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The Rise and Fall of the British Army, 1975–2025

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The Rise and Fall of the British Army, 1975–2025

By: Ben Barry OBE
Narrated by: Mark Elstob
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Bloomsbury presents The Rise and Fall of the British Army, 1975 - 2025 by Ben Barry, read by Mark Elstob.

A new study of a critical period in the history of the British Army.

The last half century has seen society, technology, the character of conflict and the British Army itself all change greatly. From a low point in the 1970s, the Army’s war fighting capability increased in the 1980s in the face of a prospective war with the Soviet Union. This capability was then tested on operations from Kuwait in 1991 through to Afghanistan in 2001 and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

There followed two decades of descent from this high plateau of military achievement. Mistakes made in Iraq and Afghanistan led to a decline in support for military deployments. Cuts to defence funding and botched equipment procurements also meant the British Army of 2021 was only half the size of that of 1970, and with much key fighting equipment either obsolete or approaching obsolescence.

Ben Barry served in the Army from 1975 to 2010, often in key staff appointments, and has worked closely with the Army in the following decade. This new study draws not only on his personal experience, but also on a very wide range of written sources complemented by interviews to provide a new interpretation of this period that challenges the existing narratives.©2023 Marcus Cowper (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Europe Great Britain Military Middle East War
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Critic reviews

Barry, who served in senior positions in the army until 2010, tells this history with candor. His book is authoritative, detailed, and readable.
An impressively detailed chronicle by an analyst well up to the task. Read it and weep.
The author is among the best-informed commentators on our armed forces. (Max Hastings)
Ben Barry combines the intimate knowledge of the insider with the objectivity of the strategic commentator.
This highly authoritative book will please professional soldier and interested civilian alike.
This timely book is a love letter to the British Army, written by a man whose experience of the army spans all of the five decades under review.
This is quite simply a superb discussion of the British Army's engagement with thinking and doctrine over recent decades.
This excellent title offers profound insights.
The book deserves recommendation to any audience interested in contemporary British defence policy and its evolving armed forces.
This is a landmark publication that will long remain the standard work on the subject. (Dr Paul Winter)
This highly readable and compelling book deserves to be on the reading list of all serving officers and warrant officers of the British Army. (Mungo Melvin)
Authoritative, detailed and readable.
All stars
Most relevant
a comprehensive book and essential reading to anyone in the British Army and for those studying the history of the army.

Interesting and well explained

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An excellent listen, which explains to the listener about the British army and its downward spiral of cuts and reductions.

How numerous governments have hollowed out the Army with poor preconceived ideas of what the future may look like normally always getting it wrong.

An excellent listen

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Frightening when the decline is so graphically spelt out.The narration was particularly good. Thank you

Excellent

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a well researched and articulated deep dive into the recent events in which the British Army has been involved. both military and political and does not appear to shy away from difficult truths. Recommended

Thought provoking

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What a wasted opportunity, it is unfortunate but expected that Barry was unable to question and analyse the masters that selected him. And god forbid point out their grave failings. So many topics avoided or glossed over, probably reflecting Barry’s imperfect lens which he view the Army and is constrained by. The Army and the context it operates in is far wider than his narrow lens and experiences. His service instead of aiding analyse just limits it.

On the conceptual - the ignoring of the Army’s leadership withdrawal from Germany. In a stoke destroying the British Army as a conventional land power - the utter ignorance of this senior and what the tenants of land power are completely absolved. Poor.

No analysis of the army’s patronage system of promotion and appointment - if the army is its people understanding what its leadership is would be worthy of analysis-as they make the decisions - ignored.

Army equipment capabilities and the very public failings, completely glossed over and ignored the Army’s equity in these programmes. All easily accessible from the House of Commons defence select committee.

Many other topics ignored.

And the performance - the pronunciations of some abbreviations just irritates. A small amount of coaching with the narrator would have increased the book’s credibility.

In all what a wasted opportunity- a shame.

B- Dev, No - not a single second order question

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