THERE IS growing unease in the United States over military cuts in Britain, a renowned strategist has warned.

The UK is seen as perhaps the only other serious military player in the western alliance and any erosion of our capability puts Washington on edge.

One US commentator has voiced the view held on the other side of the Atlantic that Britain brings with it “real military expertise” in any conflict and is the only power “technologically advanced and tactically adept…that can operate alongside ours.”

The observation was made by Professor Robert Osgood, director of the Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He noted that a “chill ran down the spines of admirers of the British Army” when defence cuts were announced.

“The lads at the Treasury may be about to do with word processors what generations of Frenchmen, Americans, Indians, Burmese, Egyptians, Afrikaners, Germans, Japanese and the IRA couldn’t do, wipe out The Black Watch.”

Professor Osgood added that something more substantial than sentiment should cause Americans to view with alarm Treasury cuts at the root of the British military establishment.

He outlined reductions across the three services and noted, “Of these losses, the one most troubling to Americans should be the cuts to an army that, at 102,000 men and women, will number half what it did in 1980.

“Britain is the only considerable state that can send substantial forces in the field to operate alongside ours. Only the British have the size and sophistication to take on large military tasks.

“The issue is not just capability in some narrow sense but the legitimacy and reassurance that comes from knowing a substantial partner is in the fight with us…only a handful of militaries can operate alongside ours. Foremost among those who can, are the Brits.”

He singled out Britain’s expertise in counter-insurgency, hard won in Northern Ireland, as an example of our potential contribution to world security.

“Their soldiers and generals have learned a great deal about pacifying distant trouble spots, knowledge from which the Yanks could and have benefited. In NATO (Britain) is unique among the military states; France is hostile to us, Germany is increasingly so and has debilitated its armed forces by putting them on starvation rations for the past decade.”

The professors urged US officials to put pressure on Tony Blair, their “best friend in Europe,” to halt defence cuts.

“They should point out the price paid for such fecklessness in the past. And they might suggest that as the flames of insurgency burn in Iraq…as al Qaida terrorists plot mayhem in our cities and theirs, when mass murder erupts in Africa and governments teeter in the Middle East, this is not the time to thin the red line to breaking point.”