He added: “I am not going into the spending review offering any further reductions in personnel. In my judgment, and I think the Chancellor and the Prime Minister would both agree with this, the Armed Forces are at the smallest level that is appropriate for the kind of defence posture that we have set out in the SDSR [2010’s Strategic Defence and Security Review]. It isn’t clear to me that we could go any smaller while retaining the range of capabilities and commitments that the SDSR requires of us.”