As the Chief of the Army, General Richards wrote a paper showing convincingly why armies face what he called a "horse and tank" moment. Recently, he has elevated that analogy to the strategic plane, where it is no longer a sufficient explanation, only a necessary part. 

Surely, he and the new MoD Permanent Secretary Ursula Brennan should not be bound to an exercise which they did not shape or conduct and which is so widely criticised? Let them be allowed to start again, well founded and on their own account.

The third explanation is increasingly heard. I would prefer not to believe that policy might contain it, because it is deaf and blind to the fundamentals of British national interest and strategy as I understand them, although consistent with the narrative of the fading nation-state and benign multilateral replacements. This suggests that coincidence is indeed cause. It says that the Coalition government wants no expeditionary operations on its watch. Therefore the best way to ensure this is simply to take away the key enabling capabilities of amphibious operations, maritime air power and an adequate surface fleet to undertake them. The British Army today cannot be other than a projectile fired by the Royal Navy, as the great naval strategist Sir Julian Corbett described it a century ago in his Principles Strategy. Nothing can change that reality, unless it is intended to give up our sovereign independence of action.  

And that outcome is exactly what the SDSR, as it stands, has done. Furthermore, that is exactly how it is being read by some of the brightest people in the Armed Forces. These actions also tell the world that Britain is effectively signing off as a serious strategic power. Is this really what was intended? Is that really what the country wants?