And it is here that the American military organisation--or more accurately, the American combat leader--excels.

ECONOMIST: Reinventing warfare

But the American military organisation is truly functional only in the environment for which it was designed: combat.

ECONOMIST: Reinventing warfare

America would be concerned, argues Mr Nikonov, if Mexico and Canada were to join a military organisation led by Russia.

ECONOMIST: Russian worries about Western encirclement are premature

EU's new foreign-policy chief, will also be put in charge of the ten-nation Western European Union, a weak but explicitly military organisation which the larger body is now expected to swallow up, though this raises awkward questions about countries more involved with one than the other.

ECONOMIST: The EU turns its attention from ploughshares to swords

The organisation will begin regulating military aviation activities from next April, Bob Ainsworth said in a Commons statement on 16 December 2009.

BBC: Air authority set up after Nimrod crash

Martin Lloyd, from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, said it was "committed to ensuring the military estate is no larger than necessary".

BBC: MoD sells off sites in Bath for housing

Writing in Wednesday's Guardian, Mr Howells said seven years of military involvement had subdued al-Qaeda's activities in Afghanistan but had not destroyed the organisation or its leader, Osama Bin Laden.

BBC: Labour MP urges Afghan withdrawal

At that time, the organisation was publicly outed by the RUC chief constable and forced into admitting to "a measured military response" to attacks that had been carried out by republican dissidents.

BBC: Ultimatum over loyalist violence