The Rise and Fall of the British Army: A Talk by Brigadier

In his book The Rise and Fall of the British Army 1975-2025 Ben Barry draws on his own personal experience, as well as a wide range of new sources to set out a new interpretation the Armys recent evolution hat challenges previous narratives.Over the last 50 years, society, technology, the character of conflict and the British Army itself have all change greatly.

From a low point in the 1970s, the Armys combat capability increased in the Cold War, whilst holding the ring war in Northern Ireland.

It was successful in the Falklands in 1982, in the 1991 Gulf War, through peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo, and in Sierra Leone, as well as in Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But these successes led to over-confidence and complacency in the Army, Ministry of Defence and British government.The book shows how this high plateau of military achievement was followed by two decades of decline.

Poor leadership by British governments and mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan led to strategic defeats, and to increasing public opposition to unpopular wars.

Cuts to defence funding and botched equipment procurements meant that in 2025 the British Army was only half the size it had been in 1975, but less ready for war and with much of its equipment obsolete.Ben Barry trained at the Light Infantry Depot Shrewsbury, Commissiong into its First Battalion.

He commanded Second Battalion the Light infantry in Germany and Bosnia, on United Nations and NATO operations.

The tour is described in his book The Road From Sarajevo.

He is Fellow for Defence and Military Analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He is the author of Blood, Metal and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq.