Army cuts will leave UK 'exposed'

05 July 2012

Plans to cut some 20,000 regular troops from the British Army by 2020 will leave the country exposed in the short term, the former head of the army has said.

General Lord Dannatt, speaking on Radio 4's Today programme ahead of a parliamentary announcement on Army 2020, said that politicians must be prepared to increase the size of the regular forces quickly in the event of a "strategic shock".

The Army 2020 plans will see 20,000 regular troops cut, including whole regiments, reducing the army from 102,000 personnel to 82,000, while the number of reservists is set to increase to around 30,000.

Asked if he thought the cuts would leave the country 'exposed, Lord Dannatt said: "We'd be exposed in the short term, but governments have to be responsive, they have to analyse the situation they find, and if it meant that we needed a larger army, or indeed a larger navy or larger air force, we must be prepared to find the funds and expand those forces and capabilities quickly.

"That's part and parcel of the whole business of government."

The army would still be agile but would only be capable of fighting one "significant operation" at a time, he said.

"We won't be capable of getting involved in two operations simultaneously of the size and scale of Iraq and Afghanistan."

The cuts would mean the army could do less but it would still be able to achieve "a tremendous amount", Lord Dannatt added, suggesting that 'expensive maritime equipment programmes' had been preserved at the expense of the army.

Conservative MP Bob Stewart, a former Colonel and United Nations commander in Bosnia,, told the BBC that the UK should have larger armed forces than it does but has a "real problem" trying to pay for them.

"I would much prefer us not to be making these cuts, and I particularly don't like the idea of cutting infantry battalions," said Stewart, adding that 82,000 constituted a "very, very small army".

"Some people say that once you go under 100,000 you should start referring to yourselves as a self-defence force because it's hardly an army."

Details of which regiments are to be cut are set to be announced in Parliament later today.