By Paul Adams BBC Defence correspondent

The defence secretary might have wished for a touch of the miraculous on Wednesday, as he endeavoured, amid howls of parliamentary protest, to explain how he could satisfy the government's appetite for global intervention with fewer men, and rather less hardware.

Mr Hoon told MPs that new technology allowed a "shift away from an emphasis on numbers of platforms [ships, planes, tanks, etc] and of people."

And the latest changes prove he means just what he says.

Between them, the Army, Navy and Air Force are to lose about 10,000 uniformed personnel from their present strength - or more than 20,000 from their current target strength.

Forces numbers will be cut

And yet, the list of British overseas commitments remains long.

Iraq, Afghanistan, the Falklands, Kosovo, Bosnia, Cyprus, Sierra Leone, the list goes on.

The British military, and most often this means the Army, is spread far and wide.

But the head of the Army, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, says talk of "overstretch" is overblown.

Speaking on Wednesday, he said the Army was meeting its targets for 24 month intervals between operational tours.

However, he admitted there was considerable variation from unit to unit, with some more stretched than others.

Hence, he said, the need to rebalance the Army and "spread the operational load".

The Navy's fleet could be cut

But amid reports that the government might be considering sending troops to Sudan, the Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen Sir Michael Walker, has now sounded a warning.

Gen Walker appears convinced of the wisdom of the changes announced on Wednesday, and insists that they are not being imposed on the military by the politicians.

But writing in the Times newspaper, he says he is satisfied the armed forces have the resources they need "so long as our operational commitments remain broadly within the assumptions of our long term planning".

Those assumptions, according to last December's Defence White Paper are for "three concurrent operations, of which one is an enduring peace support operation", in addition to a large scale operation in which British forces operate alongside the US and other allies.

In the future, these assumptions will have to be met by a leaner military.

Mr Hoon says his "rebalancing" takes account of war and peace

Can it be done?

Following Wednesday's announcements, the cry of: "Boots on the ground!" could be heard echoing around the country.

Hi-tech systems are all very well in war time, the argument goes, but when the dust has settled, peacekeeping and reconstruction - for which the British military has achieved an enviable reputation - simply require sufficient numbers of committed, imaginative troops, capable of building actual and metaphorical bridges.

Mr Hoon says his "rebalancing" takes account of both, but with large chunks of the Ministry of Defence's budget earmarked for hugely expensive hi-tech systems - to create the "network enabled capability" which has become his mantra - there are plenty of people in the military who fear that traditional skills may suffer.

Since much of the technology has still to be delivered, a creeping sense of "cuts today, capability tomorrow" pervades the lower and middle ranks of the services.

The wisdom, or folly, of defence decisions inevitably takes years to emerge.

It will not necessarily take another war to know if Mr Hoon is right or not, but it is reasonable to assume he will have moved on to other pastures by the time the verdict comes.