Army Manpower
I missed Dannatt this morning but there was someone else on R4 offering the view that it would be impossible to maintain the current force in Afghanistan if the Army was cut................ what, are they really suggesting that you need an Army of more than 100K to keep a tenth of that deployed on ops? Tanks and big guns are a smoke screen - it is the manpower costs that dominate with our Land friends so don't be deceived.
Whilst we may be agreed that the FSTA PFI is somewhat sub-optimal, Dannatt needs to bear a couple of things in mind:
- It is subject to a very tight contract.
- There is no point having an Army to fight those wars that he was so happy to enter unless we have the means to get there!