Commentary: Too many defence cuts have been ill thought out

The West huffs and puffs about ISIS, Iraq and Ukraine, without much sign of muscle.

Today the British Army opens its equivalent of an annual MoT and check-up, with the annual Land Warfare Conference.

Here military commanders, political masters and academic advisers need to face up to the questions of what armed forces could and should the UK have and what are they needed for?

The questions cause bafflement and boredom among public and political commentariat alike. After the lengthy and bloody tours of Iraq and Afghanistan, they seem increasingly irrelevant. They shouldn’t be.

Short-term cuts in defence spending were all but inevitable with the arrival of the new government in 2010. But too many were ill thought out, and badly handled. The chopping and changing over aircraft carriers has cost millions of pounds already. The cancellation of the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft has left a gap which will cost four or five times to plug.

Britain is being told repeatedly to raise its game and get back to spending two per cent of GDP on defence and hard security. Its position in the world and its commercial vulnerabilities require this.

The gathering storm of crises in Ukraine, the Mediterranean, the Middle East and from the outcomes of the Arab Spring, emphasise the need for forces that can adapt and react quickly to security threats.

The operations in Libya two years ago are something of a warning. Far from the triumphalist bluster of the official propaganda of the day, it was less than effective. The proof of this is that it is likely to be quite a while before we have an effective government in Tripoli or Benghazi.

The biggest mistake by this government is to cut personnel so drastically in all three services. The Navy is seriously short of specialists, and is too small for what it is now being asked to do — let alone what is likely to be called for in the future.

There has been too much emphasis on soft power. Some £3 billion has been added to aid expenditure by the Coalition, much of it on questionable recipients. Soft power only works when it is backed by credible and relevant hard power. Hard power needs well trained soldiers and commanders, and equally informed and less risk averse advisers, civil servants and politicians.