Northeastern Political Science Association

British Defense & Alliance Strategy: The Strategic Quandary of a Middle Power Author(s): Walter Goldstein Source: Polity, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter, 1970), pp. 141-174 Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3233983 . Accessed: 20/12/2010 04:33
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British Defense & Alliance Strategy

The StrategicQuandaryof a MiddlePower*

WALTER GOLDSTEIN Graduate School of Public Affairs, suNY/Albany

The loss of her empire has forced Britaininto the position of a middlepower, but this is an event to which the Britishhave found it difficultto adjust. Goldstein'sview is that Britain'sfuture is in Europe,and that her internationalrole must be primarilythat of working to securea morestable and unified-and larger-European entity. This article is a fitting complement to Professor Kolodziej'ssomewhat similarsurvey of Frenchforeign policy under
DeGaulle (POLITY, Spring, 1970). Even though now only a middle

power, Britainis still the closest and most powerful friend of the United States, a fact which provides both problemsand advantages for her foreign policy planners. This article is an offshoot of a forthcomingbook on Britainand the decline of the middlepowers in a technologicalage, and carries on Walter Goldstein'slong term interest in Britishforeign policy, which has already resulted in the publicationof half-a-dozen articles and monographson aspects of the subject. Professor Goldstein did his graduatework at Northwesternand Chicago,and has been a visiting professorat Columbiaand NYU in additionto regularfaculty positions at BrooklynCollegeand now at Albany. His governmentaland internationalexperiencehas been extensive.
*A travel grant to prepare this analysis was awarded by the Research Foundation of the State University of New York. Interviews with numerous government officials and members of Parliament were conducted in London during the summer of 1970. A more extensive analysis of these data is now being completed.

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THE RETURNTO OFFICE a Conservative of

government

has once again

revealed the basic uncertainties clouding Britain's strategic aspirations. During their previous terms of office, from 1951 to 1964, the Conservative administrations of Churchill, Eden, and Macmillan had vacillated sharply in defining Britain's optimum defense role. As a result, they had allowed Britain to slip from its position as the third largest military power in the international system to an indefinite and unenviably dependent status. The nation's prized "special relationship" with the United States was thoroughly eroded; the pretence to a "global posture" had to be discarded as the Commonwealth fragmented; and Britain's once leading role in Europe was forfeited in the aftermath of General DeGaulle's two vetoes upon its application to enter the Common Market. The ensuing six years of a Labour administration did nothing to reverse these trends. Mr. Wilson's government decided that Britain's unique role in the post-Cold War world was to be played in Europe; but it failed to prepare the nation or its defense forces for the successful performance on the European scene which the United Kingdom desperately needed to fulfill. The entrance of Mr. Heath in Downing Street prompted the warmest congratulations from both the United States and from the six European powers with which the United Kingdom has begun to negotiate its third attempt to enter the European Economic Community. Unfortunately, the nation's Atlantic and European allies each congratulated Mr. Heath for different reasons; and in this conflict of pressures the new government found itself faced once again with the strategic dilemma which Britain has failed to resolve for twenty-five years. Mr. Nixon and the State Department had clearly disapproved the Labour government's intention to phase out Britain's remaining bases east of Suez-particularly in Singapore and the Persian Gulf. They urged Mr. Heath, to the dismay of his well wishers in E.E.C., to retain these bases and to reverse the single-minded emphasis upon European strategy adopted by the out-going leadership of the Labour party. It remains to be seen whether the new Conservative government will be able to strike a firm and advantageous balance between these two pressures. Though a major segment of the Conservative party is committed to Britain's identification as a European power, there are many voices within it urging the Cabinet to retain the global role which Britain alone can play in partnership with the United States. No administration in Whithall in recent years has been able to determine which goals should be pursued by contemporary British statecraft, and thus no optimum force structure or procurement program has ever been defined. The economic constraints governing Britain's defense efforts have been so stringent that successive governments have refused to commit themselves over any length of time to a lasting

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set of policy priorities. Moreover, the determination to avoid debate on the basic premises of national security has become a remarkable feature of public life in Britain in the last two decades. Defense and foreign policy issues were raised by neither the Labour nor the Conservative parties during the 1970 election, and the historic decision to enter E.E.C. was barely discussed before the electorate. Since both parties had failed to decide which policies should best be pursued in the 1970's, their inability to provide electoral guidance was matched only by their inability to negotiate successfully with the nation's friends and allies. Defense planning, in particular, has been so plagued with indecision and confusion since 1945 that few benefits have been gained from the ioo billion dollars invested in postwar military programs.' For twentyfive years Britain had invested in three separate defense programs simultaneously: it had promoted expensive efforts in NATO, in the Commonwealth defense zone, and in its own nuclear progress. But its expenditures and policy thrusts had been implemented either at the wrong time or at cross purposes with its own statecraft. The confusion of its strategic aims and procurements was nowhere more evident than in its policy toward Europe. As the United Kingdom began to decline as a world power, it repeatedly sabotaged its own chances of achieving a political ascendancy in Europe by clinging to out-moded defense axioms or to unproductive nuclear ambitions. The more it clung to its "special relationship" with the United States, the more it antagonized its indispensable ally, France. Equally, its last-ditch attempt to fufill an imperial defense role provoked the scorn of its European neighbors and a costly delay in penetrating Europe's expanding markets.2 Though Mr. Heath's government is determined to negotiate Britain's way into Europe it is still fatally drawn to the prospects of reviving Britain's former role in the tropical world. A fundamental indecision over the allocation of defense efforts 1An extended analysis of the vacillation in policy making is given in Walter Goldstein, The Dilemma of British Defense: The ImbalanceBetween Commitmentsand Resources (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, Mershon series, Nov. 3, 1966). See also: Kenneth W. Waltz, Foreign Policy and Democratic Politics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1967); and William P. Snyder, The Politics of British Defense (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1964).
2 An excellent review article, "Retreat from World Power," surveys three major critiques of contemporary British foreign policy. Written by H. and M. Sprout, in World Politics, xv, No. 4 (July 1963), 655-88, it presents cogent reasons to explain the basic causes of Britain's diminishing role in world affairs. A further review article by the same authors World Politics, xx, No. 4

(July 1968), 660-93 extends their analysis and brings it up-to-date.

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began in the years immediately following World War II while Britain was still able to govern its own diplomatic choices and military force deployments. Uncertain over the choice that should be made among "three overlapping relationships" in its national interests, the United Kingdom dallied until many of its options were shut off. It then discovered that its three circles of strategic concern no longer overlapped with Britain as a common element uniting them. Two of these circles, the Commonwealth and the Atlantic community (by which British Ministers really meant the United States) had ceased to hinge so largely on Britain, while Europe was moving in paths which threatened to leave her far behind. The task of British policy in the Sixties was therefore that of redefining these three relationships.3 But the task was never squarely faced-partly because Britain was unwilling to diminish its commitments overseas and partly because of that mixture of evasiveness and optimism which infected both political parties in Parliament. As a result, the United Kingdom failed to provide the leadership which the war-weary nations of Western Europe had sought in 1946-1950 and which the evolving Commonwealth required if it was ever to become a viable political entity. The "Empire on which the sun never set" eventually disintegrated, but the mental horizon of the Englishman at home remained unaltered. The myopia of the nation was fully revealed by 1963, the year of DeGaulle's veto. A costly program to build an independent nuclear deterrent had been extended long after its raison d'etre had disappeared. Built largely with United States technical assistance, it became too costly to maintain as a credible deterrent, too cherished to scrap, and too dependent on United States aid to be venerated by Britain's neighbors in Europe. Similarly, the mystique of the United Kingdom's role in world affairs was left floating in an ahistoric limbo. While every other middle power had disabused itself of the value of holding tropical bases, Britain tried to straddle the gap between its imperial past and its continental future. Its nuclear codpiece and its undermanned bases in the Indian Ocean were cherished as the last regalia of its former pride. In the decade following NATO'S creation, the United Kingdom invested so many hopes in its nuclear program that its conventional
3 F. S. Northedge, British Foreign Policy: The Process of Readjustment, 1945-61 (New York: Praeger, 1962), 3o3. The other standard work on this subject is C. M. Woodhouse, British Foreign Policy Since the Second World War (London: Hutchinson, 1961). For a critical assessment of the Commonwealth, still relevant a decade later, see Hedley Bull, "What is the Cormmonwealth," World Politics, xI, No. 4 (July 1959), 577-87.

