Defence Under Thatcher

Defence under Thatcher Andrew M. Dorman Foreword by Michael Clarke

Southampton Studies in International Policy Published in association with the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton General Editor: Dilys M. Hill Other academic members of the editorial board: Ralph Beddard, John Oldfield, Kendrick Oliver, John Simpson This series was established in 1986 to encourage the publication of multidisciplinary studies of those public policies with significant international components or implications. Areas of special interest include arms control and defence policies, environmental policies, human rights, maritime and space issues, Third World development questions and the European Union. Selected titles: Lisbeth Aggestam and Arian Hyde-Price (editors) SECURITY AND IDENTITY IN EUROPE Exploring the New Agenda Wyn Q. Bowen THE POLITICS OF BALLISTIC MISSILE NONPROLIFERATION Andrew Dorman DEFENCE UNDER THATCHER David H. Dunn THE POLITICS OF THREAT Minutemen Vulnerability in American National Security Policy Tony Evans US HEGEMONY AND THE PROJECT OF UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS Paul S. Herrnson and Dilys M. Hill (editors) THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY The First Term, 1992–96 Dilys M. Hill, Raymond A. Moore and Phil Williams (editors) THE REAGAN PRESIDENCY An Incomplete Revolution? Dilys M. Hill and Phil Williams (editors) THE BUSH PRESIDENCY Triumphs and Adversities Mark F. Imber THE USA, ILO, UNESCO AND IAEA Politicization and Withdrawal in the Specialized Agencies John Simpson and Darryl Howlett (editors) THE FUTURE OF THE NON-PROLIFERATION TREATY Joanna Spear CARTER AND ARMS SALES

Antonio Varsori (editor) EUROPE, 1945–1990s The End of an Era?

Southampton Studies in International Policy Series Standing Order ISBN 0–333–71493–8 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Defence under Thatcher Andrew M. Dorman Lecturer in Defence Studies Department of Defence Studies King’s College London

Foreword by Michael Clarke

© Andrew M. Dorman 2002 Foreword © Michael Clarke 2002 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2002 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin’s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 0-333-94709-6 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dorman, Andrew M., 1966Defence under Thatcher / Andrew M. Dorman ; foreword by Michael Clarke. p. cm. – (Southampton studies in international policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-333-94709-6 1. Great Britain–Military policy. 2. Great Britain–Defenses. 3. Thatcher, Margaret–Military leadership. 4. Great Britain–Politics and government–1979- I. Title. II. Series. UA647.D736 2001 355’.033541’09048–dc21 2001054890 10 11

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Contents Foreword

vi

Acknowledgements

xi

Glossary

xii

1 Introduction

1

2 British Defence Policy in May 1979

16

3 Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981

32

4 John Nott, January 1981–January 1983

63

5 Michael Heseltine, January 1983–January 1986

100

6 George Younger, January 1986–July 1989

129

7 Conclusions

155

Notes

164

Select Bibliography

198

Index

214

v

Foreword It is commonplace to say that UK defence policy now exists in a context that was barely imaginable 10 or 15 years ago; commonplace, but not quite true. In fact, Western policy-makers constantly imagined the present circumstances, but no one quite believed it could ever happen. The Cold War came to an end in a way that seems to have granted all our dearest wishes simultaneously and in full. The superiority of the liberal capitalist model of social and economic organization over the socialist bloc economies eventually communicated itself to the peoples of the East, and the legitimacy of their own governments simply withered away in a very short time. The Cold War was ‘won’ by the West without a shot being fired; the authorities in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and then East Germany simply stood by while people manufactured their own transformation in travelling to the West, reuniting families, opening up businesses and in 1989 literally pulling down the Berlin Wall. The Soviet Union collapsed from within and dissolved itself in a way that was remarkable for its very peacefulness. In the immediate aftermath of the Cold War three European states went out of business – East Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union itself – to be replaced by some 17 other states made up of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the Baltic States and the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Within months of the disappearance of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia began to fragment in what has proved to be a decade of violent dissolution. But this violence – though extreme in itself – has been largely contained; it has not proved to be structurally important to the security of the rest of Europe. Five states have replaced the former Yugoslavia and it may still split into two more again, depending upon the final outcomes in Kosovo and Montenegro. So at the end of the Cold War four European states collapsed and, so far, 22 states have replaced them. Almost all of the new states, one way or another, want integration into the Western, liberal capitalist camp. We have witnessed an essentially peaceful transition from one era to the next of quite remarkable proportions. What greater triumph could there be for the policy of containment, first articulated in 1947? The Cold War is over, the West unambiguously won it without making concessions, the West’s defence forces did their job by preparing for a war they never had to fight, and the considerable vi

Foreword vii

adjustment problems they now face – downsizing defence forces, reorienting policy, enlarging NATO and the European Union – are all the symptoms of success. As structural problems go, they are greatly preferable to those we might have faced in different circumstances. If the picture has changed so much for defence forces in Western countries then it is not surprising that some major adjustments were undertaken during the 1990s. A more key question, which is less often asked is why our defence forces have not changed a great deal more since the end of the Cold War? Why are we in the process of making marginal readjustments to military machines, which are essentially still Cold War armed forces? This problem is more manifest for some European allies than others. Germany is in a crisis of reform and its armed forces, so potent during the Cold War, are languishing expensively within a political and organizational framework, which bears little relation to Germany’s current security concerns. The UK comes out better than most in any consideration of reform, and the Strategic Defence Review of 1998 tidied up a number of ad hoc rationalizations of the previous years and established a thoughtful and imaginative framework for future defence policy evolution. Nevertheless, the UK still finds itself with formations and weapon systems – and inherited numbers of certain systems – which owe a great deal more to the Cold War legacy than the ambiguous security environment in which we now find ourselves, or that which was articulated in the Strategic Defence Review itself. The critics have a good point when they ask why UK defence policy has not changed even more over the last decade, but there are sensible and compelling answers to this question even though there is validity in the criticism. Defence is not only driven by external factors but internal ones as well. Like any major department of government, or sector of industry, ‘defence’ is something of an abstraction – a convenient shorthand to express a complex aggregation of interests and policies. The internal dynamics of any defence policy are at least as important as its external environment and cannot simply be written off as bureaucratic politics or vested interests at play. True, such elements certainly exist, sometimes in large measure, but the drivers of defence policy are almost always more complex than simple characterizations such as this. Defence is relatively unique in the business of government in having two distinct faces. In peacetime it has to manage itself efficiently and accountably and plan for a prudent future in the manner of any other government department. In war, it must operate quite differently, act to mobilize national resources and win, even at high cost. And in condi-

viii Foreword

tions that exist between war and peace, such as in operations in the former Yugoslavia, where ‘peace support’ and ‘enforcement’ are required, the defence establishment must do both simultaneously. Defence is the only department of government which – as an intrinsic part of its planning – knows that some of its employees are likely to be killed or injured in the implementation of its policies. Though some of the special pleading which comes from parts of the defence establishment – we must maintain an indigenous industry in this or that weapon system, and so on – is less than convincing, the fact remains that there is something special about the role which defence plays in national life and the way policy has to be articulated for it. The importance of understanding the internal dynamics of any policy has been well understood since the late 1960s. A rich literature in foreign policy analysis and defence policy has grown up in recent decades and become part of the accepted wisdom of policy analysis in general. More suprisingly, however, this literature has less to say about day-to-day policy-making than about crises and policy-making in decisive moments. It is inevitable that analysts will be interested in all of the factors affecting policy during periods of high drama. But an understanding of policy processes is more rewarding when the dynamics of humdrum and undramatic policy are studied. Normality tells us more than crises about real policy-making and the deeper processes by which it works. After all, crises, by definition, force decision systems to work in more streamlined and selective ways which break with normal rhythms of policy-making: the deeper truths concerning the dynamics and rhythm of policy lie in normal decision-making. Andrew Dorman’s study deliberately takes the decade from 1979–1989 as the focus for considering these deeper and more enduring dynamics of defence policy-making. To be sure, the 1980s were filled with dramatic incident, but we could not know then quite how the 1990s would change the very structures on which our previous policy was based. The decade began with Francis Pym as Secretary of State for Defence and encompassed the Falklands War, the peace movement that focused on cruise missiles in the UK, the Westland issue which nearly ended Mrs Thatcher’s premiership prematurely, the outbreak of the ‘new Cold War’, the ascendancy of the new right in both the UK and the United States, and the first real indications that the Eastern bloc was crumbling from within. The decade ended with George Younger as Minister of Defence having witnessed the tenures of John Nott and Michael Heseltine in between who both attempted major defence reforms en route.

Foreword ix

This was the decade of Thatcherism and the Prime Minister had a strong public image on all defence questions. But her influence on the Ministry of Defence was less than might at first appear, and this study looks at the interrelationships between the Prime Minister and successive ministers of defence as a way of understanding her variable influence on policy and the importance of defence policy structures among both civil servants and the Service Chiefs. Equally importantly, Andrew Dorman examines the decision cycles which different groups and individuals tended to work within, since defence during normal periods is dominated by medium and long-term decision-making, given the long lead times involved in training, equipment procurement, and planning. But politicians live within short decision-making cycles for the most part, and this was clearly the case with Mrs Thatcher and in her relationships with Francis Pym, John Nott, Michael Heseltine and George Younger. Each of her ministers of defence was different in their managerial approach and each enjoyed, or suffered, a different type of relationship with her. Just as we might ask why the end of the Cold War has not brought about more changes in UK defence policy, so we might ask why a Prime Minister as forceful and committed as Mrs Thatcher, governing for the whole of the decade in question, did not have more effect on the direction and management of defence policy-making itself. The answers lie within this study. Some elements of Thatcherism had more impact than others. The policy of privatization did affect equipment procurement in some significant ways even if it did not much influence longer-term decisions regarding the nature of new equipment which was deemed necessary. Michael Heseltine’s management strategies did affect the prevailing culture of the Ministry of Defence and asserted more than ever the principle of political and civil control over the military in the implementation of policy. But neither Mrs Thatcher nor her ministers were successful in gaining much leverage on the medium to long-term strategies pursued by the individual services, or the judgement of officials as to how prudent policy should be pursued in relation to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, arms control or the internal politics of NATO. For all the assertiveness of Thatcherism on defence and external affairs, Mrs Thatcher herself was backed into a number of policy decisions she found difficult to acknowledge in public, and her ministers of defence were unable to get hold of the conundrum that effective peacetime management has got to allow for effective wartime mobilization. Generally speaking, defence can do one at the expense of the other, but can rarely be effective in both roles simultaneously.

x Foreword

Defence cannot get away scot free, however, simply because of the specialness of its role in national politics and the tasks it seeks to perform. Health and social services are not permitted to maintain large, underused resources or build in heavy redundancy to their capabilities just in case there is a massive epidemic or a sudden surge in social demand which was not anticipated. If defence seeks to justify its peacetime inefficiencies by reference to its wartime requirements, or vice versa, then it must do so in detail and accountably to Parliament and the public. Nevertheless, analysts do no service to government in general by not recognizing the particular nature of defence decisionmaking and the range of possibilities, which have to be covered. The dynamics of defence policy are sufficiently different to those of other aspects of government to require closer and more special study. Andrew Dorman’s work makes a considerable contribution to this ambition and provides a fascinating and insightful picture of the routine realities of defence policy-making during a period of ‘normality’. At the time it seemed more than mere normality – one small war, anti-nuclear protests, the rollercoaster ride of Thatcherism. But from our perspective now, we see how normal it really was. It was that decade before the world as we knew it was dismantled as completely and dramatically as the Berlin Wall itself was torn down, while border guards looked on in quizzical bemusement. MICHAEL CLARKE Centre for Defence Studies King’s College, London

Acknowledgements There are numerous people I would like to thank for their help in the research and preparation of this book. First, I owe a large debt to Stuart Croft as both my doctoral supervisor and friend for his advice and support over the last decade. Special thanks go to Adrian Randall at the University of Birmingham for organizing funding for my doctorate, and to Mike Clarke, David Dunn, Bill Park and Terry Terriff for their advice and encouragement at various stages of this project and to Barbara Slater for preparing the final product for publication. I would also like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance provided by David Nicholls and Tony Mason, together with all those who kindly allowed me to interview them. Without their help this project would have not been possible. Finally I would like to thank my wife Anne, for her constant encouragement and support.

xi

Glossary 1SL AAC AEW ALARM APC ARRV ASR AST ASW BAOR Br CAS CDS CGS CND COMNORTHAG CSA DACU DCDS(OR) DIS DPWP DOAE DROPS EFA FCO FOFA FY GDP GIUK GLCM HCDC HSF IEPG IFV INF

First Sea Lord or Chief of the Naval Staff Army Air Corps Airborne Early Warning Air Launched Anti-radar Missile Armoured Personnel Carrier Armoured Recovery and Repair Vehicle Air Staff Requirement Air Staff Target Anti-submarine warfare British Army of the Rhine British Chief of the Air Staff Chief of the Defence Staff Chief of the General Staff Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Commander NATO’s Northern Army Group Chief Scientific Adviser Defence Arms Control Unit Deputy-Chief of the Defence Staff (Operational Requirements) Defence Intelligence Staff Defence Programme Working Party Defence Operational Analysis Establishment Demountable Rack Off-load Pick-up System European Fighter Aircraft Foreign and Commonwealth Office Follow-on Forces Attack Fiscal Year Gross Domestic Product Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Ground-launched Cruise Missile House of Commons Select Committee on Defence Home Service Force Independent European Planning Group Infantry Fighting Vehicle Intermediate-range nuclear forces xii

Glossary xiii

LPD LSL LTC LTDP MBFR MBT MCMV MINIS MP MPA MOD NATO OD OMG OPV PES PUS PWR RAF RAuxAF RDJTF RFA ROF SACEUR SACLANT SALT SAM SDP SOSUS SRMH SSK SSBN SSN STOVL TOW US VCNS V/STOVL WEU

Landing Pad Dock Landing Ship Logistics Long Term Costings Long Term Defence Programme Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Talks Main Battle Tank Mine Countermeasures Vessel Management Information System for Ministers Member of Parliament Maritime Patrol Aircraft Ministry of Defence North Atlantic Treaty Organization Overseas and Defence Committee – Subcommittee of the Cabinet Operational Manoeuvre Group Offshore Patrol Vessel Public Expenditure Survey Permanent Under-Secretary Pressurized Water Reactor Royal Air Force Royal Auxiliary Air Force Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force Royal Fleet Auxiliary Royal Ordnance Factory Supreme Allied Commander Europe Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Surface-to-air missile Social Democratic Party Sound Surveillance System Single Role Minehunter Conventionally powered attack submarine Nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine Nuclear powered attack submarine Short take-off and vertical landing Tube-launched Optically-tracked Wire-guided Missile United States Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff Vertical/short take-off and vertical landing Western European Union

1 Introduction

Background The premiership of Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1990 witnessed major transformations in international and domestic politics. In 1979 the East–West relationship appeared to be in a state of terminal decline.1 Yet by August 1990, the Berlin Wall, so long the symbol of East–West conflict, had been breached and the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were co-operating with the United Kingdom in a wider coalition confronting the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. At home, the wide-scale privatization of state industries, the huge growth in share ownership, trade union reform, changes in taxation and the high level of unemployment were just some of the features associated with the ‘Thatcher legacy’. Within this context of both international upheaval and domestic change British defence policy emerged from its traditional post-war position of relative inconsequence to become one of the key issues at the 1983 and 1987 general elections.2 The resurgence of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the decision to acquire the Trident system, the Falklands War, the deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) at Greenham Common and Molesworth, the Westland saga and the Nimrod AEW3 cancellation were just some of the more memorable issues associated with Conservative defence policy. This heightened public awareness of defence issues can be attributed to six principal factors, which will be considered in turn: 1. The rise of Thatcherism; 2. Ronald Reagan’s presidency of the United States, 1981–88; 1

2 Defence under Thatcher

3. The end of the domestic defence consensus and the emergence of the Social Democratic Party (SDP); 4. The economic down-turn of the early 1980s; 5. The outbreak of the Second Cold War; and 6. Changes in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) doctrine. The rise of Thatcherism While defence has always been ‘the cut of last resort’ to the Conservatives,3 Margaret Thatcher, with her openly vehement opposition to the Soviet Union, went considerably further than any of her predecessors in eulogizing the need for defence.4 This was somewhat surprising given her political background, which contained little to suggest that such a change in emphasis would occur. She had not previously held any of the great offices of state. Instead her ministerial experience had been in pensions and education, which meant that when she became leader of the Conservative Party she was scarcely known outside Britain.5 In January 1976 she pledged the party to ‘shaking the British public out of a long sleep’ in order to confront the threat posed by the Soviet Union.6 This earned her the nickname ‘Iron Lady’ from the Soviet official news agency Tass.7 It was a title she cultivated and which brought her into immediate conflict with her shadow Foreign Secretary.8 The rhetoric, however, remained unchanged and continued for at least the first half of her time in office. This reflected Thatcher’s emergence from within the ‘New Right’.9 Her personal ascendancy within policy-making led to a shift in the balance of government spending between the various departments, with the Ministry of Defence (MOD) becoming one of the chief beneficiaries.10 However, her other policy goal was the arrest of Britain’s long-term economic decline. This brought about a dichotomy of policies in which it appeared that she could never decide whether she wanted to be remembered in history as the ‘Iron Lady’ or the ‘Iron Chancellor’.11 Jordan and Richardson have referred to this tension as her clear ‘policy theory’.12 On the one hand there was the requirement for significant defence expenditure, while on the other hand there was an emphasis on reducing government expenditure.13 It was hardly surprising that the defence budget remained a constant target for her Treasury team.14 The achievement of rapid economic growth not only required a reduction in public expenditure but also the de-regulation of industry and the encouragement of entrepreneurship. This required the widespread privatization of state industries, a significant reduction in

Introduction 3

the size of the Civil Service, management reforms within the remaining Civil Service to make it more dynamic, changes to industrial policy and trade union reform. Since the MOD was the biggest department in central government and the largest employer of Civil Service manpower it was inevitably at the forefront of these changes. Defence therefore became immersed in the internal conflicts of Thatcherism.15 Ronald Reagan’s presidency, 1981–88 Reagan’s rhetoric and actions raised considerable concern, particularly within the peace movement in Britain. In stark contrast to his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, Reagan had a clearly defined view of the world in which he viewed détente as a weapon that had been used against the United States. He felt that the Soviet Union was the ‘the focus of evil in the modern world’.16 America needed to reassert its leadership and rebuild its economic and military strength to deal with the Soviet Union.17 The new administration embarked upon a significant defence improvement programme18 and the issue of the arms race re-emerged within the context of the peace movements in Britain.19 However, Reagan’s initial Cold War rhetoric and antipathy towards arms control,20 and his decision significantly to increase US spending on defence aroused great concern within British domestic public opinion. His off-hand comments about the feasibility of a limited nuclear war increased this and provided further impetus to CND’s campaign to remove all nuclear weapons from the United Kingdom.21 The end of the domestic defence consensus and the emergence of the SDP Defence issues had always been a cause of discord within the Labour Party.22 The post-war political consensus between the political parties on defence policy had started to fracture by the early 1970s, although this situation did not become apparent until 1979.23 Callaghan’s succession to Wilson as Prime Minister in 1976 appeared to mark the consolidation of the right wing’s hold upon the Labour Party and the preservation of the cross-party consensus. However, his handling of the ongoing Polaris improvement programme (Chevaline), and the secretive manner in which he initiated studies into the future replacement of Polaris, indicated that the Labour Party was divided on defence matters.24 As détente was replaced by the Second Cold War, support for unilateralism grew within the Labour Party. This resurgence was reflected in the election of Michael Foot as Labour leader in 1980 and

4 Defence under Thatcher

the widespread support for Tony Benn in his contest for the deputy leadership.25 This schism contributed significantly to the creation of the SDP in 1981 by a breakaway group of Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) and ex-MPs. They rapidly gained the allegiance of the majority of Labour’s specialist defence speakers. Their emergence and subsequent alliance with the Liberals was particularly important for defence when the Labour Party adopted unilateral nuclear disarmament as party policy. Those that remained in the multilateralist right wing of the Labour Party found themselves temporarily marginalized and frequently at odds with their party’s defence policy.26 This division within Labour, and a similar one that emerged between the SDP and the Liberals, allowed defence to become a key issue which the Conservatives could use to their political advantage. It became a litmus test ‘they [the Conservatives] saw it [defence] as a crucial issue because it skewered both the opposition parties with one shot. It got Labour, who were notoriously unreliable on defence, and then you have this funny alliance thing that didn’t know what it wanted to be.’27 This belief within the Conservative Party was reinforced in 1982 by the so-called ‘Falklands factor’, which dramatically restored the Conservative Party’s domestic standing.28 Thus the Conservatives encouraged the general public to use defence as a means of evaluating the reliability of the different political parties with notable success in the 1983 and 1987 general elections. The economic down-turn of the early 1980s The Thatcher administration came to power with the expressed objective of restoring Britain’s economic position vis-à-vis the rest of the world. Its entry into office in 1979 could not have been at a more appropriate time for testing its commitment to monetarism. In his autobiography Nigel Lawson recalled that ‘we had come to office at a time when the UK economic cycle had peaked and was about to turn down – as for that matter was the world economy – and it would have been much easier to have deferred our attack on the deficit (and indeed on inflation via higher interest rates). But we consciously decided to press ahead, because deferment can become a way of life.’29 Many felt that to do otherwise would merely have repeated the mistake they believe Heath made in abandoning the Selsdon Park policies in 1971.30 These monetarist policies led to a rapid rise in unemployment, the bankruptcy of a considerable number of businesses and the raising of taxes, which resulted in a 6 per cent fall in the Gross Domestic Product

Introduction 5

(GDP) in 1980.31 Nevertheless, despite all the government constraints on public expenditure and the staunch monetarist stance taken, from Fiscal Year (FY) 79–80 to FY 85–86 defence expenditure rose roughly in line with the government’s commitment to NATO of 3 per cent per annum in real terms.32 Not surprisingly the rising defence budget and lack of government measures towards alleviating the worst effects of the high unemployment caused divisions within the Cabinet.33 This led to Labour calls for changes in the government’s spending priorities and increased the prominence given to defence within the political arena. The outbreak of the Second Cold War Since the end of the Second World War Britain’s defence policy had been based on four interlinked assumptions: the hostility of the Soviet Union; the importance of the ‘special relationship’ with the United States; the preservation of the nuclear deterrent; and the ability to influence decisions on the world stage.34 By the mid-1970s three of these four assumptions were being reconsidered while the fourth, the nuclear deterrent, was the subject of a secret update. The special relationship was seen as less important as British foreign and defence policy increasingly focused on Europe rather than the wider world.35 This trend was clearly shown in the 1975 Defence White Paper, which announced the final withdrawal of forces from ‘East of Suez’ (excluding Hong Kong) and also from the Mediterranean.36 In it the Labour government expressed broad satisfaction with the existing East–West situation in Europe and their hope that the Mutual and Balance Force Reduction (MBFR) talks would lesson the threat posed by the Soviet Union and help to reduce the strain on the British economy.37 This was taken a step further in the 1976 paper, which stated that NATO was as much an instrument of détente as defence and then went on to express the hope that détente was permanent.38 However, the hopes surrounding the negotiations on force reductions were quickly quashed with the failure to agree on even the statistical data to be used in the negotiations. Western concern grew about what the real motives of the Soviet Union were, particularly after the CIA revised its estimates of Soviet military spending.39 This view was reinforced by Soviet involvement in the Third World.40 This led key government figures, such as the Foreign Secretary, David Owen, to shift the government’s focus towards the continuing Soviet military buildup from late 1976 onwards.41 They therefore agreed to NATO’s call for an increase in its members’ defence budgets in May 1977.42

6 Defence under Thatcher

Changes in NATO doctrine The signing of the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) agreement in 1972 marked the formal recognition of strategic equivalence between the superpowers. For Britain and its European allies it increased their concern about the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee.43 These doubts were reinforced by the modernization of Soviet intermediate-range nuclear forces, which threatened to undermine NATO’s plans to escalate any conventional conflict in Europe to the tactical or theatre nuclear level.44 To compound this issue, improvements to Soviet conventional forces simply increased NATO’s dependence upon the US guarantee. These fears were exacerbated by what Lynn Davis has described as President Carter’s ‘inept handling of the neutron bomb affair’45 which led the German Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, to conclude that Europe needed to obtain security guarantees that were not subject to the whims of US domestic politics.46 Consequently, senior NATO officials began to place increasing emphasis upon the need for conventional and theatre nuclear force improvements and advocated an increase in members’ defence budgets.47 This led to NATO’s adoption of a long-term defence programme (LTDP) in 1978, which incorporated a commitment to improving NATO’s conventional forces and, more controversially, its theatre nuclear weaponry.48 This led to the decision to deploy 160 GLCMs in Britain, which, together with the subsequent British decision to purchase the Trident system, provided a focus for the resurgence of the peace movement in Britain. Also of concern to the peace movement, but the subject of far less overt opposition, was the subsequent shift in NATO’s war-fighting strategy during the 1980s to a more offensively oriented approach. On the Central Front the adoption of the ideas of ‘follow-on forces attack’ and ‘air-land battle’ signified a return to manoeuvre warfare and NATO’s preparedness to use offensive action in its defence.49 This was matched at sea with a strategy which involved the forward deployment of NATO’s US strike carriers into the Norwegian Sea.50 These were both viewed within the peace movement as dangerously provocative and likely to increase the chances of accidental war breaking out. Conclusions These six factors all had a significant role in increasing the public’s awareness of defence issues during the 1980s. They have also left a lasting impression of the way in which defence policy evolved during this period, which is misleading. This study shows that there were a

Introduction 7

considerable number of other factors that had an effect. Nonetheless, their influence upon public opinion and therefore policy-makers should not be underrated and they made a considerable contribution to the importance given to defence during the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Their composition is also significant. They include both domestic and international factors, which shows that defence policy is not formulated purely in terms of either the international or domestic environment. Both influence it and the relationship between the two fluctuates over time. This conclusion therefore refutes one of the basic assumptions of traditional realism – that defence policy is governed solely by external factors.51 The six factors can also be subdivided between structural and agency influences. The first two can be identified as agency influences (Thatcher and Reagan) and the last four as structural factors (SDP, economic down-turn, outbreak of Second Cold War and NATO strategy).52 This indicates that the traditional structural view of policy evolution in Britain is open to question.

Approach taken in this study What do we mean by British defence policy? To answer this question it is necessary to establish what is meant by the term ‘defence policy’ as applied to the state. ‘Policy’ is a commonly used label for various fields of governmental activity and involvement, such as economic policy and foreign policy, but in this usage the definition can, at best, be described as vague. Most writers would agree that there is some degree of correlation between policy and decision. Policy is an ongoing process, which involves the formulation and subsequent implementation of a series of decisions or non-decisions rather than merely a single decision.53 It is closer to Wallace’s broader definition of ‘a stable set of attitudes, an implicit or explicit plan or some general guiding principles or attitudes determining or influencing decisions’.54 While decisions are associated with the decision-maker, policy has a greater ambit and involves multiple interactions among individuals and groups. Consequently, any study of policy must go beyond the examination of a single decision or decision-maker and encapsulate a series of decisions and non-decisions involving a number of actors. The term ‘defence’ also presents its own problems of definition. Defence ministers and defence ministries are relatively new phenomena, often in fact merely re-titled ministers of war and war ministries. Defence also incorporates both offensive and defensive connotations.

8 Defence under Thatcher

Defence policy therefore revolves around the potential or threatened use of force by one state either in response to the reciprocal action of another or others or as an initiator of such action. Not only does defence policy have to be developed within the international environment in which a state finds itself, it also involves ‘domestic decisions related to the provision of human resources which make up the units of force’.55 The requirements of defence policy have to compete for the resources of government just like any area. In an ideal world the formulation of a defence policy would involve some form of evaluation of the threats facing the state, an assessment of the required response to meet these different threats, a political decision on which threats should be dealt with and the manner of such a response. This would lead to the creation and maintenance of the requisite armed forces. However, defence policy-makers do not operate in an ideal world. Defence policy, because of its very centrality, is inevitably cloaked in a veil of secrecy in even the most liberal democracy. Policy-makers have to operate with incomplete information and with the knowledge that the action of one state will lead to reappraisal by others. This ‘action–reaction’ phenomenon has led to the ‘security dilemma’, ‘a structural notion in which the self-help attempts of states to look after their security needs tend automatically (i.e. regardless of intention) to lead to rising insecurity for the other states, as each interprets its own measures as defensive, and the measures of others as potentially threatening’.56 Consequently, Britain, like other states, has had to try and develop a system for formulating policy and overseeing its implementation, which takes into account the fact that such policies influence the actions of other states while acknowledging the internal domestic constraints that confront it. Inevitably, such a system requires a variety of different groups to work together in order to produce some form of collective solution to these problems. In this they are confronted by a number of inherent structural problems. The provision of armed forces, especially since the end of the Second World War, is a long-term process involving the research, development and production of equipment together with the requisite training of individuals. In contrast, changes in threat assessment require short-term changes, as yesterday’s ally becomes tomorrow’s opponent, and vice-versa. Defence policy therefore never starts with a clean sheet. Instead the policy-maker is invariably constrained by a system of values, a web of international commitments, and by domestic pressures that impose a degree of caution on any attempt to change policy. Previous defence decisions will have led to the creation

Introduction 9

of force structures and an armoury of weapons, either in existence or under construction, which will have to be incorporated within existing and future policy.57 In summary, British defence policy is a combination of several factors. First, the formal declaratory policy line espoused by government through its own defence publications, speeches of leading government figures, and policy statements of the various alliances of which Britain is a member. Second, the strategic policy indicated by the various military doctrines adopted by Britain’s armed services, together with the geographical area and manner in which those forces were deployed. Third, the procurement policy reflected in the purchasing decisions emanating from the MOD.58 The defence policy-making process remains a direct reflection of the interrelationship of declaratory, strategic and procurement policy overseen by the MOD, since in the words of Harry S. Truman, ‘strategy, programs, and budget are all aspects of the same basic decisions’.59 This book seeks to examine the evolution of defence policy within the MOD during the period 1979–89. It focuses on the dynamics of both policy formulation and policy implementation within the MOD at the highest level, taking into account the political context, both domestic and international, in which defence policy was created. An analytical framework is used in which the various actors are classified within three different time-cycles as a means of understanding their goals and priorities and which areas of policy they were most able to influence. The interaction of these time-cycles will be the main focus for explaining defence policy within the MOD. It will also address three other questions: first who were the main actors and how did they interact in this process? Second, how did defence fit into both the domestic and foreign political environments? Third, to what extent was defence policy affected by the management changes put through during the Thatcher administration? These will be considered at the end of each chapter. This book approaches the study of the defence policy process by examining a period of time, 1979–89, rather than a particular moment. While this time span cannot cover a single decision (such as the Trident programme) in full, it does mark a period of continuity with the same political party and Prime Minister in government. The period therefore reflects the manner in which the MOD operated with the simultaneous formulation and implementation of different decisions. The analysis focuses upon the elite upper levels of management within the MOD and its equivalent within Whitehall. While at the

10 Defence under Thatcher

elite level the protagonists involved relied on positional papers and background briefs from more junior officials and serving officers, it was only at this top level that policy issues were discussed and resolved, with the full input of the various groups within the MOD. At the elite level, however, the various groups and individuals involved operate along lines more akin to Allison’s Bureaucratic Politics Model of conflict and competition than power elite lines.60 Consequently, a ‘bureaucratic-elite’ approach has been taken to cover this bargaining and friction. This approach allows an examination of discussion at the ministerial level between departments, and at Cabinet and at the inter-group level within the MOD. It does not take account of intra-group discussions over such issues as what information should be included in the brief of the Chief of the Air Staff (CAS) for a particular issue. This would be beyond the scope of the study and is itself subject to the problems of assessing the relative importance of individual contributions. However, all the service personnel and civil servants interviewed had experience of working at a more junior level and were consulted on this. The study also seeks to take into account the influence of individuals on the policy process in order to provide them with their appropriate recognition, and as a means of understanding the unofficial lines of communication upon which Whitehall functions. Having identified the approach to be taken it is important to realise that ‘within the Government machine, military, political and Civil Service perceptions and priorities differ, assigning different weights to the short and the long term and to the political versus the military reality’.61 This study makes the assumption that one of the main reasons for the divergent outlooks of the different actors was the contrasting time-cycles in which they operated. As a result, the various actors have been subdivided into the time-cycle in which they operated to facilitate a more rigorous understanding of policy evolution. Defining the time-cycles This book suggests that there were three basic cycles in operation within the MOD: the short-term cycle, looking ahead up to two years; the medium-term cycle, covering the two–ten year range; and the longterm outlook extending beyond ten years. Short-term cycle The actors principally focusing on short-term considerations are ministers. According to Hennessy, ministers are confronted with the

Introduction 11

problem that once in office they have four basic tasks to perform: first, to implement the policies they were elected on; second, to retain support within the House of Commons and ensure that the government sees out the full life of Parliament; third, to mobilize consent among the electorate for these policies and retain support from the interest groups close to the party; and finally, to retain support within the Cabinet, taking into account their own career paths.62 In undertaking these tasks they are constrained by the fact that as ministers they are ill prepared for their posts. ‘If their party has just won an election they may go to the ministry they shadowed in opposition. If they do, policy preparation will have been sketchy: party research capacities in opposition are very limited, with little access to Whitehall data, and ideas are worked up by ill-paid juniors or academics in their spare time.’63 If they are already in office and are transferred, they are presented with an entirely new brief for which they acquire responsibility. Ministers feel, indeed are, exposed and vulnerable. They need and want public success and to stand well with their colleagues; they struggle to avoid failure, blame and humiliation. Avoiding blame and seeking credit are major concerns for ministers, more attractive than power itself, which is a means to credit, status and comfort. These concerns, added to department concern for status and territory, are basic forces in British government.64 Not surprisingly there is a tendency for ministers to have a strong departmental focus, especially since they often feel judged by their ability to promote their department’s policies and increase its budget. When put in charge of a spending department, such as the MOD, ministers tend to feel that they have a justifiable case for an increase in the expenditure of their department. In this view they have the ready support of their department. This situation is compounded by the fact that ‘ministers are visiting amateurs in their departments, unlikely to stay for more than two years, and under strong competing demands for their time and attention – from Cabinet, Parliament, constituency, and delegations of interest groups and foreigners’.65 Those seeking to scale the ministerial ladder to higher office have little time in which to make a positive impact in their department. Long-term planning does not produce the results that are likely to be recognized in the short term, and the system of rapid ministerial turnover therefore encourages ministers to take a more short-term approach to the decisions before them.

12 Defence under Thatcher

Between 1979 and 1989 there were four different Secretaries of State for Defence. In a department as demanding as the MOD, this posed considerable problems for the individual ministers in getting up to speed while trying to undertake the other tasks for which they were responsible.66 The various Defence Secretaries approached the situation differently. All, however, found themselves in conflict with the Treasury team and other departments, the former anxious to limit public spending and the latter to increase their own share of the budget. In all this, the role of the Prime Minister was vital. Mastering a department as large and powerful as the MOD requires the continual support of the Prime Minister. This could not always be guaranteed, since Thatcher had firstly to ensure her position, both within the Conservative Party and in the country at large. In the end, prime ministerial control of the Cabinet agenda and the decision of who to hire and who to fire could substantially undermine a minister’s position within a department. Within the Cabinet, defence issues, because of their sensitivity and the technical brief required, were mostly discussed in the Overseas and Defence Committee (OD) following which decisions were rubberstamped by the full Cabinet.67 It was at the OD, in particular, that the other key ministerial players outside the MOD were involved, such as the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Minister responsible for Trade and Industry, who looked to the political implications, both personal and collective, of the decisions before them. Medium-term cycle The majority of actors operated in the medium term, concentrating their attention either upon the balance of resources in the programme as set out in the long-term costings (LTCs), the balance of power within the ministry or the balance of power of the ministry vis-à-vis the other departments of state. The individual Service Chiefs had three main concerns. The first was the protection of their major replacement programmes and the continued preservation of their service’s ‘share’ of the defence budget. In reality this meant that they were concerned with the LTCs in years four–ten rather than in the immediate three years, which had already been largely apportioned and allocated. The second was to try and maximize the service’s control over policy and procurement decisions and block any expansion of the central staff’s role. The third was to increase service input into future strategy reviews.

Introduction 13

Within the Defence Staff, successive Chiefs of the Defence Staff (CDSs) aspired to raise the influence of the Defence Staff in planning defence policy. The whole role of the CDS, particularly with regard to the relationship with the Chiefs of Staff and their right of access to the Secretary of State and Prime Minister, remained an ongoing bone of contention as successive CDSs increased their authority over the Service Chiefs during this period. Within the ranks of the senior civil servants within the MOD two main concerns existed. First, they sought to increase their influence over ministers at the military’s expense. This was usually justified on the grounds of their alleged greater impartiality and ability to see the whole picture. In this battle, control of the budget was vital. Second, they sought to defend the MOD’s budget from their equivalents in other departments of state, particularly the Treasury. The other major actor within the medium term was the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). It was responsible for the threat assessment process and sought to provide an ongoing three–seven year outlook of the likely threats to the United Kingdom, since that was the normal time required for a target state to develop a new capability.68 Inevitably such assessments not only influenced overall policy but also impinged upon deployment and procurement policies. Long-term cycle The time taken to develop and produce a weapon system, together with its operational life, resulted in a procurement process which could last well over 30 years. Two main groups of actors looked beyond the ten years of the LTCs and concentrated their attention upon future procurement requirements. First, the service planners were responsible for developing future operational requirements. Their assessment of Britain’s future capability requirements forced them to make certain assumptions about the state of the world and Britain’s place within it more than ten years hence. Then they had to estimate what were the main threats to British interests, what capabilities they were likely to have, and how Britain’s armed forces would be expected to deal with them. Only then could the operational requirements (OR) staff begin to formulate the requirements which industry would attempt to meet. In this process the inputs of the DIS and the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) were also important, the former in providing the intelligence assessments of the likely capabilities and development programmes of the identified enemy state, and the latter reviewing the technical feasibility of the proposed solutions.

14 Defence under Thatcher

Second, Britain’s defence industry had to look ahead and consider how the replacement cycle fitted into their production plans. Such development programmes took a considerable amount of time and required specialist expertise to implement. Since the necessary expertise could not be created overnight industries needed to preserve design teams and core manufacturing skills within the workforce. This enabled them to avoid the peaks and troughs at any stage in the production cycle and they aimed to achieve a constant level of demand for their research and production capabilities. Technological improvements also encouraged management to look ahead and assess the future skill deficiencies and obsolescence within their current workforce. Note on time-cycle definitions It should be noted that the allocation of a particular actor to a timecycle within this study is not fixed and due consideration has to be given to situations where individual actors were forced to take a different cyclical outlook because of circumstances existing at the time. For example, as the end of the financial year approached the prospects of a budget surplus or deficit drew in the Service Chiefs to make further procurement or programme cutback recommendations. The time limits that define short term, medium term and long term are also subject to fluctuation, based on the criteria that dictate them. For example, as an election drew nearer the length of the short-term cycle for ministers contracted. Chapter outlines As this book has taken a methodological approach, which emphasizes structural and agency influences upon policy, the chapters have been divided into the periods of office of the various Secretaries of State for Defence. However, since defence policy is an ongoing process it is first necessary to provide the historical context in which the various actors approached defence policy in May 1979. Chapter 2 therefore sets the scene in May 1979 by establishing how British defence policy evolved since the end of the Second World War. Chapter 3 examines the period from the Conservative’s entry into office in May 1979 to the replacement of Pym by Nott in January 1981. The period began with the major Conservative commitment to defence and talk about returning East of Suez and ended shortly after Pym’s threatened resignation over proposed defence reductions. Chapter 4 covers Nott’s attempts to deal with this mismatch. It analyses how the

Introduction 15

1981 defence review was undertaken and the changes that were made after its publication before considering the impact of the Falklands War upon the reappraisal of Nott’s proposals. Chapter 5 covers the period of Heseltine in office from January 1983 to January 1986. It marked the high point for defence spending under the Conservatives and the period of most profound managerial change within the MOD. It ends with Heseltine’s dramatic resignation during the Westland crisis. Chapter 6 encapsulates Younger’s time in office until July 1989. Starting with the aftermath of Heseltine’s resignation, the period covers the impact of the end of the 3 per cent commitment and the worsening problem of matching resources to commitments both before and after the 1987 general election. The conclusion undertakes a comparative study of the conclusions drawn from the time-cycle approach within each chapter, drawing in appropriate theoretical material. It then examines the book’s three secondary questions before considering how the findings of this study can be developed further and utilized in other areas.

2 British Defence Policy in May 1979

No government starts with a blank sheet of paper on which to draft out its defence policy, and this chapter sets out the context in which it stood in May 1979. The period from 1945 to 1979 was one of immense change in British defence policy. By 1979 only a few vestiges of what was once the world’s largest empire remained. Europe, rather than the Empire, had become the focus of British foreign and defence policy. Within this transformation four interlinked assumptions remained consistent throughout the period. These were the hostility of the Soviet Union, the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, the creation and maintenance of a nuclear deterrent, and the ability to influence decisions on the world stage.69 That these assumptions would continue to underpin British defence policy was inevitable given the position with which Britain was confronted in 1945. Historically Britain had not viewed itself as a European power and had sought to prevent war by maintaining an equilibrium of forces on the Continent.70 This concern with maintaining the ‘balance of power’ in Europe led to frequent shifts in allegiance in favour of the weaker power bloc. In 1945, with the single exception of the Soviet Union, Britain was the only large European power to have survived the war relatively intact. Germany was physically divided, while France and Italy remained economically crippled and politically divided. It was Britain, therefore, which had to confront the situation of an Eastern Europe dominated by a Soviet military and political presence.71 From the time of its inception the enigma of the Soviet Union had been a consistent problem for successive British governments. Fear of the Soviet Union began to rise even before the end of the Second World War as the allies sought to agree the peace.72 Events after the 16

British Defence Policy in May 1979 17

war only reinforced these concerns and led the former Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to refer to an ‘Iron Curtain’ dividing Europe in two as early as 1946.73 This perception of the Soviet threat increased during the late 1940s. In security terms the Soviet Union was a Euro-Asiatic land power which relied on immense reserves of manpower to provide for its defence. The country’s historical experience of invasion and the resulting devastation of its own lands contributed to its commitment to maintaining significant land and air forces in Eastern Europe. In contrast, Britain’s defence had relied on naval domination of the seas around its shores. If the Soviet Union was the most likely enemy, the Royal Navy was of limited use against a power which could only be confronted on land. This situation was exacerbated by the changes that had occurred in warfare in the twentieth century. In the First World War, German airship and bomber raids had shown that Britain was no longer immune from direct attack, while the U-boat campaign had threatened to starve Britain out of the war.74 This experience had been repeated during the Second World War in the German aerial offensive on Britain, particularly between 1940 and 1941, and the continual danger presented by the UBoats.75 However, the development of the atomic bomb finally demonstrated the potential for a single bomber to destroy a city and fulfil the claims of the early air power theorists.76 As a densely populated state the threat of atomic attack was particularly disconcerting for Britain. Britain’s management of this situation after 1945 was undermined by its own financial insecurity.77 While successive British governments felt the need for military deterrence against the Soviet Union the support of the United States remained a paramount consideration. Britain’s relations with the United States were therefore a major determinant of British defence policy. The other determinant underlying defence policy was Britain’s wider world role. In 1945 Britain was one of the three leading world powers and considered itself as such. This is clear from the 1948 defence estimates: ‘the United Kingdom, as a member of the British Commonwealth and a Great Power, must be prepared at all times to fulfil her responsibility not only to the United Nations but also to herself’.78 While not a superpower in its own right, Britain’s military and civilian presence throughout the world, particularly within the Empire, led many to assume that the world role would continue, particularly given the relative inexperience of the United States in many regions.79 Between 1945 and 1979 this assumption was undermined and led to the withdrawal from the Empire. Its importance for this

18 Defence under Thatcher

study lies in the manner in which it waned, for the vestiges of this underlying assumption continued to have an impact upon British defence policy in the later 1970s and beyond.80

The time-cycles For this chapter only, the short-term cycle has been excluded because the political environment in which the current defence team finds itself, together with the immediate fiscal realities of the current and subsequent years, inevitably dictates it. It therefore falls within the ambit of the next chapter to establish how this cycle affected the situation after May 1979. Medium-term cycle For the services the 1970s had been a period of retrenchment. The Labour government’s announcement that it would adhere to NATO’s 3 per cent target, at least until 1980–81, appeared to indicate the beginning of a period of stability for the defence programme. This was welcomed, but the delays, postponements and cancellations of the 1970s had led the services to weigh their programmes heavily towards the latter years of the LTCs. It meant that a considerable number of major weapons programmes had already been planned and little room remained within the LTCs to fund additional defence programmes or cope with any significant cost overruns. The LTC system was far from ideal. Although it covered a period of ten years only the first of these was agreed with the annual Treasury budget. The next four years were based on the Public Expenditure Survey (PES) forecast which only gave an indication of the government’s future intentions, while the last five years were based purely on the MOD’s own estimates of the amounts that it was likely to receive. Consequently, the further down the LTCs the planners went the more inaccurate their estimates were likely to be. The situation was made worse by the poor performance of industry in delivering programmes on time and to cost. According to one senior civil servant All our experience was that there was a systematic over-optimism within the system and we would spend … 10–20 per cent less than we forecasted to do. So what we used to do was to take all these forecasts and centrally adjust them with block adjustments as they were called. These said that you all think you are going to spend this amount of money but we know you won’t so we are going to knock

British Defence Policy in May 1979 19

off, let us say 10 or 15 per cent. We, therefore, always had a programme that was always bigger than the available amount of cash and which was matched by these block adjustments. Each year we spent roughly the amount of cash, which we had forecast in this very sophisticated system …81 This meant that within the MOD different budgeting and planning assumptions were made from those agreed with industry, particularly in terms of contract price and delivery schedule.82 Given that most major programmes involved research at the edge of existing knowledge, precise cost estimates were impossible. This situation was complicated by the time delays within the system often necessitating the revision of specifications.83 The LTCs were therefore subject to constant readjustments as estimates were updated resulting in further delays to existing programmes. The services shared two common approaches to procurement. First, they prioritized the purchase of weapons platforms rather than the expense of weapons systems. They never purchased a complete weapons package because the various elements of the package would then be dependent upon each other within the LTC process. This led to different in-service dates for weapons and their platforms and the requirement to retrofit the weapons platforms during extended periods of maintenance.84 Second, they generally felt the post-war trend towards concentrating decision-making within the Central Staffs to be unwise. All felt that the Chiefs of Staff Committee was the appropriate forum for discussing defence issues while procurement decisions should be left to the individual services.85 The Royal Navy in May 1979 The 1975 Defence Review86 had not been nearly so far-reaching for the navy as for the other two services. The end of the periodic deployment of a major task force East of Suez was largely symbolic and the withdrawal from the Mediterranean had an impact on overall fleet numbers, but naval policy still remained dominated by its four NATO wartime roles. Debates within the navy centred upon how the component parts of the navy could contribute to fulfilling these tasks and which should have priority.87 The first NATO role was the containment of Soviet surface and subsurface forces in their northern bases. This involved the forward deployment of NATO submarines and was dominated by the navy’s submariners. They planned to change the overall composition of the

20 Defence under Thatcher

submarine force, favouring the nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) at the expense of its conventional counterpart (SSK). They hoped to increase SSN numbers from 11 to 20 within the existing force levelof 27 to 28 boats (excluding the Polaris SSBNs). The navy had already embarked on the construction of a new class of SSNs, the Trafalgars, and planned to order these at the rate of one every 16 months so that it could reach its goal by the end of the 1990s.88 Such a force required a significant increase in the number of available nuclear refit streams and a programme was already in hand to extend this capability within the Royal dockyards.89 To supplement the SSNs, and maintain an overall force size of 27 to 28 boats, a pre-feasibility study into a new class of SSKs had begun, with provision made towards the end of the LTCs for an initial purchase. Until these entered service it was assumed that the existing SSK force would remain in service in order to preserve the size of the existing submarine fleet. The second role was the reinforcement of northern Norway using the reconfigured 3 Commando Brigade, together with its Dutch attachment, by the navy’s specialized amphibious warfare vessels. Support for this role in the long term already looked uncertain following the Labour government’s decision to delete the replacements for the two assault ships (LPDs) from the LTCs in 1975.90 Nevertheless, in the medium term the preservation of this force looked secure with consideration being given to the conversion of a surplus Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) into an amphibious transport to enhance the existing capability.91 The third role was that of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) support for NATO’s strike fleet of US aircraft carriers. This gave the navy the important role it sought and allowed it to justify the maintenance of a significant fleet. The navy’s contribution centred upon the provision of an ASW oriented aircraft carrier group together with supporting submarines and maritime patrol aircraft. Although the 1966 decision to abandon the next generation of aircraft carrier seemed to mark the end of fixed-wing aviation within the Fleet Air Arm,92 the situation was partly altered by the decision to equip the three new small Invincibleclass aircraft carriers with Sea Harriers.93 By 1979 the first of these had begun sea trials with a further two in the course of construction. In the interim, HMS Hermes, then acting as an anti-submarine warfare carrier, was earmarked to receive suitable modifications to carry Sea Harriers pending the arrival of the third Invincible. The fourth role was the direct defence of reinforcement shipping bringing supplies from North America to the European mainland,

British Defence Policy in May 1979 21

together with the protection of reinforcements being deployed from the United Kingdom. These two tasks involved the use of the majority of the surface fleet, the Fleet Air Arm, the remaining RN submarines and the RAF’s 18 Group. The fourth role centred upon the provision of destroyers and frigates to conduct convoy protection for shipping carrying reinforcements from North America to Western Europe. Within the surface ship fraternity the Type 42 air defence destroyer and the Type 22 anti-submarine warfare frigate were the main programmes. The three orders just prior to the 1979 general election brought Type 42 destroyer numbers to 14 either completed or in the course of construction.94 Type 22 orders by this stage amounted to six with plans for at least six more.95 To complement these vessels, and as a result of various delays in ordering new units throughout the 1970s, the older Leander-class frigates were undergoing substantial and costly mid-life upgrades to prolong their lives and bring them up to the standard of the Type 22s.96 The commercially designed Type 21 frigates purchased in the 1970s as a stopgap measure were also scheduled for upgrading in the late 1980s.97 This upgrade policy required a considerable dockyard refit capability and concern already existed about whether the Royal dockyards were capable of meeting the high workload currently allocated to them.98 To support the surface fleet a new class of 12 one-stop replenishment ships was planned to begin entering service towards the end of the 1980.99 These ships would be faster than previous RFAs in order to allow them to remain with the aircraft carrier group. This would eliminate the need for escorts to protect a separate underway replenishment group and release them for use as convoy escorts.100 These RFAs would introduce the idea of a warship receiving all its supplies from one auxiliary, rather than from several smaller specialized ships, at a lower cost. Their increased size would allow them to carry and operate four to five longer-range helicopters, thereby significantly improving the ASW capability of the Royal Navy destroyer-frigate groups.101 Subsumed within these debates lay the provision of Britain’s strategic nuclear deterrent based on four Polaris SSBNs. In order to retain the ability to strike at Moscow (the so-called Moscow criteria) this system was in the process of having its warhead updated under the secret Chevaline programme.102 By 1979 the Polaris force had been responsible for the strategic nuclear deterrent for a decade. Given the projected life span of a nuclear-powered submarine there was now a pressing need to consider a replacement system. This had already begun outside the Cabinet committee system when a few ministers set in train two

22 Defence under Thatcher

studies, one on the international implications and the other on the alternative systems. The secretive nature of these provisional studies meant that no allocation was made within the LTC for a replacement system and this was to have significant programme implications once a decision was made. The Royal Navy had a considerable building programme built into the LTCs, which reflected the influence of the various groups within the navy. A number of senior naval officers were concerned about the extremely high cost of purchasing such sophisticated ships and questioned the viability of building the number required to maintain the strength of fleet.103

The British Army in May 1979 As with the navy, the 1975 Defence Review had led the army largely to abandon its remaining out-of-area capabilities.104 As a result, the army concentrated on its part in the wartime defence of the Central Front and its peacetime commitment to Northern Ireland. Less emphasis was given to its other NATO roles, such as home defence or the provision of forces to the UK Mobile Force. The review had brought about the elimination of the brigade level of command as a means of improving the weapons-to-men ratio at reduced cost. A consequence of this was the re-organization of 1 (Br) Corps from a three divisional force, each comprising two heavy brigades of four armoured regiments/mechanized infantry battalions, to four smaller divisions, each of five larger armoured regiments/mechanized infantry battalions, together with a field force of three infantry battalions for the protection of BAOR’s lines of communication.105 In wartime its role on the Central Front was to fight an attritional delaying action as part of NATO’s Northern Army Group (NORTHAG). Its divisions were to be deployed with two forward on the Inner-German border and the other two behind. The defence plan consisted of a number of defence lines with the forward divisions retreating through the rear divisions as each line was penetrated until the corps ceased to exist as a fighting unit whereupon recourse to battlefield nuclear weapons would occur.106 The new divisional structure soon began to pose considerable command and control problems for the divisional commanders who had to control five or more battle groups.107 Consequently, the expedient of introducing task force headquarters between the division and battalion/regiment levels of command in wartime to cover for the lost

British Defence Policy in May 1979 23

brigades was quickly adopted, although this solution was far from satisfactory. These headquarters remained ad hoc and lacked the cohesion that a peacetime existence would have instilled. As a result, there was considerable discussion within the army about how this situation could be resolved.108 At the same time the lessons of the Israeli experiences in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 had begun to filter into the thinking within the British Army with the result that army doctrine came under scrutiny. The use of small highly mobile command headquarters by the Israelis, together with the adoption of a mobile war of manoeuvre in defence, had a profound affect on those who examined the battle.109 Linked into this debate was the potential impact of emerging technologies and NATO’s goal of raising the nuclear threshold.110 The army was far more manpower intensive than either the air force or the navy. This meant that a smaller percentage of the defence budget allocated to land forces was actually spent on equipment in comparison to sea or air forces. Consequently, the impact of short-term cutbacks throughout the 1970s on equipment purchases had a disproportionate effect. The result was a significant level of equipment obsolescence and an army with the reputation for being one of the worst equipped in Germany.111 In response, a substantial modernization programme had been initiated covering the full plethora of army equipment. From the army’s point of view the most important programme was the re-equipping of its armoured divisions to counter the significant improvements made in Soviet land forces.112 Increases in the size and capability of Soviet armoured forces raised questions about the size and quality of the existing tank force. An enlargement of the war reserve by purchasing an additional batch of 77 Chieftains was under consideration.113 Further ahead lay the question of replacing the existing Chieftain fleet. With the collapse of the Anglo-German feasibility studies into a new main battle tank a national programme, dubbed MBT-80, had begun, with entry into service planned for the late 1980s.114 It was planned to equip this with the recently developed Chobham armour, which offered vastly superior protection at a reduced weight. This meant that MBT-80 could be a much more heavily armoured tank than the existing Chieftain, with improved mobility.115 However, waiting for MBT80 meant delaying the entry of Chobham armour into service. This not only had implications for the military balance on the Central Front, but also threatened the potential loss of valuable exports, as the secret of Chobham armour was shared with Britain’s NATO partners who

24 Defence under Thatcher

would be in a position to install it into their own new tanks and sell these overseas before MBT-80 entered service.116 Closely linked to the replacement tank programme was a new fleet of armoured personnel carriers. Here the domestically developed MCV-80 (which became Warrior) and the US Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV) were in direct competition with each other. Both offered the ability to engage light armoured vehicles on the battlefield with their cannon. The latter’s gun had the advantage that it was stabilized, which made it far more accurate when fired on the move and it also had the ability to engage enemy tanks with its TOW launcher.117 Improvements to Soviet mechanized forces also highlighted weaknesses in the existing artillery force. A major replacement programme was already underway. The heavier 155 mm FH-70 howitzer had begun to replace the 105 mm light gun in those regiments committed to the reinforcement of the BAOR. In the medium term it was planned to rectify the lack of firepower provided by the 105 mm Abbot selfpropelled gun by replacing it with the collaborative SP-70 under development with West Germany and Italy. Also under consideration for deployment in the late 1980s was the US Multiple-Launch Rocket System (MLRS), which looked as though it would be ideally suited to the task of breaking up tank concentrations at long range.118 For air defence the army relied upon the towed Rapier system, which had only recently entered service with the air defence regiments. The problem of deploying the system with the mobile armoured units was already acknowledged and a tracked alternative was already in the process of development for the Shah of Iran.119 However, the cost of the system was viewed as prohibitive and no plans existed for its purchase. Instead, consideration was being given to the acquisition of a mobile anti-aircraft gun, which could accompany the mobile armoured units, while the Rapier system provided for the defence of static units.120 The army also deployed a first generation man-portable surface-to-air (SAM) system, the Blowpipe, to complement Rapier, and a second generation system, the Javelin, was under development. The Army Air Corps (AAC) was further ahead in its equipment transformation. The Anglo-French Gazelle was in the process of delivery as a replacement for the Sioux in communications, reconnaissance and training roles. Of more significance was the introduction into service of the Lynx, equipped to carry eight HOT anti-tank missiles.121 This represented a significant transformation in capability compared to the existing Scout helicopter. However, it was still a modification of an existing airframe to the role rather than a specialist attack helicopter.

