The British armed forces could shrink by up to a fifth because of inevitable funding cuts, according to a military think-tank.
The Royal United Services Institute said in a report that the number of trained military personnel could fall to 140,000 from its current level of 175,000 as soon as 2016.
The Ministry of Defence has said that the defence budget will not be cut at all next year. But the report's author, defence expert Professor Malcolm Chalmers said that intense pressure on public funds meant that by 2017, the defence budget was likely to fall by 11 per cent in real terms by 2017, and that deeper reductions could not be ruled out.
These cuts are likely to be exacerbated by rising costs of employing troops and buying and maintaining equipment.
Chalmers said that cuts were unavoidable, regardless of who is in power after the general election later this year.
