Britain to Cut Armed Forces by 20%, Defense Chief Says

Defense Secretary Tom King, in the face of resistance from senior officers and opposition political leaders, Tuesday announced sweeping cuts in the British armed forces.

King said the military will be reduced by 62,000 people, or 20%, with the army losing the most--40,000 soldiers. About 14,000 will be cut from the air force and 8,000 from the navy.

King revealed the drastic reductions in a Defense Ministry white paper, which set out only broad policy outlines and gave no details of the cuts to be made.

The cuts will leave Britain with its smallest army in modern history, a force that critics see as too small to accomplish its missions.

In cutting the army to 116,000 from 156,000 within four years, Britain will also reduce the number of infantry battalions to 36 from 55.

King said the action, which he called “probably the most important” in 30 years, was in response to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The changes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, King said, were the “biggest transformation in history.”

The defense secretary pointed out that 1 million soldiers, formerly part of the Warsaw Pact forces, no longer pose a threat in Eastern Europe.

Responding to critics, King told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the cuts of 20% were less than those of some of Britain’s allies, with the United States planning reductions of 25% and the Germans and the Dutch 30%.

However, Field Marshal Nigel Bagnall, former chief of the general staff, said he is “bitterly disappointed” over the way the cuts were handled.

“There has been no proper review (of) what the army is expected to do,” he said. “It has been a financially dictated figure to which they have had to work.”

Bagnall added that government statements predicting that the army would become a leaner, tougher force were “absolutely dishonest.”

And George Younger, a Conservative member of Parliament and a former defense secretary, warned that reducing the infantry to 36 battalions would not meet Britain’s “commitments” in Germany, Northern Ireland, Hong Kong and Cyprus and in emergencies such as the Gulf War. “If the cutbacks are on that scale,” he said, “it will end in tears.”

Martin O’Neill, a defense spokesman for the opposition Labor Party, condemned the lack of detailed analysis in the white paper.

On Tuesday, the government dodged the difficult question of which regiments would be disbanded under the cuts--a touchy political subject, since the traditional British units are identified with geographical areas and have powerful and influential supporters. Those specific decisions have been left to the army.