So what do we learn from the Times’s interview with David Richards, the man who is set to replace Richard Dannatt as the head of the British Army? Both a little and a lot. Most of the piece is made up of nice anecdotes and flatering quotes about the general, and he deflects a lot of the weightier questions with utterly uncontroversial answers – i.e. declining to say whether the army is properly resourced, and adding that “our own tactics must reflect the equipment and troop numbers we have.”
But some of his responses are much more eyecatching; as when he claims the “whole process [in Afghanistan] might take as long as 30 to 40 years.” Sure, that’s hardly a new contention; but it’s important – encouraging, even – that the incoming head of the army is making it.
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