Analysis: They’ve not just cut the fat – they also hacked away muscle, sinew and bone

However, the important issue is not the saving of cap badges and their identities, although it is good news for the Argylls, who were once reduced to a company in 1968 and restored to full battalion strength in 1972, because of the situation in Northern Ireland. This means that similar options will remain for the units whose strengths have served us so well over many years.

It seems a pity, however, that the same device has not been afforded to well-recruited English and Welsh battalions. Overall, these are still the most swingeing cuts to our military’s capability in living memory.

We must all hope that Prime Minister David Cameron, Foreign Secretary William Hague, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond and the Treasury appreciate that they have not just cut fat – they have cut into muscle, sinew and bone.

In particular, they will live to rue the cuts they have made to the army’s logistics system.

The worry is that when the next conflict comes up such as Libya – as it will – the help of allies may not prove to be sustainable and the reliance on reservists to fill the gaps may well prove hopelessly optimistic.

Abroad, Britain, in conjunction with its allies, may still be able to intervene in medium-term conflicts, but there is now a big question mark over how long they could sustain operations.

So, until we have more money, we should cut our foreign policy aims and interventions considerably. Something must also be done urgently to better train and prepare the reservists and their employers for what may lie ahead. There will be all sorts of other knock-on effects; for example, a smaller army cannot provide the gene pool for more special forces.

In the longer term, our ability to fight terrorism at home and abroad has been subtly diminished by these announcements. Who knows what the effect will be on the military’s ability to assist in civil disasters in this country. This rushed, Treasury-driven series of decisions diminishes us all.

Pious bleats from the SNP that they will restore the regiments in full are all very well but are warm words unless there is a purpose behind it. If an independent Scotland is not going to play its part in Nato, there is very little purpose in these battalions.

All is not lost by this review. It leaves a military with some options for the future which total axing would not have permitted. But the MoD must look at the wreckage and see what improvements it can make out of a bad situation before the Foreign Office starts trying to task us into some foreign intervention that is not sustainable.

l Clive Fairweather is a retired colonel who was one of the most senior officers in Scotland and previously second in command of the SAS.