This is not to disparage allies in both Iraq and Afghanistan who sent small forces that fought. I appreciate any allies who fight instead of being war tourists, but small contingents just don't own much battle space.
So this new of the Brits possibly going wobbly is disturbing:
Thousands of mourners bowed their heads in tribute Friday to the passing coffins of soldiers killed in a new offensive in Afghanistan, where the climbing toll has created doubts in Britain about the human cost of the war.
News of ten battlefield deaths in ten days has many Britons rethinking the country's commitment to a conflict that seems no closer to a successful conclusion than when troops first arrived seven years ago.
"The casualties should fix peoples' minds on the fact that we've let the soldiers down," said Adam Holloway, a Conservative Party lawmaker who sits on Parliament's defense committee. "The death toll means we should do it properly or we shouldn't do it at all."
If the British tire of the fight, we'll be on our own for all practical purposes. Yes, small contingents of Australians, Canadians, and Dutch fight (and even the French are a bit more active), but nobody will be able to run operations without us in significant areas of responsibility.
Then it will be just about a unilateral American war, based on definitions our anti-war side used to judge Iraq and our allies' contributions.
UPDATE: And sadly, practical problems will encourage the British to give up the fight:
By a quirk of geography, the English market town of Wootton Bassett has come to symbolize the pride that the British public continue to has in its armed forces.
Without fail, large crowds of ordinary townsfolk line its streets on at least a weekly basis every time a cortege carrying the remains of the latest soldier to fall in Afghanistan passes through from a nearby airbase.
But at a time of overwhelming public support for its service men and women, the global recession is causing Britain to face hard choices about its future military role in the world – putting at risk plans to build new aircraft carriers and heralding consequences for everything from operations alongside the US in Afghanistan to whether the UK remains nuclear-armed.
The start of the first full-scale official review of Britain's defense forces in more than 10 years was announced on Tuesday. It came within days of three of Britain's most influential independent research institutes forecasting that the £34 billion (about $54 billion) defense budget will be seriously cut.
The British may yet determine that winning the war they are in takes second place to maintaining a military capable of winning that war without wearing out that military.
And actually, the rationalizations will be easy for the British since they can tell themselves they aren't really risking a loss in Afghanistan since America will continue to fight the war.
And then one day an Iranian naval flotilla will sail up the English Channel on a show-the-flag mission (the Great Green Fleet?) and the British people will wonder how this all happened.
