The army’s soldiers and officers are greatly disappointed by the suspension of much necessary army training and cuts to the activity of the part-time army reserve. No amount of naive spin or over-simplistic briefing by ‘defence officials’ can disguise the inconvenient truth that these cuts lessen the fighting power, credibility and lethality of the army, reducing its ability to deter the Russian army and influence the US and Nato. Military expertise and fighting power will inexorably erode and become more difficult to sustain. In war, achieving mission success will become more difficult and casualties will increase.

The pathetic pearl clutching over Reform’s donations

The price of British citizenship

What The Uprising gets wrong about the Peasants’ Revolt

Since 1990, successive governments’ reductions in defence spending greatly reduced the armed forces’ ability to fulfil their national and Nato tasks. Lord George Robertson led the MOD’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review. Its plan to rebuild and modernise military capability that had shrunk to dangerously low levels commanded the respect of the forces – provided that it was fully funded and rapidly implemented. 

But the government’s handling of the Defence Investment Plan was a masterclass in dither, delay and dysfunctional debate that resulted in a very modest increase in defence funding, much of which has yet to be sourced. The forces welcomed the extra funding, but were quietly disappointed that it was insufficient to restore readiness quickly enough. As they have so often have done, they gritted their teeth, and set out to make the best of a bad job. But these unforeseen cuts mean that the army has just been kicked in the teeth. 

Why is military training so important? War is bloody and chaotic – a........

© The Spectator