Conservative cuts to Defence disaster: Go on home British Army | George Marsden

I don’t know how to feel about the news (reported in the Daily Express) that pressure from the US might see the government U-turn on their decision to cut the army’s numbers by almost 10,000.

On the one hand, it shows up the absurd contradiction behind this government’s attitude to defence, namely the disjunction between the bold rhetoric about world-wide commitments and the cash they’re willing to spend to achieve them. But then again, isn’t this another example of the American dog wagging the British tale?

We saw a similar expression of that relationship last year with the BLM protests, as America-specific ideas about race made their way in an untranslated form across the Atlantic. It annoyed me then and it annoys me now.

However, I must confess that this example of yank nose-butting might actually be more beneficial than not. It has at least proved my longstanding suspicion that this government’s words on foreign policy don’t quite match up with their actions. The opposition concurs; last week, the shadow defence secretary said that the cuts revealed “a gulf between the government’s ambitions and its actions, which is set to grow with this new review.”

In short, this means that we’re spending well below what an uncritical observer of British defence policy might expect. Just over a month ago, Dominic Rabb said this in a speech commemorating Britain’s one-hundred-year relationship with Estonia:

“We will continue to stand with you and all of our partners to tackle Russia’s malign activity in the region.”

Apparently, the foreign secretary believes the best to way make good on this promise is to shrink the army to its smallest size since 1714. He would probably respond that the reason for the cuts is the opportunity it provides for a more appropriate prioritisation of resources; that the real way to combat the Russian menace is through a more advanced long-distance strike capability and a vamped up Royal Marines Corps, alongside an American style “Ranger Regiment” (there’s the dog and tail again).

But do you know what else might come in handy in a war with Russia? Tanks. How does the government imagine this potential war with Russia will play out? If it ends up looking something like the invasion and annexation of the Crimea then a sizable armoured division east of Tallin might be a sensible precaution.

Currently, the Russians have us outgunned in this area; they have 12, 950 tanks to our 227. After the proposed cuts that difference will be even greater.

Obviously, in the event of a land-war, the Russians won’t just have 227 Challenger 2’s to deal with, but the combined firepower of every NATO army. It probably won’t go their way, a calculation that is likely keeping them from attempting to roll into the Baltics in the first place.

So as a result, Britain can keep telling Estonia that we have their backs because we know that the Americans and Germans are promising the same thing. Like the weedy lad just before a bar brawl, we can keep saying “You better watch it, mate” in the comfortable knowledge that those words won’t have any repercussions because our rugby-playing friends are the ones who’ll actually do the fighting.

I can’t speak for my readers, but I don’t see much to admire in that character. In which case, Britain should either stop the hard-man rhetoric, or buy the tanks that can back it up.

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