Letters | 16 April 2011

Short memories

Sir: Matt Cavanagh’s razor-sharp analysis (‘Operation Amnesia’, 9 April) chimes with the anecdotal evidence borne by friends returning from Afghanistan. But it is not just the soldiers who have made mistakes. Their political masters bear primary responsibility for initiating, in the first place, the unfunded strategic overstretch which goes beyond Afghanistan.

The result is that our Armed Forces are now unable to respond effectively to new, unexpected (and potentially more serious) crises such as the ones which have erupted recently in the Maghreb and the Middle East — as well as the ones which are surely yet to come.

We seem to be suffering from strategic, as well as operational, amnesia. A radical and clear-headed reassessment of Britain’s defence and security policy is overdue. There are, of course, no simple solutions. But it might just be worth taking a long look at hard-nosed ‘containment’ (as opposed to well-intentioned ‘intervention’) as a possibly cheaper and more effective strategic response to the threats that face Britain and the free world.