Air University Review, July-August 1977
Martin H. A. Edmonds
The major function of defence in national policy is to provide a form of power which can be used to influence the actions or opinions of other governments in the furtherance of national aims.1
Ministry of Defence working paper
THE quoted statement was included in an in-house document circulated within the Ministry of Defence and serves to indicate what was perceived in 1968 to be its principal organisational objective. The document continued by outlining in simple terms three modes within which defence operated: dissuasion (deterrence), prevention (defence), and compulsion.
objectives of defence planning
In translating these objectives into practical reality, the defence planner in Britain has had to determine which actions or policies of other governments need to be influenced, judge the most effective mode of influence, and make provision for the appropriate military capability to exercise that influence. The problem was to acquire a plan fitted to the foreseeable needs of the future and the means of meeting them.2 Such a plan required a clarification of the political assumptions underlying defence policy in terms of the threat to the nation's survival and the role of the Armed Services in supporting national objectives. In the light of these assumptions, the task was to determine the forces needed, the weapons they required, and the organisation and control of the total defence effort. 3
The 1965 Statement on the Defence Estimates was more explicit and forthright than usual. First, the accusation was levelled at the previous administration that Britain's defence forces had been allowed to become seriously overstretched and dangerously underequipped. To some extent reference was being made to the aftereffects of the 1957 Defence White Paper.4 Although many of the 1957 decisions were reversed in the early 1960s, their effect had been to create a capability gap, especially in the area of combat military aircraft.5 Second, a new approach to defence planning, management, and control was announced, modelled on that adopted earlier by the United States. This method was the programme budgeting process which, it was asserted, would equate more effectively the ends of defence planning and the costs of achieving them. 6 Finally, the 1965 Statement reiterated more emphatically a sentiment contained in the 1957 White Paper: "It is in the true interests of defence that the claims of military expenditure should be considered in conjunction with the need to maintain the country's financial and economic strength."7
The task of defence planning in 1965 was, therefore, presented as a serious attempt to match political commitments with military resources and to relate the resources made available for defence to the economic circumstances of the nations. 8 The Statement, however, provided no guideline as to which was to have priority, the political commitments of defence or the economic circumstances of the nation. The only clear indication provided was a strong reluctance because of the prevailing circumstances to keep defence spending at a level of around 7 percent of gross national product (GNP).
Defence capability is the appropriate admixture of men, organisation, and equipment to fulfill a specific number of military tasks. These tasks should, theoretically at least, be equated with commitments. More accurately, defence capability is synonymous with the concept of kriegsbild, conceptualized as the relationship between the military resources at the disposal of the state and the manner and context in which they might be exercised. 9 In the field of foreign policy it has been argued that a policy should not be considered to exist if commitments are not balanced with adequate resources.10 A policy, therefore, lacks credibility and fails to achieve its objective if commitments cannot be backed with effective action. The same argument applies to a defence policy commitment; if it lacks credibility, then that policy commitment is worthless. 11
political and
military commitments
The credibility of a commitment depends on a number of factors. 12 Many of them concern the perceptions of those governments or nations to which the commitment is directed. The factors that enhance credibility most are the demonstration of the determination and the will of a government to fulfill its obligations. Declaratory commitments can only go a limited way in this respect; credibility must ultimately depend on the evidence. In a military context this must be the acquisition of the means by which any policy commitment, or number of policy commitments simultaneously, 13 could be met if the options were exercised and the commitments invoked. In defence planning terms, the means refers to the men, materiel, and organisation together with the operational tactical and strategic plans covering the manner in which these capabilities are to be employed. The art of defence planning, the art of taking on commitments, is to demonstrate to potential adversaries not only determination but also the futility of a challenge to policy objectives through recourse to military means. 14
The concept of "commitment" has been identified as either situational, that is to say an undertaking of a government, "the fulfillment of which is contingent on whether it still serves national interests in a given situation," or nonsituational and refers to an undertaking, the fulfillment of which rests on "a conviction that a government must keep its commitments." This latter type of commitment takes on "a symbolic demonstration of a country's dedication to principles, security interests, and other considerations removed from the situation with which the commitment is concerned."15 It is also significant to note that it provides a focus for and sense of purpose to the Armed Forces of the nation.
