The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) said London will also face 'severe constraints' on its ability to engage in air warfare overseas. Those constraints have 'already been felt' in the campaign against Islamic State, to which the UK has only been able to make a 'very modest contribution', it says. The report, from a Washington-based think-tank, will infuriate ministers who have repeatedly emphasised the significant role the UK has played in the defeat of IS. American experts found America's closest and most powerful allies had all seen their military power 'erode substantially in the past two decades'. The report, 'Dealing with allies in decline', says: 'America's most important NATO allies have been gutting their military capabilities over the past quarter century. 'Indeed, the decline of UK military capabilities offers a particularly stark national example of the overall European trend.'
In the News