British Defence Policy in May 1979 25

Partly as a result of the division command and control problems there were a number of projects in the design stage concerned to control various elements during battle and allow them to communicate with one another. The army had already begun to introduce the new Sultan, the first purpose-built tracked armoured command vehicle to enter service, as well as the Clansmen family of tactical radios.122 The Wavell intelligence system was scheduled to follow in 1980 with the BATES battlefield artillery targeting engagement system and the Ptarmigan tactical communications system planned for service in the mid- to late 1980s. For the army the 1980s promised to be a period of transformation as it replaced the vast majority of its equipment, which dated back to the 1960s. The new command and control equipment promised to revolutionize its ability to fight on the modern battlefield. These changes were not without considerable cost and the army’s high command were determined that their equipment budget would be protected from any cutbacks. At the same time there was an undercurrent of change within army thinking which had yet to fully emerge and influence the future direction of land operations.

The Royal Air Force in May 1979 The Royal Air Force (RAF) was beginning the most expensive replacement programme in its history. By the end of the 1980s it planned to dispose of the majority of its current aircraft and have a front-line filled largely with new aircraft. Despite this, RAF doctrine was set to remain unchanged, and was principally governed by its NATO commitments and by the RAF’s continuing determination to maintain its independence as a service. The Air Force Board was determined to retain a balanced force capability and rejected any notion of role specialization.123 It sought to contribute aircraft to the entire range of NATO activities and dismissed any suggestion that the navy could take over any of the maritime functions performed by the air force, or that the army should take control of the air force’s support helicopter fleet. Nevertheless, while the board’s goals were to at least maintain force levels in all six areas of capability (strike, offensive support, air defence, maritime, support and helicopter lift) priority remained with the fast jet roles, that is, strike, offensive support and air defence.124 The RAF’s strike aircraft composed a mixture of Jaguars, Vulcans and Buccaneers. Although the Jaguar had only recently entered service in

26 Defence under Thatcher

both the strike and offensive support roles, it had a number of shortcomings, particularly in terms of range and lack of an all-weather capability.125 It had entered service as a stopgap solution in order to allow the Phantoms to be switched to the air defence role.126 While the Vulcans and Buccaneers had better range and all-weather capabilities they were both showing signs of age. Their replacement, the new ground-attack version of the Tornado (GR1), promised to transform the strike capability of the RAF through its advanced avionics and the various weapons programmes that were planned to equip it. The Tornado GR1 had been designed and produced as a collaborative venture with the West Germans and the Italians and the RAF had been forced to accept certain performance limitations to achieve an agreed specification. This meant that the Tornado GR1 had a significantly reduced range compared to both the aircraft it was replacing. To offset this, nine VC10 aircraft were earmarked for conversion to the tanker role to supplement the existing force of Victor K2 tankers.127 The RAF also hoped to retain a reduced number of Vulcan squadrons equipped with an undefined air-launched cruise missile in the long-range strike role rather than rely solely on the Tornado.128 A mixed force of Harrier GR3s and Jaguar GR1s performed the offensive support. Both were the subjects of a feasibility study into a future tactical combat aircraft that was scheduled for entry into service in the early 1990s.129 Meanwhile, it was hoped to overcome the deficiencies in weapons load and range in the existing Harrier force by re-winging the whole fleet rather than collaborating with the Americans in the development of the AV-8B.130 The state of Britain’s air defences was the subject of some of the most scathing criticism directed at the Labour government by the Conservatives prior to the 1979 general election.131 Britain’s air defences had never recovered from the cutbacks imposed during the 1957 Defence Review.132 These, together with the RAF’s responsibility for fleet air defence,133 meant that the RAF’s fighter force was largely deployed to defend the US/UK strike bases in East Anglia and, in theory at least, defend the fleet in northern waters. NATO’s decision in 1967 to introduce the strategy of flexible response led to a revision of this.134 However, priority was given to RAF forces deployed in West Germany, which meant that the need to improve Britain’s air defences was delayed.135 The deployment of the Backfire and Fencer aircraft by the Soviet Union during the 1970s underlined the vulnerability of the United Kingdom to conventional air attack.136 A significant modernization programme was started, covering aircraft,

British Defence Policy in May 1979 27

surface-to-air missiles, radar systems, the protection of RAF airfields and the command and control network but the delay meant there was little actual visible improvement by 1979.137 The shortage of front-line aircraft led to the idea of a ‘fighter gap’ emerging in the late 1970s which would not begin to be relieved until the entry of the air defence version of the Tornado (F2) in the mid-1980s to replace the Lightnings and Phantoms. This weakness, and the political fallout from it, led the Air Force Board to consider various remedies to deal with this deficiency, including the leasing of fighter aircraft from the United States.138 Ever since the incorporation of the Royal Naval Air Service within the newly created RAF in 1918 the RAF’s control of maritime air assets had been a source of friction with the Royal Navy. By 1979 the shorebased elements were grouped together within the RAF’s 18 Group and consisted of three principal assets.139 First, there were the Buccaneer aircraft equipped with Martel air-to-surface missiles for the surface strike role. In conjunction with the SSNs these aircraft were viewed by the Admiralty as the principal means of containing the Soviet surface fleet as well as striking at the bases of the Soviet Northern Fleet. With the decommissioning of the navy’s last fixed-wing aircraft carrier a second squadron of aircraft in this role was in the process of forming (No. 216).140 It was envisaged that Tornado GR1s equipped with the new British Aerospace P-3T (Sea Eagle) anti-ship missiles would replace them by the mid-1980s.141 Second, there were four front-line squadrons and one training squadron equipped with Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft (Nimrod MR1). To the Air Force Board these aircraft, together with the navy’s SSNs, represented the most efficient means of combating the increasing Soviet submarine threat. The Board felt that emphasis should be given to these rather than to the navy’s surface fleet.142 They were concerned about the size of the existing Nimrod MR1 force, and the decision to convert 11 Nimrod MR1s to the AEW role, instead of purchasing Boeing E-3As as the RAF High Command hoped, meant that there was no longer a surplus of Nimrod airframes. Any expansion would require the reopening of the Nimrod production line at a considerable cost.143 Meanwhile, the existing force continued to receive an upgrade, which incorporated the Searchwater radar. Linked to the purchase of additional Nimrod aircraft was the third maritime asset. A single Vulcan squadron was tasked with the role of surface search in order to monitor the deployment of the Soviet Northern Fleet. Despite the planned phasing-out of Vulcans in the

28 Defence under Thatcher

strike role, the Air Force Board envisaged that they would continue in the maritime role for some time to come. However, they would need replacing in the foreseeable future and reopening the Nimrod production line could furnish suitable replacements. With the reduction of half of its transport fleet in the 1975 Defence Review the RAF found itself overstretched. As a partial remedy, half of the Hercules fleet were scheduled to receive an extension designed to increase their cargo capacity.144 The RAF had started to introduce the new Hawk aircraft in the advanced trainer role while replacement alternatives for the ageing Jet Provost basic trainers were under consideration. The helicopter support fleet had always tended to be the area last to receive funding and first to lose it. This was no more evident than in the purchase of Chinook helicopters in the medium-support role. This requirement had first been stated 14 years before an order was placed in 1978 when the RAF made use of a significant under spend.145 From the army’s point of view the results of this lack of prioritization was the inadequate provision of support helicopters and a preference for control over this force.146 This led to increased calls within the army for the transfer of the support helicopter force to the army. The replacement of the Wessex/Puma force was under consideration with a substantial purchase envisaged in the late 1980s.

Long-term cycle For a significant part of British manufacturing industry, defence related work remained one of the major sources of revenue. The domestic market had been dominated by British industry, which was keen to prevent any further increase in the foreign manufacturers’ share of defence spending. Successful arms sales were mainly achieved where the equipment had already been tried and tested in British service and it was to the MOD that industry looked for its first orders to cover its research and development costs and promote sales.147 This situation seemed set to continue. Industry was concerned to avoid change since the existing cost-plus method of contracting helped not only to fund their research and development at virtually no risk but also provided a guaranteed profit. There was a growing trend towards collaboration, principally with Britain’s European partners. The RAF tended to be most associated with this because of its involvement in some of the larger collaborative projects and because its leadership recognized that this was a particularly good method of preserving programmes within the LTCs.148 The expe-

British Defence Policy in May 1979 29

rience of industries associated with the army’s programme were mixed. The FH-70 artillery programme had been a success and it was hoped that this success would be transferred into the SP-70 self-propelled howitzer project. But the attempt to develop a collaborative main battle tank had failed.149 Industry had been very successful in obtaining a large number of overseas orders for British products, particularly from the Shah of Iran, but the fall of the Shah in 1978 had led to the cancellation of a large number of contracts by the new Iranian regime and the ramifications of this were not yet fully appreciated.150 For the navy, the shipyards and their associated suppliers had had far less involvement in collaborative programmes. The construction of hulls did not obtain any benefit from collaboration and consequently the main area for shared effort resided in the weapons systems. Here the navy had been far more circumspect than the other services with the vast majority of products continuing to be produced on a solely national basis. Naval concern with the Soviet submarine threat led to significant sums being invested in anti-submarine warfare especially in the detection of submarines.151 A significant research emphasis was placed upon surface acoustic arrays that would, in co-operation with the planned medium-sized helicopter, allow the detection and destruction of Soviet submarines at far greater ranges than had previously been possible. This promised to provide an offset to the increasing capabilities of Soviet submarines and formed the basis of the Sea King replacement programme begun in 1978.152 The major part of the army’s equipment programme was scheduled for the 1980s. Beyond that period consideration centred upon how the battlefield would look and what type of weapons systems would be needed.153 One area of particular interest was that of obtaining a realtime picture of what was happening 10–30 miles behind the battle line and identifying where the enemy troop and armoured concentrations were. This linked in to the whole question of emerging technologies and involved, in particular, the munitions developments for the MLRS considered by the army in the long term.154 The air force had a number of air staff targets (ASTs) and air staff requirements (ASRs) being formulated at this time. Long-term policy centred on reducing the number of aircraft types with each requirement aspiring to replace two or more other aircraft.155 AST-403 sought to replace the Harrier and Jaguar aircraft in the offensive support role.156 This target incorporated the requirement for at least a short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL), if not a vertical/short take-off

30 Defence under Thatcher

and landing (V/STOL), capability. Not surprisingly, given the size and complexity of this programme, the RAF began to look for collaborative partners within Europe.

Conclusions Following the decision largely to withdraw from East of Suez in 1968, declaratory policy remained largely unchanged between 1968 and 1979. None of the subsequent governments were particularly interested in altering this aspect of policy with the result that strategic nuclear deterrence, and the continental and maritime commitments to NATO were consistently emphasized at the expense of home defence and the out-of-area role. Defence policy took a back seat in government thinking until the latter half of the 1970s when concern about the Soviet threat convinced the government to agree to NATO’s 3 per cent commitment and the long-term defence programme. The strategy to implement these roles was largely left to the services, who let their NATO missions dominate their thinking. They had seen many changes over the previous 30 years and they wanted to focus on the threat posed by the Soviet Union to Europe. What they wanted was a period of stability in defence planning matched by the prospect of real growth in the budget.157 They were therefore opposed to any move towards changing this, although within the navy and the army there were some who questioned whether they had the right strategy, structure and equipment to implement declaratory policy. All the services had suffered cutbacks during the 1970s and were keen to recover some of the ground lost.158 This had led to a bulking out of the LTCs by the services to meet their requirements. If the programme could not be sustained then this raised fundamental questions about the direction of military strategy and declaratory policy. In opposition the Conservatives had been scathing of Labour’s defence policy. In their election campaign they argued for the need for adequate support of Britain’s armed forces. The short, medium and long-term cycles therefore appeared to be moving in the same direction in May 1979, but this was an illusion. The ideological outlook of the new government ensured that it would become involved in the direction and management of the service programmes. The size and scale of MOD involvement in industry and government meant that defence could not be ignored by those within the Conservative Party who wished to introduce the monetarist ideas only hinted at in their

British Defence Policy in May 1979 31

election manifesto. Moreover, as the subsequent chapters will show, the new administration was unable to ensure that the requisite resources were available to support the LTCs. While the new government sought to stress the threat posed by the Soviet Union and the need for increased defence expenditure, the onset of economic recession meant that they were confronted with some hard decisions.

3 Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981

Introduction The new Conservative government was greatly welcomed by the MOD in May 1979 because they promised to be strong on defence and there appeared to be firm support within the Conservative Party and the Cabinet on this issue.159 This perception was reinforced by Francis Pym’s appointment as Secretary of State for Defence. In the words of one former civil servant ‘he was welcomed because he was a good decent shire MP, which I think the military like. He was a man of great integrity and not out for a sort of quick political fix … and you got a good ministerial team with Geoffrey Pattie etcetera. So things were quite chirpy.’160 What was less apparent was the thinking that lay behind Pym’s appointment. Thatcher’s first Cabinet was composed of many of her shadow Cabinet, including a significant number who would subsequently be labelled ‘wets’.161 It was not until the 1981 reshuffle that the Cabinet began to be dominated by those with a greater political affiliation to her. In 1979, she chose to put those that were in her Cabinet in the key economic posts, which left defence free for someone beyond her immediate circle.162 Pym had been shadow Foreign Secretary163 and the press had identified him as a possible successor to her as leader of the Conservative Party.164 His move to defence, rather than to the Foreign Office, was a clear demotion from what he might have expected. In his autobiography Heseltine noted ‘I passed Francis Pym on my way in, he was looking dejected, having been offered the Ministry of Defence when he had had his heart set on the Foreign Office.’165 For Thatcher this move had two advantages. Firstly, it kept Pym in the Cabinet and therefore subject to the rules of Cabinet which prevented public dissent. Secondly, the MOD was a post 32

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 33

with a considerable workload and this would reduce the impact he could have within Cabinet on other issues.166 This chapter will examine Francis Pym’s time in office. It has been subdivided into two periods to help highlight the ways in which changes in circumstance impacted upon defence policy. The periods are: 1. The application of ideology, May 1979–April 1980 2. The impact of recession, May 1980–January 1981

The application of ideology: May 1979–April 1980 The short-term cycle There was little initial difference in outlook between Pym and Thatcher over defence policy and the MOD had not been identified as an area for early reform. Both adopted the traditional Conservative emphasis on the maritime commitment and Britain’s role East of Suez. 167 Thatcher made this clear in a meeting with senior naval officers when she indicated her intention to shift defence policy towards a traditional one based on maritime forces. However, she recognized that in the short term the continental commitment had to be accepted as a means of ensuring that the US retained its ground forces in Europe.168 In contrast, Pym thought the solution lay in terms of a greater West German commitment in the Atlantic in order to allow the Royal Navy to deploy to the Indian Ocean.169 In general, the new defence team, with the support of the Prime Minister, sought to implement their election promises and achieve rapid and politically visible short-term improvements to Britain’s armed forces. Partly this was political. In opposition the Conservatives had lambasted the previous Labour government and they did not want to leave themselves open to similar criticism, but there was also genuine concern about the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Three areas had, in particular, been identified: service pay, the state of Britain’s air defences and the role of reserve forces.170 In the background lay consideration of the future of the strategic nuclear deterrent. The new government was keen to retain the deterrent and was aware that a decision was needed about a replacement system. However, there was no real view from the defence team about what capabilities the deterrent should have, other than essentially to maintain the status quo and base it on Polaris.171

34 Defence under Thatcher

The medium-term cycle The navy’s thinking remained dominated by its four NATO tasks. The one area of major debate concerned the protection of the transatlantic convoys. Improvements in Soviet submarine technology, particularly the introduction of long-range cruise missiles, and the diminishing number of escorts raised the issue of how best to protect the reinforcement convoys. Admiral Train, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT), suggested that NATO should shift its convoy routes southwards along the Tropic of Cancer at the extreme range of Soviet naval aviation and as far away as possible from Soviet naval bases on the Kola Peninsula. This would force Soviet submarines to pass through the GIUK gap and minimize their time on station to a few days.172 But it also meant increasing the transit time for NATO convoys by four days and concentrating the limited forces available for close escort on the Massindi/Madeira Islands to the Channel ports leg of the journey. Within the Royal Navy this proposal caused lively debate and division.173 The existing policy was somewhat contradictory. The construction programme emphasized the building of highly capable ships, which were then regularly updated. These were notionally equipped to operate and survive in the GIUK gap but it meant that there were insufficient ships available to provide the required number of escorts. Two world wars had taught the Royal Navy that it needed to provide close escorts for the entire journey, supplemented by other forms of convoy protection such as patrols along the GIUK gap. The construction programme therefore encouraged a shift towards Train’s ideas while historical experience suggested that such a move would be wrong and the programme should be changed. This led the Commander-in Chief Fleet, together with the Controller of the Navy and the navy minister, to argue for the adoption of a mixed fleet of first and second-class units in order to meet the navy’s deficit in ship numbers and provide the requisite close escorts.174 They suggested that a number of more austere vessels be designed and purchased as complements to the existing programme:

Submarines Destroyers Frigates MCMVs

First class Trafalgar – SSNs Type 44 Type 22 Hunts

Second class SSKs – Type 2400 Type 42 Type 23 SRMH and River-class

Opinion within the Admiralty Board was divided. The idea had been tried in the 1950s with the building of the second rate Type 14 and

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 35

Type 81 frigates, but it had proved unsatisfactory and production shifted to the general purpose Leander-class frigates. Moreover, less capable ships were implicitly more expendable in wartime, which had significant implications for the morale of their crews and the matter remained unresolved. The Army’s High Command placed its emphasis upon the defence of the Central Front in wartime and its peacetime internal security role in Northern Ireland. They were not interested in taking on any additional roles or commitments. The implementation of the revised army structure following the 1975 Defence Review had been completed and the problems associated with it were already the source of ongoing disagreement within the army. One view was that the best solution was to retain the existing structure with all its faults rather than have the turmoil of further change. The other school considered that the structure was impossible to operate in wartime and that a further reorganization had to occur. The new divisional structure depended upon the timely arrival of UK-based regulars and reservists to bring all the armoured divisions up to strength.175 Improvements in Soviet mobilization times raised concern about the feasibility of a successful Soviet short-warning attack occurring before Britain’s reinforcements had arrived.176 At the tactical level the new larger armoured regiment and mechanized infantry battalions were found to be too unwieldy for effective control within the confines of the North German Plain.177 While opinion within the army was divided on the army’s structure and its strategy for fighting the war in Europe, there was uniform support for the army’s equipment programme and particularly the needs of 1(Br) Corps. Protecting these against further cutbacks remained the principal concern and any improvements were welcomed. For the air force the main objective was to keep the equipment programme on track and prevent any challenge to the air force’s independence.178 The equipment scheduled to enter service was earmarked largely as replacements for existing hardware. No real consideration was being given to changing the philosophy behind its use. The air force was not looking to find new roles or change its doctrine with the result that the idea of equipping the Vulcan as a cruise missile carrier was merely under consideration.179 However, support for this, as a replacement for Polaris, was noticeably absent.180 For the air force the one area in need of change was in the use of reserve forces but even this remained limited. With an increased threat posed to RAF bases from Soviet Spetsnatz forces in wartime, the Chief

36 Defence under Thatcher

of the Air Staff (CAS) hoped to make a greater use of reservists to protect the RAF’s UK bases in wartime.181 However, CAS did not envisage the return of reservists to the flying role and was more concerned to staunch the outflow of aircrew from the service. Long-term cycle Within the long-term cycle the ongoing programmes remained largely unaffected by the change in government, with one exception. The new government placed far greater emphasis upon exports and the need to bear in mind the potential for overseas sales when developing new equipment.182 The focus for the navy and army was largely concentrated on their medium-term programmes, although the navy’s debate about first and second-line vessels led to design work for all these second-class units being undertaken, with little change being made to existing designs. The air force was concerned about the replacement of its fleet of Harrier and Jaguar aircraft. The Harrier’s lack of range and weapons pylons severely restricted its operational potential and the air force wanted to increase both its range and bomb load whilst retaining its STOVL capability. The Jaguar had only been introduced as a stopgap measure to release Phantoms for the air defence role and a replacement capable of operating in all weathers was needed.183 These requirements were combined as part of a general air force policy of reducing the overall types of platform and discussions with Britain’s European partners were initiated to fulfil what was designated AST.403.184 The interaction of the time-cycles, May 1979–April 1980 The government’s support for the East of Suez role immediately brought it into conflict with all three services. The build-up of Soviet forces in Europe, and the European focus that emerged out of the defence reductions from 1968 onwards, discouraged the services from considering the East of Suez role. All three felt that their forces were stretched enough and did not wish to earmark forces to this additional task. It was perhaps surprising that the navy did not seek to encourage the government’s desire to move away from the continental commitment towards a more maritime oriented East of Suez role. The wounds of the 1966 Defence Review were still evident and the navy’s leadership were not looking to be drawn into a direct confrontation with the other two services.185 More fundamental was the change within the navy in favour of its NATO roles. This had led to a change in the rela-

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 37

tive influence of the different parts of the navy away from those associated with the power projection role. With the services looking to protect their programmes and force structures in the medium term, Pym and his defence team sided with the military view on East of Suez. No significant policy change was implemented although there were a few nominal concessions. The navy did agree to increase its periodic deployment of individual units beyond the NATO region and to put a task force together every couple of years.186 The subsequent Iran-Iraq War led to the creation of the Armilla Patrol and the permanent deployment of Royal Navy forces in the Gulf again. The air force used the East of Suez argument to reinforce its existing requirements for additional tanker aircraft and the conversion of nine VC-10 aircraft to the tanker role was approved.187 The one major impact of the defence team’s East of Suez emphasis was on army plans. The army wanted to revise the role of the Parachute Regiment into an air-mobile, anti-tank force capable of dealing with the new Soviet development, the Operational Manoeuvre Group (OMG), on the Central Front.188 The government’s emphasis on East of Suez led them to conclude that the implementation of these plans was unrealistic within the existing political climate. The government was unlikely to agree to the loss of the parachute battalion notionally earmarked to the out-of-area role. Instead the army chose to continue the policy of keeping one parachute battalion within 6 Field Force as the out-of-area force and it firmly rejected the suggestion that the brigade level of support should be reintroduced into the Parachute Regiment so that an Independent Parachute Brigade could be reformed. With the short and medium-term outlooks in conflict both the military and the Conservative defence team accepted a status quo compromise. Despite the intransigence of the three services and the compromises reached with the defence team, the East of Suez issue refused to go away because of the Prime Minister’s support for it. This was given greater prominence following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979 and Mrs Thatcher began to press for a British contribution to the US Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF).189 In this she had the support of the US and active consideration was given to assigning a parachute battalion to the RDJTF. However, nothing actually came of the proposals. Surprisingly, in the discussions that followed, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) role was limited. However, it did provide an indication of the reduced role the FCO would play in defence matters during this administration.

38 Defence under Thatcher

There was a noticeably rapid response to the three areas that the Conservatives had criticized Labour on: service pay; the weakness of Britain’s air defences; and the failure to use the reserves properly. Within a week of entering office the Conservatives adopted in full the recommendations of the pay review board. According to one senior official they had little choice. The situation had reached crisis point where something had to be done. ‘The main thing we were hoping for, and indeed expected, was a comparable level of Service pay right across the board with civilian pay which, under the Labour administration, became seriously depressed to the point and, if it had occurred 50 years before, and certainly 100 years before, there would have been a mutiny.’190 This pay award immediately caused problems within the Cabinet. From the start the Treasury team attempted to cap the defence budget, but they were forced to accept that the Treasury and not the MOD would meet the initial pay rise. The Treasury had little option. The size of the increase meant that if it had come out of the existing defence budget then there would have had to be significant cutbacks elsewhere. This was politically unacceptable for the new government. However, instead of increasing the MOD budget to compensate for the additional payments the Treasury chose to find the increase out of its own reserves. The reasoning was simple: when it came to working out the 3 per cent increase in the defence budget for the subsequent fiscal year this amount could be excluded.191 Despite the rapidity with which the pay award was put through, the ramifications of low pay and poor conditions could not be immediately resolved. Manpower shortages forced the government temporarily to reduce individual naval and army units.192 This was embarrassing for the government, although they could place the blame on the previous administration. The navy sought to ease the government’s position by relegating the ships to the newly reformed standby squadron, which allowed the government to continue to count them within the navy’s effective strength. For the navy there were two advantages. First, it allowed the navy to retain some ships that already had new vessels earmarked to replace them and thus increased the navy’s strength in escorts. Second, by retaining these ships in service the government implicitly agreed that they would have to be replaced again, which made the increase permanent.193 The army and air force approaches was different. The army chose temporarily to lose an infantry company in the worst affected battalions rather than to disband entire battalions. This was a better solution

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 39

for the army since its units were manpower rather than equipment oriented, which meant that it was easier to bring existing units up to strength than to resurrect units once they had been lost. The main problem for the air force was a shortage of aircrew and it already operated with a reduced aircrew-aircraft ratio.194 If it retained squadrons in service then there was the possibility of the aircraft-aircrew ratio dropping below NATO’s minimum requirements, which would have been deeply embarrassing for the government. Simply disbanding squadrons would have let the government avoid the situation, but again would have been embarrassing. This forced the government to consider how to rectify this problem and led them to adopt the air force’s solution. This was to purchase additional Hawk trainers and expand the number of training units supplying aircrew, thereby increasing the RAF’s overall strength. There was an additional carrot for the government. If these Hawk aircraft were equipped as reserve fighters then the government would also be able to highlight its commitment to Britain’s air defences. Having criticized the state of Britain’s air defences the Conservatives sought rapid measures to improve the situation. With the agreement of the air force a package of measures was announced in July 1979.195 These included equipping part of the Hawk training fleet with air-to-air missiles as a means of increasing the fighter strength in the short term. This not only gave these aircraft a wartime role and the government the means to show its commitment to defence, it also had a long-term implication. It meant that when these aircraft were replaced their successors would have to have an air defence capability. The defence team also sought to obtain a greater share of NATO funds and announced the decision to construct hardened aircraft shelters in the United Kingdom.196 These qualified for NATO’s Physical Protection Programme funding if a number of measures were undertaken. As a result, the Bloodhound squadron in Germany was withdrawn to the United Kingdom to help meet the requirements.197 This gave the Bloodhound a far more significant role than it had in Germany and justified the air force’s examination of a successor. They obtained approval to begin collaborative studies with the French and Germans on a future ground-to-air missile system.198 In themselves the improvements made to Britain’s air defences were insufficient politically. The government therefore forced the RAF to reinvestigate the practicality of either creating a third Lightning squadron using aircraft held in storage or leasing American F-15 or F-4 aircraft on a short-term basis to fill the ‘fighter gap’.199 While the quickest solution was to use the Lightnings in store there were problems.

40 Defence under Thatcher

These were already earmarked to maintain the existing force in operation until the entry of the Tornado F2 into service. Creating a third squadron would result in the entire fleet of Lightning aircraft running out of airframe life before the Tornado F2 entered service.200 The leasing option also had problems attached. It was doubtful whether the US Air Force had any F-15s spare. There were F-4s available but their lack of compatibility with the RAF’s existing fleet would have had considerable cost implications for such a small improvement.201 The Air Force Board reiterated its preferred option of accelerating and enlarging the Tornado F2 programme while accepting a period of risk. It recognized that any increase in front-line squadron strength, albeit temporary, was perfectly acceptable as long as it was not at the expense of an existing programme. Their reasoning was that once inaugurated the government would find it politically difficult subsequently to abandon this measure without a considerable loss of face at home and abroad. In the medium term the aircraft involved would need replacing and the RAF would effectively receive a long-term increase to its air defence fighter force. Bringing the Tornado F2 programme forward would also free funds in the latter years of the LTCs for other programmes, assuming the cost of this did not come from other air force programmes, and the air force was planning to have the AST.403 on stream at this point. The government subsequently announced its decision to form a third Lightning squadron and that it was considering bringing the Tornado F2 programme forward.202 With an increase in the Lightning force, thought was given to an increased Tornado F2 purchase by converting the order for the last 20 Tornado GR1s to the fighter variant.203 This would provide the necessary aircraft for increasing the RAF’s fighter strength while still providing sufficient Tornado GR1s to replace the existing Vulcan, Buccaneer and Canberra force. The short-term political needs of the government had forced it to acquiesce to the air force’s medium-term plans to increase the overall size of the Tornado F2 force by ultimately replacing the third Lightning squadron with additional Tornado F2s. Neither government or RAF mentioned the problem of finding aircrew for the new squadron. It was an issue neither wished to raise. In fact, for the air force it provided further reason for expanding their training capacity and purchasing additional Hawk trainers. The government also emphasized the importance of Britain’s reserve forces and sought to give them a more prominent role. They represented a relatively inexpensive means of gaining significant political

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 41

capital by increasing British armed forces and using forces that had hitherto been largely neglected. The navy’s response was to let the government push through the formation of a Royal Naval Reserve Air Branch204 and it placed more emphasis on the mine counter-measures role capability by giving the reservists their own vessels. Trials with two converted trawlers had already validated this idea, which dovetailed into the high–low force idea circulating within the navy. An initial reserve force of 12 boats was planned to provide one for each of the reserve divisions.205 In the army the reserve forces had a far more significant role to play. The government’s wish that the reserves be given a more prominent role gave the army an opportunity to try and tackle the problem of improved Soviet mobilization times. The army suggested, and it was readily accepted by the government, that improvements should be made to the mobilization procedures, which would reduce by half the time taken to mobilize the reserves. The government also announced an annual bounty scheme as a means of keeping track of regular reservists.206 To equip them, a number of purchases were announced, including a £20m order for Blowpipe surface-to-air missiles to equip the Territorial Army units deployed to Germany in wartime.207 The emphasis on reservists fitted into the CAS’s desire to counter the growing threat posed to RAF bases in Britain.208 The formation of the first three Royal Auxiliary Air Force (RAuxAF) ground defence squadrons was announced, tasked with airfield defence against Soviet special forces.209 Plans were prepared to expand this number significantly if the trial proved successful. However, any question of the defence team considering an airborne role for the reserve forces was firmly blocked by the air force, despite Conservative backbench support for such a measure.210 In general the government sought to find short-term measures that could improve the services capabilities. Pym’s first move was to try and ascertain what the services needed to achieve this. The Chiefs of Staff were somewhat reticent in their response, which reflected their concern about the impact of short-term changes on their existing programmes. Instead of replying with an immediate wish list, they simply asked how much extra money was available so that they could apportion it between the three services, rather than haggle over what would be the optimum defence purchase with this additional money. In reply the government reiterated its request for a breakdown of force requirements and this issue circulated around the MOD for some time with no formal resolution.211

42 Defence under Thatcher

Informally the issue was addressed as the three services individually sought to tie in their programmes to the government’s aim of making short-term improvements. For the navy this was harder to achieve. The previous Labour government had ordered a significant number of ships just prior to the election.212 This meant that the ‘actual flow of these ships coming, or the quota of ships due to come, was already pretty full and was making it difficult to add money without overstuffing the programme’.213 To keep the SSN programme on stream the order for a third Trafalgar-class boat was announced.214 Resort was made to the state-owned merchant shipping yards and an order was placed for a seabed operations vessel from Scott Lithgow to help keep that yard in operation pending future RFA orders.215 Recourse was also made to the private dockyards and orders for the first two of a new class of offshore patrol vessel (OPVs) from Hall Russell were confirmed.216 The defence team sought to leave the debate about the army’s structure with its attendant political pitfalls alone. The idea of restoring the brigade level of command was rejected since it would have left the government open to accusations of merely increasing the number of army headquarters while neglecting the front line. Instead ministerial approval was given to attempts to deal with the problems of command and control of the new armoured divisions by establishing the Task Force headquarters in peacetime rather than leave them ad hoc or restoring the brigade level of command.217 The government also announced that the army would undertake Exercise Crusader 80, a significant reinforcement exercise undertaken in Germany in 1980, which would help to establish the extent of the problem.218 At the regimental/battalion level the idea of converting some of the armoured reconnaissance regiments to armoured regiments was rejected.219 Such a move would have highlighted the shortage of main battle tanks prior to the introduction of MBT-80 and undermined the existing divisional structure. Overall, government support tended to be with the more conservative elements within each service, as long as these elements helped to show that the government was making individual improvements. From the start of the new government’s time in office the General Staff’s emphasis upon the MBT-80 tank programme received its full support. ‘The Government attach the greatest importance to the timely introduction of the Army’s new main battle tank MBT-80, which remains its first priority equipment, and good progress is being made with the project definition.’220 However, these studies had already

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 43

begun to slip so that by April 1980 the project was not even referred to in the defence estimates.221 At the same time concern with the increasing threat posed by Soviet forces raised the issue of whether there were sufficient British tank forces in the existing fleet. The Army Board were in favour of a further purchase of 77 Chieftain tanks as an interim measure to bring the war maintenance reserve of 1 (Br) Corps up to strength.222 However, this decision became embroiled in the Iranian cancellation of its arms purchases from Britain. The 300 Shir-1s manufactured for the Iranians by ROF (Royal Ordnance Factory) Leeds were rapidly sold to Jordan but the Shir-2, then under construction, presented a problem. Although designed for desert warfare it incorporated the new Chobham armour which not only limited where it could be sold but made it superior to the Chieftains the army were proposing to purchase.223 With little prospect of selling these tanks elsewhere ROF Leeds was confronted with the prospect of no work until the MBT-80 programme was produced. Given that the in-service date for this was already slipping into the 1990s the government was faced with the prospect of making significant redundancies while preparing ROF for privatization. This would not make it an attractive package for investors and would leave the government open to criticism. Since unemployment was rising and the government was emphasizing the size of the Soviet tank inventory it was difficult for them to justify the loss of tank production facilities.224 The defence team therefore put the Chieftain order on hold while it rapidly reappraised the situation. In the debate on the Conservatives’ first defence estimates a package of army improvements was announced. These included an interim purchase of an additional 48 M109 self-propelled guns to help remedy the poor state of 1 (Br) Corps’ artillery in the short term.225 This order was satisfactory to both the government in the short term and the army in the medium term. The government was able to gain political capital from this package of improvements during the defence debate. For the army it posed no threat to the existing SP-70 programme, since these guns were earmarked to increase the size of gun batteries rather than replace existing weaponry. In fact the new M109 order implied a commitment to the purchase of more SP-70s than then currently planned in the medium term. The purchase of an unspecified number of MLRS was also announced,226 together with a further order for 14 Lynx helicopters.227 For the air force the Tornado programme remained the key programme. Apart from its air defence improvements the air force hoped

44 Defence under Thatcher

to use what additional funds were available to reopen the Nimrod production line and purchase an additional batch of maritime reconnaissance aircraft.228 These would offset those earmarked for conversion to the AEW role and allow a slight increase in the force. Ultimately this would then allow the air force to replace the maritime-tasked Vulcans with additional Nimrods. However, approval was not received during this period. The future strategic nuclear deterrent was discussed but the defence team gave no consideration to any change in nuclear strategy. They merely looked at the existing requirement to satisfy the Moscow criteria (the ability to successfully strike at the Soviet capital) and endorsed that.229 This was somewhat surprising, given the comparative freedom that the Conservatives had to discuss nuclear matters compared to Labour, and perhaps reflected an increasing concern with the unilateralist trend among public opinion. The three services also endorsed this view, much to the dismay of others within the MOD who hoped to broaden the debate.230 No strategic review was undertaken of the capability requirements at either the strategic or sub-strategic levels.231 Although no decision was formally announced, opinion quickly settled upon the Trident C4 system, which had already been recommended during Callaghan’s studies.232 The idea of equipping the Vulcan with cruise missiles was left unanswered. The air force was quite content to retain these aircraft in service as long as they did not interfere with the introduction of the Tornado GR1 into service and the Vulcans remained a peripheral programme.232 In the meantime, the existence of the Polaris improvement programme, Chevaline, was announced. This served to further intensify the divisions within the Labour Party over the nuclear deterrent, which emerged during the spring defence debate when a considerable number of Labour MPs voted against the defence estimates.234 Many within Labour’s multilateralist wing felt that this was a deliberate act by the government to exploit the division within the Labour Party and divert attention from the government’s deeply unpopular economic policy.235 While the defence team, with the support of the Prime Minister, were making initial improvements to Britain’s military forces they were confronted by opposition from the Treasury team which was to have a subsequent impact upon the medium and long-term cycles. From the beginning the Treasury sought to cap the defence budget: My Treasury team and I fought hard to avoid a commitment to increase NATO expenditure annually by three per cent more than

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 45

the rate of inflation. Before the election, Ian Gilmour had loyally declined to commit the party to this. But after the election it was Francis Pym who took over the defence portfolio, and he was (wrongly) advised that the party was already committed to the NATO target. We challenged this at a meeting of the Cabinet Defence Committee, and we lost, with Margaret on the wrong side.236 This was the first of a string of early defence victories over the Treasury with Thatcher adopting her ‘Iron Lady’ rather than ‘Iron Chancellor’ outlook. The MOD was also favoured by an increase in its cash limit at a time when the other government departments had their cash limits reduced.237 Nevertheless the Treasury did fight back and managed to base the new cash limit on the low base line of the 1979/80 out-turn of expenditure, which had been depressed by an unusually large under-spend that year due to slips in major projects, instead of from the estimated cost of the existing Labour programme. This resulted in the new Government’s programme being put on a lower and increasingly divergent level of funding from Labour’s projected growth line, reducing the Chiefs expectations by some £1,400m over a four-year period.238 Despite these early conflicts with the Treasury the Chiefs of Staff managed to get Pym to agree to very positive planning assumptions being taken within the LTCs. These included the view that there would be 3 per cent growth for the years until FY 85–86 and a 3 per cent increase in real terms after that.239 This meant that the government’s short-term and the services’ medium-term hopes looked on paper as though they could be accommodated but the reality of these assumptions were already open to question within the MOD.240 Moreover, Thatcher’s initial enthusiasm and support for defence rather than her Treasury team was tempered by her early experience of the purchase of the Stingray torpedo. It had severely overrun its projected costs and raised questions in her mind about the efficiency of the MOD.241 This would subsequently cause Pym problems when he sought her support in his ongoing battle with the Treasury and, more importantly, make her less sympathetic to the Royal Navy when it came to the Nott review. Conclusions The government entered office with the expressed aim of shifting overall policy towards a more maritime, East of Suez outlook in the

46 Defence under Thatcher

short term. This view was directly opposed by all three services who were concerned about the impact of such a shift in orientation on their defence programmes and strategy in the medium term. With medium and short-term cycles at loggerheads no change occurred as Pym accepted the services argument and only nominal gestures were made to the East of Suez role. Thatcher was unhappy at Pym’s acceptance of the status quo but, without the support of her defence team, she was unable to alter the existing declaratory policy or shift military strategy away from its NATO focus. However, her ongoing moves towards the American RDJTF forced the army to abandon its plans for the Parachute Regiment and ensured that this retained a limited airborne capability for the out-of-area role. This left a gap in the army’s capabilities to which they would later return. The Conservatives entered office with three areas of defence they particularly wanted to see improved. The issue of service pay united both the government and the services and the increases were put through. However, the Treasury team were aware of the implications of this for overall government expenditure and managed to limit the increase in defence spending by the clever use of its reserves. This had implications for the LTCs as pay rises continued to increase at a faster rate than the defence budget. Improvements to the United Kingdom’s air defences were dictated by the requirements of the medium-term cycle. The RAF accepted the arming of the Hawk trainers because it suited them, while the government’s aim of creating an additional fighter squadron in the short term was used to increase the air force’s strength in the medium term. It was also able to use the short-term political needs of the defence team to get approval for initial studies on a long-term replacement for Bloodhound. Without such a move the future of the missile looked uncertain. The government’s emphasis on the better use of reserves was seized upon by the army to try and remedy the concern they had about Soviet mobilization rates. Mutually supporting medium-term and short-term cycles’ objectives led to a number of measures being rapidly taken, with a number of defence orders announced to support them. The navy and the air force differed in their level of opposition to reservists as aircrew, the result being the creation of reserve aircrew for the navy but not for the air force. Both were willing to use reservists in other areas and this allowed the government to announce the formation of the first RAuxAF ground defence squadrons and the plan to purchase minesweepers for the Royal Naval Reserve.

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 47

In all these cases the outcome was largely dictated by the services’ medium-term outlook. The defence team were able to get issues or items onto the defence agenda but they were unable to determine their outcome. When the defence team did not push for an issue to be addressed, such as the assumptions underpinning the Polaris replacement programme, the subject was not addressed. This would seem to confirm that the services already had their agenda set out within their strategies and the LTCs and did not need to be proactive in determining policy. The Conservatives did little actually to change the balance between the services or between the elements within the individual services. Their concern had largely been with the visible short-term improvement to the British armed forces. They were only partially successful because the services failed to state what their requirements actually were. Nevertheless, it did provide them with some political capital with which to attack the increasingly unilateralist Labour Party. Most prominent in all this was the announcement of the existence of the Chevaline programme, which did much to undermine the more prominent multilateralists within the Labour Party who had served within the previous government. The government’s enthusiasm for the East of Suez role did not lead to any significant change in policy or redistribution of resources between the services. However, it did allow the services to use the exercise to further entrench themselves within their NATO tasks.

The impact of recession: May 1980–January 1981 Short-term cycle FY 80–81 was to prove to be one of the most difficult for the Conservatives.242 Although the defence team’s priorities remained unchanged events forced them to modify their approach. The MOD’s initial honeymoon period came to a rapid end during the spring of 1980. ‘By the winter of 1979–80, less than a year after Margaret Thatcher’s government took office, it was in the grip of economic crisis, raging inflation and rising unemployment.’243 With the onset of a world recession and a rise in the value of sterling, British industry found its markets abroad and at home diminishing. The businesses involved in defence initially employed their under-utilized staff to fulfil their defence contracts. This resulted in a marked improvement in the delivery time of equipment and services to the MOD.244 The inbuilt buffer within the LTCs of around 20 per cent,245 which allowed

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for the difference between the negotiated delivery dates and actual delivery dates, suddenly became a liability as contracts were fulfilled on time and in some cases early. This position was unheard of, and a rapid outflow of funds from the MOD followed, resulting in the MOD exceeding its cash limits for FY 79–80 by £200m.246 Under pressure from the Treasury the defence team were forced to agree that this deficit would be made up in the following year. But the outflow looked set to continue and the defence team were presented with the prospect of having to find funds for what they had actually contracted for that year, rather than what was planned for in the LTCs, less the buffer. The short-term view focused on managing this situation and the effects of the Iranian cancellation of its arms agreements with Britain.

