Head of Armed Forces: military risks becoming 'hollow force'

Britain’s military will become a “hollow force” with state of the art equipment but no one to operate it unless manpower budgets increase, the head of the Armed Forces has warned.

Gen Sir Nick Houghton, chief of the defence staff, said the Royal Navy was already “perilously close to its critical mass” after cuts to the numbers of sailors.

Years of spending on high-end technology to support British arms firms while at the same time sacking servicemen could leave the Forces with an “incoherent” structure, he said.

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