Britain Stares at the Truth of Military Decline

How did the UK sink into military and diplomatic irrelevance in the current international crisis? To adapt Ernest Hemingway’s description of bankruptcy: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

The truth is that over the last quarter century, governments — largely Conservative but Labour too — have presided over the collapse of British hard power. It’s hardly consoling that other North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies in Europe have also put butter before guns and outsourced security to the US.