EVERY year but one since the end of the second world war British soldiers have died in action in some corner of the world. Britain no longer has an empire, but it still does a lot of fighting and keeping the peace. Britons are proud of their armed forces. What makes them good is, in part, the experience of fighting and losing men, and they have certainly done a lot of both in Iraq and Afghanistan. But as well as hardening soldiers, wars expose military weaknesses. British forces are overstretched and have struggled to adapt to modern counter-insurgency campaigns. The country's most important allies, the Americans, are questioning Britain's commitment and military performance (see article).

Britain was seen to give up the fight in Iraq just as America acted to stem the bloodbath. British troops are due to leave Iraq this summer, but in Afghanistan the military effort is faltering. President Barack Obama sees Afghanistan as his military priority; he is likely to pour in more resources than George Bush did with the “surge” in Iraq. But British commanders say their forces are already under “unacceptable” strain.

The air force's transport fleet is in a poor state and the navy is shrinking, but the army is worst off. It was not designed to fight two protracted wars, and the strains are made worse by shortages of men and equipment. Battalions are up to one-fifth below their regular size; a further fifth or so are ill, injured or otherwise unfit to deploy. A multi-billion-pound hole in the budget for military equipment means new systems have to be scaled back, delayed or hollowed out. Buying kit is so expensive and takes so long that spending is out of kilter with current needs: most money now goes on fighter jets, aircraft carriers and submarines, which are of little use in Afghanistan. Good front-line equipment is being purchased with emergency funds, but there is too little of it to train with.

George Bernard Shaw once quipped that “the British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.” But bureaucrats are not the only ones to blame. The generals have failed to update their counter-insurgency doctrine and units still rotate every six months (American soldiers stay for 12). This leads to discontinuity and short-term thinking.

Power at a price

The withdrawal from Iraq will ease some of the pressures but not all. Britain needs to rethink its defence policy from the ground up; the last big review took place in 1998. The question is whether to increase defence spending, reallocate existing resources or scale back national ambitions; and that raises the deeper question of what kind of country Britain wants to be.

Like some European states, Britain could limit itself to defending its national territory while sheltering under NATO and America's nuclear umbrella. For an island nation, that would require only a modest navy and air force, and a small army. But for reasons mainly of history and pride, Britain has wanted to sit at the top table, to be a “force for good” in the world. It has seen its best chance of doing so in being America's closest friend, ready to take on a hard fight; and this role has won it not just diplomatic clout but also preferential access to intelligence and technology.

But being America's best military friend is an expensive business. It requires expeditionary capabilities—transport aircraft, field hospitals, aircraft carriers, deep-strike bombers—and, arguably, a nuclear deterrent. Among west Europeans, only France comes close.

Many maintain that Britain should give up the pretence of being a busy power. After the chaos in Iraq and the stalemate in Afghanistan, it is surely time to stop meddling in other countries, which only breeds resentment and more terrorism. As recession squeezes the budget back home, better to divert money from defence to tutoring poor children, developing green technologies—and bailing out banks.

Such arguments are tempting, but wrong. The Iraq invasion did raise Britain's profile among jihadists, but given its history in the Muslim world and its demographic links to Pakistan, Britain was anyway unlikely to avoid their wrath. Less martial countries too are in the terrorists' sights, to judge from the Madrid bombings in 2004, foiled plots in Germany and the attack on the Danish embassy in Pakistan last year.

Playing it safe

A direct military threat to Britain or NATO is unlikely but not impossible. A world in economic turmoil may well be more dangerous, not less so—as the spread of totalitarian ideologies in the 1930s suggests. Russia has gone to war with Georgia, uses oil and gas as a weapon, and sends its bombers buzzing close to Britain. Iran is probably building a nuclear bomb. In any case, defence policy is also about creating a more ordered world. The number of UN peacekeepers has grown sevenfold in a decade. Whatever the negative lessons of Iraq, intervention will sometimes be necessary to defend allies, stop mass killings, shore up fragile states, close down terrorist havens and relieve suffering. These jobs should not be left to America or to the poor states that contribute the most troops to the UN. Europe must do its share. The burden falls unfairly on countries that are willing to get involved. But without the lead given by Britain (and France), other Europeans would do even less.

If it is to maintain its troops' effectiveness, Britain will have to make some difficult choices. Like any form of insurance, defence policy must cover a range of risks: the safety of sea lanes is vital to move supplies in wartime and to trade in peacetime; supremacy of the skies is the prerequisite for success on land or sea. But Afghanistan is the priority, and although a lot more aid there would help, that war will be won or lost on the ground. The army needs more soldiers, helicopters and drones. If Britain cannot increase defence spending, then it must scale back less urgent projects, such as new fighter jets and aircraft carriers.

Abandoning Afghanistan, leaving a vacuum for the Taliban to fill, would mean a victory for extremism everywhere, a destabilised Pakistan and a less safe world. Losing today's war could make tomorrow's wars more likely.