British Army facing "manpower crisis"

A few days ago we saw a report saying that the British military was running out money. Now we see they are running out of troops, as well. The U.S. military, already forced to use stop-loss and lower its recruiting standards, is depending more and more on the allies to pick up the slack.

Meanwhile, Bush's ally in Australia, Howard, may not survive the next election. Australia may very well join the list of nations that have abandoned the Decider's quest for endless war.

Could it be that that the world, along with the U.S. public, has turned its back on Bush's vision of a decades-long conflict known as the Long War? Or has it merely found it impossible to sustain?

Army crisis as number of troops leaving soars

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent

Last Updated: 2:37am GMT 23/11/2007

The Army is facing a major shortfall in manpower after the latest figures released today showed that the number of troops leaving had increased by 50 per cent in the last year.

The difficulty in finding troops for the frontline has become evident after the Ministry of Defence admitted it was short of 4,500 soldiers - the equivalent of almost an entire brigade.

With most of the Army on continuous operations for the last four years in Iraq and Afghanistan the strain on soldiers and their families has been immense.

In the last two years the manning shortage of soldiers excluding officers has more than quadrupled from 1,000 to the most recent figure making the Army short of nine battalions in manpower.

The MoD's requirement for soldiers is 88,450 but yesterday the figure stood at 83,860 which includes almost 7,000 men recruited from Commonwealth countries.

More worryingly the number of people resigning from the Army has increased by 10 per cent in the last year to 12,500.

The figures come after former head of the Army Gen Sir Mike Jackson warned that the Armed Forces are facing a cash "crisis" raising doubts over whether the military will be able to pay for future operations.

Bernard Jenkin, a Tory member of the Commons Defence Committee, said the latest figures were "absolutely appalling".

"The problem of retaining soldiers in the Army is not just about very modest pay and conditions this is about the strain of operations and the stress on family life caused by long periods of separation.

"There comes a point where people feel forced to choose and the family inevitably comes first – after all, what we are fighting for is for our families and children."

Derek Twigg, the defence minister, said the MoD was "addressing manning challenges" by adjusting policies and "using long-term strategies" to recruit and retain people.

There was positive news that, perhaps attracted by media reports of fighting on the front in Afghanistan, there has been a 25-per-cent increase in young men signing up for the infantry in the last year.

But overall the Armed Forces are now lacking almost 7,000 personnel out of a total required force of 181,000.

The MoD said it hoped to improve the manning figures under its Service Personnel Plan which will take into account the demands of family life.

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The Liberal Democrats' acting leader Vincent Cable said criticism had been "personalised" against Gordon Brown because, as chancellor: "He signed the cheque for 5bn for the war in Iraq at a time when the armed forces were already overstretched.

"That is why the troops are under-equipped, they are not properly housed, they are not cared for when they are injured - and they are very angry."

Organisations like the Royal British Legion say the armed forces are over-stretched and under-funded, and say that while 4.4% of GDP was spent on defence in the early 1980s, today it is about 2.3%.

The BBC's defence correspondent Caroline Wyatt said the real question, was whether the armed forces were being asked to do too much on the available resources.

Long-term defence planning failed to predict that Britain would be fighting two medium-sized campaigns on two fronts simultaneously, and facing lengthy ongoing commitments as a result.

The last full review, which tried to match the armed forces to the threats they expected to counter, was carried out in 1998.

"The overstretch in the budget has led to calls from some for a new strategic defence review, which would outline exactly what military role and aims Britain wants to pursue - and how much it's prepared to pay for that," she said.