The Busy British Army

Sparked by the thought in the previous post i was fascinated by the idea that i didn't know all the conflicts that British troops had been involved in since WWII. So trusting in the fact that Google is my friend and Wikipedia is the pool of all wisdom (give or take a few fibs here or there) i went off to find out.

• World War II (1939–1945)
• Anglo-Iraqi War (1941)
• Greek Civil War (1941–1949)
• Malayan Emergency (1948–1960)
• Korean War (1950–1953)
• Mau Mau Uprising (1952–1960)
• Cyprus Emergency (1955–1959)
• Suez Crisis (1956)
• Brunei Uprising (1962)
• Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation (1962–1966)
• Aden Emergency (1963–1967)
• Northern Ireland Troubles (1969-mid 1990s)
• Falklands War (1982)
• The First Gulf War (1990–1991)
• The Bosnian War (1995–1996)
• The Kosovo War (1999)
• Sierra Leone Civil War (2000)
• The Afghanistan War (2001–2002)
• Iraq War (2003)
• Iraqi insurgency (2003–Present)

Now apart from the Anglo-Iraqi conflict of 1941 which I swear I'd never heard of I think I knew of all of these. But its shocking to see the list. If my caculations are correct good god there are only 5 odd years where the British army were not actually doing there job.

Thats just 5 years give or take where the British Army have not been fighting some one or other. Some of these i would strongly agree with and others i wouldnt, thats not the point. As far as most British people are concerned the last war of note was WWII and the Falklands was a last hurrah against fascists in funny uniforms. So to actually see the list was quite sobering.