The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting Britain's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in NATO and other coalition operations.
The British Army had a reported strength of 112,700 in 2004, including 7,600 women, and the Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. The 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategic nuclear arm, which consists of four Trident missile submarines, while the Royal Marines provide commando units for amphibious assault and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military troops in the 210,000 range.
Along with France and Russia, Britain fields one of the most powerful and comprehensive military forces in Europe. Despite Britain's wide ranging capabilities, recent defence policy has a stated assumption that any large operation would be undertaken as part of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982.
A senior Britishmilitary police officer in Iraq, Captain Ken Masters, was found hung in his military accommodation in Basra on October 15.
In response, the British Army launched a military assault on the facility in which the SAS men were being held, demolishing parts of the building.
Citing anonymous military personnel, the newspaper continued, “the bombs and the firing devices used to kill the soldiers, as well as two private security guards, were initially created by the UK security services as part of a counter-terrorism strategy at the height of the troubles in the early 1990s.
By 1890 there were sixty nursing sisters working in sixteen military hospitals, and by 1898 this had increased to seventy-two.
The women who enrolled in the service from 1909 were civilian nurses who continued to work in their usual capacity, but had undertaken to be mobilised at short notice in case of war.
There was particular resistance to the introduction of the grade of Staff Nurse, as it was seen as unacceptable to their members, the most junior of whom had always held the grade of Sister.
Feeds |
Contact