How can Britain stand up to the Russian threat with such depleted defences?

Sir – Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, is of course correct that Britain and its allies must not appease Russia (report, January 19).

However, unless we sort our Armed Forces out fast, appeasement is going to be our only option in the short term. As has been highlighted in these pages many times, the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force would be unable to sustain the defence of the United Kingdom, let alone meet any commitments to our allies. Our defences have been run down and are now dysfunctional.

Lord Cameron’s decisions as prime minister are partly to blame for this; but, in truth, there has been a lack of vision on defence for the past 30 years. Alastair MacMillan

Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire

Sir – A Nato official believes that all-out war with Russia within 20 years is a very real possibility.

This makes for sobering reading in Britain, which has a population of about 70million and a depleted Army of less than 65,000 deployable troops – meaning that, for every 1,000 or so British residents, there is one soldier to defend them. Russia, meanwhile, has increased military spending to 40 per cent of the national budget.

British politicians should hang their heads in shame for reducing our ability to defend ourselves to practically nothing. But at least we’ll be able to get from London to Birmingham by train 15 minutes quicker than before. Simon Crowley Kemsing, Kent

Sir – Further evidence of our not-sospecial relationship with the United States (Letters, January 19) is to be found in My Life and Times, the autobiography of Jerome K Jerome.

In 1914 he was dispatched to America to gauge the degree of support for Great Britain in the war. “The general feeling was, if anything, pro-German,” he recalled, “tempered in the East by traditional sentiment for France. I failed to unearth any enthusiasm for England in spite of my having been commissioned to discover it. I have sometimes wondered if England and America really do love one another as much as our journalists and politicians say they do.”

Jeremy Nicholas Former president Jerome K Jerome Society Great Bardfield, Essex