How war in Gulf reveals the ‘cut corners’ on British defence

With the army’s size halved since the cold war, UK ambitions to be globally deployable do not match the reality, experts say

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If Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a wake-up call for Nato, the war in the Gulf has brought some harsh realities home to the British public about the state of the UK’s armed forces.

While air defence systems and fighter jets were already in place or deployed relatively swiftly, the time it took to send a single destroyer to Cyprus in the form of HMS Dragon focused minds on Britain’s military readiness and capabilities.