It looks increasingly likely that the UK will no longer meet Nato's commitment to spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence. Britain has already lost its airborne maritime patrol capability, despite increased Russian submarine activity. Reform of the general officer ranks of the army suggests that, despite the rhetoric, further manpower cuts can be expected. This might well mean an army of 60,000 or so soldiers, so small that it would barely qualify for Nato classification as an army. Coupled with Britain's flirtation with "Brexit", the reduction in military capability has placed real strain on the other supposed pillar of Cameron's foreign policy, the special relationship with America. President Obama, for all his foreign policy incompetence, is perfectly happy to let Berlin take the lead in European security, especially its response to Russia. The fact that this is happening at a moment when Berlin's power within the EU is ambiguous should be taken not only as a signal of America's view of Britain's place on the world stage but should also be a critical moment for reassessment of British foreign policy. Given his failure to articulate an alternative, there is no reason to assume that Miliband has any alternative for reversing Britain's strategic decline.

This incoherence has continued in Britain's support for American intervention against IS. Having lost a vote in the Commons that resulted in a veto against action in Syria, Cameron has persisted in following Obama's flawed model for intervention in Iraq. Miliband deserves his share of the blame. Neither of them has questioned the logic of Obama's National Security Strategy of "strategic patience", making them both a hostage to a fundamentally astrategic approach to foreign policy. Cameron's decision to restrict British action to Iraq was political: it was strategically incomprehensible but it was the price Miliband demanded for support. Miliband sought to appear statesmanlike by not blocking intervention entirely but instead tried to create political capital by distancing himself from Cameron and the legacy of Blair. Clearly on both sides of the Commons there was little thought for the wider strategic consequences of the campaign.

The overall effect has been the unprecedented Shia revival under Iran, though it seems unlikely that this was Cameron's or Miliband's intention. This has wider ramifications than simply in Iraq and Syria. The recent skirmishes on the Golan Heights are a direct consequence of this shift of the balance of power in the Middle East. Hezbollah now has combat experience from fighting alongside Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria and Shia militias in Iraq. Iran's emboldened stance has seen Hezbollah prepare for the type of military confrontation with Israel that would have been unthinkable a few years ago and could now ignite a serious regional conflict.

As long as the UK reduces its military capability, weakening the special relationship while simultaneously undercutting its influence in the EU, the effect is to absent the country from leadership in international affairs almost completely. Both of the main parties have a duty to assert a concept of the national interest and to translate that into a coherent and logical foreign policy, not one dictated from the fringes. If this is not done, Britain risks becoming a bystander as the political settlement in Europe faces its biggest challenge in a generation. The only real beneficiaries from this would be Russia and China, both of whom are actively pushing for a reordering of world affairs, based around "spheres of influence". As the ambitions of Europe, the UK and America become more parochial, their wish looks set to be granted.