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forces were left, especially in the European defense zone, in a rundown condition. The neglect continued in the year after the Suez Canal fiasco of 1956, when the Defense Minister (Duncan Sandys) turned in despair to the Dulles doctrine of massive nuclear retaliation. In planning to terminate universal conscription for the conventional forces he pinned Britain's strategic powers to the development of an independent nuclear force; but this proved to be neither massive nor independent. Hence, five years later, following the cancellation of Britain's Blue Streak missile and the abrupt termination (on the Pentagon's unilateral initiative) of the Skybolt stand-off system, the United Kingdom found that it possessed neither a conventional nor a nuclear capability of credible dimensions.4 The nuclear ambitions of the United Kingdoms had to be severely curtailed as it became clear that Britain could no longer hope to build its own nuclear deterrent; and it became certain that its four remaining Polaris submarines would not be able to substitute for the nuclear posture or the diplomatic prestige in Europe which Britain had once sought to procure.5 The United Kingdom came to rely exclusively upon United States' hardware and political support to obtain nuclear warheads for its Polaris fleet and for its tactical forces. As a consequence, its freedom of political maneuver was not greatly enhanced. A "favored nation" swap of Polaris for Skybolt missiles was negotiated between Macmillan and President Kennedy at Nassau in late 1962, but the deal contributed directly to DeGaulle's intransitwo weeks later. gent veto on the United Kingdom's entry into E.E.C. Moreover, the signing of the French-German friendship treaty in the same month might have been indefinitely delayed if the United Kingdom had not clung so insistently to an Atlantic emphasis in its NATO contribution. Noteworthy summaries of Britain'snuclear development and aspirations appear in R. N. Rosecrance, The Dispersion of Nuclear Weapons (New York: Columbia 1964); and in R. Dawson and R. N. Rosecrance, "Theory and Reality in the Anglo-American Alliance," World Politics, xix, No. 1 (October 1966). The latter piece suggests a view of the unique durability of the "special relationship" which the passage of history has surely eroded. 5Given the scant debate on United Kingdom defense appropriationsand the absence (until 1964) of functional cost estimates in the budget, it has been difficult to calculate the cost of Britain's nuclear force program. A former Controllerof Munitions suggested that the deterrenthad cost "something like 20 per cent of the total defense budget, or more than half as much as the whole Army Vote." Gen. Crowley, "Future Trends in Warfare," Journalof the Royal United Service Institution, cv (February1960), 1. Now that the constructioncosts of the four Polaris submarinesare paid, it appears that the costs of "the nuclear elements" were only 21/2percent of the FY197o defense budget. For a full analysis of the nuclear program see the House of Commons debate (H.C. Deb., henceforward),Vol. Dccxxv (March8, 1966).
4

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It is the central argument of this analysis that Britain might have gained international leverage and bargaining power if it had allocated more of its scarce resources to the modernization of its industrial base rather than to the enlargement of its conventional capability and to the mirage of nuclear independence. Of course, it could never have been predicted in the gloomier days of the Cold War that its nuclear arsenal would be required principally for symbolic purposes. Originally, Britain had been concerned to maintain its war-time nuclear partnership with the United States and to claim its "seat at the top table" of NATO or United Nations decision sessions. It also sought to secure a nuclear precedence over France (or over any emerging group of European powers) in the dawning hopes of a new Europe.6 However, the trade-off of nuclear power for industrial or conventional military development became inordinately expensive. General DeGaulle was deeply affronted by the favored treatment extended to Britain by the 1958 revision of the McMahon Act and by the Nassau arrangement of 1962, and therefore insisted upon excluding the United Kingdom from his design for a post-NATO order. For its own part, the United Kingdom failed to profit from the American boost to its small scale nuclear program. Though it moved strongly ahead of the other middle powers of Europe in developing a nuclear technology it can no longer hope to extend its nuclear forces or even to control its four Polaris submarines (since they are committed to the control and targetting procedures of NATO). Nor does the future hold out a brighter promise. The United Kingdom cannot hope to acquire the sophisticated ABMand MIRVsystems which will become the necessary appurtenances of nuclear power in the 1970's.' And it is distinctly questionable whether its miniscule increment to the nuclear power of the United States will help preserve
6

The decisions to establish a British nuclear force are carefully assessed

by Alfred Goldberg in International Affairs, XL, No. 3 and No. 4 (June and October 1964); and in Margaret Gowing, Britain and Atomic Energy: 19391945 (New York: St. Martin's 1964). The ambiguous sentiments of dependence upon and distrust of the United States before and after the Korean War are examined by Leon D. Epstein, Britain-Uneasy Ally (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1954). 7 Britain has expressed no interest as yet in developing an ABM system, though it has agreed to station an over-the-horizon radar unit in the United Kingdom as part of the United States defense system. As far as Soviet ABM plans are known, the United Kingdom has taken few steps to improve the penetration capability of its remaining strategic forces (that is, four Polaris submarines). What the French have done for their SLBMand land-based IRBM launchers is difficult to determine. Certainly, the development of highly sophisticated modern nuclear forces by both nations is neither feasible nor promising.

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its influence in Brussels or Washington for many more years to come. For sound financial and technological purposes, Britain has already agreed to merge key parts of its industrial nuclear efforts with those of West Germany and Holland. Furthermore, the hope of Mr. Heath to pressure France into relaxing its veto over Britain's entry into E.E.C. in return for a joint weapons program is likely to be received as coldly by President Pompidou as it was by his impossibly nationalist predecessor. Though Britain has at last concentrated its military effort in the NATOarea, its future as a nuclear power remains decidedly ambiguous. Its small nuclear force is not credible as an independent deterrent nor is it likely to be extended or modernized. Admittedly, its nuclear systems might prove to be useful for bargaining purposes if an attempt to revive nuclear-sharing proposals should ever be mounted; the abortive fate of the MLF and the ANF suggest, hopefully, that such divisive proposals will never again be taken seriously. The most significant questions to be asked about the usefulness of the United Kingdom nuclear force are therefore political in character. Since Britain cannot afford to modernize its own capability, can it still utilize its nuclear leadership in Europe to exercise diplomatic leverage over an evolving continental union?8 To answer this question, it is first necessary to review the political hopes and strategic assessments which characterize Britain's policy in Europe.

I. Britain'sUncertainRole in Europe
British governments vacillated for years over the role the United Kingdom should attempt to play in Europe. They paid so much attention to the development of a global and nuclear defense role that they came just a decade too late to reappraise the prospects of Europe's political and economic integration. The delay eventually cost Britain great anguish and the sacrificing of valuable opportunities. By 1965, with its trade balances in difficulty and its American ally obsessed with a larger war against Vietnam, all too many of its neighbors came to regard the United Kingdom as the sick man of Europe. Though its economic health began to recover again, a grave suspicion of Britain's slick conversion to European beliefs prevailed at official levels. For a would-be 8 Useful answers to these questions can be found in two works of Alastair
Buchan: The Future of NATO (New York: "International Conciliation"

series No. 565, published by the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, Nov., Press, 1969). 1968); Europe's Future (New York: Columbia University

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European partner, Mr. Heath was judged to be too interested in retaining Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf bases, and his attachments to the United States (for sterling and trade purposes) could only nourish doubts in Brussels or Paris. Initially, the United Kingdom had been sure that few benefits would materialize in the plans to integrate the strength of Western Europe. It had looked sceptically upon the Coal and Steel Community, Euratom, the Defense Community, and the legislative designs for E.E.C. The Conservatives had argued that Britain's responsibilities to the Commonwealth and to the United States were more valuable than novel and uncertain arrangements with a new Europe.9 The policy of isolating itself from its nearest neighbors caused little concern until it became apparent that the integration planned in the Treaty of Rome would succeed-and that Britain would profit economically by joining it. During the 1960's the economic growth rates of the E.E.C. nations soared, partly because of the restructured market which they had created, while the United Kingdom limped from one sterling crisis to another. Since the United Kingdom's rival grouping, the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), could not provide the stimulus toward economic and political union that was offered by E.E.C., Britain had no choice but to devalue the pound. Naturally, it was able to escape from the fierce and costly battles over the Community's agricultural and monetary plans. But its economic exclusion from the Common Market suggested that one day high costs would have to be paid if it were to survive in the long-run competition between the industrial powers of Europe to maximize their economic expansion. Unfortunately, the harvesting of promise and the surprising growth of the European economy moved both Conservative and Labour leaders toward a rigid position. They failed to generate a rapid increase in economic productivity or a new world view at home, largely because they had grown used to identifying the nation as the inseparable offshore ally of the United States and as the crown of a multi-racial Com9 The argument that Britain could best retain its position of influence in the world by becoming a part of a European power complex or of a "Federal" European state was voiced by many groups and interests in British politics. Their arguments are lucidly summarized and evaluated by Mirian Camps in Britain and the European Community, 1955-1963 (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964) and in What Kind of Europe? (London: Oxford University Press, 1965). Divergent and less lucid views are to be found in Timothy W. Stanley and Darnell M. Whitt, Detente Diplomacy: United States and European Security in the 1970S (New York: Dunellen, 1970); and in Edward Heath, Old World, New Horizons: Britain, Europe, and the Atlantic Alliance (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969).

