Military equipment rows are about more than just money

Why did Gordon Brown refuse the generals’ call for extra troops ahead of the Afghanistan/Pakistan strategic review published in April?

It’s the real bugbear that underpins the other rows about equipment resurfacing today. The assumption amongst many in the MOD is that it was purely about money.

But that might be underestimating the “political” elements in Mr Brown’s thinking… never a good idea.

He came to power setting himself up as some kind of more pacific alternative to Tony Blair. He saw the reduction in troops numbers and pull-out from Iraq as a huge political prize for which a grateful nation would give thanks.

It didn’t quite work out like that. He is similarly very wary of escalating troop numbers in Afghanistan. Number 10 was registering that the Afghan conflict was haemorrhaging public support long before the recent spate of newspaper and TV opinion polls.

Thinking in Whitehall now is that Gordon Brown could well end up having to increase numbers to something like what the generals were asking for originally…. under duress and late.