THE world order is teetering on the edge, as our navy, airforce and army have been cut to the bone.
Prime Ministers have come and gone and each one has been lobbied hard to increase defence spending.
On Monday, the newly appointed Defence Secretary invited me to his office.
The meeting was in private, but I can say that I urged him to fight for more money and not to cut the army by a further 10,000.
When I served in the 1980s, we spent more than five per cent of GDP on defence and had an army of about 150,000.
In the face of this impending storm, we now have an army of circa 76,000 and spend just over two per cent of GDP.
No sooner had Hamas launched its murderous assault on innocent civilians, two US carrier strike groups were despatched to the eastern Mediterranean.
Bristling with technology, aircraft and 2,400 marines, and accompanied by warships and submarines, the message to Iran and others who might want to attack Israel is clear.
Such projection of power contrasts starkly with the two RFA ships we have sent to the region.
The Lyme Bay and Argus are renowned for their crisis response capabilities, but they are not fighting ships.
Those defending the size of our Armed Forces say the world has changed, mass is no longer critical, with technology enabling a smaller force to be just as efficient.
It may be more efficient, but a state-of-the-art Type 45 destroyer, for example, can only be in one place at any one time, and if sunk there are very few to replace it.
Others say we’d only go to war with NATO.
I’m not so sure.
The Middle East could be a case in point.