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monwealth. Indeed, they hewed to this archaic identification even after the Macmillan government launched the first attempt to enter Europe.10 Eight years later, therefore, Churchill's ambiguous advice was still surprisingly hallowed: that if Britain must choose "between Europe and the high seas," it should always choose the latter. The nation, however, was no longer sure what benefits should result from so costly a choice. What remains of the Commonwealth is disposed to look less and less to Britain for political guidance or collective leadership; but in trade and aid matters it looks with actual fear upon Britain's entry into Europe."1In the meanwhile, the United States has fostered a profound estrangement from its European and offshore allies. The Johnson and Nixon administrations, fatigued by the endless war against Vietnam, became weary of confronting the maneuvers of DeGaulle, or of urging the NATO allies to shoulder a greater part of their own burden of defense. By 1970 the gradual detachment of United States diplomatic energy from the Continent had enabled the Europeans to experiment with new forms of Ostpolitik and with new proposals to restructure the Common Market, but the role of Britain was still that of an excluded supplicant. The United Kingdom, unable to choose which of its "three circles" would offer the best foundation for its strategic development, persevered in its policy of procrastination. Its defense policy was oriented to each of the three circles in turn; until the late 1960's, it discarded none and consolidated none. Given such political indecision and confusion, it was not surprising that its political leadership was angered when Dean Acheson provocatively suggested that: 10In return for the acceptance of Polaris missiles, through the 1962 Nassau agreement, the United Kingdom agreed to consider joining the M.L.F. plan which the United States insisted upon conferring on NATO.Since General DeGaulle cherished other designs for NATO-which would allow France a greater role in alliance leadership-he determined to shut out AngloSaxon penetration from Europe's "inner six." Barely a few weeks after the United States-United Kingdom meeting at Nassau, he announced his stern
refusal to consider Britain's entry into E.E.C.and then concluded a new

Treaty with West Germany. The sequence of these events and the motives
of each national actor are variously appraised in Coral Bell, The Debatable Alliance (London: Oxford University Press, 1964); Robert Kleiman, Atlantic Crisis (New York: Norton, 1964); Henry A. Kissinger; The Troubled Partnership (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965); and Nora Beloff, The General Says No (London: Penguin Books, 1963). 11 As the annual trade figures reveal, in Britain's External Trade and Payments, (New York: British Information Service, 1969), E.E.C. and E.F.T.A. have rapidly replaced the Commonwealth as the most vital markets for United Kingdom exports.

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Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role. The attempt to play a separate power role-that is, a role apart from Europe, a role based on a "special relationship" with the United States, a role based on being the head of a "commonwealth"... this role is about played out. Great Britain, attempting to work alone and to be a broker between the United States and Russia, has seemed to conduct policy as weak as its military power.l' British leaders feared that Mr. Acheson's caustic remarks, together with the Kennedy administration's plans for a twin-pillar and MLFequipped revival of NATO, would imperil Britain's success in bargaining its way into a Europe now dominated by France and Germany. Though the Labour government played a nimble role in scuttling the MLF scheme to reunify NATO around a new nuclear core, it was basically uncertain about the strategic reappraisals which should follow. The retreat from a world role and the dilution of the "special relationship" with the United States was dictated not by its own choice but by the press of external events. As the deficit in its balance of payments continued to grow, Labour played a waiting game and tried to keep all options open. Political influence was exerted among the five friendly partners in E.E.C. but it failed to prevent a second veto by President DeGaulle of the United Kingdom's entry. Strategically, Labour succumbed both to the influence of the United States and to its own domestic illusions by maintaining a minipresence in the southern hemisphere. Expensive orders were placed for FIllA and carrier equipment specifically for the theater east of Suez.13 Taking advantage of the lowered level of threat obtaining in Europe, it economized in its contribution to NATO and reduced the size of BOAR to finance these new orders. These were astonishing decisions to make for a nation otherwise intent upon convincing its doubting neighbors of its new-found determination to enter Europe.
12 Dean
13

Acheson, "Our Atlantic Alliance: The Political and Economic

Strands," Vital Speeches, XXIX, No. 6 (1963), 163-164.

No official statements were issued by the Johnson administration about

the desirability of retaining United Kingdom forces in the Gulf, the Indian Ocean, or Singapore. But, as the United States became more isolated from its allies by perpetuating the Vietnam war, "normally informed circles" in the New York Times and Washington Post reported the displeasure with equipment in Singapore and the Persian Gulf by 1971. When the Conservatives returned to office in time to arrest the withdrawal, the State Department judged, as The Times reported, that "not all the gold in Fort Knox .... could guarantee the stability now maintained [there] by a few British troops and Britain's political experience" (27 June, 1970).

which the Administration viewed Labour'sdecisions to phase out bases and

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Faced with a permanent weakness in the nation's economic health during the 1950's, the Conservatives' long line of Defense Ministers had cut back on Britain's conventional commitments and emphasized the needs of the nuclear program. As a result, the contributions of manpower and conventional defense pledged by the United Kingdom and other allies in NATO had never been fulfilled.l4 Annual defense spending was cut over the decade from 11 percent to 7 percent of GNP, although the absolute sum spent on the military remained relatively constant, but the size of the Army was halved when national conscription ended in 1960. Since Britain's efforts to build a cheap but credible deterrent force had not succeeded, and since conventional and airlift capabilities had been allowed to run down, Labour could not maintain the pretence of a military role in that vast area outside Europe which it still viewed as a sphere of British influence. It increased troop strengths east of Suez, particularly during the confrontation between Malaysia and Indonesia, and claimed a fiscally cheap victory over the defense of Sabah and Sarawak. But by 1967 the rationale of a role for the United Kingdom in Asia had become unconvincing and the final phasing out began. Labour's decisions to weaken the garrison on the Rhine and to reassert a global strategy in 1964 had provoked great surprise.l5 Not only was Britain's defense budget impossibly strained by garrisoning forces east of Suez, but the nation prejudiced the help of its friends in Brussels by prolonging its obsession with non-European concerns. For reasons unknown even to Labour members, and at a time when Britain's defense contributions in Europe could have secured a major diplomatic payoff, the defense planners turned their attention from 1964 to 1967 to bolstering Britain's overextended and fading "presence"
14 Once the fears of Soviet encroachment in Europe and of the United States reneging on its defense commitments had been significantly eased, NATO plans for joint strategic planning and cost sharing began to erode. The earlier causes and consequences of the erosion are investigated in Klaus Knorr (ed.), NATO and American Security (New Jersey: Princeton, 1959); and Robert E. Osgood, NATO, The Entangling Alliance (University of Chicago, 1959). 15As a partisan for entering Europe, the Minister for the Navy was so appalled by these errors in military planning that he (together with the most senior Navy commander) resigned from office. See Christopher Mayhew, Britain's Role Tomorrow (London: Hutchinson, 1967) for his explanation. For example, "The Goverment in fact treats our East of Suez role precisely as a Hindu treats his sacred cow-neither feeding it properly nor putting it out of its misery. The economic departments will not let the role be properly financed, and the overseas departmentswill not let it be wound

up." (p. 97)

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east of Suez.16 After another few years of experience of sterling crises and of Draconian economic retrenchment at home, complete with a wage freeze and forced deflation, Mr. Wilson eventually relented. He then promised to cut back forces both east of Suez and on the Rhine.17 Once again, unfortunately, history moved at a more rapid pace than the British cabinet. Following upon the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, a marked emphasis on trade and economic growthrather than on defense and nuclear weaponry-had become the primary concern of Western Europe. France and the FRG reduced their arms burdens and both were unimpressed by Britain's attempts to cling to its "three circles" of defense. After the Algerian war ended they had no remaining sympathy with Britain's aspirations for a global role and hence questioned its newly minted image as a European power. They sought no option to police the oilfields of the Persian Gulf, to help curb China's presence in Malaysia or Hong Kong, or to suppress strife in Cyprus or sub-Saharan Africa. They refused to aid the United States' campaign in Vietnam and Cambodia and they belittled the last military "penny packets" which Britain maintained east of Suez. When the peril of a major confrontation loomed in the Middle East, they were divided and helpless; when the Soviets thrust into Czechoslovakia there were exclamations of horror but no rush to improve their guard against any further Soviet threat. In short, most of the industrial nations of Western Europe became "inward looking" and complaisant. They cared more about promoting their industrial expansion-since about the this alone could finance a high standard of living-than of NATOto Warsaw Pact strengths in armored and possible inferiority nations tactical air forces in Central Europe. Though several of the E.E.C. would have been happier if the United Kingdom had joined the community, they still saw Britain as an incorrigible dilettante, wasting energy on hopeless distractions outside Europe while failing to concentrate its resources and drive to compete on the European scene. 16The exorbitant costs and unproductive returns of Britain's global role are evaluated by Hugh Hanning in "Britain East of Suez-Facts and Figures," InternationalAffairs, Vol. XLVII,No. 2 (April 1966), 253-60. He finds that the costs were greater than Britain's military expenses in Europe and that they accounted for a large part of Britain's overseas deficit. Further evidence that the United Kingdom drew little commercial profit from these commitments is given in eight articles on "Britain East of Suez" in the same issue of InternationalAffairs. 17Kenneth Younger, a former Labour minister in the Foreign Office, recognized that Britain might have to suffer an economic catastrophe before it revised its self-image and its unprofitable foreign policy: Changing Perspectives in British Foreign Policy (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 71.

