The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, London

British involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is a hangover from its imperial past, a distinguished military historian has said, accusing politicians of exaggerating the country's importance in the world.

Award-winning Cambridge University academic Correlli Barnett said Britain has delusions of grandeur about its role as a world power, which has led to the "ludicrous" over-commitment of its armed forces.

He also said Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his predecessor Tony Blair, and the leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron, were deluded that Britain's influence was comparable to that of the United States.

At a seminar in Cambridge, Thursday to mark his 80th birthday, Barnett said politicians and officials had been exaggerating Britain's importance since before the end of World War II in 1945.

"Such exaggeration has remained the besetting sin of British total strategy right up to the present day and also remained a sure recipe for a discordance between military commitments and financial resources," he said.