How to restore Britain’s military standing

Rachel Sylvester’s column today, highlighted by Pete this morning, raises the question of who should take the blame for the decline in Britain’s utility as a combat ally. This is principally a result of this country fighting wars on a peacetime budget. It was one of Tony Blair’s great failings that he did not tell Gordon Brown that the need for a serious and sustained increase in defence spending was non-negotiable. (When Brown became Prime Minister, the military had to fight two wars for a year without even a full time Secretary of State for Defence).

What the military can be faulted for is a series of high-handed comments and articles about the failings of the US military when it came to counter-insurgency. These were not politic. More seriously, the British military—unlike its American counterparts—has failed to learn the lessons of its recent campaigns. The Americans are now the more skilled force at counter-insurgency.