Defence and deterrence

Weaknesses and alternatives

A Senior Officer

The Spectator has recently published informed and authoritative articles on the present direction and disposition of Britain's land, sea and air forces (May 25, June 8 and June 29, respectively). The following article looks at our future defence problems and the pssibilities of their solution.

The defence review is well under way. How is it being conducted? Is it merely an exercise in reducing defence expenditure to a previously determined level, or is it a sensible and logical look at Britain's defence requirements?

Coincidentally with the appearance of the first of this series of articles on defence in The Spectator, there was a plea in the Economist for an honest look at our defence needs. Can it be that there is a real chance of the present Government demanding a costing of those projects or other areas of defence spending which can be isolated (e.g. Cyprus) and then, starting as the bottom, lopping off project after project until the required savings have been made? One fears that this is the sort of thing which is at the moment happening and one can only hope that even Mr Mason will see the unwisdom of such an approach.

For too long defence spending has been the block on which political axes are ground. There are no votes to be had in buying tanks or ships, or in selling them for that matter. Unfortunately for the services, their very success in helping to keep the peace in Europe for the past thirty years is now working against them. Detente (why don't we keep the well-used word 'appeasement'?) may all too easily become the means by which the Russians are able to create such a climate of public opinion, assisted by certain elements within Western Europe, that the maintenance of even the minimum credible defence by NATO will be impossible.

The first requirement, therefore, is for a defence philosophy — having a large measure of agreement between the main political parties — to be devised, and for the country at large to see that this is so. How can this be done? One way would be for a semi-public study into Britain's defence needs to be carried out in some depth, making use of establishments such as the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the National Defence College. The broad case for defence at all must be put across to the public using all the media. When has a defence minister ever appeared on television to give a 'teach-in' on what the actual threat we face really is? Would this be regarded as war-mongering or could it be that, when faced with the facts, authoritatively presented, the public would readily accept the continued need for defence spending?

The lines on which any sensible defence study must be carried out are: (a) Costs should be initially ignored.

(b) The main threat to the UK must be identified.

(c) The defence areas which are vital to the survival of the UK must be made clear.

(d) The defence areas which affect the interests of the UK must be identified.

Thereafter a defence strategy which is based on producing an answer to (b) and (c) should be developed; then, and only then, should (d) be considered, and it is here that costs become a factor.

The threat has been touched upon in the three previous articles, and obviously it is a combination of land, and sea and air. However, by how much is the land threat presented by the Warsaw Pact a threat to the vital interests of the UK? Is our frontier really at the DML or is the Channel still, even in the second half of the twentieth century, a formidable obstacle? Can we survive if the continent of Europe is overrun?

To a certain extent we are prisoners of history. The British Army of the Rhine has been in Germany since the end of the 1939-45 war. It is now part of the scene. A number of British regiments have been honoured by being given the freedom of German towns. What would be the psychological effect on the other NATO nations of the UK pulling out of Central Europe? The army, for obvious reasons, demonstrates a political commitment in a way that the other two services cannot.

There are persuasive arguments for following either one of the basic strategies postulated in the first two articles. We can go for the Central European strategy, which visibly commits us to a policy of deterrence based on the real presence of the Army and RAF, together with the other central European forces, or we can base our defence on the security of the seas while maintaining an effective home defence force and at the same time the .ability to reinforce the flanks of NATO in strength. What is questionable is whether we can continue to do what we seem to be trying to do at the moment, which is to do both, but neither as well as we ought.

One weakness of our present posture is that, although it is effective in contributing to the overall NATO strategy of deterrence, there are a number of serious cracks which almost certainly will appear during a period of tension. Can we really imagine that the military means of dominating NATO will be used without a period of civil disruption preceding it? If this is accepted then the case for a British army to be on the European continent at all is considerably weakened. Let us for a moment consider what the implications to the Northern Army Group would be if the present troubles in Northern Ireland were occurring during a period of tension in Europe, with possibly up to ten battalion-sized units from BAOR back in the UK. This is the fatal weakness of the centralfront oriented strategy and, on the day when it really matters, the deterrent value of 1st British Corps will be very questionable. There is, of course, the matter of the reinforcement of the Corps to consider. Would any government be prepared to see Most of the TA going overseas at the very time that, because of the probability of civil disturbance, large disciplined forces will be needed at home?

These arguments are of course semi-political and show how difficult it is to divorce purely military solutions from those that are politically expedient. However, if it could be shown that the solution given in the naval proposal would result in Britain being militarily stronger, then such a strategy could be presented as being al the best interest, not only of the UK, but also of NATO.

There can be little doubt that, if the UK could assign to SACEUR a reserve — with the means of strategic mobility both by air and sea — of at least two divisions, then the present incredibility of some of the reinforcement plans to the flanks of NATO, which some people think are more likely to be threatened in a period of tension, would be changed to sufficient credibility to become an effective factor in the overall military deterrence of the NATO Alliance. This solution would also produce, as a natural spin-off, the capability, still required by the UK for some years, of being able to produce an intervention force with the ability to operate in support of the surprisingly large number of residual overseas interests that the UK still has.

It has not been the intention of this series of articles to produce solutions to our defence problems, but to demonstrate that there are competing interests. There are, too, a variety of solutions. What is certain in an uncertain world is that defence based with an expenditure ceiling as the prime factor will not produce the right answer; nor will a solution which takes the status quo as a starting point. We must take a new look at our problems on the basis of the vital UK interests at stake, within the NATO context. We must carry not only public opinion, but also our allies. We must also remember that behind any possible external threat there lurks the grim fact of a potential internal threat to our way of life and security. Let there be no -mistake, effective defence is not cheap, and if we want defence at all let us for goodness sake get it right, so that it ceases to be a political football every ,ten years.