Things military have always seemed to be low of the left’s priorities. The fact that the seedbed of our democracy was in Cromwell’s New Model Army seeking to move us straight into an elective democracy in the 17th century (until stopped by Cromwell), is one of the forgotten facts of our history. Perhaps the perception of the army’s role in Britain is more shaped by the events at Curragh in Ireland in 1914 when the army refused to obey instructions from the Asquith government to support the Home Rule Bill that had just been passed.

More recently, deaths at Deepcut Army Barracks in Surrey highlighted concerns about the training methods and treatment of young cadets. Despite this, a leading radical journalist – with whom I discussed what had happened at Deepcut – did not know where Deepcut was.

One leftish view of the army, as described by the army chief General Sir Richard Dannatt in a recent Progress speech, is of a killing machine only called into action as a last resort. The hope that this would happen extremely rarely and could be achieved at a small cost was very much a prospect after the wall came down in 1989. Unfortunately Iraq and Afghanistan have put paid to these hopes.

Probably as a result of those wars, a public inquiry into the deaths of the Deepcut cadets was not pursued. The government knew that with real shortages of manpower in the army, the unsavoury facts that would inevitably come out would discourage recruitment. Furthermore, the brigadier responsible for Deepcut publicly maintained that his barracks were perfectly managed and there were no grounds for public concern. The cadets’ families are still in search of an adequate explanation of what really took place at Deepcut.

Dannatt’s speech sought to define the role of the army in contemporary Britain. Interestingly, he was at pains to emphasise its social role, even describing his views on the army’s duty of care to its officers as ‘socialist’ in character. Of necessity it would need to adopt a philosophy for overseas intervention similar to that of Robin Cook’s ethical foreign policy.

Quite validly, Dannatt identified the character of the threats to the country’s security now require a close working relationship with NATO and the UN. He recognised from the outset that Islamic terrorism could not be resisted by military action alone. There was always a narrow line to tread between winning a firefight only to find that civilian deaths undermined any military advance. Modern servicemen required substantial language and cultural training. In his view, support for human rights should be at the core of determining involvement. Rwanda was an example of what happens when the rest of the world stands aside and issues of genocide are simply ignored.

Yet he thought that intervention in Burma was impossible because it was not within a natural British sphere of influence. Although the same thing could not be said for Zimbabwe, our commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan rules out any possible military involvement. Dannatt agreed that it was better to assist neighbouring African states to develop their capability for intervention through assistance to armies such as that of the Nigerians.

Listening to General Dannatt, I am sure I was not the only one in the room to detect a hint of desperation in his voice when he dealt with the incidents of brutality by his troops in Iraq. When you look at the documented record of this behaviour, Camp Breadbasket in February 2005, the beating of a Iraqi teenager to death in November 2005, civilians being roughed up in February 2006, and the beating to death of the hotel receptionist Baha Mousa in September of 2003, it is clear Dannatt has to confront a culture which sees brutality of this kind as acceptable.

It appears that at the very least the impulse to act in this way was transmitted to the soldiers on the ground by some of their senior officers. Is there a link in this behaviour with events at Deepcut Barracks where the young cadets died, when the senior officers absented themselves over weekends, leaving the cadets at the mercy of unstrained bullying by NCOs?

For the general’s ideas for an army relevant to modern Britain to work, our army must be seen to be far less as a means of showing off new equipment as part of our arms sales industry. Much more, it should be a means of promoting an ethical foreign policy.