- Blade to the heart - 19th September 2024
- Court in the act - 18th September 2024
- On your bike! - 17th September 2024
During 23 years with the BBC, and 41 years in journalism (when he was trained to use simple language, avoiding jargon), closely examining crucial events, has always been central for our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, so he looks with interest at more new information which became a key election issue last month, apparently showing that the UK armed forces are declining massively in numbers, with some experts even predicting their ultimate demise.
For anyone in the armed forces it must be a worrying time – indeed it is alarming for everybody in the UK, whatever your political leanings.
Last year the British military experienced its lowest number of active-duty personnel, and figures today have confirmed this downward trend.
As of October 1, the combined number of regular troops and volunteer reserves in all services fell to 184,865 (7,440 lower than the previous year), which was the lowest figure since 1815.
According to former army major and Liberal Democrat (LD) Member of Parliament Richard Foord, troops are leaving the armed forces due to issues such as substandard military housing.
Other (more belligerent) countries, though, are doing the opposite and INCREASING their armed forces.
For example as of January this year, China had the largest armed forces in the world, with about 2 million active soldiers, but even THAT isn’t seen as big enough.
A few months ago, it was reported how it had conducted a massive reorganisation.
China rolled out the largest restructuring of its military in almost a decade, focusing on technology-driven strategic forces equipped for modern warfare, as Beijing vies with Washington for military primacy in South East Asia.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping scrapped the Strategic Support Force (SSF), a military branch he had only created in 2015 to integrate the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) space, cyber, electronic and psychological warfare capabilities, as part of a sweeping overhaul of the armed forces.
In its place, Mr Xi inaugurated the Information Support Force, which he said was “a brand-new strategic arm of the PLA and a key underpinning of coordinated development and application of the network information system”, declaring that the new force would play an important role in helping the Chinese military “fight and win in modern warfare”.
Russia may not have performed very well in Ukraine, but it has learned from its mistakes early on, and is intent on the armed forces growing.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the world’s fifth-largest military force, with 1.15 million and at least two million reserve personnel.
Yet, like China, even this is deemed too small.
According to the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA): “Russia plans to expand its active personnel force to 1.5 million by 2026, which will make it the third largest in the world, after China and India“.
Iran’s military is not expanding because it is already pretty big at 650,000.
These sort of numbers should make everyone quake in right-thinking democracies.
Especially when there are fewer than 185,000 UK fighting men and women to call on…
Details including important stories like this by Phil, as he was gripped by the rare neurological condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused, because it was to have included names.
Tomorrow – a leading education expert in Wales has condemned as “bizarre and disgraceful” comments from the head of a Welsh university declaring that she is “proud” of her organisation, when it has come bottom of ALL similar institutions in the UK.
