Chris

For once I (mostly) agree with Arthur. It has been the policy of successive UK governments to maintain standing, professional armed forces. There has always been a need for sensible levels of reserve to cope with specific troubles, but reducing the nation's capacity to act quickly does not make sense.

And that's the point where I disagree with Arthur: the reserves don't get called up on 24 hour's notice, they get months of pre-deployment training, for example, before going to Afghanistan. The only time they would be called up for immediate action would be if the country was at immediate and dire peril.