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Certainly, there was little envy among most Europeans for the "special relationship" which the global and nuclear roles had supposedly earned for Britain in United States' affairs.18 They showed little anxiety about the likelihood of nuclear war in Europe and a great concern over the "technology gap" which distinguished their retarded level of industrial modernization from that of the United States. Their leaders realized that the political power of the "middle states" depended, in an era of loose nuclear bipolarity, upon the rapid development of science-based industries and upon a balanced economic growth. Each nation had cause to resent the increasing capture by United States conglomerates of markets in Europe or the creation of United States subsidiary firms among its high technology industries.19 DeGaulle played on these fears and warned that the United Kingdom might be the Trojan horse of American diplomatic and economic penetration in a continent trying to liberate itself from American dominance. Britain, unfortunately, failed to answer his accusation with wit or conviction. It shared some of the resentment voiced against United States' nuclear and industrial supremacy but defaulted in countering the French accusation with the relevant riposte: so long as the United Kingdom was locked out of an expanding Europe, the E.E.C.nations would never be able to meet the challenge posed by America's superior technology and wealth.20 The members of E.E.C. realized that a strong
18 DeGaulle had warned, and the United Kingdom's plight had proven, that the United States was not susceptible to real "consultation"and collective decision-making, no matter how great was its lip service to the idea of alliance unity. An accumulationof suspicions eventually eroded the cause of collective diplomacy and alliance decision-making which Alastair Buchan had urged in Crisis Management (Boulogne-sur-Seine: The Atlantic Institute, 1966). The difficulties encountered by the United States in adjusting its cumbersome form of policy deliberation to the needs of NATOare reviewed by W.T.R. and A. B. Fox in NATO and the Range of American Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967). 19The present author's review of European responses and an evaluation of the political implications of this industrial struggle are given in "Europe Faces the Technology Gap," Yale Review, Vol. LIx, No. 2 (December, 1969). 20 Ibid., Harold Wilson disarmed some of the suspicion in 1966 when he called for a joint European Technology Community to combat "the industrial helotry" exercised by "the sophisticated apparatus of American technology." Since the research and development expenditures and the skilled manpower deployed by Britain's science-based industries were greater than those of any E.E.C. member, this offer of Mr. Wilson could not be easily disregarded. Today, it is safe to say that cooperation with Britain is vital if European aerospace, computers, petro-chemical products and telecommunications are to withstand the impetus of America's penetration of its most profitable markets.

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Britain in Europe would enlarge their market potential and help ward off United States competition. But they were also doubtful about Britain's ability to accept the 284 provisions of the Treaty of Rome together with its expensive arrangements for a subsidized agricultural policy, a joint monetary exchange, and the free movement of both labor and capital. Nonetheless, they urged the United Kingdom a third time to negotiate over its entry and to place less emphasis upon trade obstacles than it had in the past.

II. Economicand Domestic Constraintson StrategicPolicy

Until recently, Britain spent 6.5 percent of its GNP and 24 percent of its central government expenditure on defense each year. This rate greatly exceeded the expenditures of most of the industrial competitors for the manufacturing export markets in which the United Kingdom must fight for its survival. That Britain's economic growth rates failed to match the remarkable increase in national wealth recorded by its competitors in E.E.C. can be attributed to an important extent to the allocations which Britain made in its defense efforts. Its annual deficit in overseas exchange payments, for example, was approximately equal to the hard currency payments which it had to spend (especially for its NATO garrison on the Rhine) each year in financing its military commitments overseas. The deflection of research and development resources into defense-related industries and the use of industrial facilities (such as shipyards and airframe plants) for military purposes were harmful to the nation's vital export trade. The gold and dollar reserves of the United Kingdom were not large enough to build a resistance to pressures on the pound exerted by the money markets of Europe or to impress the pessimist "gnomes of Zurich." It is fairly evident that the defense burden not only weakened the nation's growth potential but helped provoke the stop-go cycles of inflation and deflation which injured the nation's economic health. Admittedly, after 1960 it was recognized that the United Kingdom could no longer afford the manpower conscription which the services urgently required. Yet it is striking that the United Kingdom's trade competitors and allies, which also encountered labor shortages, were able to secure more rapid rates of growth while still retaining the conscription upon which their home-based forces relied.21
21 An extensive analysis of Britain's persistent economic shortcomings can be found in such useful sources as J.C.R. Dow, The Management of the British Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964); Keith Drake, Britain's Exports and the Balance of Payments (London: Sphere,

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It is somewhat ironic, considering the burden imposed by its military efforts, that the chief emphasis in British defense documents since the Korean War has been placed upon the economizing of hardware and personnel costs rather than upon the improvement of war-fighting capabilities. A sustained reading of the annual Defense Estimates, indeed, suggests that fiscal economy became the primary objective of the military's planning exercises. Unfortunately, as the resources and manpower of the services declined, their strategic responsibilities tended to remain undiminished. Successively, Ministers of Defense reshuffled the balance of force levels around the world without seriously scaling down the scope of the nation's worldwide commitments. Naturally, their exercises in strategic redeployment diminished in credibility as the nation's resource surplus and its fiscal solvency continued to decline. The "overstretch" of logistic support and material provoked constant complaint from the service chiefs, but neither the Cabinet nor Parliament listened to them attentively. They had been authorized to assist in the defense of Malaysia or the Persian Gulf while, at the same time, the phasing out of carriers and their aircraft relentlessly continued. The duty of the services was to save money and secondarily to save face.22 In the fourteen years since the two-day invasion of the Suez Canal had been aborted-principally because of the sterling crisis on Wall Street-British forces were involved in only two lasting conflicts. Both of them (in the confrontation with Indonesia and the national liberation war in Aden) were deemed to have succeeded, largely because their cost to the Exchequer was quickly liquidated.23 Britain's failure to revitalize its economy, to accumulate extensive payments reserves, and to increase the productivity of its industry imposed a formidable constraint upon its strategic planning. It simply had to husband its resources if it sought to stay ahead in the middle power race for prestige and position. It had to expand its domestic capital formation, modernize its industrial base and strive for economic autonomy, for there was no way in which it could utilize its political influence as long as its military force levels were dependent upon
1970); Andrew Shonfield,Modern Capitalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967); and for a comparative analysis, Angus Maddison, Economic Growth in the West (New York: 2oth Century Fund, 1964). 22 Two books by a distinguished Defense Correspondent, David Divine, provide extensive details of the misguided patterns of penny-pinching force

planning: The Blunted Sword and The Broken Wing: A Study in the British
Exercise of Air Power (London: Hutchinson, 1964 and 1966). 23 A full review of "Britain's Strategic Axioms and Defense Record" appears in Edward Kolodziej (ed.), Comparative Strategic Policy (forthcoming).

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desperate loans from the I.M.F. and the World Bank. But from a GNP eight times larger than Britain's, the United States could always remind the United Kingdom of its limited status. The United States spent as much on research and development as Britain could afford for its entire defense budget, and its force strength (measured in terms of troops or nuclear warheads available) was many times larger. Moreover, the American aerospace and electronics industries obtained technological benefits and spin-off advantages far beyond Britain's reach. Though the United Kingdom succeeded in maintaining a technological leadership over most of its European competitors, it could not match the industrial breakthroughs of the United States. Its defense and research and development accomplishments therefore contributed little to the economy's growth needs or to the nation's battle to achieve solvency. Had it emulated the performance of other middle powers and pressed on with the single-minded determination of Japan toward industrial expansion, Britain might have abandoned its traditional goals of statecraft-such as the nurturing of its military strength-at an earlier point of postwar history. Britain, however, was deeply mired in the historic perspectives and imperial expectations of the Churchillian mystique. Its outmoded strategy failed to adapt to an era dominated by nations with a "superpower" potential for industrial might and thermonuclear destruction. Britain's misfortune was that it failed to perceive for twenty years that a new conception of economic management and military constraint was required if the competition of other middle powers was to be effectively countered in the manufacturing markets of the world. If industrial and financial success were not won at this level, especially by the former imperial nations of Europe, it was not important whether they could in fact manage to build a nuclear minideterrent, to station small garrisons at the outposts of decaying empires, or to throw their weight around in the crisis councils of the regional alliances to which they subscribed.24 The role exerted by the middle powers in the international system had undergone several radical changes since 1945, but the United Kingdom refused to acknowledge the consequences. Given the benefit of hindsight wisdom, it can be concluded that the failure to adjust its behavior to a changing world order reaped disaster. Britain miscalculated the influence which an ancient diplomatic tradition backed with a token military force could exert in a loosely bipolar international system. By clinging to customary concepts of power it weakened support for several of these positions can be found in Stanley Hoffman, Gulliver's Troubles (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968) and F. S. Northedge, The Foreign Policies of the Powers (London: Faber and Faber, 1968).
24 Theoretical

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its own ability to bridge the growing gap between "power" and "influence." Even if it had somehow acquired both a limited military strength and a high level of economic growth, only the threat of a major and immediate war could have justified the imposition of such a severe strain upon its resources. Since the threat of war had consistently receded during the 1950's and 1960's, Britain's investment in extensive military efforts is difficult to justify. In retrospect, of course, it is easy to argue that the United Kingdom could never have gained an appreciable advantage in relative power and political standing by retaining its military aspirations. Yet at the present time it appears that the British government is determined to repeat exactly the same mistakes of force planning for the 1970's which waylaid its predecessors during the 1960's.

III. The Contemporary Rationaleof BritishStrategy

The outline for Britain's defense programs for the first few years of the 1970's had been revealed in successive issues of the Labour government's White Papers on defense. In the aftermath of the alarming sterling crisis of 1964-1967, which drained the nation's gold reserves and prompted a 14 percent devaluation of the pound, it was imperative that economy in spending should become the dominant note in the Defense Statements. Indeed, six weeks after the 1967 devaluation, and after the "gnomes of Zurich" (together with the Governors of the I.M.F.) had insisted upon a retrenchment of public spending, Prime Minister Wilson announced a historic decision to the House of Commons: for reasons of economy, United Kingdom forces in the Far East and Persian Gulf would be withdrawn by 1971 and the force structure needed to maintain an imperial role would at last be scrapped.25 A month later, the 1968 Statement on Defense was published, again amidst a chorus of furious protest. It revealed that defense spending (currently at 5.5 billion dollars) would be reduced from 6.5 percent to 5 percent of GNPover the next four years, and that the military budget would be cut by almost a billion dollars over the next four years.26
25 H.C. Deb., Vol. DCCLVI, (January16-18, 1968). 26 Statements on the Defense Estimates, February1968 (Cmnd. 3540; London: H.M.S.O.).The conversion of national currencies to dollar (GNP) rates

and the discrepancy between defense estimates and actual outlays occasionally cause statistical confusion. This problem is investigated in The Military Balance, op.cit., and in Emile Benoit and Harold Lubell, Disarmament and World Economic Interdependence (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967).

