Concern has been raised that the United Kingdom is once again reducing the size of its armed forces. A chorus of complaints has come from retired generals, from defense experts and from politicians, all bemoaning the planned reduction in military manpower and in tanks and other equipment, as well as in warships.
Voices have also joined in from the United States expressing doubts about the U.K. continuing as a military power. What these critics all find it hard to grasp is that a fundamental change is taking place in defense requirements, in the whole gamut of security concerns and in the very nature of warfare itself.
Indeed, as one military authority put it "wars are no longer declared," meaning not that threats of conflict and invasion are over but that, on the contrary, they were becoming continuous conditions of enmity between states and extending into areas such as space and cyberspace. They are also moving into the vital arteries and inner nerve systems of societies, on a scale and in a manner never before experienced.