Medium-term cycle All three services were adamant that their existing programmes were essential for the maintenance of British defence policy but all recognized that some cutbacks were inevitable. Their principal objective lay in minimizing the impact upon their respective service. All were aware of the damage caused to their individual services by the ongoing cutbacks of the previous 15 years. They differed only in the tactics they proposed to use. With its outlook fixed on preserving its existing roles and procurement plans the navy adopted the widest range of tactics to preserve its core elements. It sought to forestall a review for as long as possible. Cancellations to its peripheral programmes and delays to its core interests were accepted, but it was not prepared to see its main building programmes compromised in the long term or reductions made to the overall size of the fleet. Initially the army’s approach was similar and it sought to trim its peripheral programmes. However, with a smaller overall equipment budget, greater emphasis was given to cuts in training, although this had significant implications for the retention of personnel. Where major cutbacks were required the preservation of 1 (Br) Corps remained the main priority. The air force was also concerned about the implications of cuts to its major programmes, especially the Tornado. It generally adopted similar methods to the navy, but with one major exception. It decided that pressing for an enlarged training capability was no longer viable within the existing budget, and it was more prepared to accept short-term

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 49

reductions in its front-line strength to preserve its longer-term programmes. The determining factor was the preservation of the Tornado programme within the LTCs. Long-term cycle With the debate within the navy focusing on the issue of a high–low mix of units there was a shift in long-term thinking towards the lower end as the influence of the new Navy Minister, Commander-in-Chief Channel and Controller of the Navy came into play. Platform numbers rather than weapon systems increasingly became the paramount determinant of navy thinking and the Type 23 design emerged as a very austere frigate whose main role initially was to carry the new towedarray sonar for the detection of Soviet submarines at long range.247 The approach to the new SSK was different and reflected the navy’s willingness to seek other solutions. The decision was taken to make the design more suitable for export by enlarging it and to obtain savings through quantity production.248 The army’s long-term thinking remained largely unchanged while the air force continued to increase collaboration as the main mechanism it could use to protect its major programmes. The interaction of the time-cycles Pym preferred to avoid making significant policy changes so he argued in favour of raising the MOD’s cash limit.249 At the same time he formed the Defence Programme Working Party (DPWP) to let the military manage the problem confronting the MOD. He felt they were best equipped to make the appropriate defence decisions.250 The result was a DPWP manned and run by the Central Staffs but with senior civilian staff on it. This reflected an internal boost for the Central Staffs position vis-à-vis the individual services with whom they liaised. The DPWP and the defence team agreed that this ‘mini-review’ should leave service pay alone. All three services were still suffering from the outflow of key personnel and stemming this remained the first priority. Moreover, it was extremely unlikely that the government would accept the political fall-out from such a solution. Increases of 17–20 per cent for officers and 15–17 per cent for soldiers were therefore announced in April 1981.251 This further exacerbated the fiscal pressure on the defence budget since the previous pay increase had been funded out of Treasury reserves. The navy was the most over-committed and eventually accepted reductions of £1.8bn from its share of the LTCs.252 This was achieved

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through several means. Preference was given to the sacrifice of weapons, rather than platforms since these were more likely to be reinstated within the LTCs if the economy picked up. As a result, the Sea Dart redesign and the Sea Skua mid-life update programmes were axed.253 Plans to convert RFA Tarbatness to the amphibious role were abandoned because this remained a peripheral task whose long-term future was already in doubt following the earlier loss of the LPD replacements.254 RFA Tarbatness was instead earmarked for sale so that the income could be used to relieve the cash flow pressure on the MOD.255 The navy had already bulked out the LTCs with ships that they did not expect to get, as a cushion against future cuts.256 So orders for a number of destroyers and frigates were lost, together with those for the first four minehunters for the reserves, the first three of six new survey ships, and a second batch of ten Sea Harriers.257 The minehunter decision was potentially the most embarrassing for the government given its emphasis upon the reserves, and represented a gamble by the navy that it would, in fact, be subsequently reinstated. The survey ships, like RFA Tarbatness, were of secondary importance and could be sacrificed, while the Sea Harriers were an attrition batch, which could be reinstated if funds subsequently became available. In contrast, the importance of the SSN programme led to the order for the fourth Trafalgar SSN being delayed by only six months so that the costs would begin in the next financial year.258 The replacement of the navy’s old RFA tankers was an obvious area for delay or cancellation. Instead the navy chose to find a new financing mechanism to begin replacing its old RFA tankers. It arranged a deal whereby a series of tankers were built at Cammell Laird for civilian owners who then chartered them on a long-term basis to the navy.259 This meant that the costs of the new vessels would be spread over the full life of the ships rather than being concentrated in their early years. To the defence team it was appealing and imaginative, allowing the navy to build rather than cancel orders. Moreover, it provided work for Cammell Laird in a time of recession. For the navy the decision was more significant. Cammell Laird was the only shipyard besides Barrow with experience of producing nuclear submarines.260 It was clear to the navy before the decision to acquire the Trident system was officially announced that it needed to keep the Cammell Laird workforce intact if it wanted to maintain the existing SSN programme intact while it built the new SSBNs. The Trident announcement followed in July 1980 and indicated that the first order was expected within 18 months.261 The number of boats

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 51

to be purchased remained undecided, with four seen as the minimum and five a possibility. If a fifth boat were ordered this would allow the navy to maintain two boats at sea at all times, whereas four boats in service meant that for part of the time only one boat was at sea. The lack of decision reflected the lack of strategic debate. The navy found five boats appealing because of the redundancy they provided while the Treasury wanted three to minimize the cost, particularly as there was no budgetary provision within the LTCs to take account of the projected £5bn cost.262 The army programme initially suffered at the margins. Orders for logistic support road vehicles were slowed down, and restrictions were placed on training levels to save on fuel and ammunition costs. This ministers allowed, despite the criticism they had levelled at the previous government about similar measures. Exercise Crusader 80 was, however, protected. For the defence team it was symbolic of their commitment to defence and would be politically embarrassing to cancel, while to the army it would help settle the disputes about the future of 1 (Br) Corps. Escalating costs and slippage in the planned in-service date forced the government to announce the cancellation of MBT-80. This left the army with the choice of continuing with the Chieftain, pending its replacement with a new design sometime in the 1990s, or partially replacing it with a modified Shir-2 tank. The Army Board, under pressure from the government and aware that a future Chieftain replacement might also be cancelled, opted to order a batch of these tanks, calling them Challenger, for entry into service in the mid-1980s.263 It was initially envisaged that these would re-equip one of the four armoured divisions at an estimated cost of £300m.264 Ultimately, the Army Board accepted that the Challenger would replace half of BAOR’s tank force, but only on the understanding that the government would agree to the replacement of the remainder being subject to review, rather than accepting an all Challenger fleet at the outset.265 Although this order did not completely replace the lost work, it did place the ROFs on a sound financial footing in the short to medium term in preparation for its subsequent privatization. For the army it represented the only way for it to guarantee that it remain in the armoured warfare business. The Challenger directly affected the replacement of the army’s FV432 armoured personnel carrier (APC), which was announced at the same time.266 The Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) had pushed for the acceptance of the American Bradley because it had TOW anti-tank missiles, which gave it an ability to destroy enemy tanks. Both the ViceChief of the General Staff and the Chief of the General Staff (CGS)

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were against equipping their new infantry carrier with anti-tank missiles. For them the APC’s role was merely that of a battlefield bus and to equip it for anti-tank missions would lead to the blurring of the division between APC and tank, thereby undermining the role of the tank. The decision went before the Minister for Defence Procurement who opted for Warrior, justifying his decision on the need to preserve jobs in Wolverhampton.267 The higher than expected cost of the new APC, the acquisition of the Challenger and the decision to purchase the Trident C-4 system led to a reduction in the order for Warriors from 1800–2000 to approximately 1000.268 This meant that the army would have to retain the FV-432 in a number of roles pending replacement by an additional order for Warrior or an alternative vehicle some time in the future. The air force, like the navy, was also concerned about the implications of cuts to its major programmes, especially the Tornado. Consequently it adopted methods similar to the Royal Navy with the result that the government’s emphasis on air defence and the reserves were early casualties. The air force lost any enthusiasm it had for increasing Lightning squadron numbers when the costs became apparent.269 To try and placate the defence team the RAF suggested that the existing Lightning Training Flight should form the basis of a wartime squadron rather than create a new squadron. It also halted its plans to create further RAuxAF ground defence squadrons270 and delayed indefinitely the purchase of new aircraft for its communications fleet, despite significant pressure placed upon it for such an order from British Aerospace (BAe) who were searching for a launch customer for their new Jetstream aircraft.271 Other cuts were needed and the air force opted to accept a big reduction in the training area despite a 13 per cent shortage of fast jet pilots.272 Instead aircrew shortages were accepted and the decision was taken to rectify this problem over a longer time frame.273 This led to the abandonment of plans for an additional batch of Hawk trainers. These cuts ran the risk of allowing the aircrew–aircraft ratio to fall below the NATO minimum and reinforced the need to avoid forming the third Lightning squadron. The temporary grounding of the Buccaneer fleet with metal fatigue helped the RAF’s predicament.274 Indicative of the quest for short-term savings was the fact that no attempt was made to expand the front-line strength of other aircraft types to compensate for the Buccaneer grounding. To protect the Tornado programme further the ALARM anti-radar missile programme was temporarily cancelled.275 Here the air force, like the navy, axed other weapons programmes instead of platforms, since

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 53

they were easier to reinstate, or platforms that had replacements on order that could not be cancelled, such as the Tornado programme. The requirement to offset the Trident C-4 costs led the RAF to agree to the DPWP’s decision to cancel the joint Harrier/Jaguar replacement AST.403.276 The search for European partners had proven unsuccessful with none interested in the stipulated STOVL capability. Instead the RAF decided to seek separate replacements for these aircraft. AST.411 was hurriedly written as a Harrier replacement with the American AV8B in mind. Entry into service was planned for the mid to late 1980s. A new AST.403 was written to replace the Jaguar in the long term. The delay in replacing the Jaguar gave the air force cause for concern since it meant that the Jaguar would have to remain in service for far longer than was thought desirable. Meanwhile, the Buccaneer, an aircraft considered by many to be more capable, was scheduled to be phased out of service with the Tornado’s arrival.277 While the DPWP sought to relieve the pressure on the LTCs in the short to medium term the defence team were forced to impose a moratorium for three months to try and reduce the outflow of cash from the MOD.278 The government was forced to make significant reductions in training and fuel as a short-term remedy.279 These decisions reflected the government’s willingness to allow short-term cuts to be managed by a service so that their medium-term programmes could be preserved. In July 1980 the Cabinet also agreed to implement Treasury demands for a £4bn reduction in the planned government expenditure for FY 80–81.280 While more or less united in their agreement that cutbacks were necessary, the Cabinet remained deeply divided over which departments should suffer the brunt of the reductions, with each spending minister seeking to justify why their department should be excluded from the exercise.281 For Pym the experience of the mini-review, together with the moratorium had led him to draw a number of conclusions. ‘As the consequence of significant cuts and the weight of decisions to implement them became more evident so too did the assessment that to carry them through would make no political, military or economic sense; the exercise fizzled.’282 This position was supported by the army’s first large-scale bolstered exercise for a number of years in September 1980. Not only did the results of this exercise appear to give credence to the army’s claim that it had been starved of funding but it also bolstered the belief within the leadership of all three services that further cuts would make no military sense.283 This view they conveyed to Pym who agreed with them.284

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By the autumn the allocation of £2bn of Treasury reductions was still not agreed.285 According to Geoffrey Howe, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Treasury ‘had two prime targets for savings of more than £500m each: defence procurement costs and welfare benefits. I saw the Ministry of Defence as recidivist over-spenders. Programme after programme exceeded budgeted cost.’284 The Treasury received an unfavourable response from the defence team with the result that the situation came before Cabinet. In this confrontation the uncompromising support for defence from the Prime Minister, which had existed in June 1979, vanished. Her experience of the Stingray torpedo programme left her with the belief that the government was not getting value for money from the MOD. The result was considerable Cabinet disagreement over the level of defence cuts. Pym summoned the Conservative Backbench Committee on Defence to brief them and obtain their support and the suggestion that Pym was prepared to resign over the issue was leaked to the press.287 While on the side of the Treasury, Thatcher was concerned about whether Pym would resign. Pym’s position as a potential threat to her leadership meant that some form of compromise agreement had to be reached. This became especially true for Thatcher when support for Pym’s position within the Cabinet became more apparent.288 Pym had prepared his case and mobilized the Chiefs of Staff into exercising their right of an audience with the Prime Minister to express their concern.289 Thatcher was forced to back down from her support for the Treasury and defence reductions of less than £200m for FY 80–81 were agreed. This meant a reduction from 3 to 2.5 per cent in the growth of the defence budget in real terms. Pym made no real attempt to provide a justification for the reductions in military terms and instead left it to the Treasury team to substantiate the cuts to Parliament.290 The services were again asked to put the requisite reductions together. For the major actors involved within the MOD, it was a question of when and by whom a review would take place, and as a result the last few months of Pym’s time in office led to a considerable amount of jockeying for position. While the services ostensibly sought to make the reductions called for under the mini-review, they tried to ensure that they protected their major programmes from any subsequent review. Within the Central Staff the work of the DPWP had provided the Secretary of State for Defence with the type of information that he needed from a tri-service standpoint. It reinforced the Central Staff’s view that they were best suited to conduct the forthcoming review and

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 55

they began to make initial studies into this as a prelude to taking the leading role. According to one official, Mason, the CSA, concluded that the co-ordination of weapons programmes, involving both weapon systems and platforms was at best erratic and at worst non-existent.291 Mason had therefore decided to confront the problem and undertake a review of the capabilities required from Britain’s armed forces to meet the threat posed by the Soviet Union and then to re-evaluate the best way of obtaining those capabilities rather than to advise each service individually on its replacement programmes. His report was forwarded to Pym, raising the profile of the CSA. This would subsequently become important during the Nott review. The navy abandoned its expansion plans and sold or scrapped a number of ships early, including the ASW/commando carrier HMS Bulwark. It also disposed of the majority of ships already in the standby squadron, including the heavy repair ship HMS Triumph.292 While this represented an about turn on earlier naval policy it provided a ready means of making the short-term savings required without having a significant effect upon the active fleet. The early retirement of a number of labour-intensive ships had the added benefit of freeing naval personnel for posting to the new ships about to enter service at a time of continued personnel shortages. Since the majority of these vessels had already been replaced in the active fleet these actions did not have a major effect on the naval programme in the medium term. Rather they represented the navy’s acknowledgement that it could not discreetly increase the size of the fleet. The one exception was the scrapping of the heavy repair ship whose role before being placed in reserve had been that of servicing the navy’s warships East of Suez. The loss of this ship represented a loss of capability and a practical undermining of the Conservatives’ East of Suez outlook. The reductions were, however, deeply embarrassing for the government, especially in the light of their argument that the Trident C-4 purchase would have no effect on conventional forces. It caused some within the navy to question the need for Trident and to raise the issue of whether a cruise missile equipped SSN force would be better. This would have been cheaper if the existing Moscow criteria were abandoned but the government vetoed this. Also, the Navy Board as a whole was not prepared to promote such an option.293 For the army Exercise Crusader 80 had been significant. It had shown that the divisional structure was unworkable and the regiment/battalion size was ill suited to war on the Central Front.

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Although the reservists had been deployed in time they generally arrived exhausted and not ready for battle. This encouraged the army to consider the forward deployment of more of the regular forces. In contrast, the government wanted to reduce BAOR down from its existing size of 59 000 to the treaty minimum of 55 000 as a reduction of the burden on Britain’s foreign exchange reserves. According to a senior official it was Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall who sought out the PUS to discuss the potential cuts to BAOR prior to taking command of 1 (Br) Corps. They agreed that he would manage a reduction in personnel to the treaty minimum without undermining capability.294 The army were therefore spared significant reductions in the short term, although the cost of training and other consumables remained restricted for the remainder of the financial year. The RAF chose to accelerate the disbandment of its two Canberra reconnaissance squadrons and the Vulcan B2 fleet ahead of their replacement, the Tornado GR1, on the grounds of diminishing capability.295 The government accepted that it would have to risk a significant reduction to its front-line strength for a period of several years, despite the increased threat posed by the Soviet Union.296 Hidden within this was the decision to delete the Vulcan maritime reconnaissance aircraft from service and reassign their tasks to the Nimrod aircraft already in service.297 This meant that air force hopes of reopening the Nimrod production line all but disappeared. This policy did have three benefits for the air force. First, the phasing out of manpower-intensive aircraft before their replacements had entered service helped to alleviate the chronic shortage of aircrew that still confronted the service.298 Second, the air force did not have to find the funds to run these programmes side by side, thereby alleviating some of the pressure on their budget.299 Third, in making these reductions now it would be harder for a new Secretary of State for Defence to argue for additional reductions from the air force without impacting upon the Tornado programme and thereby upsetting Britain’s collaborative partners. For the defence team the measures were harder to justify, particularly as they followed the announcement of the acquisition of the Trident C-4 system.

Summary The second phase of Francis Pym’s time as Secretary of State for Defence saw the DPWP and the individual services managing the defence overspend of the previous financial year. This represented the

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 57

complete dominance of the medium-term cycle in managing all three dimensions of defence policy – declaratory, strategic and procurement – within the constraints imposed by the short-term financial pressure on the defence budget. The result was the undermining of many of the government’s initial short-term policy goals. The East of Suez concept was largely buried, apart from the occasional statements from the Prime Minister. This was clear from the decision to scrap HMS Triumph, a core unit if the navy intended to sustain a significant presence East of Suez for any length of time. The air force retained those elements of the government’s air defence emphasis that suited them. The clearest example of this was the cancellation of plans to create a third Lightning squadron while leaving in place the idea of bringing forward and increasing the purchase of Tornado F2s. It was also evident in the temporary abandonment of the expansion plans for the RAuxAF while continuing the Bloodhound replacement studies. Politically this meant that the government’s window of vulnerability remained open while the air force was able to implement their medium and long-term plans for air defence. The air force’s downplaying of the reservists’ role was matched by the navy. The cancellation of the first four minesweepers and the wholesale scrapping of the Standby Squadron were politically embarrassing for the government, especially when it was asserting that the acquisition of Trident would have no impact on Britain’s conventional forces. By way of contrast the army kept in place its reservist reforms because they suited its mobilization requirements and reserve forces had a far greater role to play in army thinking. The two major areas on which the defence team was able to have an impact in the procurement area were the acquisition of the Trident C-4 system and the army orders for Challenger and Warrior. These decisions were both in line with mainstream thinking within the navy and army respectively. The nearest the defence team came to overturning the services was in the decision to purchase Challenger. The loss of defence sales to Iran had significant industrial ramifications that became apparent during this period. The government might well have forced through the tank purchase if the army had not seen the advantage of accepting Chobham equipped Challengers. The other area of influence for the defence team was in its formation of the DPWP. After taking advice Pym formed the DPWP with members of the Central Staff rather than letting the individual services run the review process. While in this situation the DPWP worked

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closely with the three services and the decisions largely reflected individual service priorities it did set a precedent for future reviews that Nott would be able to utilize. Pym’s most important impact upon defence lay in his staunch protection of his budget during the last half of 1980. With the Treasury team under Howe in search of significant savings Pym successfully fended off their argument for significant defence reductions and through threatening to resign forced the Prime Minister to back the defence team rather than her Treasury team. This meant that the medium-term cycle remained dominant for a few months more but it was evident to those involved that the situation was unsustainable. The government in the short term needed to exert more control over the defence budget and bring it more into line. The result for Pym was his removal from the post of Secretary of State for Defence on the grounds that a ‘tougher’ minister was needed to knock the military lobbyists into line.300 The relative lack of involvement of the defence team in making key strategic and procurement decisions was not only due to the style in which Pym ran the MOD. It also reflected the lack of influence of the Labour opposition on defence issues. The large-scale revolt against the defence estimates and the subsequent announcement of the government’s decision to purchase Trident exacerbated further the divisions within the Labour Party and led it increasingly towards unilateralism. With this trend the Labour defence team were increasingly isolated within the party,301 which reduced their impact upon the government. The ramifications for Labour’s role in opposition were not fully apparent to those involved but what they did at this point in time was to allow defence policy to operate free from the short-term influence of party politics.

Conclusions The Conservative government came to power in 1979 committed to a steady improvement in the state of Britain’s defences. Such a policy ‘conformed to a traditional Conservative priority, and it took shape with a pledge, in line with a general NATO policy, to increase defence spending by three per cent in real terms’.302 The defence team and Thatcher spoke of shifting declaratory policy away from NATO and making significant short-term improvements to Britain’s defence capabilities, the reality was somewhat different.

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During the initial honeymoon period the three cycles were largely in alignment with one another with the medium-term cycle controlling the general trends within defence policy. The government’s short-term aspirations were incorporated into the services’ existing plans where appropriate or gently ignored where they did not conform. Once the MOD began to suffer from the onset of the recession a number of changes had to be made to the existing programme in order that the MOD remained within its budget. This brought the medium and short-term programmes into direct conflict with one another. Pym’s willingness to let the military manage the problem ensured that the medium-term cycle dictated the adjustments to the programme, much to the embarrassment of the government, which saw the loss of the third Lightning squadron and later on the scrapping of the standby squadron. The interaction of the long-term and medium-term cycles remained unchanged throughout both periods as they continued to head in the same direction dictated by the services. Pym’s time as Secretary of State for Defence can therefore be referred to as ‘short and supervisory rather than inspirational’.303 He clearly felt that he was there to represent the department’s interests within Cabinet and was content to allow the officials within the department to have a considerable say in determining overall defence policy. His management style clearly puts him within Bruce Headey’s ‘policy legitimator’ category.304 The result was that little substantive change actually occurred in declaratory policy while the procurement priorities of the MOD and the military strategies used were left firmly in the hands of the military. This clearly suited officials within the MOD and the three services were able to exert considerable control over the policy process Who were the main actors and how did they interact in this process? Pym and his defence team had less of an impact than might have been expected in either period. This was predominantly due to his lead, which gave the services a greater influence than they perhaps should have expected, but the structure of the defence team also encouraged this. The three junior ministers were each attached to a particular service. They were expected not only to support their respective service line but also the collective goals of the defence team. This had the potential to place them in a contradictory position. However, Pym’s leadership style led them to side with their own service and promote its interests. The next chapter will show that with a change of leadership style these contradictory demands would cause problems and lead to the resignation of the navy’s junior minister, Keith Speed.

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The dominant actors within the MOD throughout this period remained the Service Chiefs. Each protected their own service and during a period of growth this caused little friction. Once the MOD was confronted by the requirement for cutbacks they tended to argue more but were clearly aware of the political scene and compromised with one another. This allowed the DPWP to agree quite significant reductions. Internal debates within the services were left alone by the defence team; they wanted to avoid political embarrassments, although Speed, the navy minister, was one of those pushing for a high–low mix of forces. The civilian staff had less of an impact and where they tried to influence the policy debate, such as over the issue of replacing Polaris or the Warrior purchase, they were largely ineffectual because the defence team were content to let the military dominate defence policy. The Defence Staff shared the civilian staff’s aim of further centralizing defence policy and the creation of the DPWP comprising military and civilian staff drawn from the Central Staff was indicative of the ongoing shift in the balance of power within the MOD away from the services. Thatcher’s influence over the MOD was also limited. Her views on East of Suez were clear but she was unable to bring about a change of policy. Her most significant contribution lay in her support of the defence budget from her own Treasury team. This reflected her ‘Iron Lady’ image rather than the ‘Iron Chancellor’ one, which tended to emerge in subsequent years. Her one major confrontation with Pym led to her backing down and the MOD being spared the bulk of the cutbacks planned for it by the Treasury. How did defence fit into both the domestic and foreign political environments? Domestic politics had a limited role to play. The increasing disharmony within the Labour Party over defence issues gave the government greater freedom to take the decisions it wanted to with little damage to its political standing. There were exceptions, for example the future of the ROF Leeds led to a fundamental rethink about the army’s tank procurement plans while the Warrior purchase was decided by the need to preserve employment in Wolverhampton. These were entirely on the procurement side of defence policy, and military strategy and declaratory policy remained untouched. External influences on British defence policy were largely negative. For example, concern with the improvements made to Soviet conven-

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 61

tional forces prevented a significant shift in declaratory policy away from the continental commitment in favour of an East of Suez involvement. SACLANT’s shift of NATO’s convoy routes had a bearing on the internal naval debate about the future composition of the fleet but did not define the debate. How was defence policy affected by the management changes put through during this period? Although the Conservatives’ election campaign had included management reform within the Civil Service the appointment of Pym as Secretary of State for Defence indicated that the MOD was not one of the departments scheduled for early change. Thatcher hoped that individual ministers would undertake the reform process but, as a policy legitimator, Pym was unlikely to push through significant changes and she must have been conscious of this. Nevertheless, during Pym’s time in office there were some changes detectable in the margins, which would have a more profound bearing on the MOD later on. Sir Derek Raynor was brought into the new government and launched a number of studies that looked at the efficiency of various parts of government.305 These had an indirect impact upon the MOD, highlighting a number of potential areas for personnel savings. However, they did not have a significant effect upon the management of the MOD, despite Raynor’s previous experience of working for the MOD. They showed that substantial change needed to be undertaken by ministers rather than by an outside body. This would prove more significant later on when Thatcher had cause to consider future defence ministers. Perhaps of more significance was Thatcher’s early experience of the MOD’s procurement system in the shape of the Stingray torpedo programme. As previously mentioned this programme had suffered from a considerable overspend and the Conservatives felt obliged to continue with it. It nevertheless left Thatcher with a very poor impression of the MOD’s efficiency and encouraged her to put a minister into the MOD who was more ideologically in line with her thinking on management reform. There was a marked shift in favour of defence sales and this led to a number of existing programmes being altered. For example, the new SSK design was enlarged to attract overseas sales and thus reduce overall unit cost to the MOD. Of more long-term significance was the move towards incorporating export considerations within future operational requirements. The shift towards an export emphasis not only

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altered the way in which programmes were developed but it also had a profound affect upon the procurement programme when these sales fell through. For example, the dependency of a number of defence firms on their sales with Iran had significant repercussions on the procurement aspect of policy once these fell through. The most obvious result was the army’s decision to purchase the Shir-2s and thus keep ROF Leeds in operation. The government had also come into office with the policy of privatization contained within its manifesto. Although there were no significant defence privatizations during Pym’s time in office the preparations for them began almost as soon as he entered office. This had a direct impact on the procurement side. The army’s tank programme was the first obvious example of this.

4 John Nott, January 1981–January 1983

Introduction The January 1981 Cabinet reshuffle was Thatcher’s only attempt at putting one of her inner circle in a position to try and exert control over the MOD.306 Both Thatcher and Howe considered that Nott, with his experience as a former Gurkha officer and his firm commitment to Conservative monetarist policies, would be able to achieve the twin goals of improving the capabilities of Britain’s armed forces at a reduced cost.307 Nott shared the belief of the Thatcherite wing of the Conservative Party that capabilities could be improved without necessarily increasing the defence budget by introducing greater efficiency and more rigorous prioritization. He believed that the way in which the MOD functioned and the problem of inter-service rivalry severely impacted upon the defence planning process and led to sub-optimization in decision-making.308 However, he fundamentally differed from Thatcher in two important respects. First, he was a sceptic about the nuclear programme and had been the sole member of the Cabinet to vote against the Trident acquisition, much to her surprise.309 The significance of this was diminished by the fact that any change to nuclear policy would have to pass through the OD subcommittee of the Cabinet, which included the Prime Minister. The second area of divergence was more problematic for the Prime Minister since it covered the essential question of where the focus of defence policy should be. Nott viewed Britain as a medium-sized power, which needed to avoid costly defence commitments and concentrate upon improving its economic and trading performance. Defence policy needed to focus first on the home base, and second on support for the North Atlantic Alliance to achieve this. He was not interested in the idea of East of Suez, which he felt to be a 63

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luxury that Britain could ill afford. This clearly placed him at odds with Thatcher’s own view. Nott’s position also differed from his predecessor. ‘He didn’t have the strength of a very powerful, large Foreign Secretary, which is normally something upon which a Defence Secretary depends on very heavily … Carrington was instinctively worried about this very analytical approach to defence priorities.’310 Carrington’s successor at the FCO was Francis Pym, Nott’s predecessor at the MOD. Nott was therefore more dependent upon his relationship with the Prime Minister for support than either his predecessor or his successors.

The initial review: January–March 1981 Short-term cycle Nott inherited an overspend from the previous financial year of £200m and a likely overspend of £400m for FY 80–81, despite Pym’s imposition of the moratorium and the mini-defence review.311 Nott immediately sought to address this but stressed that ‘talk of apocalyptic choices between key defence tasks is wide of the mark, but we must, over the next year or so, look realistically at our programmes in order to match them to the resources that may be available.’312 His view of the MOD’s inefficiency was soon reinforced when he began to examine the LTC process in more detail. He felt that LTCs were based on the unrealistic premise of an indefinite 3 per cent increase in real terms and he was amazed at the buffer factor.313 He concluded that the financial pressure on the LTCs, based upon these assumptions, had not been alleviated by Pym’s reductions and that unless the economy was suddenly to achieve significant and sustained growth, the programme would not be fully met within the resources that the MOD was likely to receive. Moreover, the LTCs did not include a provision for the acquisition of Trident.314 Having drawn these initial conclusions Nott obtained support from the OD to undertake a review of the defence programme, rather than a full-blown defence review. This would bring the programme and resources available closer into line and he initially hoped that the Chiefs of Staff Committee would play the leading role.315 Medium-term cycle The services anticipated further cutbacks and greeted Nott’s appointment with some trepidation.316 Despite the reductions agreed with the

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DPWP the naval programme remained the most over-extended of the three services in the LTCs. The Admiralty Board was well aware of this and was confronted by the task of explicitly presenting the distinct importance of their NATO defence roles. The importance of the provision of anti-submarine warfare support to NATO’s strike fleet and the protection of the transatlantic reinforcement depended upon any conflict in Europe lasting long enough for these forces to become involved. In the view of the Admiralty Board the maritime and continental commitments were interwoven and could not be separated. They were dependent upon each other.317 The continental and maritime were not interdependent to the army, the former could be singled out. The majority of the army’s high command believed their role to be deterrence and, in the event of war, to delay the advancing Soviet forces for as long as possible in order to give the Western political leadership time to either find a diplomatic solution or decide to use nuclear forces.318 None then believed that NATO could successfully fight an extended conventional battle. The area of contention lay in how long the battle would last before nuclear weapons became involved, with many doubting that the reinforcement convoys would have any role at all. The air force felt more secure than the other services. Their contributions to UK air defence and NATO’s theatre nuclear deterrent (Vulcan B2s) were politically difficult to cut back and clearly part of home defence – Nott’s first priority. As far as the other air force assets were concerned it had a general advantage over the other services. With forces committed to both the continental and maritime commitments the air force leaders could justify the importance of both roles. Moreover, a number of its aircraft could be shifted between these roles as required. While there was some disquiet within the army about the RAF’s ownership of the support helicopters, the navy’s attitude to the RAF was different. The RAF had strong support from the navy in their maritime role and the navy was keen to avoid any inter-service confrontation over the control of these assets. 319 To the navy the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) were as important as surface ships and submarines in combating the Soviet submarine arm. The naval staff considered that only by the use of all three elements could these submarines be contained. 320 The RAF’s Buccaneer force was the only long-range strike platform capable of use against Soviet surface forces and harbours and the navy would support their retention.

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Long-term cycle The high–low capabilities mix of ship design remained the basis for naval planning. Following the cutbacks announced by Pym there was pressure to finalize the Type 23 frigate design so that the first orders could be announced and the requirements for the AORs completed. The Type 23 was to be an austere frigate equipped with a light gun, Exocet surface-to-surface missiles, ASW torpedoes, the new towed-array sonar and helicopter landing and refuelling facilities. It represented a minimum frigate with no defence against air attack and the design compromises needed to ensure that it did not exceed its target price of £70m were already causing concern.321 Hope remained within the Admiralty Board that the Type 44 air defence destroyer would still be built in limited numbers as the highend element of the air defence destroyer spectrum. With the projected improvements to Soviet aviation and submarine-launched cruise missiles these ships, together with the ongoing Type 42 programme, would play an important role in the area air defence role. With the split of the original AST.403 into a Harrier replacement (AST.411) and the Jaguar replacement (revised AST.403) the air force wanted to formulate the exact requirements for the new AST.403 so that it could be discussed with BAe, collaborative partners agreed and the research and development programme signed. Interaction of the time-cycles Nott’s first step was to revise the basis upon which the LTCs were prepared and the defence planners were instructed to adopt the assumption in the LTCs of an annual increase of 3 per cent in real terms until FY 85–86, with nil growth beyond that.322 He abandoned the buffer system, which in his view was the primary cause of the budgetary overruns for the previous two years, and argued that the MOD should instead be able to plan its budget more accurately, especially in the early years of the LTCs. To facilitate the review process he arranged for a day away with the Chiefs of Staff and the CDS at Greenwich to discuss the pressure on the defence programme. As part of his strategy, he intentionally avoided specifying the amount he wished to save and instead asked for suggestions of areas in which savings could be made. This, he reasoned, was the most efficient means of obtaining them. The Chiefs of Staff were less than forthcoming in their response and stated, as an opening gambit, that no further reductions to their programmes, beyond those announced in January 1981 should be made.323 In part this was a result

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of the air force’s experience during the 1975 review. Unlike the other two services the RAF had volunteered to make a series of cutbacks to reduce the defence burden and then found that it was still expected to take an equal share of subsequent cutbacks.324 Nott needed imaginative answers but the three services assumed that they would simply be told the level of defence cutbacks and then they would work out proposals to implement these reductions in conjunction with the DPWP.325 The navy was particularly concerned by Nott’s approach at Greenwich. He questioned the very assumptions upon which the naval programme was based which caused deep alarm within naval circles.326 This reinforced their view that he had preconceived ideas and that he ‘seemed to have difficulty in grasping the significance of surface ships’.327 The navy therefore encouraged the other services to continue the united front opposing any additional cuts. The one area that the navy was responsible for that Nott did not challenge was the Trident C-4 decision. In this area Nott’s earlier reservations about the strategic nuclear deterrent were overcome and he became a firm supporter of the Trident programme.328 The key question here was over the number of submarines that would be purchased. Despite their fears about other parts of their programme the navy continued to argue the case for five boats, one more than the current Polaris force, in order to ensure that two would always be on station and thus improve the survivability of the deterrent.329 The Treasury opposed this. However, since the major costs of this programme would not actually begin to occur until the late 1980s, no immediate decision was required and none was taken.330 In contrast to the navy, the CGS decided to offer Nott a suggestion for army savings after Greenwich. He believed that such a bid was needed to show the army’s willingness to pursue all avenues for cost savings and avoid the most severe cutbacks.331 He was confronted by considerable hostility from those within the General Staff who considered that this move would merely encourage such reductions. Nevertheless, the Director of Military Operations, Lieutenant-General Sir Derek Boorman, suggested withdrawing 1 (Br) Corps from its 65 km sector of the Central Front and re-fashioning it into a smaller, twodivisional armoured reserve force.332 Such a cutback would ultimately provide the long-term expenditure reductions that the government wanted, but in the short term the costs of implementing it would be considerable. Moreover, the concept of troop redundancies would be politically unacceptable for the Conservatives during a period of heightened tension with the Soviet Union as well as posing serious

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problems for the supply of troops for Northern Ireland in peacetime. The redundant troops in Germany would have to be returned to Britain and bases found to house them. This would have serious implications for other government departments, such as Health and Education, since the social services that the MOD provided in Germany would not have to be met by the MOD once these units were redeployed to the UK. This would encourage the relevant ministers to oppose such changes in Cabinet and support the maintenance of the army in Germany.333 Such a reduction would also have a significant impact on NATO. First, it would bring Britain into conflict with its treaty obligation to maintain 55 000 troops in Germany. Second, the withdrawal of 1 (Br) Corps into reserve would leave a crucial 65 km segment of the Central Front uncovered which no other NATO member appeared willing or able to fill.334 Such a step would also set a precedent that the United States might follow and undermine the rationale of shared risk upon which NATO was based. At the same time the new Commander of 1 (Br) Corps, Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall, suggested a major reorganization of 1 (Br) Corps to adhere to the 55 000 limit agreed with the PUS. This involved moving from a four-divisional two-brigade structure plus a field force to a more orthodox three-division, three-brigade structure. Each armoured regiment would also be reduced in size by removing one tank from each platoon. This would make them more manageable in wartime and allow two armoured reconnaissance regiments to be converted to armoured regiments.335 With an increase in the number of armoured regiments Bagnall could increase the concentration of tanks in the forward two divisions with the third division receiving the Challenger tanks when they entered service. This allowed emphasis to be given to fully manning the two forward divisions. The third division would contain the two remaining brigades and be supplemented by the addition of a UK-based infantry brigade in wartime. These views neatly dovetailed into Nott’s concern about a short warning attack and allowed a manpower reduction within BAOR, consisting largely of the fourth division’s headquarter’s staff.336 The air staff also chose to break ranks and ‘very cleverly drafted a paper saying that UK air defence was inadequate and submitted it shortly before the review. It was a very clever thing to do and no Secretary of State was going to be unaffected.’337 The government had gained significant political capital from its criticisms of Labour’s neglect of this area and could not afford to be seen to be making cuts. Moreover, this fitted into Nott’s first priority of home defence.

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Nott was therefore presented with the need to make substantial savings but without any imaginative solutions. In searching for savings, Nott’s first inclination was to look at the East of Suez role, despite the Prime Minister’s desire to earmark forces permanently to the US proposed multinational rapid deployment force.338 However, the need for her support and the relatively low cost of Britain’s East of Suez forces in comparison to those committed to NATO meant that the prime areas for savings open to Nott were in either the continental or maritime commitments to NATO. Nott, with CDS’s encouragement, did argue for a special Treasury subvention to cover the replacement of Polaris but this was not forthcoming.339 As far as forces committed to the Central Front were concerned both ‘Bramall [CGS] and Beetham [CAS] had the clearly defined NATO force levels onto which they could hook the Army’s and RAF’s orders of battle, and they had little difficulty in defining their tasks to Nott’s satisfaction.’340 The basing of aircraft in Germany remained an issue. The air force was merely obliged to maintain an air force of undefined size in Germany and the withdrawal of some aircraft from Germany remained an option that would have been far less contentious than the reduction of 1 (Br) Corps or the size of the navy’s surface fleet. Nott was, in fact, keen to bring these aircraft back. However, this would have involved removing aircraft from their fully equipped airfields in Germany and either expanding existing operational air bases in Britain or upgrading some of the disused airfields that remained in the MOD’s ownership.341 Such a move was costly in the short term and would have had a severe impact on the range of targets within Eastern Europe that could be targeted in wartime, unless either the German bases were retained for wartime use or the RAF’s tanker fleet significantly increased. Nott therefore agreed early on that the air force in Germany was better left alone. With the services divided the CDS’s role became vital to Nott as a means of obtaining the balanced view he expected. Admiral of the Fleet Lord Lewin’s ability to perform this task was, however, weakened by the limitations imposed on him. He was only allowed to present the collective view of the Service Chiefs rather than his own. So when the Service Chiefs were divided he had little of substance to present. Nott was unimpressed by this and failed to take into account the dilemma facing the CDS.342 Lewin, the CDS, had been the major architect of the fleet’s development during the late 1970s while First Sea Lord (1SL) and was well aware of its role and purpose. Yet, as an admiral, he had to be seen to be taking a broader defence view and could not be seen to be

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siding with the navy. The result was that Lewin felt that he ‘couldn’t give Leach (1SL) the support he deserved’.343 As a result of the impasse between the services, the CDS and Nott, the work of the ‘Capabilities’ group, which included the CSA (Professor Sir Ronald Mason) and the Deputy-Chief of the Defence Staff (Operational Requirements) (Lieutenant-General Sir Maurice Johnston), had a much greater influence than it might otherwise have had. The Capabilities group submitted their revised report to Nott at the end of February just after the Greenwich meeting. The report, which relied heavily upon the analyses of the Defence Operational Analysis Establishment (DOAE), rejected the logic behind the navy’s re-equipment programme, arguing that the programme failed to deal with the increasing anti-ship missile threat to warships while they were conducting antisubmarine warfare.344 These ideas linked into Nott’s own view345 and raised further doubts in his mind about the reality of transatlantic reinforcement reaching Europe in time to influence the outcome of a war on the Central Front. With the aid of the Capabilities group Nott altered the weighting of SACLANT’s suggestions. Nott concluded that Soviet submarines could most efficiently be countered by emphasizing the defence of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) choke-point through which Soviet submarines would have to travel to get at the trans atlantic shipping. Following this idea to its logical conclusion Nott argued that the resources devoted to providing surface escort and hunter groups in the eastern Atlantic should be concentrated at this choke-point to make the most efficient use of the increased kill ratio that the GIUK choke-point provided.346 For the surface fleet to operate along the GIUK choke-point required a significant self-defence capability. This meant that warships, with average lives of 20–25 years, needed substantial mid-life updates to cope with the improvements to Soviet missile technology. This required the preservation of a considerable dockyard refit capability and absorbed a large proportion of funds earmarked for dealing with the Soviet submarine threat. Using statistics worked out by the DOAE, the Capabilities group argued that a combination of Nimrod MPAs and SSNs would provide far more effective platforms for hunting Soviet submarines in the GIUK gap than surface ships, and that this was where the naval budget should be geared.347 There were two weaknesses in this argument, one of which the navy failed to detect and the other Nott chose to ignore. The navy did not realize that the study assumed that the American Sound Surveillance

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System (SOSUS) in Iceland would remain operational during the conflict and provide Soviet submarine location information to the Nimrod force. With this knowledge the Nimrods were more effective than the navy’s surface ships in countering Soviet submarines but without it they were less efficient.348 The navy did question the assumption that war would begin before the Soviet submarines passed through the GIUK gap. If the Soviets chose to delay then the barrier concept was an embarrassing white elephant with no submarines to counter in the first week of war while NATO’s convoys were decimated. For Nott the Capabilities study had further appeal. If naval expenditure were adjusted to reflect this revised strategy the number of escorts needed to escort convoys from Madeira to the Channel could be reduced. With fewer ships the update programme could be abandoned and a shorter replacement cycle adopted, allowing further savings, particularly if replacements were the new cheaper Type 23 frigates that the navy had been developing. Such savings would significantly reduce the heavy overhead costs of the Royal dockyards on the naval budget. This would have the benefit of removing a large amount of money from the forward plans, the goal of Nott’s review, without affecting capability. It would also reduce the overall number of civil servants employed by the MOD (dockyard workforce) and thus achieve an additional manifesto pledge. Whether Nott had any preconceived ideas about where the reductions should fall is the subject of some debate among the key participants. The result was the same. He presented the Chiefs of Staff with a single sheet of paper on 16 March 1981 (this became known as the Bermudagram)349 which ‘came as a bombshell, they had not expected a Secretary of State to act so decisively, and so quickly to their detriment. On one side of the paper were guidelines for Britain’s defence policy in the future and on the other side figures for the three services over the next ten years.’350 In part the paper reflected Nott’s desire to move away from the conflictual nature of the MOD. It made two basic assumptions. First, that that the British armed forces should be geared towards combating the threat posed by the Soviet Union and that this threat was predominantly in Europe. This followed along lines that had developed over the past 20 years and was not particularly revolutionary. Second, that such a war would involve little or no warning, and that it would be a short, intense war. The paper indicated that the sea–air function would be substantially affected and that the defence of the home base should become a priority. It advocated a reduction in the navy’s share of the defence budget by the end of the 1980s from 29 to 25 per cent,351 despite the inclusion

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of the new Trident programme within the navy’s budget. It meant an additional £7600m being removed from the navy’s building programme within the LTCs.352 According to one senior official Trident was included in the navy’s budget for two reasons. ‘First it was entirely political, it was to demonstrate in overall cash terms that ships, submarines and the ocean navy had not depreciated that much. The other was perfectly legitimate … to make certain that the management of the whole programme was very tight because if you knew that if you let that programme run out of control it was two less destroyers, you’d have a large incentive to prevent it running out of control.’353 From a budgetary point of view the paper attempted to dispense with the inherent financial friction within the LTCs, which had so often led to conflict between the various cycles. Nott had himself felt a prisoner of these LTCs without a budget of his own in which to try and exert some of his own preferences. He decided that in future a small budget of several hundred million pounds would be available annually to the Secretary of State of Defence to use on his own initiatives.354 It was perhaps not surprising that the services were united in their response to Nott’s proposals. All three saw threats to their weapons programmes, with the navy the worst affected, but more importantly, in the long term, they were concerned with the increasing prominence of the Central Staff and civilian advisers in the decision-making process. In particular, they were well aware of the prominent role of the CSA in influencing Nott and, unlike earlier defence reviews, the services established an implicit understanding not to undermine each other’s case.355 The subsequent twelve weeks witnessed their attempts to alter the process while Nott and the Capabilities group sought to consider the full implications of the paper on the LTCs. Meanwhile the 1981 defence estimates were published in April as a holding statement. These gave little indication of the drastic nature of the review underway or of the opposition within the MOD to various parts of it. Nott knew that the support of the Prime Minister was vital if his paper was to form the basis of government defence policy. In her visit to the United States and subsequent trip to the Gulf region in March 1981 Thatcher had again spoken of British involvement in the new RDJTF.356 This placed her at loggerheads with thinking within the MOD and the 1981 defence estimates qualified her remarks by expressly stating that the ‘reinstatement of the former military presence “East of Suez”, whatever the arguments for and against, is no longer a political or economic possibility’.357 However, Nott needed her support, especially in the light of the backlash that was already emerg-

John Nott, January 1981–January 1983 73

ing within the MOD. He therefore announced plans for a small logistical stockpile of army equipment for limited operations outside NATO, the acquisition of station-keeping equipment for the Hercules fleet in order to restore an assault parachute capability, and the re-tasking of a second parachute battalion to the parachute role.358 The political and financial cost of this change in policy was not significant but the benefits were. To Thatcher, Nott’s proposals not only promised to produce the savings that she wanted, but were also presented with a clear rationale which allowed her to argue that the measures were more a movement of funding between areas than a series of defence cuts.359 This made the review far easier for her to defend within the Conservative Party and in Parliament, although its emphasis on the land–air component rather than the sea–air component was not her preferred solution. The constraints imposed by Britain’s treaty commitments and the need to avoid any action that might undermine the Atlantic Alliance meant that this was the obvious solution if the strategic deterrent was to be maintained and she accepted this. She also supported the emphasis on home defence and the improvements to Britain’s out-of-area capabilities announced in April, while her earlier experience of the torpedo procurement decisions had already left her with a negative view of the navy.360 Opposition within Nott’s own defence team quickly became apparent and reflected Nott’s lack of consultation with it. Speed, the junior navy minister, was asked to resign by Thatcher, despite Nott’s protestations, following a constituency speech in which he implicitly attacked one of Nott’s principal advisers, the CSA, over his role in the review.361 Once on the backbenches Speed rapidly became one of Nott’s principal public critics and provided ample ammunition to the Conservative backbenchers concerned with the defence reductions.362 This increased Nott’s dependency upon the support of the Prime Minister to carry through his review while Thatcher’s overruling him over Speed further soured their relationship. To assist him, and reduce opposition, she decided not to find an immediate replacement for Speed.363 This left the navy without a junior minister to help organize their response or raise issues through the next few critical months. With the support of the Prime Minister, Nott was able largely to ignore the protests from the Conservative backbenches. Even the clutch of Conservative MPs whose constituencies were adversely affected by the decision to close Chatham Dockyard proved to be far less of a problem than he first feared.364

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Nott was also fortunate in the timing of his defence review. Ten days after the Bermudagram started to be circulated within the MOD the formation of the SDP was announced on 26 March 1981.365 Although it started with only four members it rapidly attracted the majority of the Labour Party’s main defence speakers.366 Their move to the SDP effectively removed them from the defence debate, albeit temporarily. Those that stayed in the Labour Party lost their position of influence within Labour’s shadow defence team as the Tribunite wing of the party took control.367 This meant that an inexperienced opposition front bench faced Nott and he was able to continue his review with little concern for domestic political factors. The services were therefore left to themselves to respond to Nott’s proposals. While the army and air force agreed that a co-ordinated response was needed, they were aware of the Prime Minister’s support for Nott. If the cutbacks were not found here, they would have to be found elsewhere in the defence budget.368 The Chiefs of Staff eventually agreed to exercise their prerogative and saw the Prime Minister in the presence of Carrington and Nott at the beginning of June 1981 just before the official publication of the review.369 Their opposition was noted, but it had little impact because reductions were the priority. The divisions within the Chiefs of Staff Committee of which Nott had previously been so critical now worked in his favour. No agreed collective alternative saving was offered. The CDS could not openly support the navy’s case, no matter how justified he thought it was, because he was an admiral.370 He therefore tried the tack of arguing for delay, pending the scheduled NATO review of its force levels, but he was unsuccessful in this because of the government’s short-term need for the savings.371 Ultimately, even he had to agree that no other solution was practical if the criteria on which the review process was based remained the same.372 For the navy the consequences of these conclusions were immediate, with substantial cutbacks throughout its fleet and manpower savings of one-third to a quarter. This meant that the destroyer and frigate numbers were to be reduced from the mid-60s to low-30s or even the high-20s.373 With the abandonment of the need for surface ships to operate in the GIUK gap the Type 44 air defence destroyer programme and at least two more Type 42 air defence destroyers were immediately cancelled.374 The Type 22 anti-submarine warfare frigate programme was also terminated on the grounds of cost. Instead the smaller and cheaper Type 23 programme would be accelerated with the order planned to occur within 12–18 months.375 Emphasis was now to be placed upon MPAs and SSNs maintaining a barrier patrol, but reduc-

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tions were still to be made here, though not to the extent of those faced by the surface fleet. Thus SSN numbers, instead of rising to 20 as planned, were now set at 17.376 With such a substantial reduction in destroyer and frigate numbers the expensive policy of providing substantial mid-life updates for surface ships could be abandoned, with a commensurate reduction in the number and size of the Royal dockyards. As Rosyth was busy with Polaris work Nott decided to close Gibraltar and Chatham, and substantially to run down Portsmouth.377 Overall submarine numbers would remain unchanged but with an increased order for cheaper Type 2400 SSKs to compensate for the fall in SSN orders. However, the dockyards closure programme immediately impacted upon the SSN force. Shutting Chatham meant closing its two nuclear refit streams while Devonport was still having problems bringing its first stream on-line. This meant that HMS Dreadnought, the first British SSN, had to be decommissioned because there was nowhere available to refit it, thus resulting in a temporary reduction in SSN numbers.378 The idea of refurbishing the Cammell Laird yard in order to build SSNs to cover the period of the Trident programme was also quietly abandoned, and the navy decided to stop ordering SSNs during this time.379 Cammell Laird or Scotts would build the new SSKs instead. Nott queried the need for the amphibious warfare vessels,380 and on the advice of the Capabilities group, took the decision that the LPDs would be retired when they next became due for a refit. Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff Lieutenant-General Sir Maurice Johnston had, in particular, been keen to use aircraft to transport the UK/NL amphibious force to Norway, rather than slow vulnerable amphibious warfare vessels, but to save money it was decided to use civilian roll-on/roll-off ferries in wartime instead. Scrapping the smaller landing ship logistics (LSL) was considered, but they were useful in their other role of transporting army reinforcement units to the European mainland and were retained.381 The navy’s aircraft carrier programme was allowed to continue with the completion of the remaining two Invincible-class vessels. However, the adoption of the barrier technique for anti-submarine warfare raised questions about their role. Nott decided to retain only two in service in order to ensure that one would always be available for the out-of-area role, which he felt they were more suited to.382 The move was partly aimed at appeasing Thatcher but the retention of two carriers also represented a partial sop to the navy. This meant that one Invincible-class ship, together with HMS Hermes, could be sold and the requirement to

