UK military chief regrets loss of appetite for wars

The UK armed forces’ chief has lamented Britons’ loss of appetite for wars amid a rise in opposition to Britain’s involvement in the US-led occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The purposes to which they (UK armed forces) have most recently been put have seldom been more deeply questioned. As a nation we have become a touch sceptical about the ability to use force in a beneficial way,” Nicholas Houghton told the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in a speech in London.

He said one of his biggest challenges was to try to “re-validate” the use of military force in the minds of government and the wider public.

Houghton’s remarks show how worried armed forces are about a growing political and public reluctance to use them to intervene in global warzones.

Military chiefs are also concerned that they would not be able to use military interference as a leverage to increase an already decreased defence budget at a time of fiscal austerity.

British troops joined the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and left the country in turmoil years later. They have also now spent some 12 years fighting in Afghanistan as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. British troops are due to leave Afghanistan by the end of next year, yet polls show the British public is sceptical about what those interventions achieved.