The meaning of any military commitment lies in the capability of a government to be able to fulfill it when a casus foederis arises. The problem, therefore, is first, how to determine when such an occasion has arisen and, second, who decides how the commitment should be fulfilled. Broadly, two types of commitment exist: one is an undertaking that is embodied in a treaty or documented agreement in which a prescribed course of military action is defined at a specified time within a given set of circumstances; the other is "an actual employment or intent to employ force in specific circumstances and situations."16 The latter is distinguished from the former in that the action, or the intention to act, need not necessarily arise from an obligation previously incurred. Commitments need not, therefore, be contractual; they can, for example, be unilateral and declaratory.17
Military commitments must be treated on the assumption that they would be honoured if invoked. The more likely a commitment can be honoured, the greater its credibility. Contractual commitments are more credible than declaratory ones, simply because they invariably necessitate preparation and a defined course of action. The difficulty is that those circumstances defined in the agreement which constitute a casus foederis are open to wide interpretation; and there are no instruments in law by which one state can force another to honour its commitments. 18 Whether a state will honour a commitment depends in part on its degree of adherence to the principle that commitments should be honoured and in part on its ability to honour the commitment with the capabilities at its disposal. It stands to reason that these capabilities must relate not only to the commitment but also give reasonable assurance that they will lead to a successful outcome. No government, however well intentioned when a commitment was first adopted, will honour that commitment if in so doing it would incur disproportionate costS.19 There is, therefore, considerable onus on governments with military commitments to provide continuing proof of their intention to honour them by possessing and maintaining a more than merely "sufficient" military image.
Purposive, goal-oriented military planning has not been a distinguishing characteristic of British defence planning over the past ten years. The evidence indicates that military forces have been earmarked to meet a wide range of generally declared commitments without strong evidence of capabilities having been specially developed or maintained for anyone of them with the single exception of the independent nuclear deterrent. This conclusion is to some extent confirmed by the observation of military personnel that Britain does not have commitments as such, no matter what the White Papers might say. Instead, there have been numerous contingency plans that have been continually updated and modified by the Operations Planning Staff in the light of changing military circumstances.
These contingency plans are the de facto kriegsbild of the Armed Forces. Their significance depends on what forces, equipment, and organisational structure can be put together at anyone time and on the content of intelligence reports of potential adversaries. This is the capability that is intended to give credibility to British military commitments; but no matter how professional, 2O efficient, or successful the planning staff may be in formulating these plans or moulding a kriegsbild suited to all likely military operations, the fundamental consideration is the relevance of these hypothetical plans and structures to the declaratory and contracted politico-military commitments prevailing at the time.
the equation of commitments
and capabilities
To reiterate, the prime objective of defence planning is to balance equipment, manpower, and organisation with policy; it is, simply, to ,equate capabilities with commitments. Achievement of this objective is complicated by the difference in the time period needed to introduce new military equipment compared with that either to instrument change in the Armed Forces' organisation or to effect an alteration in defence policy. The lead time in the development and production of new defence equipment is in the range of five to eight years, depending on the type of equipment and the extent to which it extends the technological state of the art. Only by purchase from abroad can the time cycle of weapons acquisition be shortened effectively. Experience has demonstrated that the lead times on various advanced weapon systems have caused considerable problems in forward planning and in cost estimation. Weapons procurement can only be an immediately relevant exercise if military commitments and defence policy objectives remain reasonably constant. As a hedge against rapidly changing domestic and international environments, the British government has reacted by encouraging the Armed Forces to think in terms of multirole weapon systems designed to ful:6.ll a number of military roles and meet the requirements of a range of commitments. Whilst this approach may appear to have made political and economic sense, it has not entirely enjoyed the support of the Armed Services.
The time required to effect organisational changes within the Armed Services and the central organisation for defence is about five years. All organisations take time to adjust to new procedures and new structural relationships. Since 1965 there have been a number of major organisational and structural reforms both within the British Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence. Indeed, re-organisation appears to have been a persistent activity, and by the time that one set of organisational reforms has been absorbed, another set is already in train.
Changes in defence policy and military commitments need take no longer than a few months. In most cases of a major defence review in Britain since 1965, it was envisaged that policy changes would be put into effect over a period of time, so that the fullest use of defence equipment could be made and its disruptive effect minimised. Despite the intention, there have been instances when commitments have changed overnight and equipment summarily cancelled. Under such circumstances, the objective of keeping capabilities and commitments balanced must have been virtually impossible. What is more significant, however, is the question of how long it was estimated it would take to restore the three variables into equilibrium. Equally important is the question of what is the disruptive effect of policy change on the British Armed Forces and their professional ethos.