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form a third air group abandoned, with the Sea Harriers already purchased for this role being released to serve as the attrition reserve. Despite his belief in the vulnerability of the surface ship to anti-ship missiles, Nott also endorsed the construction of a new class of one-stop replenishment ships (AORs). These were to be equipped with a helicopter complement of five to six Sea Kings as a means of off-loading some of the helicopter servicing requirements that would otherwise have needed to be included within the design of the new Type 23s.383 This decision placed severe limitations on the operation of the Type 23. Although the navy expected to suffer cutbacks the Admiralty Board was surprised at the degree of change and the conclusions drawn.384 Nott was equally surprised by their response. He assumed that the navy would want control of the Nimrod MPA force and was prepared to consider this, but the Admiralty Board was united in avoiding any sort of power play with the RAF.385 In part the navy’s avoidance of such a move was based on awareness of its own lack of experience in manning large multi-engine fixed-wing aircraft and the willingness of the RAF to let the navy have an overall say in the Nimrod’s mission tasking. However, their main concern was not to appear divided from the other services. Instead, the navy sought to undermine the basic tenets upon which the review was based, highlighting the multi-faceted nature of the maritime commitment in peacetime as well as wartime. They attacked the flaws in the barrier concept with little success. Nott could not afford to accept their arguments no matter how flawed the navy made the barrier concept look. The navy also attempted to broaden the debate about its role to include their peacetime work but this was disregarded. Nott had no other option but to make cuts in the naval programme if declaratory policy was to remain unchanged and Britain was to continue to meet all her treaty obligations. While maintaining a united front with the other services the navy sought to tackle Nott’s proposals in three ways. First, it encouraged the various MPs and trade union officials to voice their concerns about the likely employment implications resulting from these proposals at a time of rapidly rising unemployment. Second, it sought to broker a number of alternatives with John Nott, and third, the navy encouraged its service counterparts in the other NATO countries, principally the United States, to voice their own concerns through their national governments.386 The mobilization of MPs and trade unions had little effect. The navy therefore put forward a number of proposals. These included the scrap-

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ping of HMS Endurance, HMS Britannia and the LPDs and disbanding the Royal Marines. The savings made here would then be used to restore some of the reductions to the surface and sub-surface fleet. The motives for these suggestions were mixed. The loss of the ice patrol ship, HMS Endurance, was of little real concern to the MOD. It had been kept in service on the request of the FCO as a trip-wire protection for the Falkland Islands although it possessed little military capability. Nott agreed to scrap her, despite the protestations of the FCO,387 since she represented to him the epitome of what he was trying to avoid, a weapons platform with few weapons. By way of contrast the Royal Yacht represented too large a status symbol for the Conservatives to accept her demise while the savings made would have been relatively minor compared to those required. The navy’s proposal to scrap the LPDs and to disband the Royal Marines was an attempt to abandon one of the navy’s NATO roles. The choice to scrap the LPDs pre-empted the longer-term decision that had already been made not to replace them, which also undermined the need to retain specialist amphibious troops. The disbandment of the Royal Marines would provide the majority of the required manpower reductions. However, Nott had no intention of ending the commitment to the Northern Flank since this would bring him into conflict with his NATO counterparts, particularly the Americans, as well as Conservative backbench opinion. Neither could the task be passed to the army, which had no comparable Arctictrained unit. Within NATO, and especially the United States, there was considerable concern about the proposed defence reductions.388 It was difficult for the other NATO members, especially the Europeans, to criticize Britain when Britain’s contribution remained significantly larger in proportion to national wealth than virtually all of them. Moreover, the planned defence budget still remained closer to NATO’s 3 per cent commitment than the majority of the other European NATO states. Nevertheless, concern was expressed over the reductions to the surface fleet since Britain’s contribution to the Eastern Atlantic represented about 70 per cent of the total force. As a result, Nott came under significant pressure to reduce the cuts to the surface fleet from his fellow NATO Defence Ministers when they met in May 1981.389 In particular, the United States Navy was keen to have these reductions rescinded, otherwise it would have to try and fill the void, and Nott was reminded of Britain’s commitment not to cut its conventional forces when it signed up for the Trident C-4 system.390

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Nott came away from the meeting concerned that he would have to try and appease his NATO colleagues by maintaining a higher escort force of around 50 ships.391 He knew that the 1SL would not have been particularly concerned about finding ways to cover his embarrassment so he approached the Vice-Chief of the Naval Staff (VCNS), Admiral Sir William Staveley, with the problem. Staveley suggested resurrecting the standby squadron concept by keeping some of the now surplus Leander-class frigates at a lower state of readiness. This would allow Nott to advise his NATO contemporaries that the numbers had not been so heavily cut. Instead adjustments were made to readiness levels and Nott decided to take this option.392 For Staveley the move allowed the navy to retain these ships in the short term while in the medium term he believed that once funding became easier – which he assumed would be the case when the economy improved – they could then be restored to the active fleet.393 Moreover, by retaining them in the standby squadron Nott implicitly accepted that they would have to be replaced. Thus Staveley had effectively managed to restore them in the long term. The failure of the Chiefs of Staff visit to the Prime Minister led Leach, the 1SL, to exercise his right as head of the navy to see her.394 Here he broke with the collective gambit that the Chiefs had so far practised post-Bermudagram and, in Nott’s presence, argued that the way to make major savings was to bring the army back to the UK. To fund such an exercise he proposed the temporary diversion of £1–2bn from the air force and navy budgets to meet the costs of providing for the new bases in the UK and provision for transport facilities to send the units back in wartime.395 This was rejected since it not only breached Britain’s treaty obligations, but also failed to achieve the short-term savings that Thatcher and Howe were particularly keen to achieve. Moreover, it would have had a detrimental impact upon the navy and the air force in the short term, which would have left the government open to scathing criticism both at home and abroad at a time when it was in a particularly weak position. The BAOR reorganization put forward by Bagnall went ahead. The brigade and divisional adjustment, matched to a reduction in the size of the regiments and battalions, allowed a redistribution of the tank fleet and the conversion of two armoured reconnaissance regiments to armoured regiments.396 The changed configuration of the armoured regiments also meant that the Challenger purchase would allow four rather than two regiments to be equipped and thus allow for two further armoured reconnaissance regiments to be converted to full

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armoured regiments. Nott also announced plans to introduce the tracked Rapier system into service.397 This programme, like the Challenger, had initially been developed as a result of an order for the Shah of Iran.398 Although the army had previously stated that there was no requirement for the weapon its introduction linked into Bagnall’s plans for a mobile defence, which needed the air defence batteries to accompany the battle groups. But the main reason for the army receiving the equipment was political. Throughout the spring of 1981 the government had been working on the flotation prospectus of BAe, the producer of Rapier.399 This order not only helped to cover the production deficit that had resulted from the loss of the Shah’s order but also ensured that BAe’s order book in this area looked healthy when it came to BAe’s flotation shares. Nott also agreed to go ahead with the entry of the MLRS into service in the mid-1980s upon the recommendations of the Capabilities group. However, this programme and the SP-70 were to be delayed by a further year to help reduce the financial pressures on the early years of the LTCs to which the purchase of tracked Rapier had contributed.400 The army did suffer some reduction to its manpower, but not to the extent of the navy. By way of compensation Nott announced a significant expansion in the size of the Territorial Army from 70 000 to 86 000.401 Their use, and the use of the headquarters units returning to the UK from Germany, remained unclear. The increase in the army’s reserves was largely political but they also represented a token gesture by the government to the army given the reduction in regular personnel. Politically these issues did not need to be addressed in the short term and the army was too preoccupied to consider their role in the medium term. The government again considered the air defence and reserve issues. The air force was the service that prospered most from the Nott review and, in particular, he gave emphasis to the air defence role. He sought to increase the number of air defence squadrons by retaining two Phantom squadrons in service after their replacement by the Tornado F2, increasing the number of Hawk aircraft converted to a wartime air defence role from 36 to 72, and retaining the option to convert the order for the last 20 Tornado GR1s to the F2 variant.402 The Phantom retention reflected a clear answer to the CAS’s note. The decision to stop the expansion of the RAuxAF ground defence squadrons was also rescinded and their numbers were to be expanded from three to six squadrons.403 The air force remained concerned about the extension of the Jaguar’s service life caused by the delays to AST.403 and suggested retaining the

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Buccaneers in service in the maritime strike role.404 The Tornado GR1s earmarked for this role, together with those allocated to replace the UK-based Jaguar reconnaissance squadron and the two Canberra reconnaissance squadrons, could be then be used to replace the five Jaguar squadrons deployed in Germany instead.405 This allowed the RAF’s forces in Germany to be substantially enhanced at the cost of the nonreplacement of the Canberras and thus get around the Tornado’s range limitations.406 There was an additional long-term advantage to the air force. The surplus Jaguars from Germany would then provide sufficient aircraft to maintain the Coltishall Wing in operation until AST.403 entered service.407 This gave the air force more time to overcome Nott’s lack of enthusiasm for the Jaguar replacement programme408 and tied into BAe’s interest in developing an experimental aircraft as a fore runner to a combat aircraft to fulfil this task. In addition, the maintenance of two Buccaneer squadrons in service required the retention of a substantially larger pool of these aircraft. This, together with the enlarged Jaguar pool, meant that the RAF had the aircraft available to create squadrons rapidly should the financial climate alter. Moreover, by retaining the Buccaneer in service into the 1990s there was the implicit assumption that it would need to be replaced in the future, presumably by an additional batch of Tornadoes. To meet AST.411 Nott announced an order for 60 AV-8Bs to replace the Harriers in Germany,409 thereby underpinning his Central Front emphasis. This left the UK-based Harrier forces unmodernized, and the RAF hoped to announce a further order to replace these aircraft.410 Lost within this reorganization of the air force’s front line was the RAF’s sub-strategic role. Plans to equip the Tornado GR1s with cruise missiles to help offset the loss of the Vulcan B2s were quietly dropped.411 Effectively they would be replaced by the US GLCMs scheduled for deployment to the UK as part of NATO’s theatre nuclear modernization programme. As far as the air component of the barrier concept was concerned both Nott and the RAF wanted to concentrate funds on the Central Front and home defence and were less inclined to divert funds to the maritime role. This was despite rhetoric to the contrary. While Nott announced that all 34 Nimrod MR1s would be upgraded, residual hopes of reopening the Nimrod production line to increase the frontline strength finally died. To help protect the Buccaneer force the air force also abandoned plans to equip the Nimrods with an anti-ship missile.412 Nott agreed, which was somewhat surprising given his aspiration to emphasize weapons systems rather than platforms, and

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reflects the true lack of emphasis on the barrier-control concept within Nott’s thinking. Summary Nott had a significant impact upon all three aspects of defence policy, although this was not what he originally set out to do. His focus was on procurement and ensuring that the revised programme could be afforded within the LTCs, but the opposition that he found forced him to reconsider declaratory policy to a limited extent and, more profoundly, to re-examine and involve himself in the military strategy. Thus the need to make savings in the defence programme acted as the catalyst for change and this brought the short and medium-term cycles into conflict with one another. While declaratory policy remained largely unchanged it is somewhat ironic that the Secretary of State for Defence with least preference for the East of Suez concept ended up taking a number of measures to enhance it. Nott’s position of vulnerability forced him to adopt measures to ensure support from the Prime Minister in the short term and resulted in some improvements being made to this capability. The medium-term cycle within the MOD and services continued to oppose this but conceded ground to Nott, since it was a minor aspect within the review process. The major change within declaratory policy was the assumption that the MOD should concentrate solely on deterring a short-warning attack on the Central Front. This led to the government’s acceptance that the maritime dimension to Britain’s NATO commitment would have to be reduced in order to support the independent nuclear deterrent, home defence and the protection of the Central Front in Germany. This went against the Prime Minister’s wishes, but she recognized the inherent logic within Nott’s argument and fully supported him in his analysis both within and outside the Conservative Party. Naturally enough the navy were most affected by this outlook. They were severely hampered in their opposition to Nott’s proposals by the loss of Speed and the failure to provide a replacement, the weakness of the Labour opposition caused by the significant desertions to the new SDP, and by the dilemma the CDS found himself in. They were also undermined by the papers submitted by the other services prior to the Bermudagram and the influence of the Capabilities group. All these factors led Nott to impose considerable change upon both the navy’s strategy and procurement plans while the other two services were largely left to manage their own programmes. Moreover, by focusing

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on one service rather than all three Nott was able to get his review through with relatively little opposition. The result was a fundamental review of the manner in which the navy undertook its four NATO missions. Nott utilized the advice of the Capabilities group to push through the barrier-control concept. This allowed him to make substantial reductions to the navy’s programme within the LTC process while giving him a means to legitimize his action. The navy’s attempts at undermining this were inevitably doomed because Nott could not afford to abandon the rationale behind his review. The short-term cycle had to succeed to meet the budgetary target and therefore the medium-term cycle could only influence at the fringes. The navy were more successful in getting their NATO allies to press for changes to the review and this, together with their own compromises, led to the partial restoration of the destroyer and frigate strength through the use of the standby squadron once again. In contrast, the army was allowed to undertake their structural change within 1 (Br) Corps, which brought about a dramatic transformation in its composition. This would subsequently allow its new commander to undertake a major review of the military strategy that underpinned it. The army merely had to ensure that it reduced its forces deployed in Germany to their treaty limits and that the front line was not seen to suffer as a consequence of the reorganization. The air force was not required to change its strategy at all. In fact it was allowed to take the initiative and reallocate the Tornado deployment plans to take account of the increased service life expected for the Jaguar. Thus the long-term considerations of the air force about replacing the Jaguar and medium-term concerns about the Tornado’s range led to a significant reorientation of its force deployments and allowed it to retain the Buccaneer in service. This move was similar to the navy’s use of the standby squadron as a means of obtaining implicit governmental approval for further procurement. Most change occurred in procurement. Nott’s adoption of the barrier concept allowed the naval programme to be significantly reduced and resulted in the loss of a significant part of the navy’s future building programme. Through all this the Trident programme remained unchallenged, except for the US concerns about its impact on the conventional forces which helped the navy to restore some of its frigates. The army suffered some delays to its programmes but these were relatively minor. The one significant alteration was the decision to purchase tracked Rapier to help in the sale of BAe. Not surprisingly the army readily accepted this interference. The air force programme remained

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largely unchanged although the retention of two Phantom squadrons and the Buccaneer force represented an implicit government commitment to their replacement.

From publication to the Falklands War, July 1981–April 1982 Short-term cycle Having managed to get his review agreed the main goals for Nott were to oversee its implementation and manage the defence portfolio on a more routine basis. He assumed that having undertaken this review the MOD could expect a period of stability while it adjusted to the new policy. Any demands for further reductions would simply undermine what had been achieved and destabilize the whole process.413 Nott drew a number of lessons from the defence programme review. The resignation of Speed highlighted the divided loyalty that the junior service ministers had within the existing structure and he sought to address this by making them functional rather than service orientated. He was also concerned by the relative impotence of the CDS’s position and he wanted to rectify this and allow the CDS to offer advice to ministers in his own right.414 Medium-term cycle Having fought to alter the defence review before it was published the navy continued, in the period after its publication, to try and reduce the impact on the naval programme and fleet composition. It still sought to overturn some of the decisions made, such as the loss of the third aircraft carrier and the LPDs, and to modify those decisions it could not change. As the Type 23 had now become the principal surface programme the navy sought to shift its design ethos away from a simple frigate to a more balanced ship capable of defending itself from all threats.415 The navy also sought to take advantage of the government’s emphasis on home defence and improve its own minewarfare capabilities.416 The army was principally concerned with the protection of its existing programme from any revision to the defence review and to enact the changes to 1 (Br) Corps that Nott had agreed to. A number of issues remained unaddressed. The reintroduction of the brigade level of command in 1 (Br) Corps had implications for British forces deployed in the UK, while the expansion of the reserves needed to be considered and incorporated within the army’s strategy. Finally, the re-equipment

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programme promised to offer enhanced capabilities to the army, which needed to be carefully considered particularly in the light of improvements to Soviet conventional forces.417 The air force looked to introduce the Tornado into service and its protection remained their prime focus. Having actually been a net beneficiary from the Nott review, air force chiefs were concerned not to lose any of the ground they had gained. They also wanted to restore some of the equipment with which they had planned to equip the new Tornado but which had been axed as part of the DPWP’s mini-review in 1980.418

Long-term cycle With the entry of the Sea Harrier into front-line service the navy began to consider improvements that could be made to the design resulting from the operational experience to date and the improvements to Soviet maritime aviation. These improvements were designed to allow the ‘aircraft to fulfil its role until the late 1990s’ and studies of a followon platform were initiated.419 The introduction of the TOW-armed Lynx helicopters into service led the army to commence a study into a specialized attack helicopter for use on the Central Front.420 The air force still wanted to progress with AST.403 and obtain government approval for discussions with potential collaborative partners, while BAe wanted support for its P.110 demonstrator aircraft.421

Interaction of the time-cycles Almost immediately after the results of the review process were announced in Parliament the Cabinet was presented with Treasury demands for further public spending reductions to levels below those formally announced in March 1981.422 At the same time various government departments made bids for an extra £6.5bn beyond that agreed for the next financial year.423 The resulting Cabinet meeting (July 1981) was a partial setback for the monetarists, with the Treasury failing to achieve anywhere near its desired level of reductions. This was not only important in terms of the preservation of the defence budget. During the Cabinet discussions Nott was one of the most significant defectors from the monetarist position.424 He was not prepared to see defence forced to accept a further reduction in its budget since this would have made a mockery of his review and given support to his critics’ arguments that the process was entirely Treasury driven.

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This led to a cooling of the close relationship between Nott and Thatcher and goes some way to explaining the various concessionary steps that he started to make towards an aggrieved navy, despite the continuing problems in the defence budget. His isolation from Thatcher, and lack of support from the Conservative backbenches, left him vulnerable to criticism but his concessions aimed at appeasing this audience were only partial.425 He would not countenance a reconsideration of the decision to sell one of the Invincible-class aircraft carriers, despite the 1SL’s best endeavours426 and an agreement was reached to sell HMS Invincible to the Australians in February 1982. Nott did, however, promise the navy that it could keep all the proceeds of the £175m sale of HMS Invincible,427 despite the budgetary constraints that the MOD was suffering from in the current financial year. The navy also attempted to save the LPDs, despite their suggestion during the review that these be scrapped. The 1SL managed to get Nott to visit an LPD in Portsmouth on one of his few visits to the field.428 Having been forewarned by the 1SL, the LPD’s commander put on a show which strongly emphasized the role LPDs could play in disaster relief and service assisted evacuations of UK nationals. On his return Nott asked the cost of their retention, which he subsequently approved.429 In this he was heavily encouraged by the VCNS who took the short-term lifeline of a reprieve for these ships with the hope that replacements could be reinstated into the LTCs at a latter date.430 However, Nott delayed announcing this decision so that they could be offered as a bargaining chip with the Americans in negotiation for the Trident D-5 system.431 As Nott insisted that the Type 23 would become the navy’s principal surface combatant the navy pushed through changes in its design to enhance its capabilities. They justified this on the basis of export potential, which appealed to Nott and Thatcher. This led to a lengthening of the hull by 15 m in order to allow for the provision of a hangar for Sea King-type operations, the incorporation of the Sea Wolf surface-to-air missile system and a second main engine. As a result, the estimated cost rose to £90m.432 These changes caused the whole programme to be delayed, much to the embarrassment of Nott. His promise that the number of destroyers and frigates would remain at 50 became a political issue and the source of some concern to Conservative backbenchers. Despite the immediate financial pressure that the MOD’s budget was under he was compelled to order a further Type 22 frigate in February 1982 using the pretext that the shipyard had offered a £6m saving.433

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Reagan’s election as President of the United States led to a significant arms build-up by the United States. As part of this the US government decided to phase out the Trident C-4 system and procure the Trident D-5 system instead.434 For the MOD this presented a major problem since it would, if the plans remained unchanged, begin to bring the C4 system into service just as the Americans phased theirs out. This would have forced the MOD to meet the cost of retaining the C-4 repair and replacement facilities. The MOD had experienced this situation already when it had found it necessary to manufacture replacement rocket motors for the Polaris force.435 The general view within the MOD was therefore to move with the US to the D-5 system. However, a shift from the C-4 to the D-5 system would not only increase the procurement costs, but also provide a far greater nuclear strike capability than Britain actually wanted.436 This would provide useful political capital for the growing CND as well as the opposition parties. The latter would be able to highlight the impact on Britain’s conventional forces of the recent defence review. Nevertheless, the decision in favour of the D-5 system was made because the government felt it had little alternative and it led to severe criticism.437 The change in system had some benefits. It pushed the peak expenditure years further on, from the late 1980s to early 1990s, and left unallocated funds within the LTCs for the late 1980s. The move to the D-5 system also resulted in an increase in the hull size of the new submarines.438 This proved to be the final encouragement towards adopting the new PWR-2 reactor439 as well as the decision to incorporate a new sonar suite. Both of these contributed to the increased cost of the overall decision and the question of ordering a fifth boat was quietly dropped. Such a move had the support of the Admiralty Board who realized that the cost of a fifth boat would have had to be found from within the naval budget together with the two crews for the submarine from within a shrinking manpower pool.440 Having decided to opt for the D-5 system the British government was then faced with the problem of obtaining the agreement of the US administration for such a move so soon after the defence review that the US opposed. Fortunately this proved easier than envisaged. According to one senior official ‘we went into the negotiations with a clearly agreed British negotiating position. The Americans went in fighting savagely with each other all the way, State Department and Pentagon trying to score points all the time, a quite extraordinary performance.’441 This made the negotiations easier, but the British contingent was still concerned about what level of research and development

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costs they would have to contribute. The D-5 system was not fully developed and they feared that they would effectively have to sign a blank cheque over which they had no control. They therefore set out to fix the contribution figure.442 The British delegation was helped by the Pentagon’s desire for Britain to retain certain assets. The British agreed to man a number of Rapier batteries in the UK guarding US air bases, to retain a military presence in Belize, which Britain had not in fact intended leaving, and to retain the LPDs. For the navy the US insistence on the retention of the LPDs would help them in their argument for providing replacement ships in the long term. The switch to the D-5 system therefore guaranteed the LPD’s long-term future at the cost of a fifth Trident boat. For the army their reforms and Nott’s priorities largely overlapped and allowed them to continue the reorganization process. The brigade structure was reintroduced to units based in Britain to retain compatibility throughout the army. Nott did not object to the increase in the number of headquarters units while the opposition chose to use Trident as the focus of their criticisms of the government.443 The government’s emphasis on home defence and the use of reserves was brought together so that more regulars could be released to fight in Germany.444 To facilitate this Nott announced the formation of the Home Service Force (HSF). This aimed to give those individuals who were too old for the Territorial Army the chance to play a role in the home defence of the United Kingdom by forming HSF companies earmarked for guard duty of key strategic points. An initial manpower target was set at 4500.445 They represented a minor inconvenience to the army, who chose not to object, and instead focused on the return of a divisional headquarters from Germany. The government’s continued emphasis on the role of the reserves led the army to suggest that a reserve division be created using the divisional headquarters relocated from Germany, based on one regular and two reserve brigades.446 In wartime it would provide for the rear security of 1 (Br) Corps and allow 3rd Armoured Division to concentrate on the main battle.447 To the government it gave the reserves a far more prominent role in the defence of Germany than they had previously and allowed the defence team to show its commitment to the Central Front. The freeing of 3rd Armoured Division from rear security allowed the commander of 1 (Br) Corps, Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall, to begin to change the way it functioned. He advocated a shift away from a static attritional style battle towards a far greater use of manoeuvre and began to set these changes in place.

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A number of further cutbacks had to be implemented to avoid overspending in FY 81–82. These were primarily directed at the air force, which had previously been a net beneficiary of the review. Despite protests from the air force, Tornado deliveries were slowed down in order to spread the costs of the programme over a longer period.448 This meant that the period between phasing out the Vulcan and Canberra and the entry into service of their replacement was increased, while the upgrade of Britain’s air defences through the introduction of the Tornado F2 was also delayed. In March 1982 the JP-233 runway denial weapon for the Tornado was also deferred by a few months, with the result that it would have to enter service sometime after the Tornado. Thus the Tornado would initially have to make do with ordinary iron bombs,449 something that the CSA had been trying to prevent with his encouragement for the review of policy. In the long term, overcoming Nott’s opposition to AST.403 remained an air force priority. The BAe designed P.110 proposal continued to attract the attention of the RAF’s high command, which gave encouragement to the programme, but unsuccessfully sought to obtain Nott’s support.450 Nott also implemented the management lessons of the review process, and the army and air force junior ministers were given functional responsibilities.451 This meant that the services would no longer have a service minister, which reinforced the influence of the Central Staff at the expense of the individual services. Nott also announced a change to the CDS’s status in November 1981.452 In future the CDS would be allowed to proffer his own views when they differed from the collective views of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, or when the Chiefs of Staff Committee was unable to reach a consensus view. The future reality was that the CDS would become the first port of call for Nott when he wanted military advice.

Summary The period from the publication of the Defence Review to the outbreak of the Falklands War witnessed comparatively little friction between the cycles in comparison to the period that had preceded it. Declaratory policy remained unchanged. Home defence continued to receive greater prominence and the HSF was created in response to the short-term political cycle rather than any army need for such a force. The most significant change to strategy lay in the creation of the fourth reserve division to protect the 1 (Br) Corps line of communications. Here the army exploited the government’s aspiration to give the

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reserves a more prominent role and the availability of the divisional headquarters resulting from the reorganization of 1 (Br) Corps. Its ramifications for the future conduct of war on the Central Front were not clear at this stage nor were the full implications of changes to army doctrine apparent. In terms of procurement the navy benefited to a limited extent from Nott’s vulnerability within the Conservative Party and growing isolation from Mrs Thatcher. This meant they were able to alter the Type 23 specification quite considerably to move it from a low to a highcapability unit as well as obtaining an order for an extra Type 22. They were also able to retain the LPDs in service. They were less successful in overturning some of the more fundamental decisions of the review, such as the sale of the third aircraft carrier to Australia. Nevertheless, they had made considerable progress compared to the initial proposals of the Bermudagram. The switch from Trident C-4 to D-5 was forced upon the government by the new US administration. The change in warhead configuration was accepted but no consideration was given as to how strategy should be altered to accommodate this. Instead it was assumed that this would remain merely a Polaris replacement. However, the cost of the Trident system, already a political hot potato, led the navy and government to abandon plans for a fifth boat. The army’s procurement programme remained unchanged but the air force’s did not. Despite being the major beneficiary of the defence procurement review the air force bore the brunt of the short-term financial restrictions required to keep the MOD within its spending limits for the existing financial year. The air force’s hope that it could put some of its lost weapons systems back into the LTCs had to be abandoned as the Tornado programme was delayed to alleviate the immediate financial crisis that the MOD found itself in.

The impact of the Falklands: June 1982–January 1983 Short-term cycle The Argentinean invasion of the Falkland Islands, and the subsequent war with Britain, resulted in a three-month hiatus within the MOD. Among the early casualties of the war was the Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, who resigned and was replaced by Pym. Nott offered to resign but the Prime Minister, who felt she could not afford to lose two important Cabinet members at such a moment, persuaded him to

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stay.453 However, Nott let it be known that he would not seek reelection to Parliament and as a result, his position within the MOD was severely weakened. He effectively acted as a caretaker overseeing the new Defence White Paper, which resulted from the Falklands War. The war involved the dispatch of a large, balanced naval task force headed by two aircraft carriers, and the conduct of a major amphibious operation, led by the two LPDs, over 8000 miles from the United Kingdom.454 It was unusual in that the navy, Royal Marines and the army played the major roles while the air force was left the main task of providing logistical support. Consequently, Nott tried to prevent an overemphasis being placed on Britain’s future involvement in similar type operations outside NATO and tried to reiterate the importance of the Soviet threat to Europe.455 As soon as the conflict began the Treasury opened up its reserves. Once the war was over the Treasury was concerned to minimize the costs of the war and prevent the MOD using it as a means of obtaining a significant increase in its defence budget. In contrast Nott wanted to ensure that none of the costs of the war were met by the existing defence budget. The Falklands War had a tremendous impact upon the domestic political situation: the Prime Minister and government’s popularity soared and the MOD’s position of power and influence vis-à-vis the other departments of state rose temporarily.456 The emergence of the ‘Falklands factor’ did much to restore the government’s political standing among the electorate and this lesson was not lost on either the Conservatives or the opposition parties. Medium-term cycle The war resulted in a new battle over the review. According to Leach: Hardly had the cease-fire been signed when all the internecine bickering on Defence Review cuts recurred in strength. Or stronger, because now the Army, Air Force and the Treasury were fearful that the Navy, having fought a highly successful war but suffered not inconsiderable losses in ships and demonstrated critical shortcomings in equipment, would mount a recovery bandwagon which could only be at the expense of the others.457 For the services the outlook was mixed. They all sought to get their losses replaced with the best available equipment before the Treasury managed to cap expenditure. This encouraged them to spend as

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quickly as possible rather than to consider their priorities. They also sought to substantiate their existing or hoped for programmes, basing their requests upon the post-Falklands defence scenario which was likely to require a more significant military presence in that region and perhaps elsewhere. Long-term cycle For the navy the losses incurred raised issues about the future design of ships. While the Type 23 could be modified in the medium term, in the long term the navy needed to consider what ship would replace the existing Type 42 air defence destroyers given the hostility of Nott and Thatcher to this type of ship. The Sea King replacement programme remained under development and would soon need approval for its development to go ahead. This raised the issue of whether it should be produced by Westland on their own or in conjunction with partners.458 Studies into the replacement of the remainder of the Chieftain tanks continued with no significant progress. The problem lay in its timing, which did not tie in with the replacement programmes of any of Britain’s major allies.459 The air force’s concern to press ahead with AST.403 remained and the weakened position of Nott gave the air force a potential opening. The possible retention of Phantom aircraft after the introduction of the Tornado F2 into service raised the issue of what aircraft would replace the remaining five Phantom squadrons (two in the UK, two in Germany and the new Falklands squadron). Interaction of the time-cycles The 1982 Defence White Paper, published almost immediately after the Falklands War had ended, was a holding statement while the lessons of the conflict were considered. In the defence debate that followed Nott was able to take account of Treasury weakness and confirm that all equipment would be replaced without recourse to the existing defence budget.460 However, the Treasury had already started to try and limit the costs of this. Its first measure was to manage the additional expenditure separately from the defence budget so that it was not subject to NATO’s 3 per cent increase. The July defence debate provided the first indication of a change in defence priorities. This reflected Nott’s weakness within the defence policy process. To placate Conservative backbench calls for the immediate ordering of replacement ships Nott announced an order for a

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ninth Type 22 frigate, due to delays in the Type 23 and his need to be seen to be ordering something.461 Nott repeatedly pointed out the uniqueness of the conflict and that it should not be allowed to have a disfiguring effect on Britain’s long-term defence planning. However, to Thatcher it confirmed the need for an out-of-area capability,462 while those on the Conservative backbenches and the Labour opposition pointed to the damage done by the Nott review and called for its reversal. With this political debate ongoing all three services sought to emphasize their out-of-area role to justify new programmes. The navy successfully pushed for the retention of the third aircraft carrier in order to ensure that two such vessels would be available for operations in the future rather than the existing one.463 However, the navy did not canvass the reinstatement of the third air group. The VCNS believed that this was unlikely to be successful.464 Instead, the navy resigned itself to using the training squadrons as the basis of the third air group in wartime and accepted that the other two air groups would have to suffer an increased tempo of operations in peacetime. The loss of four warships and an RFA presented the Treasury with a significant bill and the Treasury sought to place limitations upon their replacements.465 The warships lost comprised two Type 42 air defence destroyers and two commercially designed Type 21 frigates. The Treasury team campaigned that four relatively cheap Type 21 frigates or the new Type 23 frigates should replace these.466 The navy, in contrast, would have preferred to replace the Type 42s with similar ships and the two frigates with the Type 22 frigates to maintain the existing balance in the fleet. They argued that the Type 21 was out of production and the design of the Type 23 had not been finalized. However, the way in which the modern Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield was lost meant that this warship was not politically acceptable and the Admiralty Board decided to take the pragmatic step of campaigning for four new Type 22s to an enhanced design.467 Nott supported the navy and announced orders for four new Type 22 frigates, three of which would incorporate a 4.5 inch gun and a point-defence missile system to take account of some of the lessons learnt. Nott confirmed that the lost LSL, RFA Sir Galahad, would be replaced with an order expected for 1983 and the damaged RFA, Sir Tristram, would be returned to the UK with the aim of repairing her.468 To meet the requirement to a destroyer/frigate presence in the South Atlantic in support of the retained HMS Endurance Nott agreed to the navy’s request to maintain four of the frigates scheduled for the

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standby squadron in service until at least 1985 together with three frigates previously earmarked for scrapping.469 This, the navy hoped, would become an indefinite extension as part of the aim of retaining the eight ships scheduled for the standby squadron within the active fleet.470 The need to requisition and convert a merchantman to provide a repair facility helped the navy in its campaign for the reconsideration of the provision for sea-going heavy repair facility within the fleet.471 This it couched in terms of the out-of-area role and Nott agreed to acquire the ship. The switch from the Trident C-4 to D-5 system also allowed the plans for the SSN programme to be finalized. Nott announced plans to order SSN-17 later in the fiscal year, SSN-18 to follow in the subsequent fiscal year and SSN-19 hopefully before the order for the first Trident boat.472 This would give a force of 18 SSNs and implied a return to the navy’s goal of 20 boats. While the navy sought to increase the number of active destroyers and frigates it remained constrained by a lack of manpower and Nott’s fixing of the number of escorts at 50. The Admiralty Board could only hope to change this once Nott was replaced. In the meantime it began to look at ways to release some of the manpower tied up in shore billets to crew the additional ships. As a result of manpower constraints the navy was forced to consider the contracturalization of certain functions. Thus the navy was the first service really to begin to implement some of the Conservatives’ reform ideas previously applied to local government. For the army the main preoccupations remained Germany and Northern Ireland. Nevertheless, they did campaign for improvements to the out-of-area role beyond those originally planned. This represented a complete reversal of their 1979 policy of blocking such changes. We intend further to improve the airborne and other capabilities of 5 Infantry Brigade for out-of-area operations. It already has two parachute battalions, an infantry battalion and engineer support. To these we have just added an armoured reconnaissance regiment and in the course of next year we will add an artillery regiment, an Army Air Corps squadron and certain logistic units.473 The government also began to consider the formation of a rapid deployment division based on this brigade and 3 Commando Brigade for out-of-area operations. One area of weakness that the Falklands War had highlighted was in the field of electronic warfare and an urgent programme was initiated

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to rectify this deficiency.474 For the air defence of the Falkland Islands the army and air force obtained an order for an additional 24 Rapier units.475 The army took advantage of this and purchased an additional batch of the tracked variant of the Rapier system, which it deployed to Germany, and deployed some of its towed Rapier units to the Falklands. Thus, the army was able further to improve the portability of its air defence capability in Germany by using the Falklands as a reason for a further Rapier buy. The air force again pushed ahead with its programme to fit in-flight refuelling probes throughout its fleet of aircraft. The Nimrod, Hercules and VC-10 fleet all received probes over the next few years. In addition, the need to provide increased tanker support and a strategic lift capability to the Falklands was used to justify the purchase of widebodied aircraft for conversion to the tanker/transport role. Under pressure from the government the RAF purchased six surplus TriStar aircraft from British Airways for conversion to the tanker/transport roles to assist its privatization, rather than their preferred option of McDonnell-Douglas DC-10s.476 The Falklands War had highlighted a number of weaknesses within the weapons systems used by the air force. The attempts to close the runway at Port Stanley had only been partially successful and this reinforced the need for the JP-233 runway denial system then in the course of development. The problem of attacking Argentinean radar systems had also been revealed and the programme to develop an anti-radar system was revived and put out to tender.477 An order for at least 12 extra Phantoms to provide cover for the deployment of an air defence squadron to Port Stanley was agreed. This meant that the Air Force Board had at last managed to achieve its target of three extra fighter squadrons, even if one had to be stationed in the South Atlantic in peacetime. The government’s retention of the Phantom squadrons in the United Kingdom and Germany meant that a sizeable replacement batch of fighter aircraft was now needed and had been implicitly agreed. The air force’s support for BAe’s P.110 was an initial step towards replacing the Jaguar and Phantom aircraft. In his weakened position within the MOD Nott agreed to help fund this private demonstrator on the stipulation that this did not mean that a future European combat aircraft would evolve from it.478 The RAF High Command were happy to accept this since it meant that the programme had at last been generated and that they could then try and increase the momentum behind it under the next Secretary of State for Defence.

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To Nott the Falklands experience also reinforced his belief that the role of the CDS needed to be enhanced so that he could tender independent advice and act as the principal military adviser to the government.479 The result was a further shift to the Central Staff just as the services began to reassert their position beyond the remit imposed by the defence review. Summary In many ways this final period of Nott’s time at the MOD marked the watershed of his review. The assumptions underpinning the entire rationale of the review were undone by events in the South Atlantic and this completely undermined his position within the MOD. It allowed the services, and in particular the navy, to capitalize on his and the Treasury’s weakness and partially restore, and in some cases enhance, their preferred programmes. The timing of the conflict could not have been better for the navy and the 1SL seized the opportunity to protect his service.480 However, in a future period of financial stringency many of the assumptions and arguments upon which the review was based remained valid and could be revisited by a future Secretary of State. This was reinforced by the further shift of power within the MOD from the services to the Central Staff, especially with the reorientation of the department ministers onto a functional basis. Consequently, the medium-term cycle had become more vulnerable to interference from the short-term political and budgetary cycle than had occurred before, as decisions would increasingly be shifted from the individual services to the Central Staff. Nevertheless, the period witnessed the medium-term cycle reestablishing its authority within the defence planning process. This was most evident in Nott’s surrender to the air force over AST.403. While declaratory policy remained essentially unchanged, the navy was able to begin the shift in its strategy away from the barrier concept and the army continued its revolution in thinking and structure within 1 (Br) Corps. The services were also able to exert authority over their procurement plans. For example, the navy were able to alter the design of the Type 23 from a very austere frigate to a balanced ASW-oriented frigate on the high capabilities end of the spectrum. The period shows that only when the Secretary of State for Defence was particularly strong and continued to have the support of the Prime Minister could the short-term political cycle dominate the policy process.

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Conclusions Thatcher’s attempt at putting one of her close circle in charge of the MOD was only partially successful. Nott succeeded in pushing a number of measures through the MOD aimed at curbing the defence budget in the short term without adversely affecting the Conservatives’ electoral standing. He managed to change the overall power balance within the ministry to the advantage of the Central Staff at the expense of the services. Both these measures had her support, but the close relationship that existed between Nott and Thatcher at the start of his time at the MOD had noticeably cooled by the time he left. This led to a number of his early controversial decisions, which she had fully endorsed, being undermined as he sought to broaden his support within the wider Conservative Party. The services found that their programmes and doctrines initially came under close scrutiny but the changes that were initiated ultimately underwent significant revision. Thus Nott’s attempts to abandon the traditional division of the defence budget between the services and adopt a more functional approach to defence were only partially successful. This was most clearly evident in the case of the Royal Navy, which managed largely to preserve the overall balance of the fleet despite the initial radical recasting envisaged by Nott. For the first part of Nott’s time in office the short-term cycle appeared in the ascendancy to an extent unmatched during Pym’s years at the MOD. The medium-term cycle soon reasserted itself through various manoeuvres of the three services. Yet even this appeared to be merely based on short-term expediency rather then a medium-term outlook. Where Nott was most successful was in altering the relative balance of power within the medium-term cycle. This was most evident in the redefinition of the CDS’s role, which reflected a shift in power from the services to the Central Staff. More importantly and less noticeable was the role of the Capabilities group which combined both service and Civil Service personnel. Nott’s successor was able to use this momentum to continue to shift the power base within the MOD away from the services towards the Central Staff and thus implement elements of his own agenda. Nott’s time in office revealed how the MOD reacted to having a policy initiator with the firm support of the Prime Minister as Secretary of State for Defence. Nott was a stark contrast from Pym and this was clearly reflected in the early impact that he had upon the MOD. Yet, even if the Falklands War had not occurred, it seems likely that, as his time in office increased, he would have had less and less of an impact

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as the various actors within the MOD adapted to their minister. While the Nott review threatened to have a significant impact upon the Royal Navy there had already been a number of revisions to the original plan prior to April 1982. This would imply either that a policy initiator loses impetus over time or that the system adapts to the ministerial style over time and reduces the minister’s ability to initiate policy change or that a combination of the two takes place. Who were the main actors and how did they interact in this process? Nott remained a key actor within the MOD throughout his time in office. Because of the changes he wanted to put through, his relationship with the Prime Minister was critical. He was able to undertake the initial review but was forced to make concessions to the out-of-area concept. Once this relationship had begun to decline he was left isolated within the Conservative Party and vulnerable within the MOD, which forced him to make concessions and effectively reduced his ability to alter the three strands of policy. With Nott initiating policy the remainder of the defence team played a relatively minor role. Speed’s resignation had relatively little impact and was indicative of the lack of involvement of the rest of the defence team in the review process. Likewise the Foreign Secretary had little impact despite Carrington’s best efforts in preserving the ice-patrol ship HMS Endurance. Within the MOD the role of the Capabilities group was crucial in providing Nott with the rationale behind his reductions in the naval budget. This represented a significant shift in the power balance away from the services to the Central Staff, despite the limitations placed upon the CDS during the review. Moreover, Nott was able to reinforce this shift by altering the CDS’s role vis-à-vis the Service Chiefs. The Service Chiefs found their dominant position within the policy process temporarily undermined by the new Defence Secretary. The shift in the balance of funding undermined their unity and the army and air force accepted the proposed reductions. The army and air force effectively undermined this unity before Nott formulated the Bermudagram. The navy’s initial naivety left it open to Nott’s emphasis on the barrier concept and it was only in its subsequent dealings with Nott that it was able to start to undermine decisions made earlier. This was most evident in the size of the destroyer and frigate force, which shifted from a low 30s or high 20s to 50 by the time of the publication of the Defence White Paper.

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How did defence fit into both the domestic and foreign political environments? Throughout the review process Labour’s lack of impact was telling. Nott was fortunate in both the timing of the creation of the SDP and in Labour’s shift towards unilateralism which undermined its ability to influence the government on defence policy. Instead, the political debate focused almost entirely on the morality of nuclear weapons. The emergence of the SDP complicated the political scene and the Conservatives were conscious that they should not leave themselves vulnerable to the SDP or Labour on defence. However, at least in the early stages of the SDP, the move of so many of Labour’s principal defence speakers to the SDP meant that there was a defence vacuum within Parliament during the crucial stages of the review. The ability of the trade unions and Conservative backbenchers to influence the defence review was noticeably lacking. With the support of the Prime Minister, Nott was able effectively to ignore both these pressure groups. However, once the support of the Prime Minister began to diminish Nott was forced to start to placate the Conservative backbenches.481 This meant that the current fiscal year reductions that he had to make for FY 81–82 were levied at the air force rather than the navy, although this represented a token gesture at best. There was greater pressure from within NATO, and especially from the United States, over the review. This caused Nott to modify some of his policies and precluded him from taking the option put forward by Boorman of significantly reducing 1 (Br) Corps. Thus the destroyer and frigate numbers were increased through the use of the standby squadron and BAOR was not reduced below 55 000. The most significant influence was the US decision to change from the Trident C4 to D-5 system without consulting the British. This forced the government to completely rethink its Trident purchase. The fifth boat was effectively lost as a result and the future of the LPDs secured in its place. How was defence policy affected by the management changes put through? Nott originally planned to reform the MOD’s management structure once he had dealt with the programme review.482 This took longer than he anticipated and, by the time he had finished, his close relationship with the Prime Minister had cooled. This made it harder for him to push through the planned changes. As a result, his structural changes largely centred around increasing the CDS’s power at the

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expense of the individual Service Chiefs. In this he was able to exploit the divisions between the Service Chiefs to ensure his changes went through. The most significant change was the reorganization of the junior ministers. Instead of being assigned to a particular service they were now role-orientated, taking up responsibility for either procurement or personnel. This had a profound effect upon the Service Chiefs. It brought them more to the fore in the bargaining within the MOD since they could no longer choose to leave this to their respective minister. It also ensured that the defence team were able to speak with one voice within the MOD and avoid putting junior ministers in the difficult position of attempting to serve different masters. Nott was able to do less about reforming the actual procurement process, although if the Falklands War had not occurred this might have been different. As a result, when the Prime Minister looked for a successor, one of the basic requirements was an interest in procurement and management reform. Nevertheless, Nott’s imposition of manpower reductions, particularly on the navy, would later force all three services to look at alternative methods of purchasing goods and services. He had, therefore, laid much of the groundwork for his successor to carry on and undertake the management reforms that the Prime Minister argued were necessary across Whitehall. Nott was also able to support the privatization process as the first defence companies began entering private ownership in 1981.483 Thus, the army was encouraged to reconsider its attitude towards the purchase of tracked Rapier while the air force were forced to purchase TriStars from British Airways, rather than the DC-10s that they preferred. This use of defence procurement to help ensure the successful privatization of state industries became even more open in the subsequent years, and resulted in considerable political criticism from the opposition benches.

5 Michael Heseltine, January 1983–January 1986

Introduction Thatcher had two main requirements for Nott’s successor. First, the need for an effective communicator to counter the influence of CND on public opinion. Second, the willingness to implement a far more businesslike approach within the MOD than had previously been the case.484 Heseltine excelled in both criteria. His oratorical gifts were well known at Conservative Party conferences, and Thatcher liked his management style,485 which ‘she saw as an abject lesson to those of us who appeared to be interested only in policy’.486 He shared her belief that the funds necessary for defence improvements could be generated through greater efficiency within the MOD.487 However, the relationship between them remained distant and his appointment to the defence post promised to remove a thorn from her side on domestic issues.488 She felt that at the Department of the Environment he had been far more concerned with being ‘Minister for Merseyside’ than in local authority finance or in finding an alternative to the rating system.489 At the MOD he would be held responsible for a significant, but time-consuming, portfolio, which had the potential significantly to reduce his popularity within the Conservative Party if he were forced to undertake any cutbacks. She had therefore managed again to give the MOD to the minister she felt was most likely to mount a challenge to her leadership.490

The years of plenty: 1983–84 Short-term cycle Although Heseltine did not want to take on defence or expect to remain there for any length of time, he had little choice but to accept 100

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the promotion. He viewed the appointment as a stepping-stone in his quest to become Prime Minister and made that clear to his immediate advisers within the MOD.491 He had no previous interest or experience in foreign or security issues,492 but as a committed European, and with a deep interest in trade and industry, he found three areas in which he could immerse himself: Firstly, he was extremely interested and very effective in some of the political issues that the programme represented. Secondly, he was extremely interested in the organization of the Ministry of Defence, both in the programmes area and elsewhere, and I suspect that he felt that if you could get the organization right then you would be able to do more than it actually could. The third area which he became extremely interested in, and which ultimately led to his resignation, was the industrial area, and in particular, the position of British industry and British industrial interests vis-à-vis the United States in one area and the Europeans in the other.493 The first two offered him a means of consolidating his political reputation as an ‘administrator and organizational ideas’ man and his name regularly appeared before party members and the wider electorate.494 Apart from being Prime Minister he also wanted to become the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry ‘and organize what he saw as a Japanesestyle industrial policy’.495 The MOD effectively offered him this experience through its close links with industry, particularly through the nationalized companies involved in the defence field. The appeal of this was enhanced by Britain’s history of defence collaboration with Europe, which fitted neatly into Heseltine’s pro-European agenda.496 Heseltine was therefore content to devote his energies into these areas. He was not particularly interested in declaratory policy or the military strategy aspects of defence policy, which he largely left alone.