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Apart from maintaining token units in Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Mediterranean after 1971, the Defense Statement emphasized that Britain's defense efforts would henceforward be concentrated in Europe and the North Atlantic.2 Moreover, the Government insisted that United Kingdom naval and air forces would be superior to those of any NATO power in Europe and that its reserve forces (which could be airlifted overseas if needed) would be stationed in the United Kingdom or Europe. As the Statement put it:2' The foundation of Britain's security now as always lies in the maintenance of peace in Europe. Our first priority therefore must still be to give the fullest possible support to NATO.Our contribution will be formidable . . .and will increase as British forces are brought back from S.E. Asia and the Middle East and are assigned to NATO command in Europe and the Mediterranean. Doubt was expressed, however, about Defense Minister Healey's claim that "our Navy will be second only to the American Navy in the Western world; and our Air Force will be equal in numbers to the German or French Air Forces and superior in quality."29 Since it was planned to phase out its attack carriers and its Fleet Air Arm, the Royal Navy would be left with practically no other function than a limited escort or ASW role in the North Atlantic and in the Mediterranean. Similarly, deprived of its FlllA strike force (due partly to inept mismanagement in the Pentagon), the RAFwould fulfill only tactical or ground support missions. The V-bomber squadrons were to be retired as Britain's four Polaris submarines assumed the sole strategic deterrent role which the United Kingdom could fulfill in the 1970's. Failing the development of a joint European swing-wing fighter or of
a Multi-Role Combat Aircraft
(MRCA) to replace

the FIl-A,

Britain's

contribution to NATO would therefore appear largely on the ground in the next decade. Its six brigades in the Army on the Rhine (one of which is stationed in the United Kingdom) would number approxi27 A fairly large police force was to be retained in Honk Kong to preserve internal order, principally because its entrepot trade provides a valuable source of hard currency. Only training advisors, radar operatives, and a token air force would remain in Singapore after 1971, and the United Kingdom naval contribution in the Mediterranean would be neither costly nor
impressive.
28 February1968 Statement, op.cit., 3-5.
29 Ibid., The Statement of 1970 repeated this assertion: "Britain enters the Seventies with an overall military capability which no other IWesternEuropeanpower can surpass. Her Armed Forces are the most highly trained in the North Atlantic Alliance and they have already in service or in immediate prospect a range of new equipment which is second to none." (Cmnd. 4290, 4).

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mately 50,000 men; but this barely survives comparison with the five French and twelve FRG divisions stationed on the central front. Thus the claim was difficult to support that Britain's contribution to NATOwould be "second to none" among the European members of the Alliance.3 Though the new Conservative administration shares the Labour view that Britain's contribution to NATOmust be "on a scale corresponding with our efforts to forge closer political and economic links with Europe," it is still torn by the prospects of reviving a more traditional policy outside Europe. While in opposition it bitterly criticized the Labour plan to withdraw practically all forces from the vast tropical zone east of Suez. Mr. Heath and his Foreign Secretary (Sir Alexander Douglas-Home), now in office, must placate both the convinced Europeanists and the traditional Tories in their own party. They campaigned in the 1970 election partly on the issues that Britain must restore its fading presence on the littoral of the Indian Ocean. To this end, they urged that the embargo on British arms shipments to South Africa must be lifted so that the Simonstown naval base could once again be used by British warships. (Their insensitivity to the charge that this would implicitly condone the practice of apartheid in South Africa was also reflected in their determination to reopen discussions with the white settler regime which had seized power arbitrarily in Southern Rhodesia. Both countries, it was argued, are important export markets for British trade and munitions, and if the French could survive the wrath of the African delegations in the United Nations by selling armaments to South Africa, why should the United Kingdom assign a higher priority to moral values than to strategic or commercial profit?). As another instance of its global perspectives the Heath government resumed negotiations with Commonwealth members in Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia with a view to maintaining the once formidable base facilities in Singapore. These facilities, together with the military installations in Hong Kong and the Persian Gulf, currently accommodate 45,000 men (or io percent of the Armed Services). They will have to be strongly reinforced if their peace-keeping or conflictlimitation missions are to appear in any way impressive in the next decade. There is a certain fascination in the struggle of the present cabinet to determine Britain's future defense policy. The Tory ministers recog30 Defense Estimates (February 1968), op.cit., 3. A similar claim was made in the February 1969 Statement which claimed to "put the seal on the transformation of Britain from a world power to a European power." In introducing it, the Minister of Defense added: "We can withdraw our forces from the Far East and the Persian Gulf... but we cannot tow the British Isles away from Europe." (New York Times, February 21, 1969).

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nize that the defense bill of 5.5 billion dollars cannot be increased if domestic inflation is to be curbed and if adequate funds are to be allocated to housing, education, and welfare needs. They fully realize that the all-volunteer armed services cannot be raised far above the 385,000 men now under arms without damaging the manpower distribution in the economy. It is obvious, too, that additional deployments east of Suez would not only impair the strength of the Rhine army-at a time when the United Kingdom is again negotiating its future European status in Brussels-but that an increase in the current defense expenditures of 300 million dollars (in hard currency) spent overseas could quickly trigger another crisis for the pound. That the United Kingdom's defense planning has been chaotic and counterproductive in the past is the argument that has been set out in the pages above. Whether it will be myopic and detrimental to the nation's statecraft in the future will shortly be known. The nation has slender resources of hard currency (amounting to less than 2.8 billion dollars, minus debts to the I.M.F. and World Bank) and of time with which to maneuver. It cannot afford to repeat the costly and timewasting mistakes of the 1960's if it is to consolidate its position as one of the leading middle powers in the international system.31 The first calculation that must be made, therefore, concerns the financing of the "vital interests" which the Heath government has rediscovered in South Africa, Singapore and the Persian Gulf. The defense budget is already tightly strained by the costs of Britain's politically imperative commitments to NATO defense arrangements. Neither men nor supply services can be expanded nor easily withdrawn from Europe to provision the garrisons overseas. Nor would a great profit be reaped by the United Kingdom if it moved in this direction. Malaysia is already teeming with ethnic turmoil and a small Commonwealth contingent in Singapore could barely help to "contain any future Chinese aggression" by manning a few radar stations and airfields. (A far better defense is likely to be established by the high level of employment created by the recent flood of United States investments in Singapore.) Nor could British forces in Sharjah and
31 In the view of The Economist (June 27, 1970), the United Kingdom could in no way find more than an extra 120 million dollars for hard currency investments in new foreign policy ventures. Forty-eight million dollars could possibly be contributed to this sum by selling South Africa naval and aircraft equipment-or by relaxing the United Kingdom's economic sancto increase the 1970 defense budget by more tions against Rhodesia-but than 2 percent would be unwise. Since plans had already been made to cut back on all logistic services, the naval air arm, and garrison arrangements east of Suez, it is doubtful whether a meaningful defense posture outside Europe can be seriously implemented.

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Masirah long protect the one billion dollar oil installations in the Persia Gulf-upon which Britain must rely for 60 percent of its crude oil until natural gas resources in the North Sea can service its energy needs. The dozen emirates and feuding sheikhdoms of the Gulf are too fragile to assure their own security and they fear that large United Kingdom forces will provoke the wrath of local revolutionary groups. Moreover, the dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia for the exercise of hegemony over Kuwait, Buraimi and its neighboring oases will undermine any efforts of Britain to pacify and stabilize the region. Indeed, given the very small military presence that the United Kingdom can possibly afford, it is now obvious that its position in the Gulf can best be secured by diplomatic and commercial prestige.32 The second calculation to be made by the Minister of Defense must depend largely upon the allocation of resources to be made outside Europe. This must cause profound concern to the United Kingdom at a time when it is so anxious about negotiating both its entry into E.E.C. upon favorable terms and upon preserving the NATO alliance-which it insists upon viewing as the vital military component of the movement toward European union. Anxiety has already been voiced in Britain about the long-term future of the alliance. A majority in the United States Senate is sympathetic to the intent (of the Mansfield resolution) to cut back upon the 300,000 United States troops in members are prepared to shore up the alliance Europe, and few NATO by increasing their own defense commitments.33 It is obvious, too, that the Nuclear Defense Affairs Committee and the Nuclear Planning Group must be able to still any lingering doubts about nuclear crisis management for years to come. Though these institutions are hardly impressive or durable, they provide the only means available to modernize NATO'S strategy and to resolve the divisions of power between its nuclear and non-nuclear members. The NATO Council has recently endorsed the thrust of United States strategy by deemphasizing NATO'S
32 The reassessments of Britain's future role in the Gulf published shortly after the Conservatives' return to office were almost uniformly cautious. (See for example the imperial-minded Sunday Telegraph or the feature articles in The Economist of July 1970.) With only 6,o00 troops in the region, the United Kingdom cannot contend with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the Nasser-style revolutionaries who are competing to overthrow the weak but oil-rich sheiks. 33 Moreover, since Canada plans to cut its 10,000 garrison by two-thirds, a major U.S. reduction would provoke grave dissent in the NATOCouncil. The retirement of DeGaulle has done little to repair the disunity in the alliance over issues of sharing defense burdens or of negotiating a new European security system with the Warsaw Treaty Organization. For a fuller analysis, see L. W. Martin, "British Defense Policy," Adelphi Papers, No. 61 (London: Institute for Strategic Studies, November 1969).

