Analysis: Britain forced to accept a new military strategy - retrenchment

After protests from service chiefs, Downing Street has accepted that the armed forces cannot cope with so many overseas operations

The Government would like today's announcement by Geoff Hoon of Britain's deployment in Afghanistan coming to an end to be seen as a routine matter. The withdrawal from the Balkans, they will say, is still under consideration in the Force Strategic Review.

But, in reality, what we are seeing is a sea change in British military and political strategy, a latter-day equivalent of the retreat from "East of Suez", and a realisation that the country cannot sustain a new Pax Britannica.

The main reason behind it is the much overused word "overstretch". British forces have seen action in Bosnia and Kosovo, Sierra Leone, East Timor and Afghanistan as a tool of British, and at times, American diplomatic policy.

Downing Street has now finally accepted, after prolonged protests from defence chiefs, that the forces simply cannot carry on with this intensity of operations. Exercises, vital to maintain their fighting qualities, are having to be abandoned. Young, upwardly mobile officers – the future generals, admirals and air marshals – are leaving because of the seemingly unremitting pressure on their domestic lives.

Tony Blair's mind has also been concentrated by the noises coming from a senior cabinet colleague. Not Mr Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, but someone much more powerful, Gordon Brown.

The "Iron Chancellor" has let it be known, according to senior Whitehall sources, that the Treasury has not got a bottomless fund for the military. Britain's fourth war in Afghanistan cannot be followed by endless post-imperial adventures is the message.

The Defence Secretary has himself admitted that he is facing immense difficulties with next month's comprehensive spending review. "I shall certainly be putting my case to the Chancellor, but I recognise it will have to sit alongside equally vigorous cases presented by my colleagues in Health, Education, public transport and so on. Ultimately the Chancellor will have to strike the appropriate balance," said Mr Hoon.

The figures are quite stark. Defence officials are claiming that the defence budget is underfunded by about £500m. Unless Mr Brown pumps in a great deal more money, the shortfall is expected to be between £750m and £1bn by 2008.

There is another reason for retrenching. It is a word that fills many of Britain's senior officers with unease but it is something they know they need to prepare for – Iraq. Unless the CIA manages to remove Saddam Hussein, which few believe it can, America is likely to launch an offensive early next year. Washington has made very clear that it expects a sizeable British commitment and the military expects Mr Blair will oblige.

The nature of the disengagement is an indicator for the war next time. A withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Balkans will bring about 7,000 troops back home, for now at least. The withdrawal from Sierra Leone is almost complete; about 380 soldiers remain as advisers to the new Sierra Leone army and most of these will be replaced by the UN force, UNAMSIL.

The areas that will not be touched are the forces in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Bahrain and Turkey, Oman and Muscat. They are small in numbers, but expect, in a few months' time, to see additions to the Ministry of Defence website about units moving to these bases and, later on, Royal Navy ships congregating in the Indian Ocean.

Britain has played a significant part in the post-war history of the Balkans. During the Yugoslav civil war, British troops had a frustrating time attempting to keep a peace that did not exist. British ground forces led Nato's forces in Kosovo and ran the initial disarmament in Macedonia.

British troops remain in Kosovo and Bosnia, despite the Government's strenuous efforts to extract them. The MoD wants to reduce the number of troops in Kosovo from 5,000 to 1,200, and remove most of the 1,300 from Bosnia.

However, there are great difficulties in finding a country to take over. American officials said, from the first days of the Bush administration, that they did not envisage maintaining a commitment in the Balkans. Germany took over the lead role in Macedonia but no other Western nations seem to want that in Kosovo and Bosnia.

Thus we have a Nato Force Strategy Review, which is expected to decide what to do with the Balkans in the near future. Britain, however, is expected to say forcefully that it has done its bit and the others must replace British forces, possibly in the form of a multinational one.

On Afghanistan, Mr Hoon will say in the Commons today that the Royal Marines, deployed under Operation Jacana and based at Bagram, will leave by the end of August, after completing the 90 days of deployment originally announced.

The MoD had also said, though, that the position would be reviewed at the end of the 90 days, and the wide expectation has been that the mission would continue throughout the summer. To withdraw prematurely, senior officers repeatedly stressed, would leave the field wide open for Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters to return from across the border in Pakistan where they had taken refuge.