Medium-term cycle Heseltine’s move to defence coincided with the turnover of staff within the Chiefs of Staff. Bramall, the new CDS, had experienced the uncertainty and cutbacks of the Nott review whilst CGS and therefore immediately embarked upon a series of papers on future strategy in order to try and pre-empt another financially-driven defence review.497 Like previous CDSs, Bramall felt that the services needed to re-establish their influence upon declaratory policy in order to underpin their military

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strategies and procurement programmes. Not surprisingly he was in favour of increasing the power of the CDS vis-à-vis the individual services as part of the ongoing centralization of defence policy-making. In this he had the support of the new PUS, Clive Whitmore, who continued the traditional Civil Service line of arguing for greater civilian control over policy-making.498 With a new Secretary of State for Defence the navy had two main priorities. First, to ensure that orders were rapidly placed for ships lost during the Falklands War before they became subsumed within the existing programme; and second, they wanted to overturn the general conclusions of the Nott review. In particular, they wanted to abandon the barrier concept, increase the number of destroyers and frigates and support the US Navy’s new strategic vision. 499 This centred on NATO moving away from fighting a defensive battle in the Atlantic towards an offensive-based strategy in which the US aircraft carriers acting in concert with each other would deploy to the Norwegian Sea. The army remained preoccupied by the Central Front and protecting its equipment programme. As the Commander of NATO’s Northern Army Group (COMNORTHAG), Bagnall wanted to get his new thinking adopted at the operational level. He was concerned with Soviet doctrine changes and, in particular, the creation of the concept of Operational Manoeuvre Groups (OMGs). As a result, he wished to reduce the emphasis placed within the command on forward defence and get NORTHAG to think about fighting at the army group level rather than merely attempting to co-ordinate its four component corps (of which 1 (Br) Corps was one).500 He also wanted to resurrect the army’s plan of creating a mobile anti-tank force capable of dealing with Soviet OMGs in conjunction with similar allied units.501 For the air force the wide-scale introduction of the Tornado remained its main priority. The reductions and delays during the last phase of Nott’s time in office had caused some misgivings within the air force’s high command and raised concern within the media about the RAF’s window of vulnerability across the entire range of its aircraft types.502 The RAF, therefore, sought to avoid any further slippage in its programme.503 The change in the Tornado deployment plans in favour of Germany and the army’s shift towards fighting at the operational level led to considerable discussions within the air force about its role on the Central Front and the need to redefine its mission.504

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Long-term cycle The Type 23 frigate programme, its associated AOR, and the new SSKs dominated naval thinking. Nevertheless, consideration was starting to be given to the future replacement of the Type 42 air defence destroyer and the next generation of SSN. It was envisaged that both of these programmes would see a first of class in service around the turn of the century.505 Linked into the Type 23 programme was the question of the next generation of anti-submarine warfare helicopter. The EH-101 had been the subject of an ongoing programme since 1978 and the operational requirement had now been agreed. Westland wanted to develop the new aircraft in conjunction with Augusta and the navy aimed to obtain the requisite government approval.506 For the army the decision to replace part of its fleet of Chieftain main battle tanks with Challenger raised the question of how the remainder of the fleet would be replaced in the mid-1990s. The question revolved around whether it should be a national design, most likely a development of the Challenger, a collaborative venture, which the experience of MBT-80 did nothing to encourage, or the purchase of a foreign design.507 The army also looked to its future requirement for anti-tank weaponry in order to combat the likely improvements to Soviet capabilities. In addition, the army invited proposals to provide it with a realtime reconnaissance capability over the battlefield and a short distance into enemy territory. The most likely solution to this was a remotely piloted vehicle to replace the Midge drones currently in service.508 With the Tornado programme on-stream and the improvements to the UK’s air defences underway the air force continued to consider the question of replacing the Bloodhound SAM system and wanted this programme to be pushed ahead while the defence budget was still growing.509 A collaborative programme was the preferred solution to help prevent it being cut. Having successfully retained the Buccaneer in the maritime strike role, the first consideration was to decide its replacement. The most obvious candidate, as far as the Air Force Board was concerned, was a suitably modified Tornado GR1 equipped with the same Sea Eagle missiles earmarked for the Buccaneer force. This would require the purchase of an additional batch of 50 or so Tornado aircraft with entry into service towards the end of the 1990s. However, the experience of fitting Harpoon missiles to the Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) during the Falklands campaign raised the question of whether additional MPAs might be a better alternative. The air force was therefore keen to establish a requirement based around the

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Tornado for this role and have it approved by ministers. The other platforms for replacement included the Nimrod ASW force, then in the midst of an upgrade, and the Hercules and VC-10 transport fleets. Here the policy of rationalizing the number of aircraft types in service raised the question of whether this replacement could use a common airframe suitably modified for each role and the idea of the future large aircraft (FLA) evolved.510 Interaction of the time-cycles The dramatic improvement in the opinion polls following the Falklands War encouraged Thatcher to seek an early election. The Conservatives concluded that defence would favour them as a campaign issue in the election, especially given Labour’s non-nuclear defence policy, and allow them to avoid other issues, such as the high levels of unemployment.511 However, the emergence of the Liberal/SDP Alliance confused the Conservatives’ election planning. The Alliance appeared committed to the strategic nuclear deterrent and the Conservative leadership felt that it could not afford to surrender ground to them on defence if this was to be one of their main campaigning platforms against Labour. In the run up to the election the Conservatives could not, therefore, let themselves be seen to be weak on defence and Heseltine avoided any significant changes prior to the election.512 He was aware that the controversial deployment of the first GLCM to Greenham Common was rapidly approaching so his first step at the MOD was to create the Defence Arms Control Unit (DACU) to coordinate the government’s response to CND.513 Its creation caused some dismay to the PUS, who felt that its agenda was already covered by the MOD, and he succeeded in downgrading its importance by having a relatively junior official as its head.514 Nevertheless, the unit was of value to the Conservatives because it indirectly criticized Labour’s defence policy and the Labour opposition felt that the unit was directly targeted against them.515 After the 1983 general election the newly appointed Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, felt free to launch an immediate raid on the various department budgets before the new ministers realized what was happening. In this he had the full support of the Prime Minister who wished to emphasize her support for her new Chancellor.516 The result was ‘a tense meeting between Margaret, Michael Heseltine, then Defence Secretary, and myself [Nigel Lawson] at Number 10, I managed to secure agreement on a £240 million cut in the defence budget’.517

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This amount roughly corresponded to the Defence Secretary’s own budget, which Nott had fought to create, and which the Treasury had never really liked. Within the MOD it was felt that Heseltine’s acquiescence to this Treasury onslaught did not auger well for the future. Heseltine was more reticent.518 The decision reflected his lack of interest in the military side of defence policy. Another aspect that may well have swayed him was his belief that he would not be at the MOD for long and thus the cumulative effect of such a reduction would not be felt until after he had been moved on. The continued adherence to the 3 per cent commitment and the additional Treasury cash promised to replace the Falklands’ losses allowed him to present a healthy picture of the defence programme at least in the short term. Nevertheless, the cut was still embarrassing because it was announced within 24 hours of the publication of his first Defence White Paper.519 The embarrassment was offset by his success in pushing through a change to the accounting rules, which allowed the MOD to carry surplus cash forward in future.520 This had long been an objective within the MOD and meant that the services would not in future be put in the position in years of surplus of frantically trying to find ways of spending cash to preserve their budget at the year-end. Instead it allowed them to give much greater accord to the operational requirements of the services by carrying forward their surplus funds for medium-term projects.521 It also stopped the Treasury basing its calculations of defence increases on actual spending figures when it suited them. It was hardly surprising that Heseltine began to review the organization of the MOD shortly after being appointed. His credentials as a management reformer and his belief that ‘Ministers should be personally involved in the management of their departments’522 tied into his perceived role in the MOD. Others took a more cynical view within the MOD. According to one official: If you are not going to stay in defence for very long you cannot do an awful lot on strategy and weapon procurement because procurement is over a long span and strategy is tied in with endless negotiations with allies and so on. The only thing you can do is change the organization and so we knew we were going to have the organization turned upside down whether we needed it or not.523 The only other option was to undertake a defence review, but the recent experience of Nott discouraged Heseltine from taking this avenue.524

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He sought to introduce management and organizational reform to the MOD. First, through the introduction of the Management Information System for Ministers (MINIS), second, by reform of the organizational structure within the MOD and third, by introducing much wider competition in defence contracts. In all these reforms he had the support of the Prime Minister as the search for increased efficiency remained a central part of government policy.525 The introduction of the MINIS system marked Heseltine’s first attempt at managing the resources of the MOD. It ‘made the civil servants write down what their terms of reference were’526 and led to the production of a complete organizational diagram. He hoped that these reforms would indefinitely delay the need for a further defence review. In its first round 156 areas were investigated (93 service and 63 civilian) with Heseltine personally interviewing many of the people involved.527 These studies concluded that the organization could be far more economical in the number of senior posts and that the lines of accountability were blurred with compromise becoming the basis for advice and decisions.528 Outside the MOD, MINIS was credited with having a significant effect on reducing the number of employees within the MOD and cutting the bureaucratic waste that many Conservatives associated with Whitehall. Heseltine, therefore, received considerable praise. Inside the MOD, MINIS proved very unpopular and in subsequent rounds it began to run into problems as Heseltine’s direct involvement in the project gradually diminished. In particular the military were highly critical and the first wave of studies were notable for only examining rear-area and civilian functions.529 No study was actually undertaken in a front-line unit.530 Heseltine believed that the MOD’s federal structure needed rationalizing and sought to continue the centralization started under Healey from 1964–70. He hoped that this would weaken the effects of inter-service rivalry, which he believed was one of the principal problems in resource allocation. He therefore sought to strengthen the Central Staff.531 Others were more sceptical about the motives behind the change. According to the House of Commons Defence Committee (HCDC) ‘the reasons for the proposed changes … have been almost studiedly vague’.532 Heseltine knew that such a reorganization would incur the wrath of the Chiefs of Staff so kept them out of the discussions, notifying them of his plans only at the last minute.533 His intention was To create a combined defence staff, responsible under the chief of the defence staff and the Permanent Under-Secretary for advising

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me on defence policy, military priorities and the conduct of military operations. The staff will incorporate the relevant parts of the naval, general and air staffs. I also intend that it should bring together my military and civilian advisers into an integrated structure.534 Such a structure greatly reduced the role of the individual Service Chiefs who lost their operational requirements (OR) staff to the Central Staff as well as their deputies. Their response was to draft a report condemning many of the proposals. They argued that these reforms were entirely geared towards the peacetime operation of the MOD and that they were entirely unsuitable for conducting any wartime operations, such as the recent Falklands War.535 This report, which had the support of the CDS, was presented to the Prime Minister after Heseltine refused to accept it. She firmly supported Heseltine in his changes, which meant that there was little that the Service Chiefs could formally do to change policy.536 They therefore sought to get around the new formal structure through informal means with members of the Central Staff reminded about their service allegiance.537 The PUS was far more content with the reforms since it allowed him to reassert his authority over the civilian side of the ministry with the CSA and CDP made directly accountable to him. Furthermore, the new combined Defence Staff were made jointly and severally responsible to the PUS as well as the CDS implying a much greater civilian involvement in defence decision-making than had previously been the case.538 The reorganization led to Heseltine receiving considerable plaudits as the Secretary of State for Defence who finally completed the centralization of the defence process. The third area for reform was in the area of procurement contracts. According to a former minister ‘we got into the business of people in procurement being asked to justify costs and programmes through lifecycle costs and … the whole idea about there being savings to be made through competition was accelerated’.539 To develop these ideas ‘Value for Money in Defence Equipment Procurement’540 was released quite soon after Heseltine took office and confirmed the government’s shift away from the old cost-plus method of contracting to one which emphasized competition between firms for contracts.541 To reinforce this change in emphasis Heseltine initially employed Peter Levene as a personnel adviser and subsequently offered him the post of Chief of Defence Procurement ‘in the face of departmental obstruction … to run defence procurement on sound business lines’.542 This appointment led to some political fall-out for Heseltine but he believed that

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Levene’s familiarity with the defence industry made him eminently suitable for the post. According to one official ‘Heseltine’s view was that you must always think of a competitive solution.’543 As a result, the issuing of tenders for MOD contracts became far more common and Heseltine pushed forward with the contracting-out of MOD and service support functions, including the refit of Royal Navy frigates and SSKs, in the private sector from 1984 onwards. As part of his attempts to avoid a further defence review, and to increase the impact that his management reforms had within the MOD, Heseltine initiated a freeze on civil and military numbers. He wanted the front-line strength of the services increased by supplying personnel for the front line from the support services. Consequently, even if a service had the funds to finance an increase in personnel strength they were prevented from doing so. This led to a number of problems for the services as personnel were redirected to the front line and the major reequipment programmes of the army and air force went ahead. For example, the formation of a Tornado Operational Evaluation Unit to develop new tactics and test equipment for the RAF’s new Tornado squadrons was delayed by the ban on employing additional personnel despite the fact that funds had already been earmarked for the task.544 These manpower constraints, together with Heseltine’s emphasis upon competition, encouraged the new budgetary heads within the MOD to consider contracting-out a number of its support functions both in the civilian field and in the services. This led to a number of problems in the service career structure and wartime reinforcement plans as peacetime efficiencies led to cuts in personnel earmarked for other wartime roles. Nevertheless, for the government, such a policy of giving preference to the front line was most welcome since it allowed them to present the picture of services either unchanged or indeed increased. The implications for the sustainability of the armed forces in wartime were less obvious and the Conservatives could continue to project themselves as the party that was strong on defence, even if the reality was somewhat different. This was very hard for the opposition to contradict and helped to undermine Labour’s allegation that the Trident decision was weakening Britain’s conventional forces.545 Linked to the procurement process and the movement towards contracting-out was the question of the future of the nationalized defence industries. For the Conservatives the privatization process represented one of their major policy flagships during Thatcher’s second term in office. The large number of privatizations put through included a significant number of defence firms.546 Heseltine and Thatcher were

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in agreement that Britain’s defence industry needed to be privatized. According to one senior civil servant the privatization process ‘was driven on purely political grounds that it was better to have management with shareholders than management with the government via the Department of Trade and Industry’.547 To facilitate the sale of these defence firms to investors they needed to show significant mediumterm order books, or at least the prospects of significant orders. Heseltine helped to ensure that the MOD’s procurement plans achieved this. Within the Cabinet, tensions arose over the best means of implementing the policy of increased competition. Thatcher and her supporters believed the best method was to let market forces have as free a reign as possible with competition for MOD orders being open to domestic suppliers and those from allied states. Heseltine considered such a policy to be inherently dangerous in that the sheer costs of tendering for major weapons systems encouraged industries to amalgamate and eventually led to monopoly suppliers. He believed that certain areas of Western Europe’s fragmented defence industry would not be able to compete with their American counterparts in the short term on an equal footing. Instead he argued for a more interventionist policy, which sought to protect the defence industrial base on a primarily West European basis.548 Heseltine ‘had a great vision of Europe for the procurement side and so anything that wasn’t a European project was very suspect and tended to be delayed and procrastinated upon because what he wanted was for everything to be built on a European scale’.549 Heseltine took advantage of the Cabinet system, which gave individual ministers a substantial degree of autonomy, to pursue his own goals. On the policy front his first noticeable action was to help organize the revitalization of the Independent European Programme Group (IPEG)550 as a body to oversee and encourage further pan-European defence collaboration.551 He also supported French moves to reactivate the Western European Union (WEU) as part of this process. This caused some tension within the Cabinet since, with Howe’s support, he sought to promote the European dimension to security and encouraged the French to integrate themselves more fully. Meanwhile, the Chiefs of Staff agreed a series of papers on future strategy. These were then passed to Heseltine who did nothing with them.552 He was not interested in this area and largely left it to the military. As a result, while Heseltine embarked on his management and procurement reforms within the MOD, the services were left to manage military strategy and their procurement programmes.

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The exception to this was his interest in the out-of-area role. The Falklands experience, the French formation of the force d’action rapide553 and the American RDJTF554 encouraged the consideration of a British variant and Thatcher firmly supported this view. 555 However, with the budget now fixed with the Treasury, Heseltine was unwilling to see a major reallocation of resources, so consideration was given to combining 3 Commando Brigade and 5 Infantry Brigade into a divisional unit earmarked for the intervention role. This idea fell through mainly due to disagreement between the army and navy over who would command such an organization. Instead, a compromise solution was adopted in which a joint headquarters based on the army’s South-East District would be utilized in wartime and thus allow the two brigades to remain within their respective services.556 Following Ronald Reagan’s election the US Navy planned to expand to a force of 600 ships. To underpin and shape this expansion a new maritime strategy emerged, which stressed the forward deployment of NATO naval units into the Norwegian Sea and the use of offensive naval air power to influence the battle in Europe.557 This change in US thinking and Heseltine’s lack of interest in either strategy or the naval programme encouraged the navy to move away from the barrier concept and towards the provision of support for the US carrier operations in the Norwegian Sea and the commitment to reinforce Norway. Under Nott such a change would not have been possible but Heseltine was far less interested in strategy and allowed the navy to take the lead.558 This fundamental shift in strategy away from Nott’s barrier patrol of the GIUK gap again raised the question of how the navy should be structured and what type of ships it required. As the navy wanted to maintain a forward presence in the Norwegian Sea it needed more capable surface ships than it had planned to purchase under Nott, while those engaged in convoy escort could be less capable. To maintain numbers the navy returned to the high–low mix debate and started to consider purchasing a corvette type surface ship to complement the Type 23 frigates but at less cost.559 The navy pressed ahead with its replacement orders while this debate went on within naval circles. The extensive repair work to RFA Tristram went ahead560 and an order was placed for a new LSL to replace the Sir Galahad. The order for the remaining replacement frigate was delayed by a shortage of slipways and the invitation to tender was allowed to lapse and then had to be reissued. The awkward question of destroyer and frigate numbers continued to prove one of

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the main stumbling blocks as the Admiralty sought to return to at least the same number of vessels maintained before the Nott review, while Heseltine remained content to leave the policy as it was. The decision taken by Nott temporarily to retain a force of 55 such vessels to help cover the Falklands deployments was extended by Heseltine for another year561 and he allowed the vessels scheduled for the standby squadron to remain in the active fleet.562 Thus, the VCNS’s original aim behind setting up the standby squadron was achieved and Heseltine readily accepted that the standby squadron idea had never really been practical for a European war.563 Heseltine would not reverse the reduction in naval personnel numbers so crews for these vessels had to be found from within the shore establishments. This forced the navy to consider the idea of contracting-out some of its support services in order to keep these units in operation and thereby implement one of Heseltine’s primary goals of improving the ‘teeth-to-tail’ ratio. It also led the navy to shift the training of more personnel to sea as a means of manning the available ships. This represented a diminution in ship capability with the influx of partially trained personnel to ships’ companies.564 Linked into the Type 23 programme was the next generation of antisubmarine warfare helicopter. Heseltine was keen to press ahead with the EH-101 as part of his European agenda and a memorandum of understanding was signed with the Italians to develop the helicopter. This was seen as a replacement for the Sea King and earmarked to equip the Type 23s and the aircraft carriers.565 With the Trident D-5 programme scheduled to occupy the nuclear construction facilities at Barrow from the mid-1980s onwards the navy wanted to prevent any diminution in its SSN building programme. The order for SSN-17 was pushed through in March 1983,566 the order for SSN-18 planned for the end of 1984,567 and the order for SSN-19 planned for late 1985.568 The first order for the new Type 2400 SSK was made in 1983 with an expected order rate of one per year to follow.569 However, no order appeared in 1984 as efforts were focused on the SSN programme. This forced the navy to begin a modernization programme to some of its existing SSKs.570 As part of the continued emphasis on home defence a £1bn mine warfare programme was confirmed. By the end of 1984 eight Huntclass were in service, with a further three under construction and plans in hand to order four in 1985.571 A tender for the first of a new class of single-role minehunter (SRMH) was also issued with plans to build 20 to 25 of these boats.

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The Falklands War had raised the profile of the navy’s amphibious capability and the LPDs became a focal point for opposition and backbench concern about cuts in the navy. However, the question of replacing the LPDs and providing an aviation support ship remained unanswered.572 Once the third Invincible-class aircraft carrier was completed, the future of HMS Hermes was unclear and the navy was confronted with the prospect of losing its last dedicated commando carrier. One idea revolved around purchasing the sister ship of HMS Argus and converting it to a commando carrier role,573 but the navy was concerned about the number of merchant vessels that were being converted for naval use as an alternative to building ships to military standards. To ministers such conversions allowed the navy to maintain unit numbers at a reduced cost, albeit with a reduced capability, and the naval staff wanted to contain this trend.574 The decision was therefore delayed with unfortunate results. With his appointment as COMNORTHAG, Bagnall attempted to implement his own concept of operations at the army group level, rather than just at the corps level. 575 This involved international cooperation, particularly from the three other NORTHAG corps, which was notoriously difficult to achieve on the Central Front. According to Bagnall: There has been much talk about a joint Land/Air battle and earnest endeavours have been made to plan for one in the NORTHAG/2ATAF area. However, without an agreed concept of operations, there is inevitably a conflict of ideas and overall priorities cannot be identified while the four in-theatre corps each conducts their own battle plan independently. Another problem has been what I always describe as an over-literal interpretation of forward defence and the defensive nature of the Alliance.576 As a result Bagnall encouraged people to think at the operational level and got the German 7th Panzer and British 3 Armoured Division placed immediately into the army group reserve so that the respective British and German corps commanders began to plan without the assumption of their use. He also got the Germans to agree not to use their 3rd Panzer Division without his authorization so that he could assume that he would always have at least two of these three divisions as his Army Group reserve. He also decided to take a worst case study approach and assume that the III (US) Corps reinforcements would not arrive and so only their forward deployed brigade would be available.577 In obtaining these concessions Bagnall ran into problems with

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certain German officials who did not wish to abandon the strict adherence to the policy of forward defence. He succeeded in having his new concept of operations adopted but at one point had to ask Heseltine for support in pushing the policy through.578 This had implications for the British Army and its procurement policy, but more importantly it reinforced the government’s support for the defence of the Central Front and ensured that if any further defence review were necessary the government would first have to consider other areas of defence. Following on from the army’s earlier experience of trying to convert the Parachute Regiment to the air-mobile role Bagnall realized that the formation of a new unit for this role was quite unrealistic financially, even with the priority given to the continental commitment. He therefore made use of 6 Brigade’s temporary lack of mechanized equipment following the divisional reorganization to give this brigade the role in the short term in order to demonstrate the feasibility of his idea. Others within the army called for such a force to have a far more offensive role but Bagnall felt that a more pragmatic incremental step was required. A less incremental approach would raise the question of the command and control of the support helicopters attached to the brigade. However, the RAF High Command remained fearful of losing their helicopters to the army, which they viewed as the first step towards their disbandment as a service,579 and were therefore likely to block the creation of a new brigade. This compromise solution neatly met the criteria set up by Bagnall and dissolved any potential opposition to it, albeit with a delay of a couple of years while the feasibility study proved what Bagnall had already concluded.580 In the medium term he hoped that when 6 Brigade converted to an armoured brigade another brigade would either be created or modified out of units based in the UK. The overall result would be the preservation of 3 Armoured Division’s re-equipment for its role as part of NORTHAG’s reserve and the recognition in the medium term that the creation of an air-mobile brigade was feasible. Consideration could then be given to expanding this British brigade to a divisional force utilizing other NORTHAG units, such as the German airborne brigade earmarked for NORTHAG and the Belgian Para/Commando Brigade.581 The army’s programme throughout this period remained preoccupied with the continental commitment. Of less importance to the army, but not the government, remained the provision of home defence and the role of the reserves. Thus in the autumn of 1983 the purchase of a further batch of 62 Challenger MBTs to re-equip a fifth armoured regiment was confirmed582 and the first order for 50 Saxons

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APCs placed for the infantry earmarked to reinforce BAOR.583 However, the initial production run was reduced from 950 to 500 vehicles to offset the increased Challenger buy.47 The plan to equip each of the three regular air defence regiments with two batteries each of 12 tracked Rapier and two batteries each of 12 towed Rapier was finalized with an additional order planned.585 To replace the M107 self-propelled guns the planned MLRS purchase was increased to two regiments’ worth586 and the trials of SP-70 continued with their planned completion by the end of 1985.587 The fundamental problems in marrying the FH-70 gun to the Leopard tank to create the SP-70 were already evident,588 but neither the German government nor Heseltine wanted to cancel the project and seek an alternative solution. Instead the consortium was encouraged to find ways of remedying the situation. In manpower terms the government drive towards increased efficiency, together with the army’s reorganization of its front line led to the announcement of the redeployment of 3 per cent of its manpower to the front line from the support services in order to help man the re-equipment programme of BAOR.589 Linked into this was the government’s continued emphasis upon the reserves, with a TA expansion plan announced in March 1984.590 Plans for the HSF continued with the government hoping ultimately to increase this to 15 000 or more.591 As far as the out-of-area question was concerned the CDS’s shift in this direction was viewed only as a means of increasing the overall budget and ensuring the army did not lose out vis-à-vis the other services. An air defence troop as well as further support units were therefore added to 5 Infantry Brigade. Moreover, the defence team confirmed their intention to improve assault parachute capability by providing additional parachute training for some elements of the brigade’s artillery, air defence, logistic and support units, bringing the total number of parachute-trained members of the brigade up to 1800. However, little else was done to emphasize the out-of-area role, which the army’s high command saw as an anathema to their main priority. For the air force ‘it was a matter of hoping to keep to the tram lines on which our expansion programme was based … it was very difficult to accommodate the expansion plans and we were concerned not to divert from any of those plans, the tram lines were there’.592 The 1984 defence estimates reinforced this view: ‘our aim will be to hold RAF manpower steady as the number of front-line aircraft increases by 15 per cent over the decade’.593 At the heart of this expansion was the Tornado programme, with the bulk of the Tornado GR1 aircraft forward deployed to Germany to par-

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tially offset its range constraints in the strike/attack role. To equip the aircraft a fixed price contract for the BAe ALARM missile was awarded in 1983 for £300m despite fierce competition from the US HARM missile,594 which had the support of the RAF who wanted an off-theshelf purchase. As far as the air defence of the UK was concerned the first Tornado F2s were scheduled for delivery in 1985 with squadron service to follow in 1986.595 A revised in-service date for the Nimrod programme of 1984 was announced in 1983,596 only for this to be revised a year later.597 With Nott’s replacement by Heseltine the RAF’s High Command began to press for a commitment to the next generation of combat aircraft to replace both the Jaguar in the attack role and the Phantom in the air defence role. Linked to this was the emergence of a new generation of agile Soviet fighter aircraft, which called into question the current equipment plans for the RAF.598 By making AST.414 (Phantom replacement) an agile aircraft and combining it with AST.403, both the Jaguar and Phantom roles could be maintained. Heseltine proved far more conducive to RAF thinking than Nott, who had questioned the need for such an aircraft, and promptly pressed for a European solution to the problem. Within a year of becoming Defence Secretary it was announced that the ‘air staffs of the United Kingdom, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy and Spain have reached agreement on an outline European staff target for a new fighter aircraft for the mid-1990s. No decisions have been taken on the method of meeting the outline target. The next step is to explore the viability of a collaborative programme.’599 By July 1984 Heseltine had succeeded in obtaining agreement for a six month technical and feasibility study for a new fighter aircraft for the mid-1990s with the other four European states.600 The air force played the out-of-area card more openly than either the navy or the army. It argued that to support the re-supply of the Falklands and improve the RAF’s out-of-area deployment capability, advantage should be taken of the surplus BAe VC-10 aircraft purchased in 1981 to expand the RAF’s tanker/transport force.601 The RAF’s High Command was careful to provide a NATO role for these aircraft. To assist the roles mentioned above the RAF took advantage of further available TriStars in order to begin the replacement of the Victor tanker fleet. Two were purchased from Pan Am with an option on a third for conversion to passenger/tanker role.602 The RAF, with government support, continued to look towards the expansion of the reserves and in 1983 announced the formation of a

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reserve aero-medical evacuation squadron, which represented a new area of activity for the reserves. Conservative backbenchers continued to press for the resumption of a flying role for the reserves with successive defence estimates speaking of the creation of a reserve Wessex squadron.603 While such a move was important to the Conservative backbenchers it had little priority within the RAF and consistently failed to attract the requisite funding from within the RAF’s budget. Summary The first two years of Heseltine’s time in office witnessed a number of disparate trends within defence policy indicating that the short-term political cycle was working completely independently from either the medium or long-term cycles. Under Heseltine the MOD underwent significant management reform while he also appeared to play at being Trade and Industry Secretary. The result was a permanent change in the balance of power within the MOD towards the civilian side, despite the protestations of the Chiefs of Staff. Yet, at the same time, the armed forces were given a virtual free hand to re-focus defence policy and military doctrine. On the procurement side the services were also given relative freedom, apart from individual exceptions that either related to Heseltine’s pro-European bias or the need to support the privatization process. As a result, the navy was able to completely undermine the conclusions of the Nott review. They not only implicitly expanded the naval programme but also altered the way they planned to conduct a future war in Europe. The army continued its modernization of BAOR and managed to underwrite Britain’s commitment to a continental strategy still further. They paid lip service to the short-term political emphasis on home defence and use of the reserves. Although the air force went furthest along the out-ofarea route the main emphasis remained the preservation of the manned aircraft in service. Using Heseltine’s pro-European leanings they managed to obtain recognition for the need for a replacement for the Phantom and Jaguar aircraft. As a consequence of these changes, official policy, military strategy and procurement were able to diverge. These differences would come to a head in the Westland crisis.

The problems begin: 1985–January 1986 Short-term cycle After two years at the MOD Heseltine expected to move onwards in his Cabinet career but this was not to be the case. In his two years he had

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been very successful at raising his own profile both within the party and in the country at large. He therefore represented an even greater threat to Thatcher’s leadership than when he had taken over office. If she moved him she would have to find him a Cabinet post of at least equivalent standing, which would increase his power base still further. Removing him from the Cabinet was not an option. It would leave her open to criticism from within the party and give him the opportunity to challenge her. It was clear that he had avoided a number of decisions, most notably over the future of the Nimrod AEW programme. Remaining at defence would force him to address these. Furthermore, the government’s adherence to NATO’s 3 per cent commitment was scheduled to end with FY 85–86 and this would present him with the prospect of taking a number of tough decisions on defence matters, which would inevitably dent his popularity within the Conservative Party. Now that he was set to remain at the MOD Heseltine had effectively to put his plans to become Prime Minister on hold.604 Having completed the structural reorganization of the MOD he sought to immerse himself in the government’s privatization programme and oversee his own variation of industrial policy. Medium-term cycle For the services the outlook remained largely unchanged. They were all aware that the government’s commitment to the 3 per cent increase in defence spending was due to end in 1986 and that there was a significant gulf between their own aspirations and the LTCs. Both the navy and the army wanted to continue their changes in strategy while the air force was particularly concerned about managing the turnover of squadrons as the Tornado entered service in ever increasing numbers. Long-term cycle Overall the long-term cycle remained virtually unchanged but it was noticeable that Heseltine began to take an increasing interest in it. The navy decided that the Type 42 replacement should be a variant of the Type 23 frigate with orders planned from the mid-1990s onwards.605 The navy did look into the idea of collaboration with other NATO navies as a means of protecting this programme, following the lessons learnt from the Tornado programme, but this was not viewed as a practical route in the short term. Work also continued on outlining the requirement for the next generation of SSNs, which would enter service in the 1990s and replace Britain’s first generation of SSNs.

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From the land forces perspective work began on the replacement for the Javelin man-portable SAM system.606 Consideration was also given to the purchase of a definitive attack helicopter to replace the Lynx in this role and thus free the Lynx for the support duties for which it had been originally designed.607 With the Harrier GR5 scheduled to enter service, the Tornado GR1 in service and the future procurement of AST.403 in the air defence and ground attack roles approved, attention was given to future weapon systems for these aircraft. To increase their survivability in the 1990s work was planned to commence on a long-range stand-off missile608 while work continued on the ASRAAM in Europe. Preliminary studies also continued into the replacement of the WE-177 tactical nuclear bomb by a stand-off weapon. Interaction of the time-cycles Heseltine’s belief that he would shortly leave defence may have led him to volunteer a reduction in the defence budget from 1985–86 amounting to 5 per cent over three years, despite the impact that the Nimrod programme’s overrun was having.609 Once it became clear that this was not the case he was forced to trim or delay a number of defence programmes. He was content to leave this process to the military, provided it did not involve the European collaborative programmes, or programmes such as Nimrod AEW, which had significant political overtones. Not surprisingly the services sought to preserve their main programmes within the LTCs and the reductions that they proposed were not significant enough to warrant adverse comment from within the Conservative Party. The navy’s year began on an optimistic note with the announcement that two Type 22 frigates, the first Trident SSBN, an SSN, two MCMVs, the first SRMH and a second SSK would be ordered in the year. There were also firm plans to purchase three more Trident submarines, six AORs, further Type 23 frigates and order an SSK annually.610 Heseltine soon announced an order for the two Type 22 frigates in early 1985.611 The order emerged after a confrontation between Heseltine and Thatcher in the OD subcommittee of the Cabinet. Both accepted the requirement for the order, the problem was in its placement. Heseltine wanted to split the order with one frigate going to Swan Hunter and the other to Cammell Laird. This epitomized his view that to preserve competition in defence procurement the government needed to effectively subsidize certain bids. By splitting the order Cammell Laird could be preserved and would therefore be able to

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compete with Scott Lithgow for the first batch of SSKs (02–04) while Swan Hunter would be preserved for competition for future Type 23 and AOR orders. Heseltine believed that to have domestic competition the government had to ensure the viability of at least two potential national producers. In contrast Thatcher felt that the situation should be entirely left to market forces with domestic suppliers competing against approved foreign suppliers. She also considered the decision reflected Heseltine’s empathy towards Merseyside.612 Robert Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, brokered a compromise on Thatcher’s behalf, which let the order be split.613 After this order the rest of 1985 proved to be a time of compromise and delay for the navy as the defence budget began to feel the effect of Heseltine’s voluntary defence reduction and the cost overruns principally associated with the delayed Nimrod AEW programme. Plans to purchase and convert the Contender Ardent (Argus’s sister ship) to a helicopter carrier to support the RM Commandos were now vetoed by the government, despite the experience of problems encountered in using civilian roll-on/roll-off vessels to transport reinforcements to NATO’s northern flank during training exercises.614 At the same time HMS Hermes, whose secondary role was that of a commando carrier, was put up for disposal. The insertion into the LTC process of replacements for the LPDs also failed to occur.615 Instead Heseltine confirmed that consideration would be made to giving each a further refit to prolong their service into the mid-1990s. This would allow him to delay the decision about retaining this capability until mid-1986.616 The submarine programme was delayed by a few months with the order for three SSKs and one SSN announced at the beginning of 1986. The SSKs were to be built at Cammell Laird, creating 800 new jobs in the yard, which prior to the order for the Type 22 frigate in January 1985, had been set to shut. However, it was noticeable that the SSKs were ordered as a batch and that Scott Lithgow, the other bidder, was not offered any other work to keep it business so that it could compete for the next order. This implied a realization by the government that there were likely to be insufficient naval orders to keep all the existing shipyards in business, and also the willingness to accept a delay in the SSK replacement programme. This would appear to be further substantiated by the piecemeal privatization of British Shipbuilders, in stark contrast to earlier defence privatizations. Additional cost-saving measures included the decision to service the navy’s Trident missiles at the US Navy facility at Kings Bay at a saving of £700m.617 This led the Labour opposition to question further the

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true level of independence of Britain’s nuclear deterrent. The government were able to counter this argument successfully by focusing on Labour’s unilateralist defence policy. Plans to order six to eight lightweight corvettes were among the first casualties of the increased pressure on the defence budget.618 This decision was perhaps not surprising, given the navy’s traditional reluctance to purchase ‘secondrate’ ships, but it had significant future implications for the size of the fleet if the Type 23 programme of three units ordered per year failed to be sustained. The government’s privatization plans encouraged the army to rethink its procurement priorities. The army had planned to introduce Challenger to only five of its armoured regiments and leave the remainder with Chieftains,619 pending the entry into service of a new main battle tank in the mid-1990s.620 This policy meant that the ROF Leeds would have been confronted by a serious shortage of work in the late 1980s, which would only have improved in the early 1990s if the factory successfully won the contract to replace the remaining Chieftain fleet. Such a situation was unattractive for prospective buyers so the army’s procurement plans were therefore revised with an order placed for a sixth Challenger regiment,621 together with the announcement of the intention to order Challenger ARRVs.622 As a result, the commitment to purchase an additional batch of Saxon APCs for the TA battalions earmarked for the reinforcement of BAOR came into question and was shifted further to the right in the LTCs.623 The increasing problems in the collaborative SP-70 programme were left unresolved and the planned entry into service of this weapon system had to be further revised to the early 1990s.624 The continued emphasis on the Central Front remained and was reinforced by the promotion of COMNORTHAG, General Sir Nigel Bagnall, to become CGS in 1985. As a result, in the 1985 army debate the government confirmed its intention to increase the size of BAOR in peacetime to 56 000, effectively revoking the deal Bagnall struck with the PUS in 1980. In order to meet their requirement for an attack helicopter, the army suggested purchasing the heavily armed US Apache helicopter, which was in the process of deployment with US forces in Europe.625 Heseltine, in contrast, pressed for a European alternative and overruled the army. Negotiations were therefore begun with the Italians to adapt their Augusta A-129 for combat on the Central Front. The army were convinced that the studies of the A-129 would reveal it to be unsuitable for the environment of the Central Front but acquiesced to

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Heseltine’s decision, hoping in the long term for Apache to be reconsidered. By accepting the A-129 option they had at least obtained political support for the requirement, the issue remained the helicopter to support the task.626 At the beginning of 1985 the question of replacing the Buccaneer force was at last publicly raised and it was confirmed that the force would remain in service until the mid-1990s.627 With Nimrod and several other programmes overrunning in cost terms the RAF’s High Command was faced with severe cash management problems. Consequently, a number of cutbacks were put through. The first was a reduction in the size of the existing Buccaneer front-line force earmarked for upgrade with the Sea Eagle anti-ship missile.628 The RAF considered lengthening the time-scale for delivery of Tornado aircraft as a means of spreading the cost. However, these were already at their most economical following the 1981 cutbacks. The RAF’s position was partially relieved by the government’s success in negotiating the sale of a significant number of aircraft to Saudi Arabia.629 To meet the stringent timetable requirements of this deal, BAe asked the RAF to acquiesce to the diversion of some of its existing Tornado production run and their replacement at a later point. This the RAF readily agreed to.630 Heseltine also only authorized long-lead items for an additional Harrier purchase to equip the UK-based Harrier squadrons with the GR5 despite significant air force pressure.631 The improvements to the RAF’s air defence capabilities continued to run into difficulties. The most serious problem continued to be the Nimrod AEW aircraft. In the 1985 debate on the RAF one of the defence team admitted: There is no doubt that the requirement to replace the AEW capability of the current Shackleton force was, and remains, very pressing. The Nimrod airframe has been successfully converted for the AEW role. Unhappily, major technical problems have been experienced in the development of the AEW radar and the associated electronics. We are now in a position where approximately £800 million has been spent or committed for the creation of a force of 11 aircraft. The imperative requirement is to devise the quickest and least costly route to secure the required operational capability of the AEW system. Discussions are continuing with the company to that end. I cannot at the moment say what additional cost will be involved in achieving the required operational capability but, as of now, our best judgement is that an operational AEW capability for the Nimrod should be achieved in 1987.632

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Heseltine was put under increasing pressure within the MOD to make a decision on the programme, with the RAF pushing for its termination and replacement by an order for Boeing E-3 aircraft, as they originally had wanted.633 The ramifications of such a dilemma were only too evident. If he axed the programme he would be blamed for letting British industry down by Conservative backbenchers and the opposition. Yet, while he let the programme continue, he was criticized for his indecision and his failure to replace the inadequate Shackleton force. Heseltine decided to continue the Nimrod programme and presumably hoped to have moved on from the MOD in the summer Cabinet reshuffle before a final decision had to be made. There were also problems with the Tornado F2’s radar, which were acknowledged in the debate in the RAF, resulting in cost overruns and deployment delays.634 Again the question of whether to cancel the project and purchase from abroad was raised with consideration of using the F-18’s radar being voiced. Such a decision was also politically difficult and encouragement was given to the companies concerned to sort the problem out. The RAF’s requirement for a new basic trainer became a two-horse race between the Swiss Pilatus PC-9, backed by BAe, and the Brazilian Embraer Tucano, supported by Shorts. To meet the RAF’s specification, the Tucano required considerable redesign, including a new engine, and the RAF’s preference was for the PC-9. However, the RAF was forced to purchase the Tucano in order to make Shorts more viable as a company prior to privatization and as a means of thanking the Brazilian government for its neutrality during the Falklands conflict.635 As far as the reserves were concerned a number of twin 35 mm Oerlikon guns had been captured during the Falklands campaign and these were used to equip a new RAuxAF squadron based at Waddington.636 Conservative backbenchers continued to call for the creation of a RAuxAF squadron with surplus Wessex helicopters but this was again postponed as part of the cost-cutting measures.637 To placate backbenchers a pilot scheme for voluntary reservists to man Nimrod and VC-10 aircraft was set up.638 Financial restrictions also led to more traditional cost-cutting measures with the announcement of a temporary reduction in aircrew flying hours.639 Thatcher and Heseltine again clashed in a Cabinet subcommittee over the question of the RAF’s future fighter aircraft. Thatcher wanted a partnership with the US. Heseltine stated that this option was not available because the US had no such requirement. The choice therefore, lay between a home built aircraft, which the Prime Minister

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favoured, or a joint European venture, favoured by Heseltine. In the light of the likely costs of a home-produced solution, Lawson felt compelled to back Heseltine and the European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) programme resulted.640 This second defeat for Thatcher by Heseltine within the space of a year soured their relationship further. According to Lawson: ‘As Margaret began to realise what was afoot, relations between them deteriorated rapidly, with her old distrust of him again in full bloom, while he became increasingly frustrated by what he saw as her excessive interference in his departmental business.’641 The result was the Westland crisis. The original plan to replace the Wessex and Puma support helicopter force called for the purchase of 125 medium lift helicopters under AST.404. To fulfil the role Westland had adapted its successful Lynx helicopter into the Westland 30. However, the experience of using the Chinook during the Falklands War and the trial of 6 Brigade in the airmobile role led to a reconsideration of the type of helicopter required. The army, with the support of the air force, now considered that not only should additional heavy lift helicopters be purchased but that in the air-mobile role, the ability to move platoon size units of 30 men was more useful than the 10–20 envisaged under the original AST.404.642 This suited the RAF who felt that such a solution would be cheaper and less manpower intensive, thereby contributing to relieving the financial pressure they felt rather than exacerbating the situation. AST.404, therefore, fell into abeyance in March 1985643 and the purchase of a utility version of the EH-101 or further Chinook aircraft was favoured. As a result, the original in-service date of 1987–88 was put back to 1991 and continued to remain a secondary priority within RAF spending plans. For Westland this decision had major significance since it had hoped to sell the WS-30 aircraft to the RAF for service in the late 1980s. The delay until 1991, when it might be able to provide the EH-101, left it with a production gap, which it was unlikely to fill. It therefore sought help from America and Sikorsky proposed a take over package. Heseltine rapidly responded by putting together a rival European proposal as part of his European agenda. The result was perhaps inevitable. According to Owen, then leader of the SDP, Heseltine’s support for a European solution to the problem of rationalizing the helicopter industry was perfectly in character and the preferred solution of many within the Ministry of Defence. His decision to resign was gestating for some months. He knew that Margaret Thatcher

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distrusted him … She also appeared to be jealous of his capacity to stir the Conservative Party Conference … She appointed him to cut defence spending, probably guessing that this would alienate a number of Conservative MPs. Eventually she would have sacked him in the same way as she had unceremoniously removed so many of her Cabinet Ministers. But Michael showed every sign of wanting to get his resignation in first. Westland was the issue on which he decided to break.644 Not surprisingly Thatcher’s interpretation of these events is somewhat different.645 The net effect of this disagreement over how the government should respond to the question of Westland’s future was, according to the then Chancellor, that Westland came up as the first substantive item on the agenda at the first Cabinet meeting of the new year on 9 January. By then Margaret realized she was in a desperate position, and that desperate measures were called for. Having gone out of her way to prevent his resignation over the absurd issue of the Type 22 frigate only a year previously, she now set out to humiliate Michael, in the full knowledge that this would almost certainly lead to his resignation over an issue in which he could cobble together a colourable case. Indeed, she had already decided whom she would appoint Defence Secretary in his place.646 The result was Heseltine’s dramatic resignation and the Conservative Party thrown into temporary turmoil. Yet, as will be seen in the next chapter, the weakness of the Labour Party on defence issues meant that even over this issue they were unable to have a significant influence. Summary The year 1985 witnessed the first signs of strain that were to dominate the second half of the 1980s. According to McIntosh, Heseltine’s departure from office was ‘at a propitious moment’.647 The gap between the services’ programmes and the likely funding available began to increase again with projections of a significant disparity from some defence economists.648 Heseltine’s last year as Secretary of State for Defence witnessed him changing emphasis from structural management reforms of the MOD to industrial and commercial issues. As a result, the short-term political cycle came into increasing conflict with the medium and the long-term cycles as Heseltine sought to pursue the twin policies of the privatization of a significant part of Britain’s

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nationalized defence industrial base while also seeking to develop a consolidated European defence industrial base capable of competing with the Americans. In the former, Heseltine had the active support of the Prime Minister whose ideological outline was the same, but in the case of the latter he had to deal with her active opposition. The services no longer had the free hand in procurement that had been the case in the first period. As a result, they were forced to adapt their procurement programmes to cope with the new agenda. Perhaps surprisingly the army proved most successful, with additional orders for Challenger main battle tanks being a prime example, while the navy suffered programme slippage and the reallocation of some of its orders. The former was of concern to the Admiralty but the latter of less concern given the traditionally close relationship the navy had with the shipbuilders. The air force had mixed results and fared somewhere between the two. It successfully pressed for EFA but suffered the imposition of the Tucano. Where the army and air force were most successful in comparison to the navy was in defending their ongoing programmes. Throughout 1985 the Tornado F2’s Foxhunter radar, the SP-70 and the Nimrod AEW programmes were allowed to drift, despite the significant technical shortcomings each suffered, because any other solution would have incurred significant political penalties. Thus the medium-term programme was in many ways protected by the short-term political outlook. The period was also unusual for Heseltine’s increasing role in the long-term cycle where his Europeanization policy forced the army to contemplate the acquisition of the Italian A-129 attack helicopter rather than the preferred US alternative of the Apache. Thus the interaction of short-term and long-term cycles led to the imposition of short-term solutions. More generally, the divergence in the time-cycles that had symbolized Heseltine’s first period in office was partially reversed with his change of interests. The decision to divide the frigate orders, to purchase the Tucano, to go ahead with EFA and finally the change in operational requirements for support helicopters which led to the Westland crisis all highlighted the ultimate interaction of the three cycles even during a period of relative prosperity.

Conclusions While Thatcher envisaged Heseltine’s role as Defence Secretary as countering CND and reforming management, he became rapidly aware of his chance to pursue the type of industrial policy that he had long

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sought. This brought him into conflict with her and ultimately contributed to his resignation in 1986. Unlike Nott’s tenure Heseltine’s time as Secretary of State for Defence witnessed fragmentation of the relationship between the three timecycles. Whereas Nott had sought to manage the defence budget by drawing together the official policy line, military strategy and procurement policy, Heseltine let these three drift apart while he emphasized the promotion of management techniques, the policy of privatization and the creation of a West European defence industrial base. His essentially domestic outlook gave far more emphasis to the pursuit of the government’s management ethic than had previously been the case in the MOD. Organizational reform and a change in the overall approach of the ministry to the procurement process resulted in a significant change in the balance of power within the MOD. This favoured the Central Staff to the detriment of the individual services. In part this was due to the ministerial types involved. Nott had initially been the classic policy initiator unlike his predecessor Pym. Heseltine was more of an amalgam of the two. In the areas in which he was interested, organization and industry, he was often the policy initiator. The introduction of MINIS and the reorganization of the MOD were typical examples of this. Yet, in many other areas, he could be classified as a policy legitimator. Brammall’s strategy review went ahead but failed to become policy because of Heseltine’s failure to give support. In contrast the navy’s abandonment of the barrier concept and Bagnall’s reforms of NORTHAG and 1 (Br) Corps anticipated the need for Heseltine’s approval. Heseltine was successful in his battle against CND and in reforming the central defence organization. However, he failed to tackle the issue of long-term defence commitments and developed a reputation within Whitehall as a minister who deferred decisions.649 Under Heseltine the MOD had taken an increasingly pro-European standpoint, noticeable since his period in office coincided with a number of procurement decisions that had to be examined in a European context. Moreover, the resurgence of a pro-European agenda in other West European countries, epitomized by the revitalization of both the WEU and IEPG, led to these issues being discussed at Cabinet or OD level which resulted in the medium and long-term cycles becoming vulnerable to the short-term political cycle. Who were the main actors and how did they interact in this process? Heseltine was able to exert considerable influence on his specific areas of interest. While he was able to reform the management structure

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within the MOD he had comparatively little impact on declaratory policy or military strategy. He had a more significant influence on procurement, but this largely centred on where systems would be built rather than consideration of what system was actually wanted by the services. The services still had a major impact on all three aspects of defence policy but with Heseltine failing to co-ordinate these different dimensions of defence it was left largely to those involved to set policy. Thus Bagnall was able drastically to adjust NORTHAG’s approach to war on the Central Front while the Admiralty Board was able to abandon the barrier concept in all but name. How did defence fit into both the domestic and foreign political environments? Under Heseltine the domestic environment had a considerable impact upon defence policy, principally in some of the procurement decisions. Part of the reason for Heseltine’s appointment had been to counter the influence that CND were having on public opinion. However, it was on the industrial side of defence policy that domestic factors had the greatest influence. The period contains a significant number of procurement decisions and non-decisions, which were based on domestic criteria, with the preferences of the services being largely neglected. The split purchase of the Type 22 frigates, the Tucano decision and the failure to tackle the Nimrod AEW problems are examples of this. It is worth noting that the Labour opposition had little impact on defence policy and was generally ignored after the 1983 general election. Thus the decision to have the Trident missiles serviced at Kings Bay and the Tucano decision went through with the government sustaining very little political damage. However, as will be seen in the next chapter, as the prospect of a general election drew closer defence again became a significant party political factor. How was defence policy affected by the management changes put through? The structural changes put through by Heseltine had a significant impact on defence policy. They altered the balance of power within the MOD in favour of the Defence Staff and gave the PUS a far greater say in all aspects of defence policy. As a result, the influence of the Chief of Defence Procurement and the CSA was significantly diminished and brought under the control of the PUS. Thus, the influence

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that Mason, as CSA, was able to exert during the 1981 Defence Review was unlikely to be repeated without the permission of the PUS. In the short term the services were able to circumvent the process by working on the allegiances of military officers serving in the Central Staff. Officers serving short tours were well aware that they would return to their own service and that career progression was determined largely by their performance within their own service. However, in the longer term, as standard operating procedures, rules and norms of behaviour became established, the amount of influence an individual Service Chief had would diminish. This explains their outright hostility to the changes. Consequently, the CDS had clearly become the government’s principal military adviser and put a hurdle between the minister and the single Service Chiefs that would rarely be directly crossed. Perhaps surprisingly, the most effective changes were a result of Heseltine’s insistence on maintaining the manpower constraints. This was particularly so for the navy. The need to free personnel from shore establishments in order to man the fleet forced the navy to take the lead in adopting new procurement and manning techniques. Thus many of the navy’s shore establishments were turned over to civilian personnel or deleted altogether. The other two services also began to follow this route, but they had not suffered the same personnel reductions as the navy in the 1981 Defence Review, and they therefore had less incentive to change in this way. Thus the Government’s desire to change the ethos towards the procurement of goods and services was at least partially achieved, although not directly through reform but indirectly through manpower limitations. The shift from cost-plus to competitive tendering represented a fundamental change to the procurement process. However, this change was hampered by Heseltine’s interference in procurement decisions in order to maintain competition. Thus the Type 22 order was split between two shipyards and the more expensive Tucano was purchased for the RAF. Nevertheless the reforms that Heseltine put through promised to have a far more significant impact in future years, leading to unease within the services and industry. On top of this rested the issue of privatization. Heseltine, like his predecessor Nott, was predisposed towards supporting the policy through the placing of appropriate contracts. But this directly conflicted with the policy of competition with the result that the whole concept of competitive tendering had to be put aside. The result was a series of contradictory policies but Heseltine and the Conservative Party were able to make considerable capital out of these changes, even if in reality their impact had been less impressive.

