The former head of the British army has warned the British government that strategic failings and "inadequate" funding were putting their troops at risk.
General Mike Jackson - who retired as head of the army in August - criticised defence bosses for "considerable inertia" in not recognising that pressures in Iraq and Afghanistan had grown beyond initial expectations.
During the BBC's Dimbleby Lecture last night, he said: "The inescapable deduction is that the funding allocated on the basis of assumptions is inadequate, because the virtual world defined by those assumptions has been overtaken by the real world.
"There is therefore a mismatch between what we do and the resources we are given with which to do it," he said.
On the subject of whether the British army was overstretched, Sir Mike said it was "more or less" within its deployment guidelines "on average".
"(But) by definition average includes those parts of the army which are outside those guidelines. And we could well be asking too much over the long haul in terms of frequency of operational deployment, to say nothing of the conditions of service under which our soldiers undertake this long haul."
Gen Jackson also criticised "poor co-ordination" within Government over strategic aims.
PA