The responsibility of advising the British government on strategy and military operations and on the military implications of defence policy commitments is vested in and assumed by the Chiefs of Staff Committee, although much of the initiative for defence studies on policy, requirements, and operations may have fallen to the Chief of Defence Staff. 21 It has fallen to the Chiefs of Staff Committee over the past ten years to try and construct a kriegsbild for the British Armed Forces within the context of a number of rapidly changing and increasingly stringent political and economic constraints. In the absence of details of these commitment-related contingency plans, an assessment of whether a credibility gap has existed, or still exists, between capability and commitment in British defence planning must be based on the stated assumptions about defence policy planning and evidence from the public record. This necessitates examining not so much the effects of recent defence policy changes as the cumulative effects of policy changes over the past ten years. Such evidence as there is suggests immediately that the credibility of the British government's politico-military commitments is seriously open to challenge.
On taking office in the autumn of 1964, the incoming Labour administration was electorally and ideologically committed to a thorough review of defence policy and defence expenditure. However, there were other, more more pressing, reasons. First, there was ample evidence that British forces were overcommitted and underequipped.22 Second, the reforms introduced into the central organisation for defence by the Conservative administration had still to be completed. And last, the economic situation was such that overall defence expenditure would have to be reviewed in relation to necessary cuts in public expenditure.
The state of the economy proved to be the highest priority. Government policy required that defence policy should be reviewed in the light of a financial ceiling on the annual defence budget within five years provisionally put at £2,000 million at 1964 prices. 23 The ceiling, which ceased to be provisional after July 1965, represented a saving of 16 percent in defence expenditure on the projected defence budget for 1969 and marked a drop in defence expenditure from 7 percent to 6 percent of the estimated gross national product. Early studies suggested that considerable saving could be effected by a number of equipment cancellations and substitutions. Within a few months the provisional fifth Polaris submarine was cancelled and several substitutions were made in Royal Air Force (RAF) equipment. TSR.2 and the HS 681 were replaced by the United States F-111A and C-130E, respectively, the HS P.1154 supersonic VTOL fighter by the subsonic development aircraft, the P.1l27 Harrier, and the Hunter ground support fighter replaced by the American F-4 Phantom. Although the impact of these changes on the British aerospace industry was enormous, they did have the merit that the lead time on new aircraft was considerably shortened and consequently improved military capability in the short to medium term, given prevailing commitments.
The Labour Government's Defence Review was completed by the end of 1965. It demonstrated that even with the cancellations and substitutions already effected, the target budgetary ceiling could not be achieved without further cuts involving Army ground forces, RAF strike capability, or the Navy's attack carrier programme. "All were options with serious implications for military commitments."24 In this event, the Navy carrier programme was terminated and a number of severe conditions applied to defence commitments "East of Suez."25 These conditions were so limiting that it was debatable whether in the event that these commitments were invoked they could ever be met.26
There is ample evidence that the Defence Review of 1964-65 was considered a final one, and that subject only to marginal updating, no further policy change would be introduced for at least another five years or so. A number of major equipment decisions had been taken, commitments had been upheld, albeit on a conditional basis, and the whole exercise had been accomplished not only within the context of the government's "National Plan" but also on the basis of "objective" cost studies incorporated within the defence policy planning process. Confidence that a firm foundation had been laid was soon to be shattered.
The July 1966 economic crisis evidently necessitated defence cuts. Directives were given for the 1969-70 ceiling defence budget to be reduced from £2,000 million to £1, 850 million. A second Defence Review was therefore initiated in the middle of 1966 and emerged in July 1967. This time emphasis was predictably placed on cutting back military commitments in the interests of relieving pressure on the balance of payments. Military equipment, however, was left almost untouched. The major decisions were to reduce the British forces in Europe and to start a phased withdrawal of forces from Malaysia and Singapore. 27 Perhaps for "nonsituational" reasons the government retained its declaratory policy to maintain a military presence East of Suez. 28 The Review, however, failed to effect the savings required of it by £ 50 million.
