Are we not missing the point? Reducing the commitments we envisaged our Armed Forces undertaking was the reason given to scale them back at a time of austerity. We did this on the basis that Afghanistan was all we would be up for pre 2015 with some limited scope for the unexpected. That this has arrived now arrived just adds to the overstretch position we were already facing pre Libya.
If the Defence Chief's then play politics to safeguard the long term, it simply allows the Minister of Defence to say "The UK's Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) does not need to be revised in light of the recent upheavals in North Africa and has been vindicated in its adaptive approach"