Protection provided by English and American soldiers (4)
I believe the answer is:
egis
'protection' is the definition.
(egis is a kind of protection)
'english and american soldiers' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation as in OED).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'american soldiers' becomes 'GIs' (GI is an informal term for a US soldier).
'e'+'gis'='EGIS'
'provided by' acts as a link.
(Another definition for egis that I've seen is " US protection".)
I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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