operational command and strategic experience can be applied when a fictional crisis begins to feel uncomfortably real.
The Wargame will be broadcast on Sky and NOW in September 2026. Read the original announcement from Sky News.