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nuclear role and by increasing its dependence on a conventional and flexible defense. But it assumes that the United States deterrent guarantee will remain active and instantly credible for years to come, so that NATO need not burden itself with creating another dozen divisions of ground forces to match recent increases in the fire power of the Warsaw Treaty forces. Unlike DeGaulle throughout the 1960's, the Council presumes that NATO is so fully armed with tactical nuclear weapons that it will indefinitely deter any Soviet risk-taking along the Elbe or in the access to Berlin for fear that an uncomfortable nuclear escalation would rapidly develop. As a religious believer in the solidity of the NATO alliance, Britain has tried to consolidate both its position in Europe and its "special relationship" with the United States by exerting itself within the alliance. Fearing that the Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe might further decay, leading to new explosions (perhaps in Poland or in should possess conventional forces Berlin), Britain has urged that NATO sufficient in numbers to police its western borders. Assuming that the 200oo,ooo-strong U.S. army in Germany would not be depleted, it has also argued that there is no urgency to expand present force strengths on the central front or to enlarge mobile forces on the northern or southern flank. In keeping with this premise Labour's outgoing Minister of Defense (Denis Healey) dismissed the new presence of Soviet warships in the Mediterranean as a fleet which could be blown out of the water by the United States Sixth Fleet long before it could unloose its missile salvos.34 Britain's "Atlanticist" belief in the durability of NATOis based upon a third shrewd calculation. It has recognized that no "Gaullist" or new and that no increase in strategic grouping could feasibly replace NATO could presently be achieved. If the non-nuclear capability NATO'S alliance were to attempt a further conventional build-up, it would require: France to return its troops to the integrated NATO command; Germany to increase its military strength; and Britain to restore military conscription so that its depleted volunteer army could at last be expanded.35 At the present time, none of these requirements are likely to be favored or implemented.
34 Times (London), February 11, 1969. The United Kingdom deployed an aircraft carrier and a helicopter carrier to monitor the Soviet fleet in the Mediterranean. Together with Italian units and the United States Sixth fleet units they greatly surpass the Soviet naval strength. Moreover, the Soviets would have to establish dangerously vulnerable bases in Egypt, Libya or Syria to provide air cover for their fleet if a serious crisis should ever develop. 35 A full analysis of these unlikely choices is given in The Economist, February 8, 1969. If volunteer enlistment remains at present low levels, the

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Under Mr. Healey's direction as Minister of Defence, Britain struggled to assert its influence as a leading "middle power" in alliance decision-making procedures. Unlike France, it never wavered in its belief in the credibility or the instant reliability of America's nuclear guarantee to secure Europe's defense. Nor has Britain objected to the two-key system under which 7,000 tactical nuclear weapons in Europe have been kept under the effective control of SACEUR and the United States President. Though the United Kingdom encountered embarrassing difficulties in supporting the Rhine Army (through financial offsetagreements with its West German creditors), and though it arrived at the conclusion long before its allies that the threat of a major war in Europe had finally receded, it insisted upon maintaining the alliance's agreed level of conventional force strengths in Germany. In this way it hoped that the limitations in NATO'S nuclear defense posture would never create military anxieties, nationalist status resentments, or a rivalry to build nuclear strike forces. Its loyalty to NATO, in short, was designed to prove the sincerity of its new European identity as well as the indispensable character of its small but costly contribution to European security. The United Kingdom has shown great ingenuity in helping to preserve an alliance that long ago lost its "cement of fear." It advocated various arms control measures-such as the Gaitskell and Eden proposals for disengagement-but it has been sceptical about the value of East-West discussions which might lead to a European security conference and a multilateral reduction of forces. In the 1970's it is likely to persevere in drawing its allies and neighbors together into further exercises of collective dissembling and constraint.36 It will surely supUnited Kingdom's reduced size army of the 1970's will be 10 to 15 percent under-strength. Since it cannot afford to raise pay-scales or to build better married quarters, the army will have to remain largely in Europeand understrength. The diversion of 11,ooo of its NATO troops to Ulster in 1970 revealed that not even the United Kingdomcommitmentto NATO could be fully honored. 36Britain scored a notable success in leading the United States to abandon the original MLF proposal (which it first accepted and then side-tracked with a rival ANFproposal); in fact, it managed to kill the project without hurting An Europeanor Atlantic feelings. See, Alastair Buchan,"The MLF: Historical Perspective,"Adelphi Papers No. 13 (London:Institute for Strategic Studies, October 1964). Since the French had tried to woo Erhard'sfragile government away from the United States alliance and toward a Gaullist posture, Britain's achievement in derailing the MLF proposal while retaining Germany's friendship should not be minimized. These diplomatic relations are well explored in Thomas Barman, "Britain,France and West Germany" in International Affairs, Vol. XLVI,No. 2 (April 1970).

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port the nuclear self-denial clauses of the nonproliferation treaty and it will exercise its diplomacy to the fullest in adjudicating alliance disagreements over Ostpolitik or burden-sharing. The basic point of this is to allay the security and prestige anxieties of the FRG, to reduce its tensions and disagreements with France, and to consolidate Europe's defense by ensuring the permanent presence of American troops in the central and Mediterranean theaters. Britain has planned to maintain one brigade in Berlin, together with six brigades in the Army on the Rhine, in order to consolidate the alliance and to "keep a foot in the door" of the new Europe. These twin objectives have become the primary aim of British strategy. All other objectives-such as maintaining bases east of Suez or eventually expanding its Polaris fleet-must therefore assume a secondary significance. Though its all-volunteer army is smaller than that of France or the FRG, the United Kingdom has contributed naval contingents and tactical air support which NATO will find invaluable in maintaining its pretence to a common defense. And though its armored squadrons and RAF planes cannot seriously hope to hold the North German 1,000 Plain for a ninety-day non-nuclear war, as NATO strategy now supposes, an early use of nuclear weapons (despite an American insistence upon a flexible response) will be inevitable in so crowded a battleground. Thus the United Kingdom has pulled its full weight in supmust gird itself to fight a ninety-day porting its allies' fiction that NATO "pause" war.37 Though recent defense White Papers presuppose that NATO could expect a timely and possibly prolonged warning if a major incident (unlike the unopposed occupation of Czechoslovakia) were about to begin, it is apparent the United Kingdom could not take advantage of a delay even if a warning were to be issued. Neither its reserve and territorial units nor its supply capacities are geared for a hasty or massive mobilization. Though Britain also pays its share of the costs of
NATO'S

infrastructureand of the integrated ACE mobile brigade, its

37 The 1968 meeting of the NATO Council of Ministers in Brussels at last took advantage of the absence of France to scrap the doctrine of "massive retaliation" which Secretary McNamara had tried to change and which DeGaulle had fought to retain since 1958. Though the Council endorsed a new doctrine of "gradual response," its members failed to procurethe equipment and deployments necessary to turn it into an operational reality. For a statement of Britain's support of this new pretence, see the speech of Denis Healey, "On European Defense," reprinted in Survival, Vol. II, No. 4

(April 1969).

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military contribution in any emergency would be severely limited by the financial and manpower constraints which determine its basic and strategy. It would rely immediately upon SACEUR the Nuclear Planto issue target orders to its four Polaris submarines (two ning Group of which are likely to be off station at any given point) and to its tactical air formations.38 Naturally, it would have to assume that the commanders in Europe and the Atlantic area had at their disposal enough tactical nuclear weapons to cope with a surprise attack. This tactical capability would lay down a forward nuclear barrier which the larger forces of the Warsaw Treaty Pact would neither dare penetrate nor even to mass behind for a concentrated attack; their mobilization routes and massed formations would provide too "lucrative" a target to a NATO defense command which had been indoctrinated for 15 years by its own propaganda about the inadequate conventional support provided by alliance governments.39 Cynical as it might sound, Britain's primary (but not exclusive) emphasis upon maintaining the posture of the NATO alliance is based upon the same set of programmed pretensions that have been adopted by the other European members of the Organization. Judged by their highly limited dimensions of defense preparations, none believe that a war in central Europe could be fought at a non-nuclear level or even that the disintegrating Soviet bloc would be tempted to initiate a major conflict. The purpose of NATOis therefore that of providing a political "insurance" policy, both to preserve the inactive posture of the Warsaw Treaty forces and to anchor the Western partners of the allianceand particularly West Germany-to a collective detente.40 Polaris submarines, under the terms of the Nassau Agreement, were committed to NATO'S commandand control arrangements"except if its supreme national interests" dictated an emergency withdrawal. DeGaulle was infuriated by this latter clause since it indicated the extent to which the United States had provided Britain with special nuclear favors. See, Neville Brown, "Anglo-French nuclear Collaboration?", The World Today, Vol. XXV, No. 8 (August 1969). 39 The complaint that NATO had failed to match the recent increase of armor, tactical air support, and ground formations of the Warsaw Treaty forces is firmly countered by Denis Healey, op.cit. Nevertheless, he fought hard to improve the force strength and deployment strategy of NATO, somewhat along the lines recommendedin Anthony Verrier, An Army for the Sixties (London: Secker and Warburg, 1966). 40 For a comparable analysis see D. C. Watt, "Future Aims of British Foreign Policy" and Peter Calvocoressi, "Britain in the World," in the
Political Quarterly, Vol. XLI, No. I January-March, 1970.
38 Britain's four

