The head of the army has warned that Britain is almost running out of troops to defend the country or fight in military operations abroad.
The warning by General Sir Richard Dannatt, chief of the general staff, to fellow defence chiefs comes at a time when the army is asking for a big increase in reservists to be deployed in Afghanistan, reflecting a crisis in Britain’s armed forces.

In a secret memorandum he says: “We now have almost no capability to react to the unexpected.” Reinforcements for emergencies or for operations in Iraq or Afghanistan were “now almost non-existent”.

He adds: “The enduring nature and scale of current operations continues to stretch people”. Gen Dannatt warns the army had to “augment” 2,500 troops from other units for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring up the total force to the 13,000 needed there. This remained “far higher than we ever assumed”, he says.

He continues: “When this is combined with the effects of under-manning (principally in the infantry and Royal Artillery) and the pace of training support needed to prepare units for operations, the tempo of life in the Field Army is intense.” While the current situation was “manageable”, Gen Dannatt said he was “concerned about the longer term implications of the impact of this level of operations on our people, equipment and future operational capability”.

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