If the Army were a sword, it would be blunt and rusting

SINCE 1990, the regular Army has reduced in size’ from 155,000 troops to 75,000.

- Ben Barry Guest columnist

LETHAL CAPABILITY: But the Army has given all its AS90 artillery units to Ukraine

It contracted from eight armoured and four infantry brigades, to two armoured and three infantry brigades — shrinking by almost 60%. And the ever smaller UK defence industry lacks the size, political support and influential lobbies of the shipbuilding and aerospace industries because of continual diminishment of the defence budget and the Army’s share of it, together with bungled equipment programmes.

Successive governments were content with all this until the 2022 Russian attack on Ukraine forced Whitehall to face the “inconvenient truth” that the Army is less modernised than the Royal Navy or RAF, with much fighting equipment either obsolete or getting there. This was worsened by donation of Army weapons to Ukraine, such as all its AS90 medium artillery.

Last year, the Commons Defence Committee uncovered shocking shortages of combat supplies, medical support and training. And Defence Secretary John Healey stated that, while the armed forces were able to conduct peacetime operations, such as evacuations, they lacked the necessary capabilities to fight a war.