Unionists cannot claim to be shocked at the plan to reduce troop numbers, writes Dan Keenan.
Just over two years ago, the former British defence secretary thought he had dampened a blaze of speculation about the future of the Northern Ireland-recruited Royal Irish Regiment battalions.
Geoff Hoon's statement insisted there were "no plans" for the future of the so-called home battalions that recruited and served only in Northern Ireland.
That wasn't enough for Jeffrey Donaldson, then an Ulster Unionist MP at war with his party leader, David Trimble, and he demanded greater "clarity and certainty".
The Lagan Valley MP - now in the DUP - may well deserve praise for his foresight. However, his call for "clarity and certainty" is not one that this British government appears to deem fair. Situations change.
Yesterday's announcement by Peter Hain, and backed by British army chiefs and the PSNI chief constable, is founded on security judgments and not on political considerations. So they say.
To that end, Mr Hoon's statement in June 2003 and that made yesterday by Mr Hain are consistent. The former defence secretary made his in line with advice from police and army heads based on the level of threat. Mr Hain claims he did the same yesterday. What has changed from a British perspective is not government policy, but the security outlook following the IRA statement about its future. To unionists who are ever watchful of being sold down the river, this is a "political sop" and "a surrender".
They have, of course, been in this predicament before. In 1969 they demanded retention of the RUC's B Specials constabulary - and lost.
In 1992 they demanded retention of the B Specials' replacement, the UDR - and lost.
Following the report of the Patten Commission into policing they demanded retention of the RUC - and lost.
They even failed to hold on to the RUC emblem and were involved, through membership of the Policing Board, in agreeing a replacement for the police badge they vowed to defend.
Politically, this is a blow for unionists which could severely damage relations between the DUP and a British government anxious to build on P O'Neill's initiative. It has also provided a (rare) opportunity for the UUP to point the finger of blame at its main rival instead.
Emotionally though, for unionists, of all hues and degrees of enthusiasm, this is much more serious.
The local British army units, like the RUC, are more deeply rooted in the heart of mainstream unionism than outsiders care to recognise.
More than 50,000 members have served in the UDR and its replacement, and some 260 members and former members were murdered - many of them off-duty, isolated and in front of their families.
Tactical discussions about the security landscape don't cut much ice when a threatened community, which put so much store in police and army uniforms, reads today's headlines.
Betrayal could not be spelt out more clearly.
Potentially, this is the most difficult problem for the DUP since it scaled the unionist summit ascendancy so clearly at the last Assembly and Westminster elections.
How to force a determined government to change its policy on something that government dare not alter?
Dr Paisley would do well to ponder the words of Reatha Hasson, a former member of both the UDR and RIR when she told UTV last night: "I hope the DUP will prove not hungry for power, but hungry for justice."