White Flag?: An Examination of the UK's Defence Capability

By Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott

FOREWORD BY GENERAL SIR MIKE JACKSON

After the pain of Iraq and Afghanistan, it is hard to imagine the UK being drawn into another war. Defence chiefs warn that there is a real prospect of future conflict, but they have struggled to persuade most politicians to take them seriously. Our leaders have concluded there are no votes in defence, and have progressively run down the armed forces. Today, the army is at its smallest since the Napoleonic Wars; the RAF is less than half its size twenty five years ago, and the Royal Navy will struggle to muster the ships and weapons required to protect our new aircraft carriers.

Is there really a risk of war? Is our military less capable and, if so, what could that mean for our future? White Flag? explains what has happened to our armed forces in recent years and asks whether their decline endangers our safety and prosperity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Biteback Publishing
• Release date: Oct 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781785904196

Michael Ashcroft

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. He is a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party and currently honorary chairman of the International Democracy Union. He is founder and chairman of the board of trustees of Crimestoppers, vice-patron of the Intelligence Corps Museum, chairman of the trustees of Ashcroft Technology Academy, a senior fellow of the International Strategic Studies Association, a life governor of the Royal Humane Society, a former chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University and a former trustee of Imperial War Museums. Lord Ashcroft is an award-winning author who has written twenty-seven other books, largely on politics and bravery. His political books include biographies of David Cameron, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and Carrie Johnson. His seven books on gallantry in the Heroes series include two on the Victoria Cross.