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Authors: John Hackett
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the sphere of defence of a latter-day British tendency to duck responsibility and shy off into make-believe, a tendency which did much to bedevil relations with Britain’s allies in the years that followed-The basic idea behind the 1957 White Paper was that American strategic nuclear power was to be the primary guardian of peace in Europe. Britain contributed her own nuclear bomber force, but beyond that all she was called upon to do was help provide a conventional trip-wire to identify a major incursion, which would then be answered by massive nuclear retaliation from the United States. A very great saving in cost would result as well as a great saving in manpower. This is, in fact, what happened. The political party in power at the time was able to go to the country at the next general election as the party which had freed the nation from military conscription in peacetime.
The baleful spirit of the 1957 White Paper brooded over British defence policy for twenty years. When the USSR achieved rough parity in strategic nuclear power with the United States, the US moved from the somewhat implausible concept of deterrence extended over her allies by the threat of massive nuclear retaliation, if any of her allies were attacked, to a rather more realistic concept of defence at any level of attackthe concept of flexible response.
To this, which became the accepted policy of NATO , successive British governments paid lip service, but little more. It was clear that what they relied upon to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking the West, even with conventional means alone, was the threat of very early escalation into a strategic nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. Delivery systems for battlefield nuclear weapons, for which the warheads (numbering some 7,000 in the European theatre by 1977) remained under US control, were integrated into the British-commanded Northern Army Group in NATO , as they were elsewhere in Allied Command Europe. What was emerging as the basis of Allied defence planning was the concept of the ‘Triad’the combination of conventional defence, battlefield nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear action in closely coupled sequence. This was as fully endorsed in the U nited Kingdom as anywhere else in the Alliance. How far it was taken seriously anywhere is open to argument. There is little evidence that it was ever taken seriously in the UK.
The NATO concept of the ‘Triad’ envisaged the development of sufficient conventional forces in the forward areas to identify a major aggression and slow it down, while posing the threat of an early introduction of battlefield nuclear weapons if it did not come to a halt, followed, if necessary, by strategic nuclear action. No one knew exactly what would happen when battlefield nuclear weapons were released, but it was widely accepted within the Alliance that a tactical nuclear battle could hardly be expected to proceed for long without escalation into a strategic nuclear exchange. On the other hand, an observer of the British Army’s deployment, equipment and training policy could scarcely fail to conclude that, whatever happened, the British did not expect to have to take part in a tactical nuclear battle at all, or indeed, it may be added (to judge by the dismantling of their civil defences), in any form of nuclear action whatsoever.
It has been pointed out elsewhere in this book that the policy of the
forward defence
of the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, to which more and more attention had to be paid as the stature of the FRG among its allies grew, required, if it implied no surrender of West German soil, either enormously strong conventional forces deployed along the frontier or an immediate nuclear response. The first was impossible: Allied governments made it quite clear that they were not prepared to furnish the necessary troops. The second, an immediate nuclear release, was highly unlikely.
This dilemma in
The baleful spirit of the 1957 White Paper brooded over British defence policy for twenty years. When the USSR achieved rough parity in strategic nuclear power with the United States, the US moved from the somewhat implausible concept of deterrence extended over her allies by the threat of massive nuclear retaliation, if any of her allies were attacked, to a rather more realistic concept of defence at any level of attackthe concept of flexible response.
To this, which became the accepted policy of NATO , successive British governments paid lip service, but little more. It was clear that what they relied upon to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking the West, even with conventional means alone, was the threat of very early escalation into a strategic nuclear exchange between the Soviet Union and the United States. Delivery systems for battlefield nuclear weapons, for which the warheads (numbering some 7,000 in the European theatre by 1977) remained under US control, were integrated into the British-commanded Northern Army Group in NATO , as they were elsewhere in Allied Command Europe. What was emerging as the basis of Allied defence planning was the concept of the ‘Triad’the combination of conventional defence, battlefield nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear action in closely coupled sequence. This was as fully endorsed in the U nited Kingdom as anywhere else in the Alliance. How far it was taken seriously anywhere is open to argument. There is little evidence that it was ever taken seriously in the UK.
The NATO concept of the ‘Triad’ envisaged the development of sufficient conventional forces in the forward areas to identify a major aggression and slow it down, while posing the threat of an early introduction of battlefield nuclear weapons if it did not come to a halt, followed, if necessary, by strategic nuclear action. No one knew exactly what would happen when battlefield nuclear weapons were released, but it was widely accepted within the Alliance that a tactical nuclear battle could hardly be expected to proceed for long without escalation into a strategic nuclear exchange. On the other hand, an observer of the British Army’s deployment, equipment and training policy could scarcely fail to conclude that, whatever happened, the British did not expect to have to take part in a tactical nuclear battle at all, or indeed, it may be added (to judge by the dismantling of their civil defences), in any form of nuclear action whatsoever.
It has been pointed out elsewhere in this book that the policy of the
forward defence
of the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, to which more and more attention had to be paid as the stature of the FRG among its allies grew, required, if it implied no surrender of West German soil, either enormously strong conventional forces deployed along the frontier or an immediate nuclear response. The first was impossible: Allied governments made it quite clear that they were not prepared to furnish the necessary troops. The second, an immediate nuclear release, was highly unlikely.
This dilemma in
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