As a result of this second Defence Review, an observation was made at the time that:
If . . . one considers all the cuts made. . . since 1964 it is difficult to relate them to any coherent central pattern or plan. They give the impression of having been made piecemeal as and when recurrent economic failures dictated . . . Thus on paper Britain is still committed to a global strategy with forces that are not only unbalanced but which also lack the flexibility which is so essential.29
Whatever the accuracy of this observation, the situation again changed dramatically following the announcement of the devaluation of the pound in November 1967. In January 1968 an announcement was made during the debate on Public Expenditure that the Government intended to withdraw British forces from the Far East and the Persian Gulf by 1972. Although the commitment to station forces East of Suez was therefore terminated, the declaratory commitment to contribute forces to maintain peace in the area, should the circumstances arise, was nonetheless retained. In line with this reduction in commitment and to effect immediate economies, the F-111A and the Chinook helicopter were cancelled, and the carrier Victorious was not to be recommissioned after her overhaul.30 Without the F-111A, the "tokenism" of the East-of-Suez declaratory commitment was brought finally to an end.
The Statement on the Defence Estimates in February 1968 merely confirmed these decisions and detailed the speed of the withdrawal. It also re-emphasized the British commitment to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and made Europe the focus of British defence planning. However, it still made provision for a general capability based in Europe that would be deployed overseas as circumstances demanded. 31 In the light of the meaningfulness of declaratory military commitments discussed above32 and of equipment cuts over the preceding four years, this commitment must be considered to have had little credibility.
A cut in defence expenditure, however, does not necessarily mean either a reduction in security or a diminution in capability. Devaluation helped towards balancing capability and commitment and in so doing raised the credibility of Britain's remaining military commitments. In consideration of the subsequent military engagement in Northern Ireland, the decision to withdraw might now be seen to be fortuitous, before the lack of credibility of the East of Suez commitment became wholly evident. Furthermore, the decision coincided with a shift in NATO strategy following the Harmel Report and enabled the Secretary of State for Defence to announce with some conviction that with the new focus on a European commitment it would be possible to have "balanced and effective forces which offer a good career to those who serve in them. "33 This was a second fresh start, in respect of which a number of major equipment decisions became possible for roles specifically designed for the European theatre and which conveniently coincided with a political objective to join the European Economic Community. 34 Redundant forces and equipment trained and designed specifically for Britain's global commitment were redirected as part of Britain's expanded commitment to NATO.
Upon the defeat of Labour at the general election in 1970, the now obligatory Defence Review by a new administration was undertaken. In real terms, very little of significance happened although a declaratory military commitment to retain a military interest East of Suez was reaffirmed. The government asserted that it would "honour [its] obligation for the protection of British territories overseas and those to whom [it] owes a special duty by treaty or otherwise. "35 To this end a "token," and largely naval, presence was committed to the Far East, the last remaining carrier was kept in commission for an extended period, additional naval capability was to be provided through a shipborne guided missile, the "Exocet," a Fire Power Agreement signed to cover combined military operations in the Far East, and the Territorial Army Reserve expanded. These additional commitments were claimed to have been achieved at little extra cost to the taxpayer through more "effective" use of resources.36
the defence cuts of 1974-75
After the defeat of the Conservative administration, the new Labour Secretary of State for Defence announced on 21 March 1974 that the Government had "initiated a review of current defence commitments and capabilities" against the resources that could be devoted to defence with the view of achieving savings on defence expenditure over a period while maintaining "a modern and effective defence system. "37 The extent of these savings was announced on 3 December 1974; defence expenditure was to be reduced progressively as a proportion of gross national product from 6.6 percent in 1974 to 41/2 percent in 1984. This, it was calculated, would effect a total saving of around £4,700 million at 1974 prices. 38 The details of the savings were less significant than the unequivocal assertion that the ten-year programme would achieve "a new balance between commitments and capabilities to meet the Government's strategic priorities." To assist in obtaining this objective, the Review not only determined that commitments outside Europe would be "reduced as far as possible" but also identified after discussions with NATO and European allies the areas where and how the British military forces could most effectively contribute. The effects of these decisions on the services were to be minimized by taking full advantage of the ten-year period envisaged under the programme: natural wastage both in manpower and equipment was to be used to the full, replacement programmes for equipment were to be reduced or stretched, entirely new weapon systems were to be cancelled or reduced, and those specialized units that had been established primarily for non-European commitments, such as the RAF transport fleet, reduced or disbanded.
