In August the House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) delivered a withering critique of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) and suggested that the UK's global influence would be undermined by the nearly GBP20 billion (USD31.5 billion) worth of cutbacks being made to procurement programmes and military manpower. About 17,000 troops and 25,000 civilian Ministry of Defence (MoD) staff will be made redundant, military bases closed and armoured vehicles, aircraft and warships withdrawn from frontline service. HCDC chairman James Arbuthnot said the "[Coalition] government appears to believe that the UK can maintain its influence while reducing spending in defence and at the Foreign Office. We do not agree.
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