Ben Barry

Long-serving soldier and expert in land warfare Brigadier (Rtd) Ben Barry describes the transformations and decline that have taken place in the British Army over the last half century.

Barry, who served in the Army between 1975 and 2010, explains how the Army’s fighting capability increased from a low point in the 1970s in response to the prospect of war with Russia. He says this new capability was tested in Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq but was followed by two decades of decline. By 2021 the Army was only half the size it was in 1970. Barry says this decline is continuing.

Barry is senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and author of Blood, Metal and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq. He commanded both an armoured infantry battalion and a multinational brigade on UN and NATO operations in Bosnia and was director of the British Army Staff in the UK Ministry of Defence.