It's a legitimate role, not to be confused with political expediency.
But that's where the problem lies - it is politically expedient for politicians of whatever hue to now call on the military at the first sign of a little local difficulty that makes them look bad. If anybody thought Noo Labour were obsessed by spin, I think the current lot are just as obssessed by what might be termed 'presentational issues'.
Whilst political expediency might solve the immediate problem, all it is doing is curing the symptoms rather than the underlying cause. And eventually, even the most obtuse of us in uniform will realise that rather than being pawns for use in the protection of the country, we are potentially becoming pawns for use in the protection of political reputations. Whilst any individual serving will put his life on the line to defend colleagues and mates (and maybe even Queen and Country), I don't know many that joined up to act as a guarantor of the reputations and presentational issues of politicians who are seemingly incapable of reading the mood of those who put them in power or even exercising a little common sense.
Edited to add: Having just posted this, I then happened to stumble across an interesting commentary by Charles Moore in the Telegraph. Mr Moore and I appear to be in agreement on the current adminstration's ability to read the public mood, but interestingly, a comment from Conservative MPs to their local associations seems to suggest more than a degree of political expediency in the current situation:
But now that I have heard the Conservatives’ private explanation, which is being handed down to constituency associations by MPs, I begin to feel angry.
The private message is as follows. “This is our Thatcher moment. In order to defeat the coming miners’ strike, she stockpiled coal. When the strike came, she weathered it, and the Labour Party, tarred by the strike, was humiliated. In order to defeat the coming fuel drivers’ strike, we want supplies of petrol stockpiled. Then, if the strike comes, we will weather it, and Labour, in hock to the Unite union, will be blamed.”
Even I’m starting to wonder: what do this lot know about anything? - Telegraph