In 2002, during preparations for the invasion of Iraq, the then head of the British army, returning from a Washington visit, told Hastings, “Mass matters — and we don’t have it.” Hastings notes that the U.S. Marine Corps’ air wing is larger than the Royal Air Force. Americans know that “if the British army shrinks as scheduled after withdrawal from Afghanistan, we shall thereafter be able to deploy only a single brigade group of 7,000 to 8,000 men for sustained operations overseas.”
Which has implications for the “special relationship” — Hastings says this is now “a rather pathetic British conceit” — between Britain and America. “If,” he says, “we wish to play our traditional role abroad in pursuit of any perceived important Western foreign policy objective, to enjoy America’s confidence and share its secrets, we must own armed forces and intelligence assets capable of earning these things.”
Which has implications for the “special relationship” — Hastings says this is now “a rather pathetic British conceit” — between Britain and America. “If,” he says, “we wish to play our traditional role abroad in pursuit of any perceived important Western foreign policy objective, to enjoy America’s confidence and share its secrets, we must own armed forces and intelligence assets capable of earning these things.”
NATO’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, recently warned that “at the current pace of cuts,” it is hard to see how in the future “Europe could maintain enough military capabilities to sustain” operations such as those under way in Libya.
Actually, Europe could not sustain them today; only U.S. munitions, intelligence, refueling and other assets keep the Libyan operations going.
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