Mr Blair expounded his “doctrine of international community” in Chicago in April 1999, during Nato’s air war against Serbia. It was an emotive appeal to America to choose internationalism over isolationism and, given the horrors of ethnic cleansing, was none the worse for that. But what the Prime Minister has signally neglected in his zeal for pre-emptive action is to provide Britain with the military means to bring it to a successful conclusion. Under strength and poorly equipped, the Armed Forces have been stretched to the limit, and their prospects look no rosier under Mr Blair’s successor, whoever that may be. Labour has traded on the professionalism of the men and women in uniform to grandstand on the international stage, and that cynical attitude has now caught up with it.
Indeed it has.






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