Myopic MOD

SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, November 27) and John Dunkin (Letters, December 11) fail to reveal the full extent of the damage that has been done to our county regiments by decades of defence cuts.

The backbone of the Army has always been the county regiments, which have maintained links with their recruiting areas over 300 years. Today the Army has contracted into “super-garrisons”, leaving large swathes of the country with no military presence at all. When the time inevitably comes to expand the Army again, there will be no structure in place to meet that challenge.

The very last elements of the thread linking the county regiments to their historical bases are regimental museums, educating current and future generations across communities and recruiting areas. These are registered charities and are already starting to lose the Ministry of Defence’s meagre financial backing.

The MOD cannot see beyond the next budget cut. It is directed by politicians with no interest in applying the hard-earned lessons of history, despite their primary responsibility being the defence of the realm. Lt-col Mark Jackson (retd) Charlton, Worcestershire

SIR – Having campaigned for more than two years for the cancellation or modification of the nuclear programme to replace Trident, I am delighted to see the support of Field Marshal Lord Bramall (report, December 16).

There is doubt as to whether Trident should be called a white elephant, a sacred cow or a giant cuckoo in the defence nest. I am sticking to sacred cow. Tim Deane

Tisbury, Wiltshire