The prospect of effecting these economies was received by the Armed Services with misgiving. The effects, both personally and institutionally, were not to be taken lightly, since they followed in the wake of three major defence reviews in ten years the cumulative impact of which had not been absorbed either separately or collectively. To soften the impact of the 1975 defence cuts, the Government made a commitment to the Armed Services that their essential requirements for meeting commitments in Europe would be met in full. As a consequence the Navy's cruiser programme, the procurement of the multi-rate combat aircraft (MRCA), and major items of equipment for a modern mobile field army in Central Europe were left predominantly alone. Such Armed Forces re-organisation as was necessary to trim costs was designed to eliminate or reduce elite units, such as the Parachute Regiment, and to shift the ratio of "teeth" arms to administration and support groups.
For a while it appeared that the lesson of the effects of the previous ten years of half-initiated or half-completed defence reviews had been learnt. A long-term plan had been initiated, twice as long as any previous one, but, more important, an attempt was made to equate specific European commitments with specific capabilities in concert with Britain's allies. A target had been set for the Armed Services which offered "relevance" in equipment, organisation, and manpower, even if the intervening period of adjustment would leave Britain with military capabilities that fell far short of the optimum. And yet the credibility of the long-term plan depended on the political will of the Government not to change its mind or bend before further pressures to cut defence in face of a worsening national economy. Although pressure was put on the Secretary of Defence from the left wing of the Labour Party to cut defence spending-figures of up to £500 million were quoted--the Chiefs of Staff evidently called a halt; enough was enough. Any further cuts, as the Expenditure Committee's Defence and External Sub-Committee found out during 1975, would impair further "the very serious situation which confronts NATO."39
commitments, cuts, and
military professionalism
The four defence reviews between 1965 and 1975 have led to one basic conclusion: defence spending during the period must be seen in the context of overall Government objectives. This has been manifested in terms of a defence budgetary ceiling expressed as a percentage of GNP. But the period has also been marked by periodic economic crises, and the defence ceiling has been changed frequently; military and defence policy planners have therefore been unable to establish a firm "base-line" from which to work out fully their kriegsbild within a framework of political and military commitments. The effect, at the time of the last Defence Review, was to leave the British Armed Forces in much the same situation that they were in at the beginning of the period, overstretched and underequipped. The claim that defence planning is a "continuous process" has proved to be ill-founded in practice.40
To some extent the gap between capability and commitments created by successive weapon programme cancellations, substitutions, cutbacks, and stretches, and force reorganisations, reductions, and redeployments has been filled by expedients made possible through a high element of luck. 41 The expedients include such devices as substitution of one weapon system for another, the use of obsolete equipment beyond their planned operational life, extended use of limited numbers of weapons between maintenance and refits, the use of defective equipment, and the restriction of training with live ammunition to the absolute minimum. For the professional military the whole period has been one that has taken their adaptability, initiative, and ingenuity as well as their readiness to operate long hours in units that are undermanned and doing tasks for which they were not primarily trained.
Whilst the practical impact of the defence reviews was a source of irritation to the Armed Services, the major source of frustration was the realization that the military commitments which they had an obligation to fulfill were likely beyond their capability of meeting. Furthermore, sudden changes--first in equipment and not policy, then in policy and not equipment, then in both simultaneously before any obsolete equipment had been replaced from the late 1950s--left a feeling of apprehension and resentment about what was to happen next. Little wonder that the military were sceptical of any defence pronouncement.
Military professionalism in the West ideally demands subservience to political masters and noninvolvement in partisan politics. It also presupposes a responsibility to society to guarantee a minimum level of competence and an obligation to act when circumstances demand. During the ten years prior to 1975, successive reviews have immediately affected the British Armed Forces and their professional ethos. This has largely been because the perceived requirements of the military to meet the obligations that politicians have defined for them have not been met. In essence, they have been prevented from fulfilling the requirements of their profession.