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IV. Britain's Strategic Dilemmas in the 1970's Like many of its allies, Britain has long believed that the politics of deterrence rather than the tactics of defense were needed to safeguard Europe's future. The expectation of a conventional war lasting for more than three days was discarded, in fact if not in theory, as an anachronism of strategic planning. Not even a tightly integrated European Defense Community, if it were ever to materialize (which is utterly dubious) could hope to fight a six-day conventional war-if only because of the impossibly high cost of gearing up for it. Hence, the United Kingdom is prepared to allocate a major part of its defense effort each year in maintaining a largely symbolic and dual-capability force in Germany in the belief that it will never enter action. The token-size presence of the Rhine Army is obviously aimed at stabilizing the security balance and the residual military anxieties of a new Europe. Its ambition is not to defend the North German Plain but to provide the United Kingdom with adequate leverage for its diplomatic pursuits in a divided continent.41 The most worrisome problem for Western Europe as it faces another decade of detente is that any plan for a redistribution of power within the Western alliance would again expose the nuclear inequality existing between West Germany, on one side, and France and Britain on the other. Whether the United States' double-key control of nuclear warheads will survive throughout the 1970's or not is difficult to predict; the answer will largely depend upon the political harmony prevailing among NATO'S non-nuclear members and their confidence in United States leadership. It is doubtful, given the shocks incurred during the American war against Vietnam, that the European allies will ever be able to exert a greater influence over the worldwide commitments or over the nuclear strategy of the United States. Thus the survival of NATO will rest to some extent upon their acceptance of the insubstantial guarantee which the United States can provide that their interests will be consulted in any time of crisis. If the guarantee should ever come members might be tempted to to be viewed with grave distrust, NATO follow the course of political disengagement and nuclear independence initiated by France.
For a shrewd appraisal of the military contribution which the United Kingdom hopes to make toward European union see Miriam Camps, European Unification in the Sixties (London: Oxford University Press, 1967); and Charles R. Planck, The Changing Status of German Reunification in Western Diplomacy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967). The utility of Britain's historic decision to maintain a permanent garrison in Europe is investigated in Grant Hugo, Britain in Tomorrow's World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).
41

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Britain will obviously try to play a vital role in the transformation of Europe's economic and political base in the 1970's, since its technological leadership will be indispensable to any movement aiming to accelerate industrial growth rates or to burst apart the national interests which still impede various attempts to unify Europe. If the new entity is to include more than the tightly-knit and inward-looking members of E.E.C., Britain's influence and power will be needed to help create it.42 It is in this context that the viability of NATO is vital to Britain. Though limited in scope, the United Kingdom enjoys political and nuclear advantages which Germany might never gain and which France-faced with increasing domestic troubles-might never match. Rather than waiting for Europe to reunite its defense arrangements under the threat of a renascent Germany or of a renewed Soviet belligerence, Britain has staked its future on the perpetuation of existing arrangements. It doubts that any new alliance could thrive without United States leadership and hardware or that a new alliance structure could enhance its core concerns in Europe. It therefore aspires to the preservation of an immutable (though no longer exclusive) relationship with the United States in order to advance its influence in Washington and Brussels.43 In the short run, NATO'S strategic planning will have to cope with the absence of France but in the long term it must leave room for its possible return.44 It is also reasonable to expect that the focus of 42 An enthusiastic belief in the political and industrial role which Britain, alone, can contribute to a new Europe can be found in the special supplement of The Economist, May 15, 1970, and in Anthony Sampson, The New

Europeans (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1968). A shrewd corrective to this enthusiasm appears in W. Horsfall Carter, "A Hard Look at the Comalso be made of DeGaulle's surprising proposal (to the British ambassador) that a larger European framework could be envisaged-if only NATOwere scrapped-and a new alliance developed. See the New York Times, February
22, 1969.
43 An excellent survey of Europe's prospects for military, economic, and political integration can be found in John Calmann (ed.), Western Europe:

munity," in International Affairs, Vol. XLVI, No. 2 (April 1970). Note should

A Handbook (New York: Praeger, 1967). For a thoughtful and deviant view about the future of Europe and the reform of NATO,see Andre Beaufre, NATO and Europe (New York: Random House, 1966). The most thorough

appraisal available, however, is to be found in the scholarly work of David

Calleo, Britain's Future (New York: Horizon Press, 1968).

44 The benefits and obstacles associated with various reforms of NATO are surveyed by Brig. Kenneth Hunt, "NATO Without France: The Military Implications," Adelphi Papers No. 32 (Institute of Strategic Studies, December

1966); and by W.T.R. and A.B. Fox, NATO and the Range of American Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967).

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concern will shift in the next few years from the plains of northern Germany to the stormy littoral of the eastern Mediterranean. While the ritual constraints upon access to West Berlin are now under discussion by the four occupying powers, the dangers of war in the Middle East grow larger each year. Had Britain maintained more than a token naval and air force in the area, of course, it might have exerted a greater influence in the area. Predictably, Britain's contribution to the alliance would be extremely limited if war should break out on the frontiers of Israel, or Yugoslavia, or within Cyprus or Greece. Its relatively small fleet in the Mediterranean (based upon Malta, Cyprus, and Gibraltar) could play only a minor role in comparison to that of the United States Sixth Fleet. Admittedly, Britain's participation would not be less than that of France, which is now pressing for a more active role in the Middle East, but it would depend greatly upon the extent to which the United States chose to consult with Moscow once a major conflagration began.45 A similar recourse to bilateral Great Power diplomacy would be required if conflict ever erupted in another former area of British (and Portuguese) hegemony, sub-Saharan Africa. Though Britain is determined that integration experiments in NATO should continue into the next decade, it has yet to settle upon its own strategic priorities. It is fairly safe to predict that defense efforts outside Europe will be neither sizeable nor lasting, if only because the scarcity of resources will triumph over the lingering nostalgia for an imperial posture. Similarly, plans to enlarge Britain's nuclear forcesby building a fifth submarine or a new strike aircraft-are unlikely to materialize; and the hope of merging its nuclear force with the French force de frappe will meet as little approval in Paris as it will in Bonn.46 In short, the strategic dilemma with which Britain encumbered itself 45Britain has consistently lost influence in the Middle East since its disastrous invasion of the Suez Canal in 1956. Though France became a major arms supplier to Col. Nasser's allies while Britain's protectorate in Jordan turned away from London, there is little reason to believe that France will ever come to exert a major influence in the various struggles between the Arab states and Israel. Ironically, since the 1967 closure of the Suez Canal forced the United Kingdom to equip itself with a modern and economic fleet of oil tankers, it has once again discovered the benefits to be reaped from a forced divestment of imperial responsibilities. 46 Franz Josef Strauss made a surprising suggestion in 1969 for a joint European deterrent force, but neither the German nor the British government regarded it seriously. The pious pre-election hope of Mr. Heath to merge British and French (and United States) nuclear arrangements was later supported by The Times (July 6, 1970) but it is likely that the proposal will only anger West Germany and increase the nationalist suspicions of M. Pompidou.

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in the 1940's will not be resolved in the 1970's. Britain cannot afford to phase itself out of the nuclear race, leaving France as the only nuclear power in Europe. Nor can it afford to purchase the swing-wing silos, or the ABMand MIRV bombers, the hardened MRBM deployments needed for a credible nuclear posture. Thus it seems that the United Kingdom is caught in the nuclear trap which confronts all middle powers. It needs to maintain its political leadership over nations potentially stronger than itself (such as West Germany or Japan) and yet it realizes that its nuclear power and influence will never compare to that of the dominant nations in the international system, and that the burden of up-dating its nuclear program would surely inhibit future economic growth potential.47 Should the United Kingdom choose to expand its independent nuclear capabilityor to enlarge its conventional military force structure-it will directly impede its own ability to modernize its industrial and social base. Though it will cost little to maintain its present force-in-being, it is obvious by now that Britain will gain greater diplomatic leverage and a better economic position if it adopts the strategic modesty of Germany or Japan rather than the ambitious (and now cut back) force aspirations of DeGaulle. It is unlikely that Britain's economic health and fiscal strength will decline steeply or dramatically in the 1970's, but its relative loss in power in Europe will be noticeable unless it can accelerate its industrial growth. It is possible that the United Kingdom will have to surrender its roles of sterling financier and deputy sheriff of the Indian Ocean and that it will have to adapt both its military force structure and its industrial expansion plans to international movements largely beyond its own control. In short, Britain will become a more conspicuously dependent actor in the international system as a whole, as well as in the regional subsystem of Western Europe with which it now identifies. Economic indicators, though somewhat misleading as aggregate figures, already suggest the fate which Britain must anticipate. Its growth in GNP is conspicuously smaller than that of other middle or great powers of the world. Therefore the burdens imposed by its defense efforts tend to be disproportionately more costly and its opportunities to increase its armed services much less feasible. 47These issues are explored with great skill in the essays collected in A World of Nuclear Powers?, edited by Alastair Buchan (New Jersey: PrenticeHall, 1966). More characteristic of the reawakening of British post-Imperial

thought is Neville Brown, Britain and World Security (London: The Fabian Society, Research Series 258, December 1966) and Arms Without Empire (London: Penguin Books, 1967).

