Our Army’s too small, admits top UK general

BRITAIN’S top general has admitted the Army is simply not big enough to tackle threats to the UK’s security.

General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, a decorated former SAS commander, said he was ‘not comfortable’ when he learned the Ministry of Defence (MoD) intended to cut the size of the regular Army by 9,000 soldiers.

Sir Mark, who will soon step down as Chief of the General Staff (CGS), told Soldier magazine: ‘I’m not comfortable with an Army of just 73,000 [full-time troops]. It is too small.’

It comes as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday criticised the state of the Army’s vehicles, saying its ‘land fleet’ was ‘woefully behind its peers’.

He said: ‘You can lay the blame at all sorts of reasons, but fundamentally it needs definitely to modernise.’

The warnings by such senior members of the UK’s defence establishment will heap pressure on the Treasury to find more funds. The Army is at its smallest since the 1700s and has lost 30,000 troops in the last two decades.

Last night the MoD said: ‘We are investing an extra £24billion in defence – the biggest investment in the UK’s armed forces since the end of the Cold War.’