Word: wars
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...list of rickety states and terror havens has continued to expand, defense spending has failed to keep pace even as equipment costs have spiraled upward. The prospect of lean times as Britain reins in its budget deficit has pitched army, navy and air force commanders into open turf wars. Lower down the ranks, the endemic overstretch expresses itself in a stark statistic: according to Britain's Ministry of Defence, 1 in 5 troops is unfit for frontline duty, often as a result of injury or psychological damage. Officials from France and the U.K. have discussed burden-sharing, including the possibility...
...understand the impact on the national psyche of this and other high-profile setbacks suffered by British forces deployed to Iraq, you must first appreciate the luster of Britain's military heritage. More than 60 years after World War II, Britons still grow up marinated in tales of their nation's wartime victories. By no means the world's most richly resourced fighting force, nor its largest, the country's military has long provided an international role model. Smart, flexible and cohesive, the services have been seasoned by working in contrasting terrains and in conflicts with a wide range...
...confidence that comes with Britain's heritage helps explain the insouciance with which Brits strolled into Basra in 2003 unhelmeted while their U.S. counterparts kept a wary distance from the Iraqis they had liberated in those heady early days of the Iraq war. And at first, it did seem that Britain, very much the junior partner in terms of numbers and resources, could teach the Americans a thing or two about how to deal with the manifold challenges of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. "Great Britain's relative success in Basra is due in no small measure to the self-assurance...
...Something Rotten Another key to learning is a readiness to confront past mistakes. In January, a British public inquiry into the Iraq conflict heard evidence from former Prime Minister Tony Blair. "In the end, [the war] was divisive, and I'm sorry about that," said Blair. But he continued: "If I'm asked if we're safer and more secure, I believe indeed that we are." (See pictures of the Bush-Blair friendship...
...John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, believes the real roots of British humiliations in Iraq lie in London. "If the politicians back home are not completely committed to this thing, if they have not leveled with the people on the likely costs of the war, then you're putting an unsupportable burden on the army in the field in a counterinsurgency campaign," says Nagl. "And so as you look at explanations as to why the British army performed better in Malaya than Iraq, one of the questions is to what extent did the British government...