If a single fact could be said to highlight the folly of the cuts outlined in the recent strategic defence spending review, it must be this: HMS Cumberland was en route home from the Mediterranean to be scrapped, when she was called upon to rescue our citizens from the Libyan meltdown.
Since then, she has done sterling service, transferring terrified Brits to Malta and underlining yet again, that paring our military resources to the bone will only endanger our citizens’ security, both at home and abroad.
This week, I heard Defence Secretary Liam Fox argue that reconfiguring our armed services into a new flexible force would make us swifter on our feet and better able to deal with emerging crises.
Just 24 hours later, he announced the details of 5000 job losses in the RAF – the same RAF which will be expected to patrol Libyan skies enforcing a no fly zone, should that be the UN resolution.
This comes on top of reports that the Army is to lose 20,000 more troops by 2015. This will put the Army – reduced to 80,000 soldiers - at its lowest manning levels since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in the 1820s.
There’s no doubt that defence expenditure was out of control – witness the £38 billion black hole we inherited. And there’s no question that the bloated MOD must get a grip, especially over procurement.
But our first duty as a Government is defence of the realm and my concern is that in our haste to balance the books, we have forgotten this.
In scrapping the Ark Royal, we have left ourselves with only Malta and Cyprus to operate from. Our next aircraft carrier will not be ready until 2018. Should there be a conflagration further afield, God knows how we will cope.
We criticised Labour for overstretching and underfunding our servicemen and women. We promised to renew the military covenant and to keep faith with our fighting men.
Instead, we are cutting their numbers, their pensions and their allowances. Now, I fear, they are losing faith with us.