Military reform: New model army BRITAIN'S army thought it had dodged a bullet in 2010. The cost-cutting Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) fell most heavily on the navy and the air force. The army was trimmed by just 7,000 people. But last July, with a date set for the withdrawal of combat forces from Afghanistan and a need to find further savings to close a £38 billion ($59 billion) hole in the defence budget, the government took aim again. Liam Fox, then the defence secretary, announced that the army would shrink by a further 19,000 men, to 82,000, by the end of this decade. A year on, as The Economist went to press, Mr Fox's successor, Philip Hammond, was due to spell out what that would mean in practice. The job of designing Britain's future army has been given to Lieutenant-General Nick Carter, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan who is considered to be one of the army's foremost thinkers. Lieut-General Carter completed his task in April, but wrangling over which historic battalions (and the cap badges that go with them) were to be scrapped or amalgamated delayed its publication. Yet the army has not merely fought a rearguard action against the cuts. The chief of the general staff, General Sir Peter Wall, decided that if it wanted to shape the changes, the army would also have to embrace them. The result is something a good deal more far-reaching than had been expected. Lieut-General Carter's plan starts by defining the core purposes of the future army in terms of three overlapping rings. The first is conventional defence and deterrence - quickly deployable hard power. The second is overseas engagement and building the military capacity of allies. The third is greater engagement with civil society in Britain (this army will be the most home-based ever) and readiness to respond to national emergencies . To that end, the army will be divided into two divisions. A "reaction" one will be configured for high-intensity warfare and made up of three armoured infantry brigades, each with a tank regiment, two armoured infantry regiments, and an air-assault brigade. The second will be an "adaptable" division built around seven infantry brigades of varying size. This could do work as varied as training allied forces abroad, supporting Britain's permanent overseas commitments to places like Cyprus and the Falkland Islands, humanitarian relief, peacekeeping, counter-insurgency and helping out with emergencies at home. It will deliver something between hard and soft power. The adaptable division will draw heavily on a larger, much more integrated reserve - "the big idea" in the new plan, according to Lieut-General Carter. About 30% of its strength is expected to come from the reserve, compared with only 10% for the reactive division. Reflecting lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, there will also be a third leg called Force Troops where so-called "enablers" will be pooled. As well as logistics people, these will include an intelligence and surveillance brigade and a security and assistance group which will provide "soft effects," such as media and psychological operations. Andrew Dorman of the Defence Studies Department at King's College London says the principles behind the Carter blueprint are coherent, although they reflect the perennial tension of having to plan for two very different types of war - a high-intensity conflict and the messier kind that is more likely these days. Mr Dorman also welcomes the reduction in one- and two-star generals, respectively from 26 to 18 and from ten to six, resulting from the merger of two commands. There is most scepticism about the enhanced role of the reserve, which is to expand to an active pool of 30,000. Michael Clarke, the director of RUSI, a think-tank, says that recruiting so many reservists will be difficult and will require legislation to improve their terms of service and give employers more incentive to co-operate. Mr Clarke also worries that the money may not be there for all the reactive brigade's equipment. It would be unfortunate if the new model army's first contact with the enemy turned out to be the next SDSR, due in 2015.