6 George Younger, January 1986–July 1989

Introduction There were three requirements that dictated Heseltine’s replacement. First, the candidate needed to be distinct from the Prime Minister in order to help restore the government’s credibility. Second, there were a number of decisions that Heseltine had postponed which needed to be quickly addressed. This necessitated a familiarity with both the defence portfolio and experience of the way in which Whitehall functioned. Third, given Thatcher’s political vulnerability she could ill-afford to give the post to a potential challenger to her leadership. Younger’s experience at the Scottish Office and as Shadow Defence Secretary coupled with his seniority within the party made him an attractive candidate. In the immediate short term his independence would help to limit the damage of the Westland affair to her, and his appointment promised to allow her the chance to restore the Conservatives’ credibility in defence issues. This would then allow the Conservatives to use defence as a major campaign theme in the next general election.650 This was important because the Conservatives were already half-way through their term in office. However, Younger was not identified as someone who shared Thatcher’s monetarist views and, although he had been a loyal stalwart in all her Cabinets, he had also been successful as a department head in increasing his budget.

The pre-election boom, January 1986–May 1987 Short-term cycle Younger was no doubt aware that his appointment, in the midst of the Westland crisis, invoked a debt of gratitude from the Prime Minister, 129

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which he would be able to utilize later on. Having come so blatantly to blows with Heseltine she could ill-afford a repeat performance with her new Secretary of State for Defence. He could therefore set his own agenda within the department to a greater extent than his predecessor and still expect her support. Unlike his predecessor, Younger wanted the defence portfolio and had been surprised not to be given it in 1979 when he was Shadow Defence Secretary.651 He differed from Heseltine in being far more interested in policy and less concerned with the organization of the MOD. In this respect his thinking was much more akin to that of Pym. Like Pym he was not constrained by a monetarist ideological outlook and felt able to argue for increased public expenditure. He was also a firm supporter of privatization and was keen to continue the privatization programme within the MOD. He shared Heseltine’s and Howe’s view on Europe and wanted to continue to use the resurrected WEU as a vehicle for closer European defence co-operation.652 He therefore sought to build upon Howe’s plea for an increase in Franco-British cooperation as a means of strengthening the European pillar of NATO.653 In contrast to Heseltine he also looked beyond Europe and sought to emphasize the importance of the out-of-area role as much as Britain’s involvement in NATO. In this respect he was a very traditional Conservative. Right from the start of his appointment he was aware that the next election was more than likely to take place during his time at defence and that the Conservatives would like to use the issue of defence against the opposition parties.654 He was, therefore, acutely conscious that the policies and the decisions that he took could, potentially, have a significant impact on domestic politics and public opinion and would therefore need to be carefully considered.

Medium-term cycle Younger’s arrival was greeted with relief by the services.655 They hoped that Younger would now take some of the difficult decisions that had been delayed. With the end of the 3 per cent commitment there was uniform concern about the level of funding in the defence budget and they hoped that Younger would be more assertive in supporting the MOD’s case than his predecessor. The Admiralty Board wanted official confirmation that the defence assumptions underlying the Nott review were no longer valid. This was important if another review were to take place, otherwise they were

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favourites to bear the brunt of any cutbacks. They therefore sought to delay any consideration of a defence review until the emphasis upon the Central Front had waned, even if that meant accepting a slowdown in their own programme in the short term.656 The army wanted to ensure that its defence programme remained on track and that it retained its Central Front focus. Having fundamentally changed its approach to war on the Central Front there was a desire to consolidate this process and find a replacement for 6 Brigade in the airmobile role.657 The issue of Chieftain’s replacement still needed to be addressed, as did the problem of the collaborative SP-70 gun.658 If the period 1983–85 was one of trying to keep the train on track for the RAF the period from 1986–87 was one of trying to manage the derailments that many saw as inevitable. Problems with the Nimrod AEW platform and the Foxhunter radar in the Tornado F2 needed to be sorted out and the air force hoped that Younger would make the right decisions.659

Long-term cycle The long-term outlook remained largely unchanged. The navy were still pondering the replacement for the Type 42 destroyers and the next generation of SSN. The Merlin programme was underway with the Italians as were initial studies into a Sea Harrier replacement. With the significant deployment of new aircraft, the RAF was concerned to consider how they could continue to use manned aircraft in the strike/attack role on the Central Front. They therefore initiated Naval, Ground and Air Staff Target 1236 for a conventional long-range standoff weapon to equip both the Tornado GR1 and Harrier GR5 to complement the existing inventory under development.660 With the increasing perception of pressure on the LTCs the protection of the collaborative EFA remained their fundamental priority.

Interaction of the time-cycles The Labour Party’s shift towards unilateralism had greatly benefited the Conservative Party in 1983 but ‘the public presentation of this policy shifted from a negative tone towards British defence policy in 1982–6 to a quite positive commentary on the need to strengthen UK conventional capability in 1986–7’.661 This was largely due to the efforts of the Labour front bench, which focused the debate on Britain’s conventional forces and the impact of the Trident programme

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on them in the late 1980s.662 Thus, by the beginning of 1986 Labour’s electoral vulnerability on defence issues was less apparent, while the government had suffered the debacle of the Westland crisis. This threatened to continue into the summer months with the House of Commons Defence Committee’s investigation into the matter. For the Conservatives, the SDP/Liberal Alliance still represented a relatively unknown electoral threat, which also needed to be countered. Alliance policy continued to support the strategic nuclear deterrent, but argued that a ‘cheaper’ cruise missile alternative was a more appropriate system for Britain’s defence needs than the costly Trident programme. The Alliance was, therefore, less vulnerable on the nuclear front than Labour and attacked the Conservatives over the state of Britain’s conventional forces. This situation was reprieved somewhat when internal divisions within the Liberal Party over the nuclear issue became increasingly apparent during 1986. This culminated in the Liberal Party Conference voting in favour of unilateralism, much to the dismay of the Alliance leadership.663 It offered the Conservatives the opportunity they had been looking for and they sought to highlight the division whenever possible.664 Younger, therefore, sought to return the debate to the role of the strategic deterrent and did not want to give the opposition parties any opportunity to criticize the state of Britain’s conventional forces. On taking office he ‘signalled the start of an intensive ministerial and Conservative Party campaign to promote the Government’s defence policies and to attack those of the Opposition parties’.665 The strategic nuclear deterrent brought both medium and short-term cycles together with a shared common interest. Both the navy and the government were keen to push ahead with the Trident programme to ensure that it had made sufficient progress in order for it to be uneconomic to cancel should the Conservatives lose the election. Thus the tender, and subsequent order for the first Trident SSBN was announced in 1986,666 but the order for the second boat could not be pushed through in time for the election. With the ongoing party political battle Younger was well aware of the need to protect the defence budget from the marauding Treasury team. The result was considerable press speculation about the need for a defence review,667 a view shared within the MOD and academic community. The situation was compounded by the lack of provision within the LTCs for an alternative to the Nimrod AEW programme.668 In a sense the situation was a re-run of the latter half of 1980.

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Younger’s solution was to increase the MOD’s budget and he believed that the prospect of an early election was to the advantage of the MOD.669 He succeeded and obtained more cash than he might otherwise have done.670 Younger continued to support the privatization process with the result that Harland and Wolff were allocated the order for the first new AOR at Swan Hunter’s expense.671 To compensate Swan Hunter and reduce the impact on this recently privatized yard672 he gave it the chance to place a preferential tender for the second AOR and bring forward the ordering date.673 To tide the yard over, the order for the first batch of Type 23 frigates was split with Yarrow.674 Younger was well aware that the existing naval programme was insufficient to sustain the number of warship yards then in operation. So when it was decided to sell the various elements of British Shipbuilders separately he supported the approach. This was in direct contrast to the majority of other privatizations.675 As a result, when the first two AORs went to Harland and Wolff and Swan Hunter, Trafalgar House, the new owners of Scott Lithgow, were forced to close the yard in 1987.676 The privatization of the Royal Ordnance Factories also presented the Government with a problem. The production of armoured vehicles was divided between the private firm Vickers Ltd at Newcastle and the ROF Leeds. The latter had been manufacturing Challenger tanks for the British Army but was again faced with the prospect of a production gap pending the decision to replace the remainder of the Chieftain fleet in the mid-1990s. Given the relatively low production requirements of the MOD the preservation of two separate tank manufacturers was never a practical proposition in the longer term. Therefore, the sale of the ROF in its entirety would almost certainly result in ROF Leeds being shut down soon after its sale and a lower price received for the ROF group. This was politically unacceptable and the government decided instead to seek to sell the ROF Leeds separately to Vickers Ltd as a means of preserving both plants. Vickers was aware of the costs involved in purchasing the factory, which required a major refurbishment to make it competitive.677 Here Bagnall’s (CGS) goal of strengthening British tank forces neatly fitted into Younger’s political agenda and he supported Younger’s plan to purchase an additional batch of 76 Challenger MBTs from ROF Leeds. This £100m contract was signed on the condition that Vickers Ltd purchase the Leeds plant for approximately £11m and rebuild it at a cost of £14m.678 This allowed the rest of the ROF to be sold off to BAe. In contrast to Heseltine, Younger quickly sought to emphasize the out-of-area role. The services supported this shift in policy only as far

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as it underpinned their existing programmes. The first visible result of this was an increase in the tempo of training by British forces in these roles. Thus, Exercise Swift Sword witnessed the deployment of British land, sea and air forces to Oman in 1986. Planning for a far more ambitious exercise was also started. This became Exercise Purple Warrior and involved the full plethora of Britain’s intervention capabilities.679 The Labour front bench team quickly attacked this shift arguing that it could only have a detrimental effect upon the defence of Europe.680 Younger therefore re-emphasized that NATO remained the cornerstone of British defence policy and that units and equipment earmarked for the out-of-area role had a NATO role as well. Nevertheless, this shift in policy encouraged the services to defend their programmes on both their out-of-area or NATO roles, depending upon which the government was giving greater priority to at the time. This made it even harder for the government to substantiate subsequent reductions. From the naval perspective these changes marked the final confirmation of the end of Nott’s barrier patrol emphasis. A more expansive pre-Nott policy was formally adopted, which owed a considerable amount to the Americans. This change was officially confirmed in the 1987 Statement on the Defence Estimates which acknowledged that the navy had four principal roles in NATO: in the Norwegian Sea, the defence of reinforcement convoys, anti-submarine warfare protection of the NATO Striking Fleet Atlantic, and the protection of the UK/NL Amphibious Force.681 This gave a renewed emphasis to the surface fleet. It meant that ‘forward defence is now seen as the primary wartime role for the surface fleet. The numbers of ships available make it likely that other roles, such as the defence of convoys, or patrol and protection of the seas around the United Kingdom, including the Eastern Atlantic, will have a lower priority.’682 In reality this meant the deployment of a task force, centred around one of the Invincible-class, in the Norwegian Sea in support of the US carrier battle groups. Such a task force needed the full plethora of surface ships to support it and the navy were naturally content to adhere to the new US-led doctrine as a means of substantiating itself. Moreover, given their forward deployment these units needed to be far more capable. Thus the qualitative argument again held sway in ship design. Moreover, such a high capability task force would also have a useful out-of-area role when matched to the navy’s amphibious forces. Thus the navy sought to peg its force requirements on both its NATO and nonNATO roles.

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The task of the Admiralty Board was, therefore, to preserve as much of the programme as they could, given that the forecast funding gap was set to expand. The navy drew an important lesson from the survival of the collaborative Tornado programme throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.683 While there were likely to be cost and capability penalties associated with a collaborative venture the political protection afforded by such a programme was substantial given the financial pressure the LTCs were under. The navy therefore obtained permission to join the NATO frigate programme (NFR-90). They then linked in a Sea Dart replacement programme to this project as its main armament.684 Studies into the replacement for the Invincible-class carriers were also initiated. These concentrated upon the question of how aircraft should be deployed beyond 2010, when the first of the Invincibles would come to the end of its operational life.685 The new strategy also meant a renewed emphasis being placed upon the role of the Royal Marines. ‘Defence of the Northern Region is of crucial importance to the United Kingdom.’686 To support this commitment it was confirmed that provision had been made within the LTCs for the replacement of the amphibious warfare vessels and acquisition of Rapier for the UK/NL Amphibious Force.687 In fact the goal was to improve the capability, with renewed consideration being given to the acquisition of an aviation support ship ‘to provide the commando lift capability previously provided by HMS Hermes in her secondary role as a commando carrier’.688 The preferred option remained the purchase of the sister ship of RFA Argus which would then be converted to the role. In the meantime Swan Hunter was contracted to undertake a feasibility study into extending the life of the existing LPDs pending their replacement in the mid-1990s. To help offset the funding gap the navy was forced to make a number of short-term cutbacks and sought savings that would not fundamentally affect the programme. This was undertaken by a number of means. Fringe programmes were cut back, such as the re-equipment of the Batch 1 Type 22 frigates with towed-array sonar.689 A number of other programmes were delayed or prolonged with, for example, the initial purchase of naval EH-101s being reduced from 74 aircraft to 50.690 The supporting arms were cut back; thus when the survey ship HMS Hydra was replaced by HMS Roebuck, plans for three more of the class were indefinitely shelved. In addition, the paying off date for Hydra’s sister ships, Hecate and Hecla, was brought forward five years.691 The navy also decided to retire a number of its older vessels with the destroyer/frigate force moving from 50 in number to ‘about the 50 mark’. Here the 1SL

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(Admiral Sir William Staveley, VCNS in 1981) again resorted to the tactics he had used during the Nott review and encouraged the Conservatives to allow a number of these units to be placed in the reconstituted reserve squadron.692 This again allowed the Conservatives to claim that fleet numbers were being maintained and allowed the navy to keep the replacement units for these vessels in the LTCs. Although government policy sought to stress the out-of-area role more, the army, like the navy, continued to emphasize its main NATO roles. For the army this remained the Central Front. This not only reflected the influence of the CGS, Field Marshal Sir Nigel Bagnall, but also highlighted an institutional bias within the army in favour of armoured warfare. In part this emphasis was recognition that the defence budget had entered a period of retrenchment, at least in the short term, and that the army’s first priority ought to be the preservation and consolidation of its existing programme and force structure. After ten years of structural reorganization and doctrinal change many felt that there was a need for a period of consolidation. Added to this was the short-term requirement to meet the pay rises deemed necessary to reduce the outflow of personnel to the civilian sector caused by a booming economy. It was also felt that as the gap between the LTCs and the defence budget continued to rise then a review would inevitably be necessary. The Army Board had no doubt that unless there was a radical change in priorities the debate would again centre upon the maritime versus continental options.693 If a greater emphasis were given to the out-of-area role this would favour the navy, since it was felt the deployment of heavy armoured units outside Central Europe by Britain was extremely unlikely. As a result of this financial pressure, the army undertook a review of its programme and suggested that the UK Mobile Force (UKMF), centred on 1 Infantry Brigade, was a good candidate for reduction.694 It was tasked with the reinforcement of either Denmark or Southern Norway and news of its vulnerability was given to Parliament by the defence team. The UKMF ‘is a self-sufficient expeditionary force, with a large number of deployment and employment options, this force inevitably has a high level of support units. We are therefore discussing with NATO whether this contribution represents the most effective use of these resources.’695 For the army the force represented a poor return for the level of resources committed696 and was a classic case of a political tokenism.697 More importantly, the CGS felt that at the strategic level the Central Front remained the key theatre of operations and it was more cost effective for Britain to concentrate its forces there. This

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did not mean that he wanted the force deployed to Germany, a task for which he felt it to be ill-equipped and wholly unsuited, but that the personnel, equipment and most of all resources devoted to it could be more efficiently used in support of the Central Front. Ministers had already agreed to increase BAOR’s manpower to 56 000 with the deployment of a 12th armoured regiment from the UK, the creation of a third air defence regiment, an increase in armoured engineer support and the re-mechanization of 6 Brigade.698 However, these improvements required more than 1000 extra personnel and there was concern as existing units were thinned out to man the new units.699 This placed an even greater importance on the timely arrival of the reservists. There was concern that the forward divisions would have insufficient manpower to defend against a surprise attack while the reservists were on their way. The release of the manpower devoted to the UKMF would significantly alleviate this problem. The remechanization of 6 Brigade also raised the question of what would happen to the air-mobile role. 1 Infantry Brigade, if it were withdrawn from its present role, would be an obvious unit to replace 6 Brigade in the air-mobile role. The political storm broke when Parliament was informed. Within Denmark, the most likely recipient of the UKMF in wartime, the opposition foreign affairs spokesman suggested that if the commitment were withdrawn the whole basis of Denmark’s commitment to NATO would have to be reconsidered.700 For Younger there was the wider question of support for Lord Carrington, the NATO Secretary-General, and his efforts to prevent other nations reducing their NATO commitments. Younger, therefore, decided to veto any abandonment of this commitment. However, this left him with an awkward precedent for the future. If he were ultimately forced to undertake a defence review then it would be difficult for him to demand army reductions elsewhere when he had already overridden volunteered reductions. Thus in a maritime versus continental commitment re-match, the army had an additional card to play. With Heseltine’s departure a number of procurement decisions could now be taken. The most significant for the army was the withdrawal from the SP-70 programme.701 It had originally been planned to purchase 221 SP-70s to replace the entire Abbot and M-109 fleet and a full replacement purchase remained the preferred option. But the increasing funding gap made the prospect of it unlikely in the short term. Additional tenders were therefore sought for a lower production run. The army was prepared to accept this as long as the policy of replacing

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all the units remained policy in the long term. Any short-term solution that would replace the obsolete Abbots was acceptable. Tenders were sought that would either replace just the Abbots (100 units) or replace the Abbots and begin the replacement of the M-109s (160 units).702 Other programmes were pushed forward to replace the lost SP-70s in the LTCs. Advantage was taken of the government’s need to support Shorts with an order for three batteries of Starstreak surface-to-air missiles based on the Stormer vehicles to equip the new air defence regiment scheduled for deployment in Germany.703 The army also co-operated with the air force in obtaining approval for the development of the next generation of Rapier missile.704 Of more fundamental importance from the army’s perspective was the planned order for more than 2000 DROPS logistics vehicles to revolutionize the logistical support for British forces in Germany. This order for support vehicles was an obvious target for MOD ministers wishing to make savings in the procurement budget without obviously affecting the front line. However, the army’s high command pressed for the order to be placed and ministers agreed with first deliveries scheduled for 1988.705 Younger continued Heseltine’s pursuit of collaborative programmes with Europe and signed a memorandum of understanding with Italy. This laid down the framework for collaboration on the Augusta A-129 light attack helicopter with Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. Another memorandum of understanding was signed for a joint feasibility and cost study with entry into service planned for the late 1990s.706 This decision went against army advice which continued to suggest that the A-129 was too light for the Central European environment, unlike the army’s preferred option, the US Apache attack helicopter.707 However, the army continued to concede to Younger’s request on the grounds that anything was an improvement on the existing Lynx fleet. More importantly, by acquiescing, the funding line for a new attack helicopter was created within the LTCs, which could then be re-earmarked for the Apache when, as expected, the feasibility study confirmed the army’s conclusions about the A-129. When he entered office Younger was immediately presented with the problem of the Nimrod AEW programme. His immediate solution was to buy himself time to examine the problem fully by negotiating a sixmonth fixed-price contract to establish whether the aircraft could be fixed.708 After the six-month period, and despite significant industrial and opposition pressure to continue with the Nimrod programme, he cancelled the programme and ordered six Boeing E-3As with an option

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on a further two.709 This was a bold move since Conservative support for the Nimrod option had been very influential in the original Labour government’s decision to go ahead with the project in the late 1970s.710 Nevertheless, as Younger was at the beginning of his time in office it was easier for him to make the decision because it allowed him to put the blame for the decision squarely on the shoulders of his predecessor.711 According to Younger: to fulfil the full and necessary policy that we want and that NATO wants us to provide, we need eight. In my statement I committed this country to buying six now and I have taken an option, with Boeing, to buy two more within six months at the same price. I wish to keep these two in reserve until I know the outcome of the annual review of our long-term costings.712 The air force was content with this decision although it had originally wanted 12. However, from their perspective it was preferable to obtain approval for a smaller initial order and then purchase additional units rather than try and get the full order approved at the start. The financial pressures caused by the switch to the E-3 were compounded by problems in a number of other programmes, which imposed even greater fiscal pressures on the LTCs. The Tornado F2’s Foxhunter radar ran into such significant problems that consideration within the MOD was given to following the Nimrod precedent and buying a foreign alternative. As this had happened so recently with the Nimrod it was felt by ministers that this could not be repeated and instead ‘a firm price contract for the satisfactory completion of this programme’ was announced.713 The requirement to meet this additional expenditure from within the existing LTCs had a direct impact on existing air force programmes. Younger confirmed that the plan to purchase a second batch of 34 Harrier GR5s to re-equip the UK-based squadron and operational conversion unit714 was being reviewed, with consideration being given to reducing the size of the second batch of aircraft.715 The plan to replace the last Victor tanker squadron by converting five VC-10s and three TriStars to the tanker role was confirmed,716 but in reality the intention to invite tenders for the VC-10 conversion in January 1987 was quietly shelved.717 This process also led to an indefinite delay in the Bloodhound replacement programme.718

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To support the army in Germany, and stifle ongoing calls from within the army for the transfer of the RAF’s support helicopters to the army, the purchase of an initial batch of 25 utility EH-101s was finally announced but the contract was not actually signed.719 The army and air force’s preference was to purchase additional Chinook helicopters to fulfil this role. However, they were overruled. With the Westland crisis having occurred so recently the air force was told it would purchase the utility variant of the EH-101, even though it was incapable of meeting the army and air force’s specification.720 The revised plan therefore called for the acquisition of 70–80 EH-101s in order to have ‘a real impact upon the Central Front’.721 However, the cost of such a purchase was of grave concern to the RAF, which valued its fixed-wing programmes far more.

Summary The first period of Younger’s tenancy at defence was largely welcomed within the MOD for the direction that he gave defence policy and his willingness to make decisions. Nevertheless, there remained considerable financial pressure within the defence budget, which was made worse by the various cost overruns experienced and the decision to scrap the Nimrod AEW programme and buy Boeing E-3s. This forced a re-jigging of the LTCs with a number of key programmes being delayed, reduced and/or cancelled. Yet, despite this the period was one of comparative stability within the MOD after what had gone on before. This allowed the time-cycles to operate in relative isolation from one another, rather than one driving another. In the short term Conservative awareness of the proximity of the next general election ensured that stability in defence was a prime requisite for the government which helped to cushion the MOD’s budget from more substantial cutbacks. This then allowed the Conservatives to use defence as one of the main campaign issues against both Labour and the SDP/Liberal Alliance.722 The medium-term cycle was dominated by the services’ concern to protect their programmes in the latter years of the LTCs, where the gap between the programme and likely resources available continued to grow despite Younger’s best efforts at securing more funding for the ministry. The management reforms previously put through by Heseltine were largely allowed either to consolidate themselves, or in certain cases, were abandoned.

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Towards a review, June 1987–July 1989 Short-term cycle The second part of Younger’s time at the MOD witnessed profound changes within the Soviet Union. These had a significant effect upon East–West relations and consequently British defence policy. The succession of Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union resulted in a significant impetus being given to the arms control process. This led to his meeting with Ronald Reagan at Reykjavik in 1986, which almost reached an agreement to eliminate all nuclear missiles. This had a profound effect on the British government, with the Prime Minister concluding that ‘it would be necessary to back Reagan’s hopes on INF (Intermediate-range nuclear forces) as the price to be paid for Trident’.723 Having set out his views on defence policy during his first period in office Younger was content to let policy and strategy remain largely unchanged. The international scene gave Younger little room for manoeuvre and he sought to underpin defence policy through greater involvement in Europe. He felt that the European route was the only one open to Britain. In contrast Thatcher continued to emphasize the special relationship and was averse to any measure which might possibly challenge this. Younger was also aware of the financial pressure on the defence budget. Studies by defence economists at the time suggested that, without a major review, the funding gap would continue to increase and would reach £5bn by FY 90/1.724 Younger did not want a review; he felt the international scene was too uncertain to warrant any defence reductions. His goal was therefore to secure additional funds for the MOD to cover their shortfall.

Medium-term cycle In the immediate aftermath of the election the navy still hoped ultimately to order 20 Type 23 frigates, six AORs and 19 new minehunters as well as new amphibious shipping,725 but it quickly became evident to the naval staff that these ambitions were unlikely to be achieved in the short term. With the financial pressure within the LTCs steadily increasing the naval staff were confronted with the prospect of either trimming the naval programme or facing another defence review. The 1SL did not believe that the latter was an option because the navy would again be the main target. He therefore chose to manage the naval programme within the financial constraints and consider all avenues that

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avoided a defence review. For the army a number of procurement issues remained unresolved and they also wanted to find a replacement for 6 Brigade in the air-mobile role before the capability was lost. The air force were principally concerned with protecting their existing programmes and continuing the expansion instigated under Nott. Long-term cycle The move towards developing a collaborative NATO frigate to replace the Type 42 destroyers in British service continued with the shift into the project definition stage of the NFR-90.726 Design work on a new class of SSN, the SSN-20, was also commenced to replace the older boats in service.727 This aimed to bring the project on stream by the turn of the century when Britain’s first generation of SSNs would all be reaching the end of their operational lives, following the decision to run them on to an age of 30.728 As far as land systems were concerned the European emphasis of procurement continued with the signing of an agreement with France and Germany to develop the Trigat antitank missile system for service from the mid-1990s.729 Interaction of the time-cycles The Reykjavik summit and the subsequent signing of the INF Treaty in 1987 gave Younger further encouragement to pursue defence cooperation with France. As the only West European nuclear states both were concerned about the impact of the nuclear arms control agreement on the European military balance and the credibility of the US nuclear guarantee. Informal bilateral discussions were therefore begun on nuclear and other issues between French and British officials. This slowly led them towards formalizing their co-operation and both made use of the WEU as a forum to discuss their views on the East–West balance. As a result, in December 1987 the British and French Defence Ministers signed a co-operation agreement agreeing to improve the defence capabilities of both countries through closer exchanges in the defence equipment area, including nuclear weapons.730 Despite the lead being taken by Howe and Younger in pushing this co-operation, Thatcher was determined to continue to preserve the special relationship with the United States. This led to a division emerging between Thatcher and Younger over how far down the European route Britain should go. As a result, when Iran began mining the Gulf in 1987 Younger obtained approval for the deployment of four British minesweepers to the Gulf as part of a West European force.

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Howe and Younger then agreed with the French that all the forces should be placed under WEU auspices with command rotating between the participants. However, when this was put before the Prime Minister she overruled the agreement insisting that Britain had permanent hold of the command. Not surprisingly this was unacceptable to the other WEU participants and resulted in British forces remaining officially under national command and operating separately from their European counterparts.731 This marked a temporary step backwards in the MOD’s move towards closer European co-operation on defence matters and did not help the steadily improving Franco–British defence relationship. Thatcher’s reticence towards stronger European defence ties was further fostered by her concern with the management of the thaw in relations between East and West. In America the underlying concern with burden-sharing in NATO led to increasing calls for the Europeans to contribute more to their own defence.732 To offset this Thatcher sought to maintain her close relationship with Reagan and his successor in order to help maintain solidarity within NATO and prevent a premature European turn towards détente with the Soviet Union. She continued to press for the modernization of NATO’s nuclear forces, even while the INF Treaty was being signed. This placed the government somewhat at odds with the majority of its NATO counterparts. Consequently, the government could not afford to be seen to be undertaking a precipitous defence review while expecting its European partners to maintain their current forces. Unit numbers had to be maintained in order for Britain’s commitment to remain unchallenged by its European partners. This international scene gave Younger little room for manoeuvre within the defence estimates. While his first 18 months in office had been beset by intractable financial problems the following two years were to prove that it had been a relative honeymoon period. According to one senior civil servant ‘we were in the situation that the Thatcher government … was simply not interested in taking difficult political decisions to cut back the forces but was, nevertheless, signing a financial line that in the longer run simply would not pay for these forces’.733 Younger was successful in obtaining additional funding from the Treasury amounting to an increase of 1 per cent per annum in real terms over three years.734 This equated to £1bn in cash terms,735 but was insufficient to plug the gap between the requirements and the available funds. The situation was exacerbated by the need to give pay

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increases above the rate of inflation in order to try and stem the outflow of personnel that had begun with the upturn in the British economy. The financial crisis came to a head during FY87–88 and Younger was forced to choose in favour of the Central Front. In this decision he had the support of all the Service Chiefs, albeit a reluctant 1SL, who were all concerned with the state of Britain’s tank fleet.736 The navy accepted the loss of orders for SSKs and the next batch of Type 23 frigates to prevent a review. The situation was made more complex by the number of yards still seeking naval orders and concern with the political ramifications for them so soon after privatization. Consequently the reduced level of ordering was divided among the various yards in an attempt to prevent further yards going bankrupt. This meant that the navy had to accept higher unit costs when it could least afford to do so. While naval policy remained broadly the same, priority was now given to the surface fleet at the expense of all other units. In part this decision was politically led. Frigate and destroyer numbers remained a politically sensitive issue and the government continued to claim adherence to the notional figure of about 50 in service even when the actual figure was nearer 40.737 Admitting the target of 50 could not be met would have been politically damaging to the government and might well have led to the defence review. In practice the situation was fudged. While financial constraints delayed the decision to repair the damaged Type 42 destroyer HMS Southampton until July 1989, it remained included on the published active strength of the fleet.738 Similarly HMS Bristol, the Dartmouth training ship, continued to be included in the listing of the active fleet, despite its partially disarmed state and unsettled future.739 Older fleet units were retained in service longer than planned to keep numbers nearer 50. This posed a number of problems for the Admiralty Board. First, finding crews for these older, more manpower-intensive ships, was problematic. Second, Nott’s decision to abandon the idea of mid-life updates of destroyers and frigates meant that the units retained were invariably obsolete for their intended roles. Third, the cost of maintaining these older warships in service grew alarmingly. The failure to order any Type 23s in FY 87–88 meant that the next order was not announced until July 1988 when three Type 23s were ordered.740Conservative backbench pressure for further orders culminated in Younger promising to order four more Type 23s at the 1988 Conservative Party Conference.741 However, even this order was delayed, with the tenders for this next batch initially postponed until 1989. Thus FY 89–90 was also without an order and confirmed a shift

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from a planned building rate of three per year to three every two years. This proved to be a heavy price to prevent a review. Even the Trident programme suffered some delay with the order for the second SSBN finally being placed in October 1987.742 The third was also delayed, with the invitation to tender not being released until March 1988,743 with an order envisaged for Summer 1989.744 However, this was initially delayed until the end of 1989745 and subsequently to the latter half of 1990. The government finally acknowledged that with the concentration of nuclear submarine production facilities at Barrow the SSN programme would be temporarily suspended while the Trident SSBNs were produced. To help maintain SSN numbers in service, consideration was therefore given to extending the lifetime of the older SSNs to the end of the century in order to help maintain front-line strength.746 As far as SSKs were concerned it had been envisaged that both Scott Lithgow and Cammell Laird would compete for the next batch of submarines.747 However, with Scott Lithgow’s demise the expected order for the next batch of SSKs was cancelled as part of the FY 87–88 cutbacks.748 Instead only long-lead items for five additional SSKs were ordered with production planned for after 1990.749 At this time both Cammell Laird and Barrow would have surplus capacity and thus be free to compete with each other for orders. The amphibious fleet remained the Cinderella of the navy. Plans to order an aviation support ship to provide the helicopter lift capacity for the Royal Marines resulted in the invitation to tender for a new aviation support ship finally being announced in the latter half of 1988.750 This was subsequently allowed to lapse with an order postponed until after mid-1990.751 Instead RFA Argus ‘could be used to provide helicopter support in the amphibious group’,752 while for Exercise Purple Warrior the navy was forced to utilize one of its two active carriers in the role. As far as the replacement of the remainder of the amphibious fleet was concerned the order for new LPDs was delayed initially until 1989753 and subsequently postponed again.754 It was also hoped that the LSLs would undergo a life extension programme to keep them in service755 but this also failed to materialize and, as a result, the whole of the existing amphibious fleet was expected to remain in service with replacement delayed to the mid1990s for the first units. This clearly did not tie into SACLANT policy, which emphasized the role of the Royal Marines in the defence of Northern Norway, but reflected the relative influence the Royal Marines had within the Admiralty and the level of trimming needed to delay the review.

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As promised, Swan Hunter received the order for the second AOR in December 1987756 with plans for further units still envisaged.757 This order also acted as a support to Swan Hunter, which failed to win any of the subsequent batch order for Type 23 frigates in 1988. However, as costs escalated in the two units under construction the navy began to consider an unarmed, more austere variant as a means of supplementing RFA numbers.758 Neither alternative succeeded in obtaining any orders and the age of the RFA fleet continued to increase. The mine warfare units suffered proportionally the most substantial reductions in the LTCs. Although an order for four SRMHs was placed in July 1987,759 a subsequent follow-on order for seven more SRMHs failed to materialize and the invitation to tender was instead allowed to lapse. Moreover, the plan to purchase equipment to convert 50 trawlers to the MCM role in wartime was also a casualty of the defence cutbacks, while the navy’s sole minelayer, HMS Abdiel, was allowed to leave service without replacement.760 In contrast, naval aviation escaped relatively unscathed. The upgrade programmes for the Sea Harrier force761 and the Lynx helicopters went ahead.762 While the navy suffered considerable cutbacks in its programme the army succeeded in largely preserving its programme of re-equipping BAOR. This was to the consternation of the CDS, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fieldhouse, who considered the army to be profiting at the navy’s expense.763 Since the army’s hierarchy had remained unenthusiastic for the out-of-area role, its programme and commitments were still dominated by the BAOR deployment. Consequently, the government could not look to make any significant savings here without significant ramifications. The issue of burden-sharing had re-emerged in the US and withdrawals from the Central Front could have led to similar action by the US. Moreover, Thatcher’s support for the modernization of NATO’s short-range nuclear forces meant that any move towards conventional force reductions on the Central Front were politically difficult to substantiate for many European members of NATO. Nevertheless, account had still to be taken of the financial pressure on the LTCs. This was evident in the whole air-mobile issue. Bagnall’s original aim behind the use of 6 Brigade in the air-mobile role was to use it as a means of creating the requirement for such a unit within the MOD. This worked and meant that when the brigade re-mechanized neither the army high command nor the MOD wanted to lose this capability. An alternative solution was sought but the financial constraints prevented the creation of a new unit. This meant that an existing unit would have to be tasked. The government’s decision to retain

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the UKMF meant that using 1 Infantry Brigade was not an option and narrowed the choice down to two regular units. Since 5 Airborne Brigade was earmarked for the out-of-area role, as well as home defence, the government was unlikely to allow the army to change its tasking. The only solution was to use the regular brigade of 2 Infantry Division, whose wartime task was the reinforcement of BAOR. Younger therefore announced that ‘following the successful trial of 6 Brigade in its current role, we shall be retaining this important capability by conversion of 24 Infantry Brigade, based at Catterick, to the air-mobile role, starting next year’.764 This had repercussions for BAOR. The brigade would no longer be available for its security role within 1 (Br) Corps rear echelon and TA units would therefore have total responsibility for this.765 The problem of providing the helicopter support remained. The government announced that a new army air corps regiment would be formed equipped with the Lynx helicopters in the utility and anti-tank roles to support the new brigade.766 However, these represented more a means of filling Westland’s order book pending the entry into service of the EH-101 than a solution to the problem. Instead the main helicopter lift capability continued to be supplied by the RAF Puma/Chinook combination based in Germany. This meant that in peacetime the helicopter force would be based in Germany while the ground troops would be in the UK. Despite the obvious problems this posed the army was prepared to accept this. There were other areas of higher priority, notably the replacement of the remaining Chieftains. The European option was never really available. The French Le Clerc was rejected because it was unproven and did not offer any fleet compatibility advantages in NORTHAG while the German Leopard 2 had a weakness in its armoured protection. The army’s preference for the US M1A1 Abrams was well known, despite the potential problems of operating a mixed fleet of M1A1s and Challenger 1s. However, the government would have found taking such a decision hard to justify politically given the implications that it would have meant for Britain’s own tank manufacturer Vickers plc. The Vickers solution was the only politically acceptable alternative, but the experience of repeated cost overruns together with repeated failure of weapons systems to meet their designed performance criteria encouraged government caution in overruling service advice. So Vickers received a contract to prove the capabilities of its proposed Challenger 2 before the full contract was awarded.767 To encourage cost control, and in the light of the financial constraints within the LTCs, the size of the replacement programme was intentionally left

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undefined.768 Tied into this order was the option to upgrade the existing fleet of Challenger 1s with a new gun and the purchase of Challenger ARRVs.769 The latter order served as a means of keeping the Vickers’ production line open at the former ROF factory at Leeds pending the decision to put Challenger 2 into production. Thus, the future size of the army’s tank fleet was determined largely by the relative cost efficiency of Vickers rather than by the army’s needs. The army also got an order placed for 179 AS-90 SP howitzers in June 1989 to begin the replacement of its obsolete Abbot force. This represented a compromise between the army’s requirements and the funding available. It allowed the Abbot fleet to be replaced in full together with the older half of the M-109 fleet. Both ministers and the army hoped that the remainder of the M-109 fleet would be replaced in the future with an additional buy of AS-90 howitzers, and an option to purchase 50 more was included within the contract if it turned out that these could subsequently be afforded. The only other major issue to affect the army was the question of the future of the Brigade of Gurkhas after withdrawal from Hong Kong. Interestingly Younger allowed the HCDC to set a precedent. It investigated the issue and reported to the MOD.770 This represented a first for the HCDC, which had invariably only reviewed decisions and not influenced them. The conclusions it reached resulted in the decision to retain the Brigade of Gurkhas based on a viable brigade structure of four infantry battalions, a squadron of engineers and a signals and transport regiment.771 While some backbenchers questioned the preservation of this colonial anachronism the army was becoming increasingly concerned about the problems of recruitment from the diminishing pool of teenagers forecast for the 1990s. Already problems were being experienced in recruiting and retaining sufficient personnel and the retention of the Gurkhas offered a proven means of overcoming shortfalls in other units of the British Army. For the air force the increasing financial problems meant their main fear was for the future of the collaborative EFA project. Given the cost of the programme it became an obvious target for Treasury attention. However, the project’s collaborative status, and the emergence of a new generation of agile Soviet fighter aircraft, ensured that MOD ministers remained committed to the programme. Moreover, the political and industrial impact that would have arisen from its cancellation was more than ministers were prepared to confront. Thus the project continued and received the go-ahead with entry into service planned for the late 1990s, almost a decade later than the

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air force had originally envisaged.772 It was planned to use EFA to replace the four Phantom and three Jaguar squadrons, which would remain in service once all the Tornadoes had been delivered. This did not require an order for 250–60 aircraft but the government had agreed to this in order to have an equal work share with the West Germans. Since it was unlikely that the RAF would be able to increase its frontline strength any further this order left the fate of the surplus aircraft open to question.773 The initial studies into the replacement of the Buccaneer were already underway but they were not sufficiently advanced for a staff requirement to be issued.774 The debate within these studies centred upon whether to replace the force with a specific aircraft, such as the Tornado GR1, or earmark the Nimrod force for the role in addition to its other tasks.775 Not surprisingly the RAF’s preference was for the former, especially given the heavy demands placed upon the Nimrod force in wartime in the ASW role. However, from a financial point of view the latter option was favourable. The surplus EFA’s fitted neatly into the equation and the idea of purchasing extra Tornado GR1s to fulfil this role was dropped. Instead the surplus EFAs could be used to release existing Tornado GR1s or F3s for conversion to the maritime strike role.776 With attention focused on protecting the EFA programme the RAF was forced to trim its programme quite substantially to keep within budget. Unlike earlier cutbacks these significantly affected RAF plans. Thus, only one additional E-3 aircraft was purchased despite the minimum requirement being a fleet of eight.777 The hope that the surplus Nimrods left over from the cancellation of the AEW programme would either be used to supplement the existing Nimrod MR2 force or be used to support the force in the tanker role was also allowed to fade and the aircraft were instead broken up as a source of spares.778 Other programmes suffered delays. The expected conversion of additional VC-10 aircraft to replace the last Victor tankers was put on hold and the order for the second batch of 34 Harrier GR5s was delayed until FY 88–89.779 Once a sufficient number of Tornado F3s had entered service to equip the first squadron the first batch of 18 Tornado F2s were placed in store and their planned update to the F3 standard was put on hold.780 There was one major new programme. Uncertainty over the question of the American commitment to Europe caused attention within the MOD to focus again upon Britain’s pre-strategic nuclear forces and especially the Tornado GR1/WE-177 combination.781 The replacement

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of the Vulcan force by the shorter-range Tornado GR1 had already resulted in Britain relying on the US GLCMs to provide NATO’s theatre-level nuclear capability. In the light of renewed uncertainty created by the US–Soviet arms’ control talks the need for action to rectify the situation was recognized. Consequently, the government decided to examine the possibility of replacing the existing WE-177 air-dropped tactical nuclear bomb with a nuclear-tipped missile. This would be launched from Tornado GR1s and have a range of at least 300km. Such a system offered to increase the credibility of the existing force and allow the RAF to restore the target coverage capability previously offered by the Vulcan.782 The question remained of deciding a collaborator. While technical preference lay with the US option, political preference tended towards the French who were less likely to be constrained by a subsequent arms’ control agreement and studies were initiated.783 By 1989 it was quite widely accepted within the upper echelons of the MOD that a defence review was inevitable if the gap between funding and capabilities was to be closed in the medium and longer term, irrespective of the state of the military balance between East and West. Consequently, by the time of Younger’s retirement from office in 1989 studies were already underway within the ministry to examine how best to conduct the next defence review.784 Leading the way were the Central Staffs who felt that it was better to have a service-led review than a ‘Nott-type’ review imposed upon them.785 Summary If Younger thought his first 18 months confronted him with a plethora of difficult issues to address then he was to find the time after the 1987 general election even more difficult as the LTCs came under increasing strain. As a result, the short and medium-term time-cycles came into increasing conflict, despite the fact that the different actors involved largely shared the same goal of avoiding any form of defence review. Having used defence as a major campaign issue during the election the government no longer needed to concern itself with promoting defence domestically, especially as improving relations with the Soviet Union and other domestic issues, such as the poll tax, reduced the importance of defence in public opinion. The Conservatives, however, could not allow a defence review to take place as fears over arms control and the US commitment to Europe, symbolized by the question of burden sharing, meant that no defence reductions could be allowed to be seen to occur.

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Consequently, defence was left to manage itself within the strict spending limits imposed. This resulted in Britain’s armed forces becoming increasingly hollow as they sought to maintain the pretence that defence reductions were not taking place. At the same time ministerial priority was still given in the defence programme to sustaining the recently privatized industries and retaining mainstream indigenous defence production capabilities such as main battle tanks and aircraft. By 1989 all three services and the Central Staff recognized that the reductions that they were putting through were undermining their units’ ability to retain numbers to the extent that they were having a significant effect upon their core capabilities. Moreover, the deteriorating support of the Prime Minister for defence, subsequently symbolized by the elevation of the Northern Ireland minister to defence as Younger’s replacement, convinced them that a defence review was inevitable. As a result, they began to consider how best to manage such a review, rather than leave it to the Defence Secretary as they had done under Nott. Ultimately the fall of the Berlin Wall proved fortuitous in helping manage the review. Throughout the period it was noticeable that all three services acted in the same way as they had acted in the latter half of Pym’s time at defence. Each sought to preserve their core programmes while trying to prevent the requirement for a more substantial defence review. The traditional methods of delay and cancellation at the fringes of the programme were used. However, one difference was noticeable. The Admiralty Board continued to feel particularly vulnerable and they were therefore prepared to accept the greatest reductions. This was most clearly evidenced by the way its leadership was prepared to support the army’s purchase of main battle tanks at the expense of purchasing the next batch of three Type 23 frigates. Despite their reductions the army and air force were assisted by the interaction of the short-term political cycle with the medium-term procurement cycle. The army’s requirement to replace key equipment for use by BAOR fitted neatly into the government’s need to placate concern within the United States over the issue of burden sharing and the need to support recently privatized companies. The RAF was helped by the pro-European orientation of Younger who protected their major European programmes, such as EFA and Tornado. The army and air force were therefore able to expect the navy to take more of the reductions in order to prevent a review. However, these services were aware that to take this assumption too far would encourage the navy to accept the merits of a defence review as a lesser evil.

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Conclusions On entering office Younger was confronted with a variety of pressing decisions that needed to be taken. He immediately came face-to-face with the reality of a defence policy which his predecessor had allowed to fragment into its component parts. His response was to tackle the immediate problems and avoid tackling the more fundamental problems that lay beneath the surface. On the procurement front this led him to cancel both the Nimrod AEW3 and SP-70 programmes, but to continue with other programmes that were in equal difficulty, such as the Foxhunter radar. He did not go further and seek to bring the timecycles back into alignment with one another. Like Nott, Younger’s time in office was dominated by retrenchment and the problem of managing a defence programme larger than the funds available. Unlike Nott his solution was, on the one hand, to seek further funding by making best use of political debts owed to him and, on the other, to use the traditional policies of delay and salami slicing within the procurement programme to prevent a more fundamental review. In part this was because he was acutely aware of the importance of defence to the Conservative’s election success and also of the international environment in the last half of the 1980s. However, it was also a reflection of his managerial style. Younger, like Pym, was well regarded and this was in large part because he acted mainly as a ‘policy selector’ within the MOD and therefore did not pose the threat to the established order that his two predecessors had. The result was a short-term political cycle, which was increasingly at odds with the other two cycles as the question of the need for a defence review circulated within the MOD. Who were the main actors and how did they interact in this process? Under Younger the Service Chiefs were able to exert a far greater degree of control than they had under Heseltine. Younger was generally more sympathetic to their outlook and took their views into account on all issues. With the defence budget in decline they individually sought to protect their force structures and programmes. However, it was noticeable that they were prepared to come together towards the end of the period to try and manage the defence review that they felt to be inevitable, rather than leave this to Younger. This was similar to the DPWP idea and reflected what they had learnt from the 1981 defence review process. However, this did not stop Younger involving himself quite significantly in both declaratory and procurement policy. The chang-

George Younger, January 1986–July 1989 153

ing domestic and international environment encouraged his involvement and while he was not an initiator of policy he was content to take the decisions that Heseltine had delayed and to support the general government policy of privatization. Thatcher’s role remained limited. She continued to involve herself in NATO nuclear politics and this had an impact on the defence policy. However, she largely agreed with Younger’s policies, especially his emphasis on the out-of-area role, so he was largely left alone. As a result, her emphasis on the special relationship with the United States came into conflict with his pro-European emphasis on a number of occasions. How did defence fit into both the domestic and foreign political environments? The domestic and international environments were in the midst of quite profound change. The run up to the 1987 election had quite a significant impact on defence, particularly in terms of procurement. The Conservatives’ need to use defence as a campaign issue helped Younger to argue successfully for greater funding for his department which helped to delay the defence review that many saw as inevitable. After the election the continuing delay in accepting that a defence review was needed reflected Conservative concern not to weaken their position vis-à-vis public opinion, especially once the recession began to take hold. The privatization process continued and Younger followed Heseltine’s example of adjusting the procurement programme to reflect this process. This caused some disturbance to service plans and it was interesting to note that the Conservatives chose to privatize the shipyards independently rather than as a group as had been the case with other defence companies. This would indicate their awareness that there was insufficient defence work to keep all the shipyards on stream. Internationally the US–Soviet arms’ control negotiations had a significant impact upon the government’s views on nuclear weapons, which impacted to a limited extent on defence. The British government concern about the implications of these for NATO strategy underpinned their aversion to a defence review and caused them to hollow out a number of units. Moreover, it led to greater nuclear cooperation with the French and not the Americans. How was defence policy affected by the management changes put through? Younger inherited a number of management reforms, for which Heseltine had received considerable praise. It was therefore surprising

154 Defence under Thatcher

that the individual Service Chiefs were able to exert a far greater level of influence than Heseltine had envisaged. Partly this was a result of their ability to circumvent the system by playing on service ties, but it was also a reflection of Younger’s approach to managing the MOD. This would indicate that, while changes to the system can affect the balance of power within the MOD, the role of individuals is still important and that the structure is as dependent on the individuals as the other way round. For example, the effective abandonment of the MINIS system was a direct result of Heseltine’s demise. Nobody was particularly interested in it and it was allowed to fade away during Younger’s time in office.786 Both Heseltine and Younger emphasized the importance of competition through their respective terms in office. On the surface Younger modified Heseltine’s policy of ensuring that there were two domestic competitors to a policy emphasizing the need for a domestic and a European competitor. This placed him somewhere between Thatcher’s free competition and Heseltine’s free domestic competition. In theory such a move should have helped to reduce the level of support that the MOD needed to provide for the defence industrial base. In practice the situation was different. Younger was as active as Heseltine in contradicting the policy. He regularly interfered in the placing of orders with the spread of naval orders being a prime example of this.

