Army fights for future as pledge on troop numbers is abandoned
Officers are preparing to reduce the size of the army to as little as 65,000 after the Conservatives dropped a pledge to maintain the force at its target of 82,000, The
Times understands. Options being considered within the military include reducing the army by 17,000 personnel to less than two thirds of the size of the French army and only slightly bigger than Germany’s land force, according to two defence sources. A third source said that “contingency plans” were being prepared in case the army was cut to 60,000 or 70,000. Officials were even asked this year to consider the implications of a full-time army of as few as 55,000, although officers believe this is unlikely.
A reduction of at least 2,000 personnel is almost inevitable as military chiefs and civil servants grapple with a funding hole in the defence budget of at least £10 billion over ten years........
A Conservative pledge to retain an army of at least 82,000 is absent from Theresa May’s manifesto. Instead the Tories broadly commit to maintaining “the overall size of the armed forces”. This means that a reduction in soldiers could be offset by an increase in the navy and RAF, which are struggling to man ships and aircraft. A Whitehall source said that such a calculation “is too simple a way of thinking”. Money saved within the army budget should be ploughed back into the army, he said......
“They are having to think the unthinkable,” a defence source said about the ideas being floated among officials to balance the budget. “Options are being socialised — they are socialised, informally briefed, written down and then formally briefed,” he said. Small teams have been told to prepare to work with the Cabinet Office on any post-election defence review, described as likely to be a “new chapter” to the last strategic defence and security review, conducted in 2015.
The political imperative to retain the army at a certain size on paper had become a shackle because there was insufficient money to equip and support a force of 82,000, sources said. Certain jobs in the logistics chain could be contracted out to the private sector, reducing manpower without affecting fighting capability and more use could also be made of the Army Reserve, they said........
An MoD spokesman said: “There are no plans to reduce the size of the
armed forces.”