The SAS: a very special force In Afghanistan they have been involved in carrying out daring night-time "kill or capture" raids against Taliban commanders responsible for orchestrating what US General David Petraeus, the former Nato commander, has described as "an industrial-strength insurgency." And they played a crucial role in defeating al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq - US commander General Stanley McChrystal has described their performance as "extraordinary" in his recently published book My Share of the Task. British special forces units were also very much in evidence during the Libyan conflict two years ago - despite Mr Cameron's repeated insistence that there were no "boots on the ground" in Libya. They helped identify potential bombing targets for Nato air strikes, as well as conducting classic behind-the-lines sabotage operations, such as cutting communications and energy supplies, to cripple the Gaddafi regime. Time and again the SAS and SBS have displayed a range of skills and levels of personal courage that have not only made them the envy of the world, but have also delivered spectacular results. All of which meant that tremors followed the report in yesterday's Daily Telegraph that some special forces units faced the possibility of being axed in the Government's next round of public spending cuts. In response, Mr Cameron yesterday repeated a promise that he first made in October 2010: to increase defence spending above inflation from 2015, when the next defence review takes place. The parameters under which that review is to be conducted will be decided in the Spending Review this May, and defence chiefs had been alarmed to discover recently that the Treasury bean counters were planning to make further cuts. The mere mention of the possibility of budget cuts can always be guaranteed to provoke a fresh round of jostling between the three rival Services over how resources will be allocated. Last time, the RAF shed few tears over the MoD's ill-judged decision to scrap the Royal Navy's long-serving fleet of Harrier jump jets, which meant that the RAF could hang on to its fleet of ageing Tornado fighters. Similarly, the Navy was unconcerned that the prohibitive cost of its two new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers meant cutting more than 20,000 troops from the standing Army. But while the conclusions reached in the last defence review have been hotly contested within and outside the Armed Forces, special forces are the one group that has, so far, been unaffected by the cuts - which, given the rapidly changing nature of modern conflict, is just as well. The SAS has come a long way from its early days in Hereford in the 1960s, when the regiment was regarded by the military establishment as a dare-devil bunch of cut-throats only to be used in the most extreme circumstances. These days the regimental headquarters of 22 Special Air Service at Stirling Lines on the outskirts of Hereford is a modern complex that accommodates the regiment's five squadrons - four "sabre," or fighting, squadrons, plus another squadron that is used for specialist surveillance operations - as well as special forces signals and reconnaissance squadrons and units from the recently established Special Forces Support Group, which is mainly drawn from the Parachute Regiment. The Hereford establishment is self-contained and deliberately keeps its distance from the rest of the Armed Forces, to the extent that it has its own fleet of helicopters as well as specially adapted Hercules transport aircraft that are kept on permanent standby at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire. The regiment has its own budget, which it uses to acquire state-of-the-art surveillance and communications equipment, as well as the latest weaponry. Such is its determination to be self-sufficient that the SAS even trains its own German Shepherd tracker dogs, which are parachuted into hostile environments strapped to their trainers" bodies. For all their efforts to maintain a low profile, however, on operations I have found it easy to identify members of the SAS - with their long, unkempt hair and fondness for beards, they look more like laid-back Aussie surfers than highly trained killers. But while their looks might be unorthodox, their skills have been in almost constant demand since 2001, when two squadrons deployed to Afghanistan to join the campaign to overthrow the Taliban. During the early years of their involvement in the war on terror, they were badly under-resourced. According to Gen McChrystal, the Americans "had to lend them a lot of equipment, we had to do a bunch of things because they just didn't have the stuff." But substantial increases to the special forces budget in recent years have meant that they now have all the equipment they require. Which is just as well because, judging by the way the Government aims to handle future threats to our security, our special forces can expect to be in greater demand than ever. As recent experiences in Libya and Mali have shown, Mr Cameron is determined to avoid large military interventions on the scale of Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, the Government intends to confront threats from a distance, using a combination of drones and special forces to identify and eliminate the enemy, thereby negating the need for costly and unpopular military interventions. But if the Government intends to make full use of our special forces, then it needs to invest in them - a message that Mr Cameron appears to be absorbing. As one senior Army officer comments: "If you cut the strength of the Army any further, then you reduce the recruiting pool from which the special forces draw their recruits. You then have a situation where you either cut the size of the special forces, or drop the training bar, which would severely reduce their effectiveness. Certainly, as we prepare to tackle the wars of the future, it is clear we need more investment in our special forces, not ill-judged budget cuts. For, as George Orwell memorably remarked, "People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."