7 Conclusions

This book has examined the evolution of defence policy within the MOD during the period 1979–89. It has focused on the dynamics of both policy formulation and policy implementation within the MOD at the highest level, taking into account the political context, both domestic and international, in which defence policy was created. The concept of three time-cycles was used as a means of understanding the objectives and priorities of the various actors and consequently which areas of policy they were able to influence. This approach helps to provide a clear understanding of how policy evolved within the MOD during this period and the factors that lay behind change. In particular, it shows that the way in which the various actors thought was generally a direct reflection of the timecycle in which they operated. For example, the Service Chiefs generally acted within the medium-term cycle and continually fought to preserve their main programmes within the LTCs. In contrast, the defence ministers were invariably limited in their actions by short-term political constraints, such as the proximity of the next general election, or in their promotion prospects within the Cabinet. The analysis shows that only by understanding which time-cycle an actor was operating in is it possible to gain a full understanding of the rationale behind the policies being pursued. Under each of the Secretaries of State for Defence the three elements of policy varied considerably in their degree of correlation. This was due in part to the problems associated with implementing the stated policy but it was also part of a wider disaggregation. The time-cycle analysis shows how frequently this occurred and raises the question of which factor or factors drive the different time-cycles. Two possible explanations are considered here: first, the impact of ministerial type 155

156 Defence under Thatcher

on the degree of correlation and second, the relationship of financial stringency to the degree of correlation. Of the four Secretaries of State for Defence, Nott and, to a limited degree, Heseltine were the examples of policy initiators. Pym was a classic policy legitimator while Younger had leanings towards being a policy selector. Both Pym and Heseltine had periods of growth in defence expenditure followed by periods of decline. Nott and Younger both operated largely within tight fiscal constraints, although Younger was more successful at circumventing this. Under Pym the medium-term cycle dominated the other two cycles during periods of both prosperity and constraint. The relative prosperity of the MOD had little bearing on the management of policy. Pym consciously let his officials run the department and the services were able to manage both their military strategies and procurement programmes accordingly. His attempt at changing the emphasis of declaratory policy away from Europe towards East of Suez was unsuccessful, despite the support of the Prime Minister. His other priorities within the procurement programme were managed by the services operating in the medium term. An obvious example of this was the question of improving Britain’s air defences. Once the MOD began to suffer from the financial demands of the Treasury Pym was able to use his position within the Conservative Party to threaten to resign in order to avoid the level of cutbacks demanded. Nott’s management of his defence review indicated how a policy initiator could exert control during a period of financial constraint. He sought to bring all three aspects of policy together, most clearly in the changes to the navy’s programme and the imposition of the barrier concept. However, Nott’s success depended upon the support of the Prime Minister, divisions between the services over resource prioritization and the diversion of political attention towards the emergence of the SDP. After the publication of his review he was less successful, having lost the support of the Prime Minister and having to deal with a more hostile Parliament and party. As a result, the navy had, by the outbreak of the Falklands War, managed to circumvent the original force levels set out and retained its belief in a balanced fleet, albeit somewhat smaller than before. Yet, despite their various attempts to undermine the 1981 Defence Review and the subsequent Falklands War, the three elements of policy retained a positive correlation with one another. Interestingly Nott’s experience does raise the question about institutional adaptation to ministerial style over time. Can an institution

Conclusions 157

adapt and negate the effectiveness of a particular minister once they know his/her approaches? Certainly in the latter stages of the Nott review and in its immediate aftermath the navy managed to achieve a number of changes. It is also difficult to imagine another ministerial type developing a review on the lines that Nott generated. Pym would clearly have left it to the services to manage as the DPWP had previously done. This was certainly the expectation of the services in the immediate aftermath of the Greenwich meeting. It is hard to envisage either Heseltine or Younger being prepared to undertake a review. Some have suggested that this was one of the main reasons behind Heseltine’s resignation in January 1986787 while Younger succeeded in deferring a defence review until after he left office in 1989. In contrast to Nott, Heseltine was a policy initiator in only certain areas of the MOD. He was not interested in declaratory policy or military strategy. He focused on management change and involvement in the industrial policy side of the MOD. Consequently, the management structure of the MOD was significantly altered and the contracting process shifted away from the cost-plus system towards a more competitive approach. The result was separation of the three strands of policy. The medium-term cycle attempted to take military strategy and procurement policy in one direction while at the same time the procurement programme was strongly influenced by Heseltine’s short-term political cycle. As the medium-term cycle began to adjust to the financial constraints from the beginning of 1985 the three cycles were brought into conflict with one another in the Westland crisis, leading to Heseltine’s resignation. Heseltine’s example clearly shows the problem of policy selection or limited policy initiation during financial stringency. A lack of an overall vision provided by an initiator, such as Nott, or service managed agreement, shown by Pym, will lead to cycle conflict and ultimately inconsistencies being exposed. As a policy selector Younger represented the middle ground between Pym and Nott’s approach to managing the MOD. Under Younger, defence policy appeared on the surface to mark a return to a positive correlation between the three elements of policy. However, when the period was examined in detail it was clear that the three elements of policy were working in different directions. Younger was content to let the medium-term requirements widen declaratory policy beyond that envisaged by Nott and thus bring it more into line with the strategic policies of the three services. However, short-term political considerations forced him to have considerable involvement in procurement

158 Defence under Thatcher

policy and to reduce its alignment with strategic policy, despite the best efforts of the services. Moreover, the growing gap between resources and the defence programme brought declaratory and procurement policy into direct conflict with one another. The services eventually acknowledged this and sought to manage a defence review, but they were thwarted by the government’s concern in the short term to avoid politically damaging defence cuts.788 From these examples it would seem that the three aspects of defence policy are more likely to have a positive correlation when either the Secretary of State for Defence is a policy initiator or policy legitimator. Under a policy initiator, correlation can be imposed while under a policy legitimator the system also tends towards correlation through the medium-term cycle. Under a policy selector or a limited policy legitimator the correlation dissipates as the short-term political cycle dictates the policies chosen, particularly if there are financial restrictions. A financial overview of the period would indicate that from 1979–83 there was a positive correlation between the three aspects of policy. After that period the degree of correlation was reduced, with its worst period being between 1983–86. Subsequently there was a degree of convergence. This implies that there is a direct relationship between financial stringency and the positive correlation of the three policy elements. If we assume that declaratory policy is the means by which the services defend their strategic and procurement policies in the medium term then it would follow that as the purse strings were loosened, their requirement to justify both strategic and procurement policies in terms of declaratory policy would lessen. In periods of fiscal stringency the services would be required to justify their policy decisions in terms of overall declaratory policy. Looking at the period as a whole it is clear that 1980–82 and 1988–89, the times of greatest fiscal stringency, were also the periods of positive correlation. In the latter period, however, the services carefully portrayed both strategic and procurement policy in terms of declaratory policy even when this was not really appropriate. They also sought to have declaratory policy revised because of the incompatibility of declaratory and fiscal policies. While there is a degree to which financial stringency encourages positive correlation it is by no means the sole driver and it is evident that ministerial type has a major impact upon policy. The analysis also highlights how the different dimensions to policy – declaratory, military strategy and procurement – interplayed. The study has shown in detail the interaction of these three elements. It has demonstrated how the interaction of these three dimensions varied over

Conclusions 159

time with no single element dominating. Rather it has shown that the lead element depended upon which actors were involved. Moreover, it has shown the ripple effect of individual decisions throughout defence policy. For example, the loss of the tank orders to Iran in 1980 had a profound effect upon the army’s procurement plans which, when incorporated into the vision of Bagnall, fundamentally altered the construction and outlook not only of 1 (Br) Corps but also NORTHAG. This change fed into the Nott review, which started out as an overhaul of the LTCs, and ultimately led to a major change in the navy’s strategy and procurement plans and impacted on declaratory policy. There has also been considerable academic debate about the relative importance of structure compared to agency in the structure–agency debate. Generally it has been assumed that structure is the main determinant of policy and change rather than agency. This study shows that the role and motives of the different actors had a distinct bearing upon the ultimate outcome of defence decisions and non-decisions. Individuals played a significant part in shaping policy and, while the structure and organization of the MOD were important, it was frequently the interaction and personalities of individuals that led to quite significant change. For example, Nott, Bagnall and Staveley are good examples of individuals who had a significant impact upon defence policy. The former most notably through his defence review, Bagnall in his reforms of the army at three different levels (Commander 1 (Br) Corps, COMNORTHAG and Chief of the General Staff) and Staveley through his modifications to what he saw as the worst excesses of the Nott review (as VCNS) and later in delaying the defence review until 1990 (as 1SL). All three examples show that relative position within the structure is not necessarily the major determinant of the degree of influence an actor can have. They also indicate the part that structure plays. In the navy’s discussions with Nott over his review, the CDS and 1SL were not in a position to negotiate with the Defence Secretary. The CDS was obliged to remain impartial, while the 1SL’s role was to defend the navy and not undermine his own position through bargaining. Staveley, as VCNS, could undertake negotiation, having the necessary seniority but also holding a position where his views could be considered separate from the navy. It is also evident from this study that the MOD at the senior level is closer to Allison’s Bureaucratic Politics Model than his Organizational Process Model.789 For example, successive commanders of 1 (Br) Corps viewed the divisional structure quite differently and it was only when

160 Defence under Thatcher

Bagnall became Commander of 1 (Br) Corps that the structure was reorganized. It is also clear that the top-down structure of the MOD encourages an analysis at the elite level.

Secondary questions Who were the main actors and how did they interact in this process? As previously mentioned the influence of the different Secretaries of State for Defence depended largely on their management style. Perhaps surprisingly, the influence of the Prime Minister was less marked than is generally associated with her. Under Pym her impact was relatively minor, due to his support for the services, even though they shared a common view on defence. By way of contrast, Nott tended to accommodate her views, although after the publication of his review their relationship cooled and he tended to court support from elsewhere. Heseltine and Thatcher were at loggerheads over procurement policy, which ultimately contributed to his resignation, while her views on management reform dovetailed into his. Younger was able to take a more independent line because of the circumstances in which he took over the MOD. Thus the perception that Thatcher was deeply involved in defence issues, as her ‘Iron Lady’ image encourages us to think, is somewhat misleading. The other most consistently involved actors were the Service Chiefs, who were generally able to have a significant impact upon policy. Their interaction with the Defence Secretary was critical, although even when this was confrontational they were still able to exert some influence such as that evident in Staveley’s relationship with Nott. Other actors were involved from time to time but none had such a consistent impact over time. How did defence fit into both the domestic and foreign political environments? Throughout the period the domestic and more particularly the foreign political environment had a variable impact upon the three dimensions of defence policy. The ability of the opposition parties to influence defence matters was markedly absent throughout the period. The government was able to suffer a serious of setbacks, such as the cancellation of Nimrod AEW and the Westland crisis, and undertake a significant defence review without long-term political damage. Yet defence remained a key election issue in both the 1983 and 1987 elections. The Conservatives’ use of defence as the litmus paper by

Conclusions 161

which public opinion could judge the different parties meant that the major impact of the opposition parties on them was essentially negative. Having committed themselves to the purchase of Trident the Conservatives could not afford politically to reconsider this acquisition when the Americans changed from the C-4 to the D-5 system because this would have played into the hands of the Liberal/SDP Alliance. So once committed to Trident there were a number of consequences which had to be accepted, notably the 1981 defence review. Similarly as Labour sought to campaign on the conventional defence ticket in the run up to the 1987 general election the Conservatives invested in defence and papered over the gap between resources and requirements rather than undertake a defence review. Industry, and more particularly defence privatization, had a significant impact upon the defence programmes of the services. This the services initially tried to limit but ultimately sought to harness. The army was forced by circumstance to accept the acquisition of Challenger 1. It subsequently utilized the government’s need to support the ROF Leeds to obtain additional orders so that its initial plans to acquire two regiments’ worth of tanks eventually led to the equipment of seven regiments. There were also important international influences. The loss of arms sales to Iran following the overthrow of the Shah had an important impact on defence policy, which filtered into the Nott review. The 1980 order for Challenger 1s added to the financial pressure on the LTCs while the loss of the Iranian order for tracked Rapier was utilized by the army to help underpin Bagnall’s change in operational doctrine when money became available after the Falklands War. Not surprisingly Britain’s commitment to NATO and its relationship with America had an important influence. This was partly through NATO and the US trying to influence British policy. Thus Nott’s decision to reconsider the number of destroyers and frigates was a direct result of NATO pressure while concern about the US commitment to Europe encouraged the preservation of the continental commitment in 1981 and ultimately led to renewed emphasis being placed on the WEU. However, various actors used the influence of NATO and the US to underwrite their views. For example, the navy’s shift away from the barrier concept was substantiated by changes to US maritime strategy and the requirement to deploy forward surface forces into the Norwegian Sea. Thus domestic and external political influence was a double-edged sword. They clearly influenced the evolution of British defence policy during this period but they were also used by some of the actors within the MOD to underpin their own efforts at altering policy.

162 Defence under Thatcher

How was defence policy affected by the management changes put through? One of the most surprising findings of this study has been the limited extent of the impact of management changes put through during the Thatcher years upon defence policy, and indeed the running of the MOD. Much has been written of the changes put through and the controversy they aroused. As far as the overall power balance within the MOD was concerned it was noticeable that it was largely the same key actors involved at the end of the period as it was at the beginning. The role of the individual Service Chiefs had not been undermined and the management of what became the ‘Options for Change’ process was strikingly similar to that of the DPWP under Pym. Nevertheless, in the longer term the changes have had an effect. The conduct of the Nott review could not be repeated. The Heseltine reforms have ensured that the roles of the CSA and CDP are subordinate to the PUS. It has therefore become contingent upon the PUS to enforce civilian control over the ministry and a repeat of the CSA’s role in the Nott review seems unlikely. The Heseltine reforms also removed the service vice-chiefs. Consequently, the role that Staveley played, as VCNS during the Nott review, can no longer be repeated. This leaves the individual Service Chiefs somewhat isolated and vulnerable to their own weaknesses and the work of the Defence Staff. Changes in contract types, an emphasis on competition and the contracting-out of services were all areas stressed by the Conservatives while in office. Much was made of the savings they allegedly made and the hostility of the services to their adoption. This picture is misleading. In many respects the navy led the way in pushing through these reforms. Financial necessity, rather than government action, provided the impetus to the introduction of many of these new practices and it was not beyond the realms of possibility that the financial pressure of the 1980s would have forced such reforms anyway. What the Thatcher administrations did was to provide permission to the Service Chiefs to consider the introduction of such practices and leave the blame for any ill feeling they caused firmly with the government. In many ways the most significant reform was the policy of privatization. The impact of the privatization process had quite a considerable impact on the procurement process. The period 1979–89 was littered with adjustments to the procurement programme to subsidize

Conclusions 163

the privatization process and subsequently maintain these privatized companies in being. This goes against much of the competitive rhetoric which is associated with Thatcherism and is an area worthy of development.

Notes 1

Introduction 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6. 7. 8.

A debate exists whether a ‘Second Cold War’ did in fact break out or whether this merely a changing phase of the ongoing Cold War. This changing situation in East-West relations from the late 1970s onwards will henceforth, be referred to as the Second Cold War. See, for example, Fred Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso Editions and NLB, second edition, 1986). Private discussions. In 1979 only 2 per cent of the electorate thought defence was a major issue in the election. By 1983 this had risen to 38 per cent. Michael Heseltine, ‘The United Kingdom’s Strategic Interests and Priorities’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 4, December 1983, pp. 3–5, p. 3. The 1983 election campaign was noteworthy for the action of the previous Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, who took the unprecedented step of repudiating his own party’s defence policy; Ian Aitken, ‘Callaghan Wrecks Polaris Repairs’, Guardian, 26 May 1983; Peter M. Jones, ‘British Defence Policy: the Breakdown of the Inter-party Consensus’, Review of International Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, April 1987, pp. 111–31; Bruce George and Curt Pawlisch, ‘Defence and 1983 Election’, ADIU Report, vol. 5, no. 4, July/August 1983, p. 2; Michael Heseltine, Life in the Jungle: My Autobiography (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2000), p. 250. Peter Calvocoressi, ‘Deterrence, the Costs, the Issues, the Choices’, Sunday Times, 6 April 1980. Nicholas J. Wheeler, ‘Perceptions of the Soviet Threat’, in British Security Policy: the Thatcher Years and the End of the Cold War, edited by Stuart Croft (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1991), p. 162. See also, Margaret Thatcher, Path to Power (London: HarperCollins, 1995), chapter X, ‘Détente and Defeat’, pp. 330–93. Within Britain she was better known at the time for her withdrawal of free school milk from primary school children between the ages of 8 and 11 while she was Secretary of State for Education and Science. Hugo Young, One of Us (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 73–4. ‘Thatcher Warning on Soviet Strength’, Daily Telegraph, 20 January 1976, p. 1. Young, p. 171. In her memoirs Thatcher indicated that this was one of the main reasons for her removal of Maudling from his position of shadow Foreign Secretary. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: HarperCollins, 1993), p. 319. In contrast Maudling stated that he was asked to resign later on that year due to his lack of speech-making. Reginald Maudling, Memoirs (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1978), pp. 225–6. However, Byrd tends to support the Thatcher line and implies that it was the hostility that she felt towards the Soviet Union that led to his resigna164

Notes 165

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17. 18.

19.

tion. Peter Byrd, ‘Introduction’, in British Defence Policy: Thatcher and beyond, edited by Peter Byrd (Hemel Hempstead: Philip Allen, 1991), p. 6. Michael Clarke, ‘A British View’, in European Détente: a Reappraisal, edited by Richard Davy (London: Sage for the RIIA, 1992), p. 101. It was notable that one of her early advisers on foreign affairs was the historian Robert Conquest, a fellow member of the ‘New Right’. Thatcher, p. 351. For Conquest’s point of view see Robert Conquest, Present Danger: Towards a Foreign Policy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979). For a background of the evolution of the ‘New Right’ within the Conservative Party see Nicholas Ridley, My Style of Government: the Thatcher Years (London: Fontana, 1992), pp. 1–22. It should be noted that the Conservatives inherited the commitment to NATO of increasing defence spending by 3 per cent per annum in real terms. Nonetheless, the language of the new Conservative government with its apparent vehement support for this increase matched to reductions in other areas of government spending indicated a change in approach, if not necessarily evidenced in subsequent implementation. ‘Spending – the Thatcher Years’, Guardian, 15 January 1987; A.G. Jordan and J.J. Richardson, British Politics and the Policy Process: an Arena Approach (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987), pp. 105–6. Adam Raphael, ‘Nott Fights Rearguard Action in Whitehall Whispering War’, Observer, 20 June 1982; Geoffrey Howe referred to Thatcher’s ambivalent attitude towards defence in Geoffrey Howe, Conflict and Loyalty (London: Macmillan, 1994), pp. 144 and 189. Italics in original. Jordan and Richardson, p. 215. Interestingly John Major suggests that the anti-inflationary Chancellor was a myth in Thatcher’s latter years as Prime Minister. John Major, John Major: the Autobiography (London: HarperCollins, 2000), p. 141. According to Kenneth Baker this desire for a reduction in governmental spending bordered on obsession. Kenneth Baker, The Turbulent Years: My Life in Politics (London: Faber and Faber, 1993), p. 260. Private discussion; Howe, pp. 144–5. Private discussion; see also Sir Ewen Broadbent, The Military and Government: from Macmillan to Heseltine (London: Macmillan for the RUSI, 1988), pp. 59–60. President Ronald Reagan, ‘Remarks at the Annual Convention of the Evangelicals’, Orlando, Florida, USA, 8 March 1983, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, vol. 19, 14 March 1983, p. 369. Michael M. Harrison, ‘Reagan’s World’, Foreign Policy, vol. 43, Summer 1981, pp. 3–16, p. 6. See John Lehman, ‘Utility of Maritime Power – the Restoration of US Naval Strength’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 3, September 1983, p. 13; Christopher Coker (ed.), US Military Power in the 1980s (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1983); Barry M. Blechman, The Politics of National Security: Congress and US Defense Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 35; Robert P. Haffa (jnr), Rational Methods, Prudent Choices: Planning US Forces (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 1988). Gwyn Prins (ed.), Defended to Death: a Study of the Nuclear Arms Race (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), pp. 161–2.

166 Notes 20.

21.

22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37.

38.

Evidenced by his membership of the Committee on the Present Danger which was founded in 1976 by Paul Nitze as a private hawkish lobby group. See, for example, Charles Tyroler II and Max M. Kampleman, Alerting America: the Papers of the Committee on the Present Danger (Washington DC: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defence Publishers, 1984); Strobe Talbott, Endgame: the Inside Story of SALT II (New York: Harper and Row, 1979). ‘Diary entry 28 October 1981’, Tony Benn, The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90 (London: Hutchinson, 1992), p. 164; David H. Dunn, ‘Challenges to the Nuclear Orthodoxy’, in British Security Policy: the Thatcher Years and Beyond, edited by Stuart Croft (London: HarperCollins Academic, 1991), p. 12. See Dan Keohane, Labour Defence Policy since 1945 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993), especially chapter 1. Jones, p. 123. Only a select few in Wilson’s and Callaghan’s Cabinets knew of the ongoing Chevaline programme or Callaghan’s decision to initiate studies into a replacement for Polaris. Private discussions; David Owen, Time to Declare, (London: Michael Joseph, 1991), pp. 380–1; Hugo Young, ‘With Trident into the Far Beyond’, Sunday Times, 6 April 1980; Richard Hill, Lewin of Greenwich: the Authorised Biography (London: Cassell, 2000), pp. 307–9. The results of the deputy leadership contest were Healey 50.4 per cent, Benn 49.5 per cent. Benn, p. 154; Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (London: W.W. Norton, 1989), p. 483. Private discussions. Ibid. See Felipe Noguera and Peter Willets, ‘Public Attitudes and the Future of the Islands’, International Perspectives on the Falklands Conflict, edited by Alex Danchev (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992), particularly pp. 241–2. Nigel Lawson, The View from No.11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992), p. 32. Ridley, p. 4. John Nott, ‘Speech at the IISS’, 16 November 1981; Howe, p. 144. Monetarists have referred to this as the ‘heroic age’ of monetarism. Peter Byrd, ‘Defence Policy: an Historical Overview and a Regime Analysis’, in Byrd, p. 23. Peter Walker, Staying Power (London: Bloomsbury, 1991), p. 159. Stuart Croft, Andrew Dorman, G. Wyn Rees and Matthew Uttley, Britain and Defence 1945–2000: a Policy Re-evaluation (Harlow: Pearson Group, 2001). John Baylis, Anglo–American Defence Relations, 1939–84 (London: Macmillan, second edition 1984), p. 164. See ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1975’, Cm. 5,976 (London: HMSO, 1975). ‘The Government does not believe that the Warsaw Pact countries would contemplate outright aggression against the West in present circumstances; but this is a political judgement which neither alone alters the military facts nor holds good forever.’ ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1976’, Cm. 6,432, (London: HMSO, 1976), p. 8. Ibid, p. 1.

Notes 167 39.

40.

41. 42.

43.

44.

45. 46.

47. 48.

49.

In 1976 the CIA’s annual estimate of Soviet defence spending stated that previous estimates had been low and that the Soviet Union was actually spending 11–13 per cent of GNP on defence and not 6–8 per cent as previously thought. Paul Cockle, ‘Analysing Soviet Defence Spending: the Debate in Perspective’, Survival, vol. 20, no. 5, September/October 1978, p. 209; this was subsequently repeated in the 1977 Statement on the Defence Estimates, ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1977’, Cm. 6,735 (London: HMSO, 1977), p. 5; Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), p. 197; see also, IISS, The Military Balance, 1977–78 (London: IISS, 1977), pp. 102–10. Fred Mulley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 946, fifth series, session 1977–78, 13–23 March 1978, Statement on the Defence Estimates, 13 March 1978, col. 47. David Owen, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 982, fifth series, session 1976–77, 16–25 May 1977, Statement 18 May 1977, col. 475. This was the 3 per cent commitment referred to earlier. See David Greenwood, ‘NATO’s Three Per Cent Solution’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 6, November/December 1981, pp. 252–60. There was considerable opposition within the Labour Party to this. See, for example, Frank Allaun’s interruption to David Owen’s speech where he highlighted the incompatibility of the 3 per cent commitment to NATO with the CSCE process. Frank Allaun, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 932, fifth series, session 1976–77, 16–25 May 1977, 18 May 1977, col. 475. Andrew J. Pierre, ‘Can Europe’s Security be “Decoupled” from America?’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 51, no. 4, July 1973, p. 761; Pierre Lellouche, ‘Europe and her Defense’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 59, no. 4, Spring 1981, p. 815. See Raymond L. Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1985), chapter 25, pp. 870–86. Lynn E. Davis, ‘Lessons of the INF Treaty’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 66, no. 4, Spring 1988, p. 720. Steven Canby and Ingemar Dörfer, ‘More Troops, Fewer Missiles’, Foreign Policy, vol. 53, Winter 83–84, pp. 3–17, p. 5; see also, Robert W. Tucker, ‘America in Decline: the Foreign Policy of “Maturity”’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 58, no. 3, 1979, p. 455. See General Alexander Haig, ‘Speech Made 13 October 1976’, Survival, vol. 19, no. 1, January/February 1977, p. 34. Christoph Bertram, ‘The Implications of Theatre Nuclear Weapons in Europe’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no. 2, Winter 1981/82, p. 306; Christopher J. Makins, ‘TNF Modernisation and “Countervailing Strategy”’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 4, July/August 1981, p. 157; Garthoff, pp. 849–86, especially pp. 849–50. Colin McInnes, NATO’s Changing Strategic Agenda: the Conventional Defence of Central Europe (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 116–62; Robert A. Gessert, ‘The AirLand Battle and NATO’s New Doctrinal Debate’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no.3 , June 1984, pp. 52–60; General Sir Nigel Bagnall, ‘Concepts of Land/Air Operations in the Central Region: I’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 59–62; Air Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, ‘Concepts of Land/Air Operations in the Central Region: II’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 63–6; Boyd D. Sutton, John R.

168 Notes

50.

51. 52.

53.

54. 55. 56.

57.

58. 59. 60.

61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

2 69.

Landry, Malcolm B. Armstrong, Howel M. Estes III and Wesley K. Clark, ‘Deep Attack Concepts and the Defence of Central Europe’, Survival, vol. 26, no. 2, March/April 1984, pp. 50–70. See Eric Grove with Graham Thompson, Battle for the Fjords: NATO’s Forward Maritime Strategy in Action (London: Ian Allan, 1991); Geoffrey Till, Modern Sea Power (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1987), p. 64. Samuel P. Huntington, The Common Defense: Strategic Programs in National Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), pp. 1–14. For a good introduction into the structure-agency debate see Colin Hay, ‘Structure and Agency’, in Theory and Methods in Political Science, edited by David Marsh and Gerry Stoker (London: Macmillan, 1995), pp. 189–206. John C. Garnett, ‘Some Constraints on Defence Policy Makers’, in The Management of Defence, edited by Lawrence Martin (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1976), p. 30. Brian W. Hogwood and Lewis A. Gunn, Policy Analysis for the Real World, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 19. Idem. Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: the National Security Problem in International Relations (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1983), p. 3; see also Nicholas J. Wheeler and Ken Booth, ‘The Security Dilemma’, in Dilemmas in World Politics: International Issues in a Changing World, edited by John Baylis and N.J. Rengger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 29–60. For the action-reaction model see Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies: Military Technology and International Relations (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987), pp. 76–93. Michael D. Hobkirk, The Politics of Defence Budgeting: a Study of Organizations and Resource Allocation in the United Kingdom and the United States (Basingstoke: Macmillan for the RUSI, 1984), p. 10. John Baylis, ‘Introduction’, in British Defence Policy in a Changing World, edited by John Baylis (London: Croom Helm, 1977), p. 12. Harry S. Truman, Public Papers of Presidents of the USA: Harry Truman 1945 (Washington DC: National Archives and Records Service, 1962), p. 551. See Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (London: HarperCollins, 1971); C. Wright Mills, The Power Élite, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956). Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Stanford, ‘The Current Position of the Royal Navy’, in Till, p. 25. Peter Hennessy, Cabinet (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), p. 3. Simon James, British Cabinet Government (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 19. Peter Madgwick, British Government: the Central Executive Territory (London: Philip Allen, 1991), p. 15. Idem. James, p. 22. Madgwick, p. 55. Private discussion.

British defence policy in May 1979 See Michael Dockrill, British Defence Policy since 1945 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988); William Jackson, Britain’s Defence Dilemma: an Inside View

Notes 169

70.

71.

72. 73. 74.

75. 76.

77. 78.

79. 80.

81. 82. 83.

(London: B.T. Batsford, 1990); John Baylis (ed.), Britain’s Defence Policy in a Changing World (London: Croom Helm, 1977); Ritchie Ovendale, British Defence Policy since 1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994); Stuart Croft (ed.), British Security Policy: the Thatcher Years and the End of the Cold War (London: HarperCollins, 1991); Peter Byrd (ed.), British Defence Policy: Thatcher and Beyond (Hemel Hempstead: Philip Allen, 1991); Malcolm McIntosh, Managing Britain’s Defence (London: Macmillan, 1990). See Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: the Dilemma of British Defence Policy in the Era of Two World Wars (London: Temple Smith, 1972); Basil Liddell Hart, The British Way in Warfare (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1942); C.J. Bartlett, Defence and Diplomacy: Britain and the Great Powers, 1815–1914, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993). See Paul Cornish, British Military Planning for the Defence of Germany, 1945–50, (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996); Christoph Bluth, Britain, Germany and Western Nuclear Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 10–30. See Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War Volume VI: Triumph and Tragedy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), pp. 495–507. John Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations, 1939–84 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, second edition, 1984), p. 34. C.M. White, The Gotha Summer: the German Daytime Air Raids on England, May–August 1917 (London: Robert Hale, 1986); John Terraine, Business in Great Waters: the U-Boat Wars, 1916–45, (London: Leo Cooper, 1989); Douglas Robinson, The Zeppelin in Combat: a History of the Naval Airship Division, 1912–18 (Henley-on-Thames: G.T. Foulis and Co, third edition, 1971), pp. 95–138, 204–33, 262–83. E.R. Hooton, Eagle in Flames: the Fall of the Luftwaffe (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1997), pp. 13–76. Phillip S. Meilinger, ‘Proselytiser and Prophet: Alexander P. de Seversky and American Airpower’, in Airpower: Theory and Practice, edited by John Gooch (London: Frank Cass, 1995), pp. 22–3; Andrew G.B. Vallance, The Air Weapon: Doctrines of Air Power Strategy and Operational Art (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995), p. 16. This was evident from the necessity to continue rationing after the Second World War well into the 1950s. ‘Statement Relating to Defence, 1948’, Cm. 7,327 (London: HMSO, 1948), reprinted in Brassey’s Naval Annual, edited by Rear Admiral H.G. Thursfield (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1948), p. 528. Clive Ponting, Breach of Power: Labour in Power, 1964–70 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1989), pp. 41–2. The issue of Britain’s role was the subject of considerable debate. Interestingly one of the texts published on the subject which argued for a new definition of Britain’s role was co-authored by Geoffrey Pattie, soon to become a junior minister in the MOD in Thatcher’s first government. James Bellini and Geoffrey Pattie, A New World Role for the Medium Power: the British Opportunity (London: The Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, 1977). Private discussion. Idem. Idem.

170 Notes 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

89.

90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

95.

96.

97. 98. 99. 100. 101. 102.

Idem. Idem; see Broadbent, pp. 15–58. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1975’, Cm. 5,976 (London: HMSO, 1975). Admiral Sir James Eberle, ‘Defending the Atlantic Connection’, in Till, p. 149; ‘NATO’s Sinking Feeling’, New Statesman, 29 May 1981, p. 30. Vice-Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, Controller of the Navy, ‘House of Commons Defence Committee: Fourth Report – Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy: Together with the Minutes and Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report; and Part of the Minutes of Evidence Taken on 25 June, 9 and 23 July, 29 October, 4, 6, 12, 25 and 26 November, 2, 3 and 17 December 1980, 4 March and 7 April 1981’, HC.36, session 1980–90 (London: HMSO, 1981), Minutes of Evidence 3 December 1980, p. 219. At the time, the Royal Dockyard at Chatham was the principal SSN refit yard and was then working up a second refit stream. Devonport had then just opened its first stream and was in the process of refitting its first submarine. It planned to expand to two streams with possibly a third to follow. The other dockyard involved in nuclear refits, Rosyth, was almost entirely occupied with refitting the ballistic missile submarines of the resolution-class. Vice-Admiral Sir William Pillar, Chief of Fleet Support, Ibid., Minutes of Evidence 4 November 1980, p. 141. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1975’, p. 11. Jane’s Fighting Ships 1979–80 (London: Jane’s, 1979), p. 607; Desmond Wettern, ‘More Dual-Roled Warships’, Daily Telegraph, 31 August 1978. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1966: The Defence Review’, Cm. 2,901 (London: HMSO, 1966), p. 10. Paul Beaver, Modern Combat Ships – 2: Invincible Class (London: Ian Allan, 1984), p. 21. In the six weeks leading up to the 1979 election 3 Type 42 destroyers and 2 Type 22 frigates were ordered. Keith Speed, Sea Change: the Battle of the Falklands and the Future of Britain’s Navy (Bath: Ashgrove Press, 1982), p. 79. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 995, fifth series, session 1980–81, 1–12 December 1980, written answer 5 December, col. 88w. At least 12 Type 22s were envisaged at this stage together with 10 modified Leanders, judging by the orders for Sea Wolf systems. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 995, fifth series, session 1980–81, 1–12 December 1980, written answer 5 December 1980, col. 88w; Anthony Preston, ‘So Long Leander’, Warship World, vol. 4, no. 7, Summer 1993, p. 11. Captain John Lippiett, Modern Combat Ships 5: Type 21 (London: Ian Allen, 1990), p. 10. Speed, p. 91. ‘Interview with Commodore Richard Thorn by Kathleen Bunten’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, vol. 21, no. 20, 21 May 1994, p. 32. Private discussion. Idem. Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1980), p. 54.

Notes 171 103. 104.

105. 106.

107. 108.

109.

110. 111.

112.

113.

114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119.

Private discussions; Hill, pp. 309–10. The strategic reserve division of three air-portable brigades and the 16 Independent Parachute Brigade vanished from the army’s order of battle to be replaced by the newly created 6 Field Force, which contained a parachute battalion group. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1975’, p. 11; Andrew Wilson, ‘The 16th Paras Hit the Deck’, Observer, 27 March 1977; Lieutenant-General Sir William Scotter, ‘The British Army Today’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 2, June 1976, p. 18. Scotter, pp. 16–22; Major-General Frank Kitson, ‘The New British Armoured Division’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 1, March 1977, pp. 17–19. Private discussions; Colin J. McInnes, ‘BAOR in the 1980s: Changes in Doctrine and Organisation’, Defense Analysis, vol. 4, no. 4, December 1988, pp. 377–94. Scotter, pp. 16–22. Colin McInnes, NATO’s Changing Strategic Agenda: the Conventional Defence of Central Europe (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 116–62; Robert A. Gessert, ‘The AirLand Battle and NATO’s New Doctrinal Debate’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, June 1984, pp. 52–60; General Sir Nigel Bagnall, ‘Concepts of Land/Air Operations in the Central Region: I’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 59–62; Air Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, ‘Concepts of Land/Air Operations in the Central Region: II’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 63–6; Boyd D. Sutton, John R. Landry, Malcolm B. Armstrong, Howell M. Estes III and Wesley K. Clark, ‘Deep Attack Concepts and the Defence of Central Europe’, Survival, vol. 26, no. 2, March/April 1984, pp. 50–70. Jon Connell, ‘War in Germany’, Sunday Times, 13 March 1983; McInnes, pp. 377–94; Colin McInnes, ‘Conventional Forces’, in British Security Policy: the Thatcher Years and the End of the Cold War, edited by Stuart Croft (London: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 31; Adrian Hill, ‘Could Napoleon’s Army Win Today?’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 1, March 1977, p. 21. Boyd, pp. 50–70. ‘The Army’, The Economist, 29 March 1980, p. 45; Henry Stanhope, ‘Army Plans Russian-type AA gun’, The Times, 12 January 1978; Jackson, p. 7. John Erickson, ‘Soviet Military Capabilities in Europe’, RUSI Journal, vol. 120, no. 1, March 1975, pp. 65–9. John Erickson, ‘Soviet Ground Forces and the Conventional Mode of Operations’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 2, June 1976, pp. 45–9. Barney Hayhoe, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 980, fifth series, session 1979–80, 3–14 March 1980, oral answer 11 March 1980, col. 1128. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1978’, Cm. 7099 (London: HMSO, 1978), p. 34. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Captain Charles J. Dick, ‘MLRS: Firepower for the 1990s’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 4, December 1983, p. 17. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1978’, p. 35.

172 Notes 120. 121. 122.

123. 124. 125.

126.

127. 128.

129.

130. 131. 132. 133. 134. 135. 136.

137. 138.

139. 140. 141. 142. 143.

Private discussion. Michael Lambert and Charles Gilson, ‘Britain Looks forward to the Lynx’, Flight International, vol. 112, no. 3569, 6 August 1977, p. 416. Major Christopher J.T. Davey, ‘Sultan, Clansmen and the Integration of Forward Communications within NATO’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 1, March 1977, pp. 37–9. Private discussion. Idem. ‘Enter Jaguar, Exit Phantom’, Flight International, vol. 106, no. 3422, 17 October 1974, p. 495; Francis K. Mason, Tornado (Wellingborough: Patrick Stephens, 1986), p. 27. ‘UK Air Defence’, Flight International, vol. 107, no. 3447, 3 April 1975, p. 557; Air Commodore A.G. White, ‘Airpower in the Alliance’, Armed Forces, no. 3, 1979, p. 13. Private discussion; Alfred Price, Panavia Tornado: Spearhead of NATO (London: Ian Allan, 1988), pp. 11–17; Mason, p. 27. Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 974, fifth series, session 1979–80, 19–30 November 1979, oral answer 27 November 1979, col. 1099. Private discussion; Group-Captain V.L. Vallance, ‘The Way Ahead: Future Equipment and Possible Employment’, Armed Forces, no. 3, 1979, p. 34. Warrington, p. 34. Private discussion; Alan Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, edited by Ian Trewin, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000), p. 133. ‘Memorandum by the Secretary of State for Air to Accompany Air Estimates, 1957–8’, Cm. 149 (London: HMSO, 1957), paras 16–25. This emerged out of the 1966 Defence Review, which scrapped the aircraft carrier replacement programme. White, p. 12. Private discussion. Charles Gilson and Bill Sweetman, ‘Air Power for the Pact’, Flight International, vol. 109, no. 3508, 5 June 1976, p. 1507; ‘The Soviet Threat: a UK View’, Flight International, vol. 111, no. 3545, 19 February 1977, p. 411. Air Commodore G.A. White, ‘Air Power in the Alliance’, Armed Forces, no. 3, 1979, pp. 11–13. ‘RAF May Rent Fighter to Fill “Air Defence Gap”’, Guardian, 2 July 1979; ‘RAF Faces the Fighter Gap’, Flight International, vol. 114, no. 3624, 2 September 1978, p. 727. Wing Commander A.G. Hicks, ‘Maritime Air Power’, Armed Forces, no. 3, 1979, p. 14. Tim Laming, Buccaneer: the Story of the last all British Strike Aircraft, (Sparkford: Patrick Stephens, 1998), p. 127. Warrington, p. 34. Private discussion. The eight aircraft withdrawn from Malta as part of the 1975 Defence Review were initially earmarked for conversion together with three aircraft from the general pool. This meant that the actual pool of Nimrod aircraft had decreased by three and the eight spare aircraft could not be

Notes 173

144. 145. 146. 147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158.

3 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164. 165. 166. 167. 168. 169. 170. 171. 172.

173. 174. 175.

used to expand the existing fleet. Private discussion; Paul Jackson, ‘NATO’s Airborne Early Warning Force’, Armed Forces, vol. 4, no. 8, August 1985, p. 307. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, Cm. 8212 (London: HMSO, 1981), p. 32. Warrington, p. 35. Private discussions; ‘Britain to Buy 30 Chinooks’, Flight International, vol. 113, no. 3595, 11 February 1978, p. 346. Farooq Hussain, Ian Kemp and Philip McCarthy, ‘The Future of the Military Helicopter’, Whitehall Papers (London: RUSI, 1986), p. 35. John Marriott, ‘The Industry’, NATO’s Fifteen Nations, April–May 1976, pp. 30–1. Private discussion; John Marriott, ‘Aerospace’, NATO’s Fifteen Nations, April–May 1976, pp. 35–44. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1978’, p. 34. Private discussion. Idem. Bill Gunston, ‘The Multi-Role EH101’, Air International, April 1998, p. 221. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Warrington, p. 34. Private discussion. Idem.

Defence under Pym, May 1979–January 1981 Hennessy, p. 629. Private discussion. Young, pp. 198–204. Thatcher, pp. 26–7. Lord Carrington, Reflect on Things Past: the Memoirs of Lord Carrington (London: William Collins, 1988), p. 280. John Cole, As It Seemed to Me: Political Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995), p. 283. Private discussion; Heseltine, p. 185. Hennessy, pp. 284–6. Private discussion. Wettern, p. 382. ‘Pym Talks of Indian Ocean Role’, Daily Telegraph, 2 April 1980. Private discussion. Idem. Interviewed by David Boren in David K. Boren,’Britain’s 1981 Defence Review’, PhD thesis, Department of War Studies, King’s College, University of London, 1992, p. 229. Private discussion. Idem; Grove, p. 343; Speed, pp. 89–90. Major-General Frank Kitson, ‘The New British Armoured Division’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 1, March 1977, pp. 17–19.

174 Notes 176.

177. 178. 179.

180. 181. 182. 183. 184. 185. 186.

187.

188. 189. 190. 191. 192.

193. 194. 195.

196.

197.

198.

199.

Private discussion; David Hazel, ‘The Sudden Attack Debate: Arguments and Alternatives’, RUSI Journal, vol. 123, no. 4, December 1978, p.37; Mike Gaines, ‘NATO’s Crusader 80’, Flight International, vol. 118, no. 3729, 25 October 1980, p. 1569. Private discussion. Idem. Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 974, fifth series, session 1979–80, 19–30 November 1979, oral answer 27 November 1979, col. 1098; Francis Pym and Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 975, fifth series, session 1979–80, 3–14 December 1979, written answer 10 December 1979, col. 526w. Private discussion. Probert, p. 89. Private discussion. ‘UK Air Defence’, Flight International, vol. 107, no. 3447, 3 April 1975, p. 557; White, p. 13. Private discussion. Idem. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 974, fifth series, session 1979–80, 19–30 November 1979, written answer 20 November 1979, cols 103–4w; Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 984, fifth series, session 1979–80, 6–16 May 1980, written answer 13 May 1980, cols 413–4w. Private discussion; Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 968, fifth series, session 1979–80, 11–22 June 1979, written answer 11 June 1979, col. 12w. Henry Stanhope, ‘Army Studies NATO Anti-Tank Role for the Red Berets’, The Times, 14 November 1979; McInnes, pp. 100–2. Thatcher, pp. 86–7, p. 162. Idem. Idem. Idem; Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 969, fifth series, session 1979–80, 25 June–6 July 1979, written answer 28 June 1979, col. 298w. Private discussion. Idem. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 973, fifth series, session 1979–80, 5–16 November 1979, written answer 5 November 1979, col. 34w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 973, fifth series, session 1979–80, 5–16 November 1979, written answer 6 November 1979, col. 134w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 973, fifth series, session 1979–80, 5–16 November 1979, written answer 5 November 1979, col. 34w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 980, fifth series, session 1979–80, 3–14 March 1980, written answer 5 March 1980, col. 221w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 972, fifth series, session 1979–80, 22 October–2 November 1979, oral answer

Notes 175

200. 201.

202.

203. 204.

205. 206.

207.

208. 209.

210. 211. 212. 213. 214.

215. 216.

217. 218. 219.

30 October 1979, col. 1010. In discussing the creation of a third Lightning squadron Mr John Peters, then Assistant Under-Secretary of State (Air Staff), informed the House of Commons Defence Committee that the Royal Air Force would have preferred three rather than one additional squadrons, there is, 50 aircraft. John Peters, ‘House of Commons Defence Committee: Second Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1980’, HC. 571, session 1979–80 (London: HMSO, 1980), Minutes of Evidence 15 April 1980, p. 9. Private discussion. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 972, fifth series, session 1979–80, 22 October–2 November 1979, oral answer 30 October 1979, col. 1010w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 972, fifth series, session 1979–80, 22 October–2 November 1979, written answer 30 October 1979, col. 489w; Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 973, fifth series, session 1979–80, 5–16 November 1979, written answer 5 November 1979, col. 34w. Private discussion. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 974, fifth series, session 1979–80, 19–30 November 1979, written answer 20 November 1979, cols 103–4w. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1979’, Cm. 7474 (London: HMSO, 1979), p. 32. Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 974, fifth series, session 1979–80, 19–30 November 1979, written answer 27 November 1979, col. 548w. Barney Hayhoe, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 978, fifth series, session 1979–80, 4–15 February 1980, written answer 12 February 1980, cols 561–2w. Probert, p. 89. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 982, fifth series, session 1979–80, 31 March–18 April 1980, written answer 15 April 1980, col. 578w Private discussion. Idem. Speed, pp. 78–9. Private discussion. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 969, fifth series, session 1979–80, 25 June–6 July 1979, written answer 5 July 1979, col. 676w. ‘Defence in the 1980s – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1980’, Cm. 7826, (London: HMSO, 1980), p. 73. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 980, fifth series, session 1979–80, 3–14 March 1980, written answer 5 March 1980, col. 222w. ‘Defence in the 1980s – Statement on the Defence Estimates’, p. 25. Gaines, p. 1569. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 974, fifth series, 19–30 November 1979, session 1979–80, written answer 22 November 1979, col. 304w.

176 Notes 220.

221. 222.

223. 224. 225.

226. 227. 228. 229.

230. 231. 232. 233. 234. 235. 236. 237. 238.

239. 240. 241.

242. 243. 244. 245. 246. 247.

Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 970, fifth series, session 1979–80, 9–20 July 1979, written answer 19 July 1979, col. 782w. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1980’, p. 68. Barney Hayhoe, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 980, fifth series, session 1979–80, 3–14 March 1980, oral answer 11 March 1980, col. 1128. Private discussion. Henry Stanhope, ‘Army May Change Shape of Things to Come’, The Times, 23 June 1980. Barney Hayhoe, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 983, fifth series, session 1979–80, 21 April–2 May 1980, Debate on the Defence Estimates, 28 April 1980, col. 1110. Idem. Ibid, col. 1112. Private discussion. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourth Report – Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy: Together with the Minutes and Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report; and Part of the Minutes of Evidence taken on 25 June, 9 and 23 July, 29 October, 4, 6, 12, 25 and 26 November, 2, 3 and 17 December 1980, 4 March and 7 April 1981’, HC.36, session 1980–81 (London: HMSO, 1981), pp. vii–viii. Private discussion. Julian Critchley, ‘Can Britain still Afford a Nuclear Deterrent?’, Daily Telegraph, 29 April 1980. James Callaghan, Time and Chance (London: William Collins, 1987), p. 554; Hill, pp. 307–10. Private discussion. Idem. Ivan Owen, ‘Labour Split over Defence’, Financial Times, 30 April 1980. Howe, p. 144. Leo Pliatzky, Getting and Spending: Public Expenditure, Employment and Inflation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, revised edition, 1984), pp. 176–7. General Sir William Jackson and Field Marshal Lord Bramall, The Chiefs: the Story of the United Kingdom’s Chiefs of Staff (London: Brassey’s (UK), 1992), p. 392. Private discussion; McIntosh, p. 110. Private discussion. Frank Cooper, ‘Ministry of Defence’, in Reshaping Central Government, edited by John Gretton and Anthony Harrison (Hermitage: Policy Journals, 1987), p. 109; Thatcher, p. 125. Thatcher, p. 123. Cole, p. 205. Private discussion. Idem. Desmond Wettern, ‘£700m Cut for Defence after Overspending’, Daily Telegraph, 21 July 1980. Private discussion; D.K. Brown, A Century of Naval Construction: the History of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1983), pp. 267–70; Grove, p. 343; Speed, p. 90.

Notes 177 248. 249. 250.

251.

252. 253.

254.

255. 256. 257.

258. 259.

260.

261.

262. 263. 264.

Grove, p. 353 Thatcher, p. 123. It consisted of Sir Michael Quinlan, Deputy Under-Secretary (Policy), Air Chief Marshal Joseph Gilbert, Assistant Chief of Defence Staff (Policy), and Admiral Stephen Bethon, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff (Operational Requirements). Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 983, fifth series, session 1979–80, 21 April–2 May 1980, Second day of the Debate on the Defence Estimates, 29 April 1980, col. 1179w. Boren, p. 229. Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourth Report – Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy: Together with the Minutes and Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report; and Part of the Minutes of Evidence taken on 25 June, 9 and 23 July, 29 October, 4, 6, 12, 25 and 26 November, 2, 3 and 17 December 1980, 4 March and 7 April 1981’, Minutes of Evidence 12 December 1980, p. 195. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 992, fifth series, session 1979–80, 10–13 November 1980, written answer 13 November 1980, col. 398w. Subsequently sold with two sisters to the US. Captain Richard Sharpe (ed.), Jane’s Fighting Ships, 2000–1 (London: Jane’s, 2000), p. 832. Private discussion. Speed, p. 99; Desmond Wettern, ‘Navy Cuts Reduce Estimates’, Daily Telegraph, 3 April 1980; Barney Hayhoe, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 991, session 1980–81, 27 October–7 November 1980, written answer 28 October 1980, col. 256w. ‘Defence in the 1980s – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1980’, p. 73. Speed, pp. 71–2; Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 988, fifth series, session 1979–80, 7–18 July 1980, written answer 15 July 1980, col. 503w. Vice-Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy: Together with the Minutes and Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report; and Part of the Minutes of Evidence taken on 25 June, 9 and 23 July, 29 October, 4, 6, 12, 25 and 26 November, 2, 3 and 17 December 1980, 4 March and 7 April 1981’, Minutes of Evidence 3 December 1980, p. 223. Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 988, fifth series, session 1979–80, 7–18 July 1980, Statement to the House 15 July 1980, cols. 1235–6; Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 989, fifth series, session 1979–80, 21 July–1 August 1980, written answer 1 August 1980, col. 858w; ‘US Sale of Trident One Missiles to UK’, US Official Text (London: US Embassy, 17 July 1980), p. 3; Lynton McLain and Richard Evans, ‘Trident Missiles in £5bn UK Deterrent’, Financial Times, 16 July 1980. Private discussion. Idem. Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 988, fifth series, session 1979–80, 7–18 July, written answer 14 July 1980, cols. 420–1w.