On the one hand, military professionalism demands that the services do their best to fulfill the commitments of their political masters. To a large degree the British military have done this, albeit at some cost to their own sense of integrity by way of a "cover-up" operation of the real extent of their situation. This expedient may have helped disguise the situation, and the public at large may have been unaware of its full extent, but the effect it has had on the morale of the services and the attractiveness of the military as a career has, in the opinion of many servicemen, assumed serious proportions. On the other hand, the professional ethic of the British Armed Forces demands subservience to political masters and noninvolvement in politics and presupposes a responsibility to society to guarantee a minimum level of competence and an obligation to act when circumstances demand and political directions are issued.
During the 1964-74 period, the successive policy changes, structural alterations, and equipment cancellations and substitutions have immediately affected the professional ethos of the British Armed Forces and confronted them with a dilemma. It has been suggested above that a credibility gap has existed between military commitments and capabilities and that this gap has only been seen to have been filled through a combination of luck, military adaptability, and the commitment of the individual serviceman. But as it is unreasonable for the military professional to plan to meet commitments made by politicians when these plans are continually being thwarted by circumstances over which they have no control, so it is wrong to expect the military to continue to be compliant.
The evidence suggests that since early 1976 the British military hierarchy, responsive to pressure from below, has been less compliant than previously regarding political pressure for further defence cuts. Rumours of additional cuts beyond the £4,700 million announced in 1975 amounting to £ 800 million have not materialized; in the process of reducing public expenditure further, the Ministry of Defence has come off lightly, It would appear that the military have finally dug in their heels.
In support of their stand, the military have taken the unusual and almost unprecedented step of taking their case into the public domain. In the press and on TV the service chiefs have been reported as saying that past economies have taken almost as much as is possible without leaving Britain with virtually no viable defence capability at all, an argument supported by their increasing emphasis on the recent expansion of Soviet conventional capability. As a part of this exercise in publicizing the critical issues facing the British defence forces, the British public have been presented with the picture on television of a senior RAF officer saying, on the one hand, that enough is enough as far as cuts were concerned yet reassuring his audience that the RAF is as efficient and effective as ever before. 42 It is a reflection of the times that a serviceman be where his professionalism is publicly compromised.
THE SOLUTION would appear from the British experience to be straightforward. From a morale point of view it would be preferable to have a military capability in excess of commitments; situations where the military have felt themselves not to be up to the task, or have felt themselves to be up to it but with little in reserve, have had an erosive effect. Even with this change of philosophy, for indeed such an alteration would be precisely this, the principal problem of planning would remain, which is to achieve a balance of organisation and equipment within a given time frame. For this to be achieved, greater emphasis should be placed on continuity of policy. Limited commitments would help towards this, as well as projecting, for internal and external consumption alike, a more realistic assessment of Britain's ability to honour its obligations. Without this change not only will the British Armed Forces continue to be in a state of disequilibrium but also the worth of British commitments will be judged by other states--increasingly in a "situational" and merely declaratory light.
University of Lancaster
England
Notes
1. Decision Making in Defence, mimeographed, Ministry of Defence working paper. December 1968.
2. Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Hansard, 3rd March 1965, Col. 1352. These words have been attributed to Secretary of State Denis Healey himself.
3. Statement on the Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 2592, February 1965, p.
4. Defence Outline of Future Policy, Cmnd. 124, April 1957, p. 9.
5. Flight International, 19 December 1963, pp. 994-99.
6. Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Hansard, 3rd March 1965, Col 1350.
7. Defence Outline of Future Policy, Cmnd. 124, April 1957, p. 1.
8. Statement on the Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 2592, February 1965, p. 5.
9. H. Beach, "Note on the Part Played by Kriegsbild in British Defence Policy" mimeographed, USSG working paper, Edinburgh 1970, p. 1.
10. Walter Lippmann, "U.S. Foreign Policy, Shield of the Republic," cited by P. Seabury and A. Drischler, "How to Decommit without Withdrawal Symptons," Foreign Policy, vol. 1, 1970-71, p. 47.
11. P. Nailor, "Management of Britain's External Relations: Defence Policy," in J. Groom and R. Boardman, The Management of Britain: External Relations (London: Macmillan, 1973). Professor Nailor discusses the problems of the relationship between defence and foreign policy with reference to long- and short-term planning and how defence planners try to bridge the gap between utility and uncertainty. He has implied, however, that whilst military force still has utility, it is increasingly being "questioned as an essential component of major policy making." Pp. 230 et seq.
12. For a discussion of these, see T. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 35-91. See especially pp. 49-59.
