To follow up on my previous post on British defense cuts, it is worth noting that the Cameron government is planning to cut the British army from 101,000 soldiers to 82,000–the lowest level in a century. At the Kings of War blog, Rob Dover of Kings’ College, London, notes that this will radically change Britain’s strategic capabilities. He writes:
The cuts to the army mean we could only be involved in Afghanistan OR Iraq. That’s not mid-sized military power stuff. That’s a serious diminution of the ability to project power and influence in both absolute terms (kinetic) [and also] in soft-power terms. Why would the U.S. (aside from intelligence liaison) be interested in the British view?
