Entering the Missile Age

With an almost audible sigh of relief, Great Britain last week laid down its role of policeman to the world, and in one bold step advanced into the nuclear age, where its troops will be fewer, its weapons deadlier, and its costs lower. In doing so, Britain almost gratefully abandoned its claim, which has sounded increasingly hollow even to British ears, to rank with the world's two major military powers.

The deed was done in a lucid, ten-page White Paper on Defense, written by 49-year-old Minister of Defense Duncan Sandys, who called it "the biggest change in military policy ever made in normal times." Under the plan, the body strength of Britain's armed forces will be cut in half by 1962. Its battleships will be scrapped, its fighter planes junked, its overseas garrisons drastically reduced. New reliance of the British forces: guided missiles carrying nuclear warheads.

Frank Recognition. The decision to dismantle its large conventional defense establishment was based on three facts:

1) Britain could no longer afford it;

2) militarily it would not save Britain anyway; 3) with the U.S. holding the free world's position in conventional weapons, Britain could safely retrench while it armed for the missile future. "It must be frankly recognized that there is at present no means of providing adequate protection for the people of this country against the consequences of an attack with nuclear weapons," said the White Paper flatly. "The only existing safeguard against major aggression is the power to threaten retaliation with nuclear weapons."

This basic decision was reached two years ago, when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister and Harold Macmillan was his Minister of Defense. When Macmillan himself became Prime Minister last January, he gave the job of carrying out the decision to Duncan Sandys (Churchill's son-in-law, though he and Diana recently separated). The trouble was that Britain's missiles program, like its aircraft design, was lagging badly. Ten weeks ago, Sandys (pronounced Sands) took hat in hand, went off to Washington to ask for U.S. missiles. His success was signed and sealed at Bermuda.

Under the new plan, the British army, which kept the peace east of Suez ("Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst") and bore the white man's burden to Fuzzy-Wuzzies and Gunga Dins, will be cut down to only 160,000 men, all regulars. The R.A.F., the few to whom so many owe so much, will become an air force without combat airplanes of about 150,000 men. The Royal Navy, which for centuries enforced the Pax Britannica and patrolled an empire from Gibraltar to Rangoon, will be reduced to 75,000 men. "The role of naval forces in total war is somewhat uncertain," said the White Paper candidly.

For the moment, Britain will rely on its V-medium bombers as the vehicle for delivery of the nuclear weapons. U.S. missiles, as they become available, will supplant the bombers, enabling the British to devote all their efforts to developing a "second generation" of missiles. In the expectation that these will make all bombers obsolete, work will be halted on a supersonic bomber. Fighter aircraft are also doomed; a few will be maintained to defend the bomber bases, but will be replaced "in due course" by a ground-to-air guided-missile system.

Central Reserve. To meet its commitments for the defense of its colonies and "to undertake limited operations in overseas emergencies," Britain will draw in its overseas garrisons to create a mobile, airborne Central Reserve based in Britain and supplemented by a "small number" of naval groups, each comprising one carrier and supporting ships. Bases will be maintained in Aden, Kenya, Singapore and Hong Kong. Medium bombers armed with atomic weapons will be based on Cyprus to meet Britain's obligations to support the Baghdad Pact countries. But British forces in Korea and Jordan will be withdrawn, and those in Libya "progressively reduced."

In Western Europe, the British will reduce their troops in Germany from 77,-ooo to 64.000 in the course of the next year, would like to cut them still more if their NATO allies will agree. More drastically, the Second Tactical Air Force in Germany will be cut in half. Both cuts will be somewhat offset, but not overcome, by supplying the remaining forces with atomic weapons. Aware that all this might appear to Europeans as an insular retreat, Sandys acknowledged that "the frontiers of the free world . . . must be firmly defended on the ground."

The White Paper conceded frankly that Britain's new defense posture was not self-sufficient: "The free world is today mainly dependent for its protection upon the nuclear capacity of the U.S. Britain cannot by comparison make more than a modest contribution."

Too Big Burden. The new plan was estimated to save $784 million in the next year, presumably more as time goes on. The shrinkage of overseas garrisons would save foreign exchange and help hugely with Britain's wasting balance-of-payments problem. Said Macmillan: "We believe that during recent years this country has been bearing rather more than its fair share of the burden. Seven percent of our working population are engaged in defense. Too many of our scientists and technicians are engaged in complicated tasks of research and development for defense purposes."

In Britain, the plan, long known in outline and long discussed, met with sober approval. After Suez there was no use even pretending that Britain could act alone. "Realistic, sensible, and therefore drastic," said the Manchester Guardian. Politically minded Tories noted gratefully that the unpopular conscription might end just about general election time in 1960. Laborites could hardly oppose an arms cut they have long been urging.

But cries of professed astonishment and dismay rang through Europe. There was talk of "British desertion," and Britain's NATO representative reported that NATO officials were "shocked." A typical French reaction came from the left-wing Franc-Tireur: "England has ceased to be a power. She is becoming an island once more. She is tiptoeing out of a political system built in Europe around NATO." Defense Minister Bourges-Maunoury called reliance on atomic arms a "facile policy," and not one for France, which prefers to think there will always be conventional wars. (European nations worried by British troop withdrawals from Europe can always lighten their fears by making good the deficiencies in their own troop commitments to NATO.) In West Germany, which inducted its first 10.000 draftees last week, Konrad Adenauer seized the occasion to demand atomic weapons for his own army (Germany is forbidden to produce its own by treaty).

More surprising to the British were reports, spread excitedly by the New York Times, that the Pentagon was "startled." The British pointed out that their plans had been outlined to John Foster Dulles at the NATO meeting last December, further developed by Sandys on his recent trip to Washington, and discussed in general terms at Bermuda. Truth was Washington reaction was somewhat like that of an audience about to witness a death-defying leap. The acrobat says what he is going to do. The announcer says when he is going to do it. But when he actually does it, the audience gasps just the same. Similarly, the Pentagon gasped rather than shook at the news. As usual, the chief Washington concern was whether the British cut might snowball through other NATO nations. But in general there was an underlying approval that Britain had at last adjusted its military cost to its economic cloth.

Britain's reduction of troops will weaken the numerical strength of the SHAPE troops under General Lauris Norstad, but it does not affect what is the really solid strength of NATO: the commitment by 15 nations, backed by U.S. nuclear power, to regard an attack upon one as an attack upon all. Europe's confidence in that commitment remained strong and sure--as testified by the resolute calm with which Denmark and Norway fortnight ago, and The Netherlands last week, met Bulganin's dark threats of H-bombs.

Britain had been living on Millionaires Row too long on a reduced income. Now it had moved into a smaller house and cut the staff. In the long run, Britain's new program could hardly be defended as making Britain bigger and better, but could be justified as being realistic.

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