13. J. T. Howe, Multicrises (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 1971), pp. 31-36 and passim. Howe investigates Issues of U.S. over commitment arising from the existence of a wide range of commitments and obligations at the same time as the war in Vietnam.
14. Schelling, p. 35.
15. F. B. Weinstein, "The Concept of Commitment in International Relations," Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. XIII, no. 1, 1969, pp. 40-41.
16. Seabury and Drischler, p. 47.
17. Schelling, pp. 35-36.
18. P. Reuter, International Institutions (London: Allen and Unwin, 1958), p. 132.
19. J. Brierly, The Basis of Obligation in International Law (London: Oxford University Press, 1946), pp. 111-12. He cites Oppenheim, International Law, third edition, 1920, "The consent of a State to a treaty presupposes a conviction that it is not fraught with danger to its existence and vital development."
20. M. Howard, Central Organisation of Defence (London: Royal United Services Institution, 1970), p. 44. See also Nailor, p. 224.
21. Howard, pp. 44-45.
22. Statement on the Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 2592, February 1965, p.5.
23. D. Greenwood, Budgeting for Defence (London: Royal United Services Institution, 1972), p.65, For a discussion of how the figure of £2,000 million was arrived at, see also B. Reed and G. Williams, Denis Healey and the Policies of Power (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1971).
24. Greenwood, p. 65.
25. Statement on the Defence Estimates, Part I, The Defence Review, Cmnd. 2901, February 1966, p. 7.
26. The Statement on the Defence Estimates 1966 had admitted that British forces were already overstretched before the Defence Review cuts to forces East of Suez (paragraph 19, p. 7). The questionable effectiveness of the military commitment in the Far East is referred to in N. Brown, Arms without Empire (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967). See also Sir John Slessor, "Britain's Role East of Suez," The Times (London), 1 November 1965, p. 9.
27. Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy, Cmnd. 3357, July 1967, p. 5. The decision was to halve the forces in the Far East from 80,000 to 40,000 by 1970-71.
28. Ibid. Here the supplementary statement begins to play with words. It states, "we shall continue to honour our obligations under SEATO, but forces assigned to specific SEA TO plans will be progressively altered in nature and size." There is no attempt to clarify what constitutes an "obligation"; since the same paragraph refers to the fact that it was the government's intention to change commitments in the Far East, it must be assumed that in no way did (or does) the Ministry of Defence equate "commitment" with "obligation."
29. Editorial, Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, February 1968, p. 2.
30. Statement on the Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 3540, February 1968, p. 2. See especially paragraph 2, which refers to the failure to balance military tasks and resources in 1964 (during the Malaysian "confrontation") and to the principle guiding the reduction in manpower that commitments (i.e., military tasks) should proportionately be reduced.
31. Ibid., p. 3.
32. Ibid., pp. 7-9.
33. Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1968, p. 3.
34. For example, the decision to go ahead with the MRCA (Tornado) multlrole aircraft in collaboration with West Germany and Italy.
35. Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy, Cmnd. 4521, October 1970, p. 4.
36. Greenwood, p. 72. Greenwood described the arithmetic of the Conservative Government's defence budget as "ingenious" and "Orwellian"; the changes to the new defence programme in budgetary terms he labels as "cosmetic."
37. Statement on Defence Estimates 1975, Cmnd. 5976, p. 1.
38. Ibid., p. 2.
39. House of Commons Expenditure Committee Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee 7th Report, British Forces in Germany, 1 April 1975, Session 1974-75, House of Commons Paper 472, pp. XV-XVI,
40. Statement on Defence Estimates, Cmnd. 3203, February 1967, p. 2.
41. Beach, p. 10.
42. Sir Dennis Smallwood, KCB, CBE, DSO, DFC, Air Officer Commanding in Chief, Strike Command RAF, interview on Granada Television, Monday, May 24, 1976.
Martin H. A. Edmonds (M.A., University of Manchester) is Senior Lecturer and Defence Lecturer in the Department of Politics, University of Lancaster, England. He has taught strategic studies and defense analysis since 1964 and during 1972-73 was Research Associate at the Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University. Recent publications include War in the Next Decade with R. Beaumont and "Accountability and the Military-Industrial Complex," in The New Political Economy.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
Air & Space Power Home Page | Feedback? Email the Editor