By Peter Polack

Peter Polack

The recent announcement by the new United Kingdom (UK) defence attaché that the UK wishes to expand its relationship with Caribbean nations comes on the cusp of an offer in 2015 by the UK to build a prison in the island for Jamaicans in UK prisons. 

This was rejected even more so in light of the recent Windrush scandal that has adversely affected so many Caribbean people.

The UK Ministry of Defence raised the enlistment age limit for its army reserve in November 2014 to 52 from 43, as part of a plan to reduce the regular army by bolstering the number of reservists, because of a manpower shortage. Since Brexit, the UK has been scrambling to shore up their shortage of soldiers by establishing military units in British overseas territories to provide a ready supply of troops for prompt deployment. This initiative has been given short shrift in some jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands, despite the pleas of the UK representative there.

There has been continuous debate in Britain over the minimum enlistment age of boys into the military. A boy can apply for military enlistment in England at the age of 15 years and seven months, with parental consent to join at 16 years old. A wide band of supporters in that country have campaigned for the increase to 18 years old, and that they should not see combat before 19. It has all fallen on deaf ears. The UK military has repeatedly allowed 17-year-old boys and girls into combat zones.

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer from the Cayman Islands for several decades. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities with almost five hundred Soviet spies expelled from nearly 100 countries worldwide 1940-88. 

His views are his own