Indeed, just last month, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the Chief of Defence, talking about the beleaguered commander of the Marines, Brigadier Roger Lane, said he may be replaced by Brigadier Jim Dutton during the summer if there was a "suitable pause" in operations.

The decision to recall the marines is particularly embarrassing for Downing Street, which had much hyped the mission, after the initial attempt at British deployment last autumn was blocked by strong opposition from the victorious Northern Alliance and lack of support from the Americans. Since then the marines' inability to find the enemy had led to a huge amount of adverse publicity at home and demands that they should be brought back. There is also disillusionment among the marines, with senior NCOs saying that the only sensible option would be to "cut our losses" and go home.

The controversy over the marines had, to an extent, overshadowed the presence of the 1,300-strong British contingent of the International Security Assistance Force based at Kabul, although, ironically, the "peace-keepers" of Isaf had ended up firing more shots in anger than the marines.

The Turks, after a lot of haggling during which they extracted promises of subsidies from America and Britain, have now agreed to lead Isaf, with Major-General Akin Zorlu taking over as commander from the British Major-General John McCall in the next few weeks.

Senior officers said a sizeable British presence would remain after the Turkish takeover. But now it appears this will be scaled down to just under 300 "enablers" to work at the airport and deal with communications and engineering.

The Afghan wars of the past have included the worst single British defeat at arms in history and grave doubts within the Raj about imperial expansion into central Asia.

This one has been, thankfully, casualty free and the British troops have done what they were asked to do with great professionalism. However, this last war too has led to intrinsic and far-reaching reverberations in defence policy.

The British troops have done their job. It's time to get out

By Chris Bellamy

The decision to bring home up to 6,000 British troops should surprise no one. Military forces are deployed for a limited time to do a defined job and then get out. The British forces have done their job superbly and it is now time for other nations' armies and civilian agencies to take over.

Afghanistan is the most complicated of the post-Cold War peace support operations, as they are now called. There are three overlapping missions: the first is providing a secure framework for the transitional government through the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), which the UK has led and to which 1,800 British troops were committed in January, (1,300 remain). The second is a humanitarian aid operation, in which some British military personnel have helped international and non-governmental organisations. The third is fighting to destroy al-Qa'ida and Taliban remnants, to which Britain committed 1,700 Commandos and specialist Army personnel. The plan is to bring home the entire Commando group by mid-August and 900 of the 1,300 troops once leadership of the Isaf is handed over to Turkey. As the only Muslim nation in Nato, with a formidably tough military tradition, Turkey is uniquely equipped to fulfil this role.

The decision to bring troops home from the Balkans is also timely. British troops have been there for a decade. Although the role of the United Nations in Bosnia has been criticised, UN troops kept warring factions apart and millions of people alive through three terrible winters, well before the Americans arrived. Britain played a major role in enforcing the peace after that conflict in 1995, in the subsequent operations by the Implementation Force and Stabilisation Force in the 1999 operation against Mr Milosevic's Serbia and the occupation of Kosovo.

But military forces are, as General Sir Mike Jackson put it, only one strand of the rope, along with civilian organisations such as the UN, NGOs, national donors, police, judiciary, industries, banks – and the media. The military is the casing around the rope, which protects the other strands. The role of the military in post-conflict interventions is to create a secure environment to allow other experts to do their jobs. In any such intervention, the military's role should ideally be limited to two to six months.

Once a secure environment has been established, it is time to hand over to international police forces who will, in turn, develop professional, impartial police forces in the country being rebuilt. Their role is the most crucial and problematical of all. But there is no point having the best police if the courts and the judiciary do not meet the same standards. And how do you rebuild a country when there is no legal system?

The best time for the military to be deployed is not after a conflict but before. The release of 6,000 troops will allow Britain to deploy more troops for conflict prevention. That, surely, is the best way.

In Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo, the British military did its part; it is now for others to build on that. In 30 years, the records will tell of great feats of arms and compassion. Some will try to make political capital of the timely withdrawals. But timely they are, after a job well – even brilliantly – done.

Christopher Bellamy is Professor of Military Science and Doctrine at Cranfield University and the UK's Defence Academy