TABLE I

Rank Order by GNP and Military Expenditures

CNP GNP PER CAPITA

MILITAR

Country United States

Soviet Union West Germany

Rank 1
2

Total Billion Dollars 794

384
121

Rank 1
19
11

Dollars 3,985
1,630 2,097 2,323

Rank 1
2

Billion Dollars 76
52 5

France Japan United Kingdom China

4 5 6 7

116 16 111 85

8 25 15 97

4 13 5 3

6 1 6 7

1,158 2,014 o18

Source: World Military Expenditures, 1969 (Washington: U.S. Arms Control and Disarma

Note: These figures, cited at current market prices, have been rounded out. Since no two esti should be regarded as approximate aggregations.

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V. Conclusions
Since the industrial growth rates of several middle powers will certainly surpass those of Britain, its diplomatic room to maneuver will not be extensive in the 1970's. It is logical that Britain's role in Europe should be that of seeking to maintain present institutions and alliance compromises in order to head off basic political change. It cannot exert a dominant role in disposing of the residual problems of World War II (such as the status of Berlin and the division of Germany), and it can only act as a status quo power in shaping the outcome of extraEuropean affairs. It is ironic that Britain should become the champion of economic integration and European union at a time when its strength is weak and its military capability has withered. But this is the historic fate which powers in decline must endure. Twenty years ago its championing of the cause of a defense community or of a supranational political and economic system might have changed the basic configuration of Europe. Today, it has been overtaken by the pressure of postCold War developments and by the greater vigor of its rivals. Hence, it must depend to a greater extent upon the good will, the fiscal support, and the military passivity of its allies and adversaries.48 It is striking, in retrospect, that the United Kingdom should choose at this late date to concentrate so much of its defense effort in the area where war is least likely to occur. Its choice, admittedly, has been dictated by reasons of a compelling economic character and by profound changes in the formerly colonial world. Its global deployments in the Commonwealth became an anachronism, as did the hardware and deployment initiatives in many of its twenty year old defense programs. That the United Kingdom could never return to its areas of former concern and imperial hegemony is obvious; that it cannot put 48 It is tempting to speculate about the consequences that might have occurred if Britain's decline had been sudden or abrupt-rather than gently drawn out. Though it might have evaded the constitutional crises which colonial war brought to the Fourth Republic, it might also have dared to change its allocation of resources and diplomatic priorities radically at an earlier stage. In a century of political stasis, the United Kingdom has needed the stimulus of war to find the courage to undertake radical innovation. Had it suffered bloody defeat in the disengagement from Empire,or if the nonEuropean preoccupations of the United States had been visible (as in Vietnam) at an earlier time, Britain might have adjusted its strategic planning at a more rapid and decisive pace. For a scholarly analysis of how "International Pressure and Domestic Response" (the subtitle) forced another middle power to reshape its strategic expectations, see Wolfram F. Hanreider's masterful, West German Foreign Policy, 1949-1963 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967.

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them out of mind is a consequence of the burdened memory which it has carried into its post-War decline. Unlike Germany or Japan, the United Kingdom failed to realize that the contemporary international system would discriminate heavily against those middle powers which failed to modernize their economies, to enlarge their command over industrial markets, and to pare away irrelevant (though historically compelling) distractions. Britain strove for twenty years to implement the tradition-bound but outmoded goals of maintaining its military posture in a time of unprecedented international change. It gained little by doing so while it weakened its bargaining position and its economic power vis-a-vis its major competitors in Western Europe.49 The United Kingdom has now determined to recoup its lost time by paring down its defense procurements at home and by phasing out most of its commitments outside Europe. In the process it has become more aware of its concern for the future stability of Europe. Yet it cannot afford to pose simply as an American "agent," ostracized from Europe and determined to maintain an aging and United States-dominated alliance. Nor can it afford to see the alliance dismembered as the price of its entry (with other EFTA powers) into the Common Market. This might lead too easily to the revival (if not the nuclear arming) of new nationalist forces, particularly in Germany. Due to its economic weakness, Britain has already lost its senior standing in the alliance and much of its "special relationship" with the United States. It is therefore likely to utilize its remaining military power, together with its economic and technological assets, to exert the greatest possible influence upon the process of European integration. As a rather dependent actor upon the European scene, it appears that Britain will strive to maintain the status quo and the residual cohesiveness of NATO. It will oppose diplomatic ventures or policy changes in strategic formula which require a build-up of military force levels. It will surely try to dissuade its leading neighbors (either individually or as a group) from procuring or enlarging nuclear capabilities. In seeking to maintain alliance arrangements and the tacit guarantees of a U.S. nuclear deterrent, Britain will have to content itself with
49 It is difficult to agree with the praise for Britain's strategic vision and diplomatic realism advanced by Richard N. Rosecrance, Defense of the Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968). He believes that British strategy reached its zenith of success in 1954-1955: "All of her military adventures (except at Suez) were successful... the hydrogen bomb was well on the way ... In Europe and overseas, Britain maximized her influence" (pp. 192-193). Later history has not borne out these optimistic judgments.

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attempts to conserve the political balance and the military stand-off prevailing in Europe. If present behavior serves as an accurate guide, Britain will urge the acceptance of various arms control schemes to improve the detente between the alliance systems of East and West. It will certainly not abide by French or Soviet plans to minimize or remove the American presence in Europe, even if this is demanded as the price of redesigning the European security system.50 But it will apply itself religiously to any scheme that aims to reduce the economic burden and the military dangers entailed in the present concept of "stability through continuous confrontation" which now obtains in Europe. Britain's ability to promote such goals, however, will depend upon its ability to enter into and to help direct the movement towards political and economic unification in Europe. If this should succeed, it will be able-together exercise an influence upon East-West with its new colleagues-to relations and upon developments in the third world which it could never hope to pursue on its own. It might also be able to urge the progressive demilitarization of an overarmed and divided Europe.51 In an international system wracked by national rivalry and regional instability, Britain can neither stand alone nor can it hope to advance the security of its friends through an alliance structure more viable than that offered by NATO. Basically, there is no alternative policy for Britain than to perpetuate a semi-Atlantic alliance mold-no matter how infirm or illogical are the constraints which it imposes upon its 50Both the NATOand Warsaw Treaty Organizations have expressed interest in the convening of a security conference and several nations have begun bilateral East-West discussions toward this end. Though many believe that an entente should grow out of the present detente, they are unsure about the terms to be negotiated. Less than two years after the Warsaw Pact forces had seized Czechoslavakia, the West Germans were ready to talk with the Soviets and the Poles about a mutual renunciation of force and a redefinition of borders along the Oder-Neisse. But the Soviets are adamant about the full legal recognition of the GDR(which Bonn, for all of its Ostpolitik, cannot concede) before they seriously consider the MBFR (multilateral balanced force reduction) which preoccupies NATOstrategists. In any event, the Soviets expect that the United States will unilaterally institute a force reduction if the Mansfield Resolution should pass the Senate in the weary aftermath of the Vietnam war. 51 For an analysis of the tensions which might be reduced if the "adversary relations" of East and West were to be translated into a less bellicose form of peaceful coexistence, see Marshall D. Shulman, Beyond the Cold War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966) and Michael Haas, "International Subsystems: Stability and Polarity," American Political Science Review, Vol. LXIV, No. i (March 1970).

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members and adversaries. Up to a point, its long term strategy will presume that the super powers (like their European allies) will have to "turn inwards" and concern themselves with long overdue problems of economic growth and social integration. Assuming that this optimistic projection of coexistence will survive, the military role of the United Kingdom in NATO will remain largely symbolic in character. The nuclear equipment of Britain's naval and air forces will be occasionally paraded to remind Europe that the French force de frappe is not the only-or the best-vehicle around which to integrate the Continent's defense. In addition, its mini-deterrent and its posture of ceremonial strength could survive long enough to give the United Kingdom useful bargaining power in its efforts to enter Europe and to respond to the technological threat mounted by the United States penetration of industrial markets. That the Soviet Union would be alarmed, or the United States impressed, by the United Kingdom's military capability is highly improbable. But that the middle powers of Western Europe would regard it is a useful building block for future purposes is still highly possible. In the distant event that the E.E.C. should disband or greatly relax its rules of membership, any new grouping of continental powers would have to choose how it could best integrate around a two-part core. The core would have to be formed by Britain, France, or Germany; an integration proposal could use any two nations for its future nucleus, but it is improbable that it could harmonize all three. Allowing for its present strengths and weaknesses, the United Kingdom stands at least as good a chance of forming this nucleus of a future grouping as West Germany or France. Britain has perceived that its military role as a middle power in the nuclear age can no longer focus upon the securing of vital national interests through the force of arms. For these reasons, its defense efforts are based not upon assessments of threats from the East but upon the securing of diplomatic advantages and alliance concessions from the West. In sum, its defense forces are primarily concerned with promoting political interests rather than with the technical planning of military strategy.