文档介绍：Britain
Blighty
The defence review
Painful, but not fatal
Oct 19th 2010, 18:36 by . | LONDON
"PAIN all around, but nothing fatal" appears to have been the guiding principle of Britain’s strategic defence and security review (SDSR), the results of which were announced by David Cameron on October 19th. The budget cuts – 8% in real terms over the next four years – were not as swingeing as they might have been nor nearly as deep as the Treasury was hoping for. But the cash squeeze is nevertheless intense.
There were several reasons why Mr Cameron decided at the last moment to tell the Treasury to back off. Chief among them: a doughty rearguard action fought (at some personal political risk) by the defence secretary, Liam Fox; the persistent demands of the campaign in Afghanistan; pressure from the Americans not to go too far; and the sheer riskiness of abandoning important capabilities in an uncertain world. The scope for radical cuts, Mr Cameron wisely concluded, was severely limited.
The headlines are that the army will eventually shrink to 95,500 soldiers from today’s 102,500 while losing about half its heavy armour and artillery, most of which is in Germany, still awaiting the Soviet armies that never came. It will be able to sustain a 7,000-strong brigade permanently in the field, significantly less than the 9,500 soldiers currently deployed in Afghanistan. But that