178 Notes 265.

266. 267. 268. 269.

270.

271.

272.

273. 274.

275.

276. 277. 278.

279.

280. 281. 282.

Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 988, fifth series, session 1979–80, 7–18 July 1980, written answer 14 July 1980, cols. 420–1w. Ibid, col. 421w. Private discussion. David Fairhall, ‘Rhine Army to Get New Carrier in Refit’, Guardian, 15 July 1980. Private discussion; Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourth Report – Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy: Together with the Minutes and Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report; and Part of the Minutes of Evidence taken on 25 June, 9 and 23 July, 29 October, 4, 6, 12, 25 and 26 November, 2, 3 and 17 December 1980, 4 March and 7 April 1981’, Minutes of Evidence 12 December 1980, p. 195. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 982, fifth series, session 1979–80, 31 March–18 April 1980, written answer 15 April 1980, col. 581w. Private discussion; Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 989, fifth series, session 1979–80, 21 July–1 August 1980, written answer 22 July 1980, col. 177w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 982, fifth series, session 1979–80, 31 March–18 April 1980, written answer 31 March 1980, col. 69w. House of Commons Defence Committee ‘First Report – RAF Pilot Training’, HC. 53, session 1980–81, London, HMSO, 1981, p. iv. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 980, fifth series, session 1979–80, 3–14 March 1980, written answer 5 March 1980, col. 220w; Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 989, fifth series, session 1979–80, 21 July–1 August 1980, written answer 28 July 1980, col. 529. Admiral Sir Raymond Lygo, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourth Report – Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy: Together with the Minutes and Proceedings of the Committee Relating to the Report; and Part of the Minutes of Evidence taken on 25 June, 9 and 23 July, 29 October, 4, 6, 12, 25 and 26 November, 2, 3 and 17 December 1980, 4 March and 7 April 1981’, Minutes of Evidence 2 December 1980, p. 195. Bill Sweetman, ‘Jump Jet May Be Dropped’, Observer, 11 December 1980. Private discussion. Francis Pym, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 995, fifth series, session 1980–81, 1–12 December 1980, written answer 12 December 1980, col. 495w. Barney Hayhoe, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 991, fifth series, session 1979–80, 27 October–7 November 1980, oral answer 28 October 1980, col. 192. Maurice Mullard, Politics of Public Expenditure (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 163. Howe, p. 189. Henry Leach, Endure No Makeshifts: Some Naval Recollections (London: Leo Cooper, 1993), pp. 196–7.

Notes 179 283. 284. 285. 286. 287.

288. 289. 290.

291. 292.

293. 294. 295.

296. 297.

298. 299. 300. 301. 302. 303. 304. 305.

4 306.

307. 308. 309. 310.

Private discussion. Jordan and Richardson, p. 222. Jock Bruce-Gardyne, Mrs Thatcher’s First Administration: the Prophets Confounded (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984), p. 89. Howe, p. 189. Julia Langdon, ‘Pym “is Prepared to Quit” over Cuts Demands’, Guardian, 4 November 1980; James Wightman, ‘Defence Cuts “Leak” Row’, Daily Telegraph, 24 October 1980; Clark, pp. 172–3. Private discussion; Bruce-Gardyne, p. 89. Jordan and Richardson, p. 222. Sir Ian Gilmour, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 994, fifth series, session 1980–81, 20–28 November 1980, 24 November 1980, col. 224. Idem. Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 997, fifth series, session 1980–81, 19–30 January 1981, written answer 27 January 1981, col. 375w. Private discussion. Idem. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 991, fifth series, session 1979–80, 27 October–7 November 1980, written answer 7 November 1980, col. 694w; John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 997, fifth series, session 1980–81, 19–30 January 1981, statement 20 January, col. 152. Henry Stanhope, ‘Can the RAF Shut that Open Window’, The Times, 29 March 1982. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 998, fifth series, session 1980–81, 2–13 February 1981, written answer 4 February, col. 127w. Private discussion. Idem. Young, p. 260. Private discussion. Young, p. 260. McIntosh, p. 98. Bruce Headey, British Cabinet Ministers (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974). Hennessy, p. 592.

John Nott, January 1981–January 1983 Nott ‘was one of a small group of ministers who breakfasted with the new Prime Minister very regularly during our first two years in office and was regarded throughout the government as a possible future Chancellor of the Exchequer’. Cecil Parkinson, Right at the Centre (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992), p. 149; Clark, p. 138. Howe, p. 198. Private discussion. Idem. Idem.

180 Notes 311. 312. 313. 314. 315.

316. 317. 318. 319. 320. 321. 322. 323. 324. 325. 326. 327. 328. 329. 330. 331. 332. 333. 334.

335. 336.

337. 338. 339. 340. 341. 342. 343. 344. 345.

David Fairhall, ‘The Battle of the Cuts’, Guardian, 7 January 1981. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 997, fifth series, session 1980–81, 19–30 January 1981, statement 20 January 1981, col. 152. Private discussion. Hill, p. 323. ‘John Nott quickly came to the view that he had to set in hand what was somewhat elliptically called the defence review programme – less than a full-scale policy review, more than a mere adjustment to the programme.’ Cooper, p. 112. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem. Idem. ‘The United Kingdom Defence Programme: the Way Forward’, Cm. 8, 288 (London: HMSO, 1981), p. 9; Marriott, p. 114. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem; Hill, p. 327. Private discussion. Leach, p. 198. Private discussion. Idem; Hill, p. 327. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, p. 14. Private discussion. Boren, p. 251. Private discussion. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 7, sixth series, session 1980–81, 22 June–3 July 1981, Defence Statement 25 June 1981, col. 386. David C. Isby and Charles Hamps Jnr, Armies of NATO’s Central Front (London: Jane’s, 1985), p. 241. Private discussion; House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘First Report – Allied Forces in Germany’, HC. 93, session 1981–82 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. vi. Boren, p. 289. Alex Brunner and Ian Aitken, ‘Thatcher Heading for Battles over Gulf Force’, Guardian, 2 March 1981; Thatcher, p. 162. Hill, p. 325. Jackson and Bramall, p. 398. Private discussion. Cooper, p. 112. Boren, pp. 264–5 Private discussion. ‘I have always held the view that the main threat to the surface fleet in the future, assuming that land-based air of the Soviet Union could be successfully contained, is increasingly the submarine-launched missiles of the Soviet navy.’ John Nott, House of Commons Defence Committee,

Notes 181

346. 347. 348. 349. 350. 351. 352. 353. 354. 355. 356. 357. 358.

359. 360. 361. 362. 363. 364. 365. 366. 367. 368. 369. 370. 371. 372. 373. 374.

375.

376. 377.

‘Report on the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1982’, HC. 428, session 1981–82, London, HMSO, 1982, Minutes of Evidence 23 June 1982, p. 5. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. So-called because the bones of the review were formulated during a stopover in Bermuda. McIntosh, p. 116; see also Hill, p. 334. Boren, p. 276. Wettern, p. 384. Private discussion. Idem; Hennessy, p. 500. Private discussion. Thatcher, p. 162. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, p. 30. Philip Goodhart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 2, sixth series, session 1980–81, 30 March–10 April 1981, written answer 1 April 1981, col. 123w; Keith Speed, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 2, sixth series, session 1980–81, 30 March–10 April 1981, written answer 1 April 1981, col. 124w; John Nott, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Second Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, HC. 302, session 1980–81, London, HMSO, Minutes of Evidence 30 April 1981, p. 56. Private discussion. Idem. Thatcher, p. 250; Wettern, p. 384; Heseltine, p. 262. Private discussion. Private discussion; Hill, p. 366. Private discussion. Owen, p. 503. Private discussion. Idem; Hill, p. 324. Private discussion. Leach, p. 210; Thatcher, p. 250. Jackson and Bramall, p. 397. Hill, p. 342. Jackson, p. 162. For a while a figure of the low 30s and even mid-20s was mentioned. Leach, p. 198. Wettern, p. 386; Pattie announced that the plan to buy five 909 radars would be reduced to one. Each Type 42 destroyer had two of these radars to guide its Sea Dart system. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 16, sixth series, session 1981–82, 18–29 January 1982, oral answer 26 January 1982, col. 732. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 7, sixth series, session 1980–81, 22 June–3 July 1981, Defence Statement 25 June 1981, col. 394. Grove, p. 352. Private discussion.

182 Notes 378.

379. 380. 381. 382. 383. 384. 385. 386. 387. 388. 389. 390. 391. 392. 393. 394. 395. 396. 397. 398. 399. 400. 401. 402. 403.

404. 405. 406. 407. 408.

409. 410. 411. 412. 413. 414. 415. 416.

The refit of HMS Swiftsure was due to begin in February 1979 but did not actually start until April 1980. Philip Goodhart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 7, sixth series, session 1980–81, 22 June–3 July 1981, written answer 25 June 1981, col. 162; Grove, p. 352. David Fairhall, ‘New “Cut-Price” Frigate Part of Arms Plan for Decade’, Guardian, 17 March 1981. He appended the ‘Bermudagram’ with a note asking what the LPDs were for. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem; Marriott, p. 114. Private discussion. Idem. Boren, pp. 298–9. Carrington, p. 360. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem; Boren, p. 335. Private discussion. Idem. Private discussion. Idem. Isby and Hamps, p. 241. ‘The United Kingdom Defence Programme: the Way Forward’, p. 7. ‘The Poor Men of NATO’, The Economist, 29 March 1980, p. 54. Private discussion. Idem. ‘The United Kingdom Defence Programme: the Way Forward’, p. 6. Idem. Philip Goodhart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 8, sixth series, session 1980–81, 6–17 July 1981, written answer 7 July 1981, col. 121w. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, p. 16. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 7, sixth series, session 1980–81, 22 June–3 July 1981, Defence Statement 25 June 1981, col. 386. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, p. 8. Private discussion. Idem. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 8, sixth series, session 1980–81, 6–17 July 1981, written answer 7 July 1981, col. 119w. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem; ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, p. 6.

Notes 183 417. 418. 419.

420. 421. 422. 423. 424. 425. 426. 427.

428. 429.

430. 431.

432. 433.

434. 435. 436. 437.

438. 439.

440. 441. 442. 443. 444.

445.

Private discussion. Idem. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 26, sixth series, session 1981–82, 21 June–2 July 1982, oral answer 29 June 1982, col. 737. Private discussion. Idem. Thatcher, p. 148. Idem. Cole, p. 256; Howe, p. 223; Nigel, Lawson The View from No. 11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992), p. 108; Thatcher, p. 149. Private discussion; Jackson, p. 162. Private discussion. Margaret Thatcher, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 19, sixth series, session 1981–82, 1–12 March 1982, written answer 4 March 1982, col. 195w. Private discussion; Hill, p. 341. Private discussion; John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 19, sixth series, session 1981–82, 1–12 March 1982, written answer 8 March 1982, col. 327w; McIntosh, p. 123. Private discussion. Private discussion; John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 19, sixth series, session 1981–82, 1–12 March 1982, written answer 8 March 1982, col. 327w; McIntosh, p. 123. Marriott, p. 130. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 18, sixth series, session 1981–82, 15–26 February 1982, oral answer 23 February 1982, col. 737; Hill, p. 328. Private discussion. Idem. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 19, sixth series, session 1981–82, 1–12 March 1982, Statement on the Trident Missile Programme 11 March 1982, col. 975. Idem. John Nott, ‘House of Commons: First Special Report from the Defence Committee – Strategic Nuclear Weapons Policy’, HC. 266, session 1981–82 (London: HMSO, 1982), Minutes of Evidence 17 March 1982, p. 7 Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem. Jerry Wiggin, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 13, sixth series, session 1981–82, 16–27 November 1981, written answer 23 November 1981, col. 311w. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 19, sixth series, session 1981–82, 1–12 March 1982, Statement on Reserve Forces 3 March 1982, col. 273.

184 Notes 446. 447. 448. 449.

450.

451. 452.

453. 454. 455. 456. 457. 458. 459. 460.

461.

462. 463.

464. 465. 466. 467. 468. 469. 470. 471.

472.

473.

Private discussion. Idem. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 16, sixth series, session 1981–82, written answer 21 January 1982, col. 160w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 19, sixth series, session 1981–82, 1–12 March 1982, written answer 8 March 1982, col. 328w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 24, sixth series, session 1981–82, 17–28 May 1982, written answer 17 May 1982, col. 47w. Private discussion. Lieutenant-General Sir Maurice Johnston, ‘More Power to the Centre: MOD Reorganization’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 1, March 1983, p. 7. Thatcher, p. 186. See David Brown, Royal Navy and the Falklands War: the Epic, True Story (London, Arrow Books, 1989). ‘The Falklands Campaign: the Lessons’, Cm. 8,758 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 15. Private discussion. Leach, p. 237. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1981’, p. 10. Private discussion. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Report on the Statement on the Defence Estimates 1982’, HC. 428, session 1981–82 (London: HMSO, 1982), Minutes of Evidence 23 June 1982, p. 2. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 26, sixth series, session 1981–82, 21 June–2 July 1982, Debate on the Defence Estimates 1 July 1982, col. 1063. McIntosh, p. 112. Peter Blaker, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 28, sixth series, session 1981–82, 19–30 July 1982, Debate on the Royal Navy 19 July 1982, cols. 44–5. Private discussion. Idem. Julian Haviland, ‘Nott’s Farewell Present to Services Cheers Tories’, The Times, 15 December 1982. Private discussion. ‘The Falklands Campaign: the Lessons’, p. 33. Idem, p. 34. Private discussion. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 28, sixth series, session 1981–82, 19–30 July 1982, Debate on the Royal Navy 19 July 1982, col. 110. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 26, sixth series, session 1981–82, 21 June–2 July 1982, Debate on the Defence Estimates 1 July 1982, col. 1065. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 34, sixth series, session 1982–83, 13–23 December 1982, Debate on the Falkland Islands White Paper 14 December 1982, col. 128.

Notes 185 474. 475.

476. 477.

478.

479. 480. 481. 482. 483.

5 484. 485. 486. 487. 488. 489. 490. 491. 492. 493. 494. 495. 496.

497. 498. 499. 500. 501. 502. 503. 504.

Private discussion. John Nott, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 34, sixth series, session 1982–83, 13–23 December 1982, Debate on the Falkland Islands White Paper 14 December 1982, col. 129. Private discussion. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 28, sixth series, session 1981–82, 19–30 July 1982, written answer 27 July 1982, col. 424w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 34, sixth series, session 1981–82, 13–23 December 1982, oral answer 14 December 1982, col. 114. Leach, p. 241. Private discussion. See Alan Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, edited by Ion Trewin (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000). Private discussion. Hennessy, p. 501.

Michael Heseltine, January 1983–January 1986 Thatcher, p. 424. Cole, p. 266. Lawson, p. 673. McIntosh, p. 142; Clark, p. 352. Julian Critchley, Heseltine: the Unauthorised Biography (London: André Deutsch, 1987), p. 91. Thatcher, p. 424. Critchley, p. 91. Private discussion; Clark, p. 354. Critchley, p. 91. Private discussion. Jackson, p. 172. Lawson, pp. 673–4. Trevor Taylor and Keith Hayward, The UK Defence Industrial Base: Development and Future Policy Options (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers for the RUSI, 1989), p. 79. Jackson, p. 170. Private discussion. Idem; Norman Friedman, The US Maritime Strategy (London: Jane’s, 1988). Private discussion. Idem; Robert R. Rodwell, ‘Evolving the Air Mobile Army’, Flight International, vol. 102, no. 3320, 2 November 1972, pp. 618–21. Stanhope, 29 March 1982. Private discussion. See Air Vice-Marshal R. A. Mason (ed.), War in the Third Dimension: Essays in Contemporary Air Power (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986), especially the chapters by Air Marshal Sir Michael Knight ‘Air Power in the NATO Alliance’, pp. 81–100 and Group Captain Timothy Garden, ‘The AirLand Battle’, pp. 149–68.

186 Notes 505. 506. 507. 508. 509.

510. 511. 512. 513. 514. 515. 516. 517. 518.

519. 520. 521. 522. 523. 524. 525. 526. 527. 528. 529. 530. 531. 532.

533. 534.

535. 536.

537. 538. 539.

Private discussion. Bill Gunston, ‘The Muti-Role EH-101’, Air International, April 1998, p. 221. Private discussion. Idem. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 46, sixth series, session 1983–84, 18–29 July 1983, written answer 18 July 1983, col. 38w. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Heseltine, p. 247. McIntosh, p. 175. Private discussion. Norman Fowler, Ministers Decide: a Memoir of the Thatcher Years (London: Chapmans, 1991), p. 201. Lawson, p. 283. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘First Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984’, HC. 436, session 1983–84 (London: HMSO, 1984), Minutes of Evidence 22 May 1984, p. 3. Rodney Cowton, ‘Defence Budget £230m Less than White Paper Forecast’, The Times, 8 July 1983. Jackson and Bramall, p. 426. Private discussion. Sir Clive Whitmore, ‘Ministry of Defence Reorganization: the Implementation of Change’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 1, March 1985, p. 7. Private discussion. Idem. Whitmore, p. 7. Private discussion. Idem. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1984’, Cm. 9227–I (London: HMSO, 1984), p. 12. Private discussion; McIntosh, pp. 142–4. Private discussion. Michael Hobkirk, ‘The Heseltine Reorganization of Defence: Kill or Cure?’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 1, March 1985, p. 45. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Third Report – Ministry of Defence Reorganization’, HC. 584, session 1983–84, (London: HMSO, 1984), p. xxi. Heseltine, p. 264. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 56, sixth series, session 1983–84, 12–23 March 1984, Statement on Ministry of Defence (Organisation) 12 March 1984, cols 22, 23 and 25. Private discussion. Michael Heseltine, Where There’s a Will (London: Century Hutchinson, 1987), p. 31; Julia Langdon, ‘Thatcher Rebuffs Defence Chiefs’, Guardian, 9 July 1984. Private discussion. Idem. Idem.

Notes 187 540. 541. 542. 543. 544. 545. 546. 547. 548. 549. 550. 551.

552. 553. 554. 555. 556. 557. 558.

559. 560.

561.

562.

563. 564. 565. 566.

567.

‘Value for Money in Defence Equipment Procurement’, Defence Open Government Document 83/01 (London: MOD, 1983). Private discussion. Idem; Heseltine, p. 269. Idem. Idem. Idem. Hennessy, p. 501. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. J. Moray Stewart, ‘Defence Procurement in Britain’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 4, December 1988, p. 46. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 62, sixth series, session 1983–84, 18–29 June 1984, Debate on the Defence Estimates 18 June 1984, col. 43. Private discussion. Bruce George and Jonathan Marcus, ‘Change and Continuity in French Defence Policy’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 2, June 1984, p. 17. E. Asa Bates, ‘The Rapid Deployment Force – Fact or Friction’, RUSI Journal, vol. 126, no. 2, June 1981, pp. 23–33. Major-General Edward Fursdon, ‘Airborne Role for Brigade’, Daily Telegraph, 15 November 1983. Private discussion. Friedman, p. 1. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 49, sixth series, session 1983–84, 21 November–2 December 1983, Debate on the Royal Navy 28 November 1983, col. 662. Private discussion; Desmond Wettern, ‘Corvettes Squeezed out of Defence Budget’, Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1985. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 63, sixth series, session 1983–84, 2–13 July 1984, written answer 4 July 1984, col. 148w. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 49, sixth series, session 1983–84, 21 November–2 December 1983, Debate on the Royal Navy 28 November 1983, col. 668. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 62, sixth series, session 1983–84, 18–29 June 1984, Debate on the Defence Estimates 18 June 1984, col. 39. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘First Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984’, p. 29. Private discussion. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘First Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984’, p. 10. Ian Stewart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 39, sixth series, session 1982–83, 14–25 March 1983, written answer 22 March 1983, col. 359w. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 68, sixth series, session 1982–83, 19–30 November 1984, Debate on the Royal Navy 28 November 1984, col. 664.

188 Notes 568.

569.

570. 571.

572.

573. 574. 575.

576. 577. 578. 579. 580. 581. 582.

583.

584.

585.

586. 587.

588.

589.

John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 68, sixth series, session 1982–83, 19–30 November 1984, Debate on the Royal Navy 29 November 1984, col. 1125. Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 47, sixth series, session 1983–84, 24 October–4 November 1983, written answer 2 November 1983, col. 373w. Grove, p. 395. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 68, sixth series, session 1982–83, 19–30 November 1984, Debate on the Royal Navy 29 November 1984, col. 1124. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 68, sixth series, session 1984–85, 19–30 November 1984, Debate on the Royal Navy 29 November 1984, col. 1123. Desmond Wettern, ‘Commando Carrier Plan Veto’, Daily Telegraph, 27 November 1984. Private discussion. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 90, session 1985–86, 20–31 January 1986, Debate on the Army 30 January 1986, col. 1116. Bagnall, p. 60. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Idem. Idem. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 62, sixth series, session 1983–84, 18–29 June 1984, Debate on the Defence Estimates 18 June 1984, col. 39. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 48, sixth series, session 1983–84, 7–18 November 1983, Debate on the Army 17 November 1983, col. 1019. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 65, sixth series, session 1983–84, 30 July–31 October 1984, Debate on the Army 22 October 1984, col. 468. To equip each regiment with two batteries of tracked Rapier required 72 units excluding those earmarked for training and war reserves and only 70 units had been ordered at this stage. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984’, p. 15. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 48, sixth series, session 1983–84, 7–18 November 1983, Debate on the Army 17 November 1983, col. 1019. To maximize the supply of ammunition during bombardments selfpropelled guns ideally want the engine in the front of the vehicle to allow access to the rear of the gun by additional loaders. In the Leopard tank the engine was in the rear of the vehicle so the manufacturers were forced to design a complicated framework to lift the shells over the engine. This gantry not only reduced the rate of fire below that which might otherwise have been achieved but it was also extremely vulnerable to battle damage since it was mounted externally. Private discussion. Idem.

Notes 189 590.

591.

592. 593. 594.

595.

596.

597.

598. 599.

600.

601. 602. 603. 604. 605.

606.

607. 608. 609.

This featured the raising of six new infantry battalions, an armoured reconnaissance regiment and an air defence regiment. In addition, the existing air defence regiments would be expanded and equipped with Javelin and the first TA Army Air Corps squadron created. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 57, sixth series, session 1983–84, 16–27 July 1984, written answer 25 July 1985, col. 710w. C.T. McDonnell, Assistant Under-Secretary of State (General Staff), House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘First Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984’, Minutes of Evidence 23 May 1984, p. 48. Private discussion. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates 1984’, p. 15. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 46, sixth series, session 1983–84, 18–29 July 1983, Statement on ALARM 28 July 1983, col. 1338; ‘RAF Will Get Alarm’, Flight International, vol. 124, no. 3874, 6 August 1983, p. 294. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 67, sixth series, session 1984–85, 6–16 November 1984, oral answer 13 November 1984, col. 528. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 46, sixth series, session 1983–84, 18–29 July 1983, Debate on the Defence Estimates 19 July 1983, col. 181. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 65, sixth series, session 1983–84, 30 July–31 October 1984, written answer 29 October 1984, col. 852w. Mike Gaines, ‘The RAF’s EFA’, Flight International, vol. 131, no. 4054, 21 March 1987, p. 22. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 51, sixth series, session 1983–84, 19–22 December 1983, written answer 19 December 1983, col. 40w. Geoffrey Pattie, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 64, sixth series, session 1983–84, 16–27 July 1984, written answer 24 July 1984, col. 595w; Heseltine, p. 274. Jon Lake, ‘Killed by Kindness: the VC-10’, Air International, June 1998, p. 366. ‘RAF buys Pan Am TriStars’, Flight International, vol. 126, no. 3922, w/e 25 August 1984, p. 163. ‘RAuxAF to have Wessex’, Flight International, vol. 124, no. 3894, w/e 24 December 1983, p. 1664. Critchley, p. 5. Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 79, sixth series, session 1984–85, 13–24 May 1985, written answer 24 May 1985, col. 596w. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 80, sixth series, session 1984–85, 3–14 June 1985, Debate on the Defence Estimates 12 June 1985, col. 904. Private discussion. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates 1985’, Cm. 9430 (London: HMSO, 1985), p. 10. Jackson, p. 178.

190 Notes 610.

611.

612. 613. 614. 615. 616.

617.

618. 619.

620. 621.

622.

623.

624.

625. 626. 627.

628.

629.

630.

Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 69, sixth series, session 1984–85, 3–14 December 1984, written answers 11 December 1984, col. 428w. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 72, sixth series, session 1984–85, 28 January–8 February 1985, Statement on Frigates (Orders) 28 January 1985, col. 21. Critchley, p. 129. Heseltine, p. 278. Wettern, 27 November 1984. Bridget Bloom, ‘Navy Has No Plans to Replace Landing Craft’, Financial Times, 9 September 1985. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘First Special Report – Defence Commitments and Resources and the Defence Estimates – Government Observations on the Committee’s Third Report of Session 1984–85’, HC. 151, session 1985–85 (London: HMSO, 1985), p. v. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 78, sixth series, session 1984–85, 29 April–10 May 1985, written answer 10 May 1985, col. 510w. Desmond Wettern, ‘Corvettes Squeezed out of Defence Budget’, Daily Telegraph, 15 April 1985. M. Gainsborough, Assistant Under-Secretary (Programmes), House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Third Report – Defence Commitments and Resources and the Defence Estimates’, HC. 37-I, session 1985–86 (London: HMSO, 1985), Minutes of Evidence 22 January 1985, p. 86. Major-General L.A.W. New, Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff (Operational Requirements, Land), Ibid., p. 88. Michael Heseltine, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 80, sixth series, session 1984–85, 3–14 June 1985, Debate on the Defence Estimates 12 June 1985, col. 904. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 80, sixth series, session 1984–85, 3–14 June 1985, Debate on the Defence Estimates 13 June 1985, col. 1039. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 75, sixth series, session 1984–85, 11–22 March 1985, written answer 21 March 1985, col. 578w. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 78, sixth series, session 1984–85, 29 April–10 May 1985, written answer 2 May 1985, col. 232w. Private discussion. Idem. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 70, sixth series, session 1984–85, 17 December 1984–11 January 1985, written answers 9 January 1985, col. 460w. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 73, sixth series, session 1984–85, 11–22 February 1985, Debate on the Royal Air Force 21 February 1985, col. 1243; Laming, p. 154. The arms deal involved the supply of 48 Tornado IDS, 24 Tornado ADVs, 30 Hawk trainers and 30 PC-9s. ‘UK Wins £4,000m Saudi Deal’, Flight International, vol. 128, no. 3980, 5 October 1985, p. 8; Heseltine, pp. 286–7. Private discussion.

Notes 191 631.

632.

633. 634.

635.

636.

637. 638.

639.

640. 641. 642.

643. 644. 645. 646. 647. 648.

649.

6 650. 651. 652. 653. 654. 655.

Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 76, sixth series, session 1984–85, 25 March–4 April 1985, written answer 4 April 1985, col. 702w. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 73, sixth series, session 1984–85, 11–22 February 1985, Debate on the Royal Air Force 21 February 1985, cols 1244–5. Private discussion. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 73, sixth series, session 1984–85, 11–22 February 1985, Debate on the Royal Air Force 21 February 1985, col. 1243. Private discussion; Kevin McNamara, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 75, sixth series, session 1984–85, 11–22 March 1985, Statement on the RAF (Basic Trainer Aircraft) 21 March 1985, col. 994. Peter Butler, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 72, sixth series, session 1984–85, 28 January–8 February 1985, written answers 31 January 1985, col. 297w. ‘Cash Shortages Hits Plans for RAuxAF Helicopter Squadron’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 14 December 1985. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 83, sixth series, session 1984–85, 15–26 July 1985, written answer 16 July 1985, col. 306w. Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 75, sixth series, session 1984–85, 11–22 March 1985, written answer 22 March 1985, col. 621w. Lawson, pp. 674–5; Howe, pp. 461–2. Lawson, p. 674. Air Marshal Sir Donald Hall, Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff (Systems), House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘The Defence Implications of the Future of Westland plc’, HC.169 (London: HMSO, 1986), Minutes of Evidence 21 January 1986, p. 18. Norman Lamont, ibid., Minutes of Evidence 16 April 1986, p. 291; Heseltine, p. 329. Owen, p. 637. Thatcher, p. 424. Lawson, p. 678. McIntosh, p. 137. See, for example, John Small, Alan Thompson and Gavin Kennedy, ‘Is There a Defence Spending Crisis?’, Defence Finance Report No.1 (Edinburgh: Herriot-Watt University, 1984). Critchley, p. 107.

George Younger, January 1986–July 1989 Private discussion. Idem; Fowler, p. 84. Private discussion. Howe, p. 544. Private discussion. Idem.

192 Notes 656. 657. 658. 659. 660.

661. 662. 663. 664. 665. 666.

667.

668.

669. 670. 671. 672.

673.

674. 675. 676. 677. 678.

679.

680. 681. 682.

Idem. Idem. Idem. Idem. Archie Hamilton, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 107, sixth series, session 1986–87, 8–19 December 1986, written answer 9 December 1986, col. 146w. Keohane, p. 65; Private discussion. Private discussion. Owen, p. 665. Private discussion. Peter Riddell, ‘Younger Signals Start of Drive to Promote Tory Defence Policy’, Financial Times, 28 January 1987. Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 89, sixth series, session 1985–86, 16 December 1985–17 January 1986, oral answer 14 January 1986, col. 911; Norman Lamont, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 96, sixth series, session 1985–86, 21 April– 2 May 1986, written answer 30 April 1986, col. 419w. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 90, sixth series, session 1985–86, 20–31 January 1986, written answer 30 January 1986, col. 625w. George Younger, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Second Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1986’, HC.399, session 1985–86 (London: HMSO, 1986), Minutes of Evidence 14 May 1986, pp. 9–10. Private discussion. Idem; Major, pp. 105 and 109. Desmond Wettern and John Petty, ‘State Yard Wins Navy Ship Battle’, Daily Telegraph, 25 April 1986. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 96, sixth series, session 1985–86, 21 April–2 May 1986, Statement to the House 24 April 1986, col. 434. M. Gainsborough (Assistant Under Secretary (Programmes)), House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Second Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1986’, Minutes of Evidence 20 May 1986, p. 65. Private discussion. Taylor and Hayward, p. 20. Private discussion. Idem. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 102, sixth series, session 1985–86, 22 July–2 October 1986, statement to the House 24 July 1986, col. 853; David Buchan, ‘Vickers to Buy State Tank Factory’, Financial Times, 25 July 1986. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1987’, Cm.101 (London: HMSO, 1987), p. 36; Mike Wells, ‘Purple Warrior: Most Ambitious Joint Exercise since 1945’, Navy International, February 1988, pp. 77–81. Private discussion. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1987’, p. 25. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Sixth Report – the Future Size and Role of the Royal Navy’s Surface Fleet’, HC.309, session 1987–88 (HMSO: London, 1988), p. x.

Notes 193 683. 684.

685.

686. 687.

688. 689.

690.

691. 692.

693. 694. 695.

696. 697.

698.

699. 700. 701.

702. 703. 704.

Private discussion. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 100, sixth series, session 1985–86, 23 June–4 July 1986, Second Day of the Debate on the Defence Estimates 1 July 1986, col. 920. ‘Ministry of Defence: Implementing the Lessons of the Falklands Campaign – Government Response to the Fourth Report From the Defence Committee, HC.345-I’, Cm.228, session 1986–87 (London: HMSO, 1987), p. 2. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1987’, p. 25. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 109, sixth series, session 1986–87, 26 January 1987–6 February 1987, written answer 5 February 1987, col. 799w. Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 101, sixth series, session 1985–86, 7–18 July 1986, written answer 8 July 1986, col. 165w. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 100, sixth series, session 1985–86, 23 June–4 July 1986, Debate on the Defence Estimates 30 June 1986, cols 715–6. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 114, sixth series, session 1986–87, 6–24 April 1987, Statement on Helicopter Orders, 9 April 1987, col. 471. Mike Critchley, British Warships and Auxiliaries, 1987–88 (Liskeard: Maritime Books, 1987), p. 6. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 91, sixth series, session 1985–86, 3–14 February 1986, written answer 5 February 1986, cols 183–4w. Private discussion. Idem. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 108, sixth series, session 1986–87, 12–23 January 1987, written answer 20 January 1987, col. 547w. Private discussion. The UK Mobile Force consisted of an air-portable brigade of four infantry battalions, an armoured reconnaissance regiment, an armoured squadron, one-plus SAM battery and a logistical support group. IISS, The Military Balance, 1987–88 (London: IISS, 1987), p. 79. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 108, sixth series, session 1986–87, 12–23 January 1987, written answer 23 January 1987, col. 822–3w. Private discussion. Hilary Barnes and David Buchan, ‘Danes Worried by UK Review of Defence Force’s Role’, Financial Times, 22 January 1987. Archie Hamilton, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 108, sixth series, session 1986–87, 12–23 January 1987, Debate on the Army 22 January 1987, col. 230. Jane’s Armour and Artillery, 88–89 (London: Jane’s, 1988), p. 498. ‘New Air Defence Regiment for BAOR’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 27 December 1986. Archie Hamilton, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 104, sixth series, session 1985–86, 12–21 November 1986, written answer 13 November, col. 6w.

194 Notes 705.

706.

707. 708. 709.

710. 711. 712.

713.

714. 715.

716.

717.

718. 719.

720. 721. 722. 723. 724. 725. 726.

727.

728.

Archie Hamilton, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 106, sixth series, session 1985–86, 24 November–5 December 1986, written answer 5 December, col. 842w. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 103, sixth series, session 1985–86, 27 October–7 November 1986, Debate on Westland plc, 29 October 1986, col. 340. Private discussion. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1986’, p. 31. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 107, sixth series, session 1986–87, 8–19 December 1986, Statement on Airborne Early Warning Aircraft 18 December 1986, col. 1352. Private discussion. Idem. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 107, sixth series, session 1986–87, 8–19 December 1986, Statement on Airborne Early Warning Aircraft 18 December 1986, col. 1416. Archie Hamilton, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 108, sixth series, session 1986–87, 12–23 January 1987, written answer 22 January 1987, col. 729w. ‘RAF Orders More Harrier IIs’, Flight International, vol. 133, no. 4111, 30 April 1986, p. 15. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 100, sixth series, session 1985–86, 23 June–4 July 1986, First Day of the Debate on the Defence Estimates 30 June 1986, col. 715. Archie Hamilton, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 108, sixth series, session 1986–87, 12–23 January 1987, Debate on the Royal Air Force 22 January 1987, col. 1050. Jerry Lee, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 92, sixth series, session 1985–86, 17–28 February 1986, Debate on the Royal Air Force 26 February 1986, col. 1037. John Stanley, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 114, sixth series, session 1986–87, 6–24 April 1987, written answer 22 April 1987, col. 590w. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 114, sixth series, session 1986–87, 6–24 April 1987, Statement on Helicopter Orders 9 April 1987, col. 470. Private discussion. Idem. Idem. Geoffrey Smith, Reagan and Thatcher (London: Bodley Head, 1990), p. 220. Taylor and Hayward, p. 20. Mark Urban, ‘Shipyards Fight over Shrinking Navy Orders’, Independent, 8 October 1987, p. 1. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 132, sixth series, session 1987–88, 25 April–6 May 1988, written answer 4 May 1988, col. 476w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 155, sixth series, session 1988–89, 19–30 June 1989, written answer 26 June 1989, col. 373w. Nigel Nicholls, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Eighth Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1990’, HC.388, session 1989–90 (London: HMSO, 1990), Minutes of Evidence 2 May 1990, p. 29.

Notes 195 729.

730. 731. 732. 733. 734. 735.

736. 737. 738.

739.

740.

741. 742.

743.

744.

745.

746. 747.

748. 749. 750.

751.

George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 132, sixth series, session 1987–88, 25 April–6 May 1988, written answer 4 May 1988, col. 476w. Private discussion. Smith, pp. 235–8. Private discussion. Idem. Major, p. 109. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 142, sixth series, session 1988–89, 22 November–2 December 1988, Debate on the Address 25 November 1988, col. 403. Private discussion. Idem. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 156, sixth series, session 1988–89, 3–14 July 1989, written answer 12 July 1989, col. 505w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 154, sixth series, session 1988–89, 6–16 June 1989, written answer 13 June 1989, col. 406w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 137, sixth series, session 1987–88, 11–22 July 1988, Statement on Type 23 Frigates (Orders), 11 July 1988, col. 30. Adele Gooch, ‘Services Face Battle over Spending Cuts’, Daily Telegraph, 21 January 1988. Ian Stewart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 121, sixth series, session 1987–88, 26 October–6 November 1987, Debate on Defence Estimates 27 October 1987, col. 206. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 130, sixth series, session 1987–88, 21–31 March 1988, written answer 22 March 1988, col. 99w. House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Ninth Report – the Progress of the Trident Programme’, HC.237, session 1989–90 (London: HMSO, 1990), p. xiv. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 146, sixth series, session 1988–89, 30 January–10 February 1989, written answer 30 January 1989, col. 31w. Nicholls, p. 29. Margaret Thatcher, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 120, sixth series, session 1987–88, 20 July–23 October 1987, written answer 21 July 1987, col. 110w. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1988’, Cm.344 (London: HMSO, 1988), p. 26. Desmond Wettern, ‘Changing the Options’, Navy International, September 1990, pp. 294–6. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 139, sixth series, session 1987–88, 24 October–4 November 1988, written answer 24 October 1988, col. 62w. Richard Mottram, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Fourth Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1989’, HC.383, session 1988–89 (London: HMSO, 1989), Minutes of Evidence 18 May 1989, p. 23.

196 Notes 752.

753.

754.

755.

756.

757.

758.

759.

760.

761.

762.

763. 764.

765. 766. 767.

768. 769. 770.

Ian Stewart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 124, sixth series, session 1987–88, 7–18 December 1987, written answer 7 December 1987, col. 87w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 122, sixth series, session 1987–88, 9–20 November 1987, written answer 10 November, col. 165w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 146, sixth series, session 1988–89, 30 January–10 February 1989, written answer 30 January 1989, col. 31w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 128, sixth series, session 1987–88, 22 February–4 March 1988, Debate on the Royal Navy 3 March 1988, col. 1245. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 124, sixth series, session 1987–88, 7–18 December 1987, written answer 18 December 1987, col. 751w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 144, sixth series, session 1988–89, 19 December 1988–13 January 1989, oral answer 10 January 1989, col. 675w. Edgar Buckley, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Sixth Report – the Royal Navy’s Surface Fleet: Current Issues’, HC.419, session 1988–89 (London: HMSO, 1989), Minutes of Evidence 7 June 1989, p. 10. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 120, sixth series, session 1987–88, 20 July–23 October 1987, written answer 23 July 1987, col. 393w. Ian Stewart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 130, sixth series, session 1987–88, 21–31 March 1988, oral answer 22 March 1988, col. 186. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 133, sixth series, session 1987–88, 9–20 May 1988, written answer 13 May 1988, col. 261w. George Younger, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Seventh Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1988’, HC.395, session 1987–88 (London: HMSO, 1988), Minutes of Evidence 18 May 1988, p. 15. Private discussion. Ian Stewart, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 121, sixth series, session 1987–88, 26 October–6 November 1987, Debate on Defence Estimates 27 October 1987, col. 213. Bill Prince, ‘Helicopters on the Battlefield: 24 Brigade’, Armed Forces, April 1988, pp. 170–5. ‘Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1989’, Cm.675 (London: HMSO, 1989), p. 25. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 144, sixth series, session 1988–89, 19 December 1988–13 January 1989, Statement on the Chieftain Tank (Replacement) 20 December 1988, col. 283. Ibid., col. 287. Ibid., col. 283. Private discussion.

Notes 197 771.

772.

773.

774.

775.

776. 777.

778.

779.

780.

781. 782. 783.

784. 785. 786.

7 787. 788. 789.

George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 153, sixth series, session 1988–89, 15–26 May 1989, Statement on the Brigade of Gurkhas 22 May 1989, col. 683. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 132, sixth series, session 1987–88, 25 April–6 May 1988, Statement on the European Fighter Aircraft 25 April 1988, col. 21. ‘House of Commons Defence Committee: Fifth Report – The Procurement of Major Defence Equipment’, HC.431, session 1987–88 (London: HMSO, 1988), p. 1. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 153, sixth series, session 1988–89, 15–26 May 1989, written answers 23 May 1989, col. 462w. Tom King, ‘House of Commons Defence Committee: Eighth Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1990’, HC.388 (London: HMSO, 1990), Minutes of Evidence 1 May 1990, p. 13. Private discussion. George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 122, sixth series, session 1987–88, 9–20 November 1987, oral answer 10 November 1987, col. 145. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 152, sixth series, session 1988–89, 2–12 May 1989, written answer 3 May 1989, col. 420w. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 131, sixth series, session 1987–88, 12–22 April 1988, written answer 19 April 1988, col. 427w. Michael Quinlan, House of Commons Defence Committee, ‘Seventh Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1988’, Minutes of Evidence 25 May 1988, p. 44; George Younger, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 152, sixth series, session 1987–88, 25 April–6 May 1988, written answer 27 April 1988, col. 202w. Private discussion. Mark Urban, ‘Britain to Replace its Nuclear Bombs’, Independent, 16 May 1988; private discussion. Timothy Sainsbury, House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, vol. 132, sixth series, session 1987–88, 25 April–6 May 1988, written answer 25 April 1988, col. 72w. Private discussion. Idem. Idem.

Conclusions Private discussion. Idem. Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (London: HarperCollins, 1971).

Select Bibliography Official publications, HMSO, London General Hansard Annual Statements on the Defence Estimates Ministry of Defence Press Releases

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Select Bibliography 199 ‘Fifth Report – the Appointment and Objectives of the Chief of Defence Procurement’, HC.430, session 1984–85, 1985. ‘Fourth Report – the Future of the Royal Dockyards’, HC.453, session 1984–85, 1985. ‘Sixth Report – the Trident Programme’, HC.479, session 1984–85, 1985. ‘The Defence Implications of the Future of Westlands plc’, HC.169, session 1985–86, 1986. ‘Second Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1986’, HC.399, session 1985–86, 1986. ‘Third Report – the Defence Implications of the Future of Westlands plc’, HC.518, session 1985–86, 1986. ‘Fourth Report – Westland plc: the Government’s Decision Making’, HC.519, session 1985–86, 1986. ‘First Special Report – the Royal Dockyards’, HC.15, session 1986–87, 1986. ‘First Report – Expenditure on Major Defence Projects: Accountability to the House of Commons’, HC.340, session 1986–87, 1987. ‘Fourth Report – Implementing the Lessons of the Falklands Campaign’, HC.345, session 1986–87, 1987. ‘Third Report – the Progress of the Trident Programme’, HC.356, session 1986–87, 1987. ‘Fifth Report – Defence Commitments in the South Atlantic’, HC.408, session 1986–87, 1987. ‘Third Special Report – the Protection of British Merchant Shipping in the Gulf’, HC.409, session 1986–87, 1987. ‘Sixth Report – the Future Size and Role of the Royal Navy’s Surface Fleet’, HC.309, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘Second Report – Business Appointments’, HC.392, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘Third Report – the Progress of the Trident Programme’, HC.422, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘Fifth Report – the Procurement of Major Defence Equipment’, HC.431, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘Fourth Report – the Defence Requirement for Merchant Shipping and Civil Aircraft’, HC.476, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘Seventh Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates 1988’, HC.495, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘Eighth Report – British Forces in Belize’, HC.624, session 1987–88, 1988. ‘First Report – the Future of the Brigade of Gurkhas’, HC.68, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Third Report – the Working of the AWACS offset agreement’, HC.286, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Seventh Report – Decommissioning of Nuclear Submarines’, HC.316, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Fourteenth Report – Ministry of Defence Procurement of Demountable Offloading and Pickup System (DROPS)’, HC.332, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Eleventh Report – the Procurement of the Light Anti Tank Weapon – LAW 80’, HC.350, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Eighth Report – the Procurement of the Tucano Trainer Aircraft’, HC.372, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Fifth Report – the Progress of the Trident Programme’, HC.374, session 1988–89, 1989.

200 Select Bibliography ‘Fourth Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1989’, HC.383, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Tenth Report – the Vertical Launch Sea Wolf Missile System and the Type 23 Frigate Command System’, HC.409, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Sixth Report – the Royal Navy’s Surface Fleet: Current Issues’, HC.419, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘The Government’s Announcement on the Future of the Brigade of Gurkhas: Minutes of Evidence 26 June 1989’, HC.460, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘Ninth Report – the Availability of Merchant Shipping for Defence Purposes: July 1989’, HC.495, session 1988–89, 1989. ‘First Report – the Appointment of the Head of Defence Export Services’, HC.14, session 1989–90, 1989. ‘Fourth Report – the Reliability and Maintainability of Defence Equipment’, HC.40, session 1989–90, 1990. ‘Second Report – Supplementary Estimate Class I, Vote 2: Payments to Harland and Wolff plc’, HC.41, session 1989–90, 1990. ‘Third Report – the Procurement of the EH-101 Helicopter and the Light Attack Helicopter’, HC.145, session 1989–90, 1990. ‘Ninth Report – the Progress of the Trident Programme’, HC.237, session 1989–90, 1990. ‘Eighth Report – Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1990’, HC.388, session 1989–90, 1990. ‘Ninth Report – Procurement of Upholder Class Submarines’, HC.455, session 1990–91, 1991. ‘Thirteenth Report – Improved United Kingdom Air Defence Ground Environment’, HC.591, session 1989–90, 1990.

Government responses to select committee reports ‘Ammunition Storage Sites for British Forces Germany: Government Response to the First Report from the Defence Committee, 1979–80, HC.556’, Cm.8,021, 1980. ‘The Procurement of Major Defence Equipment: Government Response to the Fifth Report from the Defence Committee, 1987–88, HC.431’, Cm.501, 1988. ‘Allied Forces in Germany: Government Response to the First Report from the Defence Committee, 1981–82, HC.93’, Cm.8,571, 1982. ‘The Future Defence of the Falklands Islands: Government Response to the Third Report from the Defence Committee, 1982–83, HC.154’, Cm.9,070, 1983. ‘Implementing the Lessons of the Falklands Campaign: Government Response to the Fourth Report from the Defence Committee, 1986–87, HC.345’, Cm.228, 1987. ‘The Future Size and Role of the Royal Navy’s Surface Fleet: Government Response to the Sixth Report from the Defence Committee, 1987–88, HC.309’, Cm.443, 1988. ‘The Future of the Brigade of Gurkhas: Government Response to the First Report from the Defence Committee, 1988–89, HC.68’, Cm.700, 1989.

Select Bibliography 201

Other Command Papers ‘The Government’s Expenditure Plans, 1978–79 to 1981–82’, Cm.7,049, 1978. ‘The British Strategic Nuclear Force: Texts of Letters Exchanged between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States and between the Secretary of State for Defence and the United States Secretary of Defense’, Cm.7,979, 1980 ‘The British Strategic Nuclear Force March 1982: Texts of Letters Exchanged between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States and between the Secretary of State for Defence and the United States Secretary of Defense’, Cm.8,517, 1982 ‘Falkland Islands Review – Report of a Committee of Privy Councillors’, Cm.8,787, 1983. ‘The Central Organisation for Defence’, Cm.9,315, 1984.

Other MOD reports ‘Value for Money in Defence Equipment Procurement’, Defence Open Government Document 83/01 (London: HMSO, 1983).

Books Graham T. Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (London: HarperCollins, 1971). Kenneth Baker, The Turbulent Years: My Life in Politics (London: Faber and Faber, 1993). John Baylis, Anglo-American Defence Relations 1939–84: the Special Relationship (London: Macmillan, second edition, 1984). John Baylis (ed.), Britain’s Defence Policy in a Changing World (London: Croom Helm, 1977). John Baylis, Ken Booth, John Garnett and Phil Williams, Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Policies (London: Croom Helm, 1985). John Baylis and Nick Rengger (eds), Dilemmas of World Politics: International Issues in a Changing World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). James Bellini and Geoffrey Pattie, A New World Role for the Medium Power: the British Opportunity (London: RUSI, 1977). Tony Benn, Conflicts of Interest: Diaries 1977–80 (London: Arrow Books, 1991). Tony Benn, The End of an Era: Diaries 1980–90 (London: Random House, 1992). Anthony H. Birch, The British System of Government (London: Routledge, ninth edition, 1993). Mike Bowker and Phil Williams, Superpower Deténte: a Reappraisal (London: Sage, 1988). Christoph Bluth, Britain, Germany and Western Nuclear Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Ken Booth and John Baylis, Britain, NATO and Nuclear Weapons: Alternative Defence Versus Alliance Reform (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989).

202 Select Bibliography Yves Boyer, Pierre Lellouche and John Roper (eds), Franco-British Defence Cooperation: a New Entente Cordiale? (London: Routledge for the RIIA & L’Institute Français des Relations Internationales, 1989). Sir Ewen Broadbent, The Military and Government: from Macmillan to Heseltine (London: Macmillan for the RUSI, 1988). Jock Bruce-Gardyne, Mrs Thatcher’s First Administration: the Prophets Confounded (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984). Barry Buzan, An Introduction to Strategic Studies: Military Technology and International Relations (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987). Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: an Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, second edition, 1991). Peter Byrd (ed.), British Defence Policy: Thatcher and Beyond (Hemel Hempstead: Philip Allen, 1991). Lord Carrington, Reflect on Things Past: the Memoirs of Lord Carrington (London: William Collins, 1988). Michael Chichester and John Wilkinson, The Uncertain Ally: British Defence Policy, 1960–82 (Aldershot: Gower, 1982). Winston S. Churchill, The Second World War VI: Triumph and Tragedy (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974). Alan Clark, Diaries (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993). Alan Clark, Diaries: Into Politics, edited by Ion Trewin (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000). Christopher Coker, A Nation in Retreat? Britain’s Defence Commitment (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986). John Cole, As It Seemed to Me: Political Memoirs (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995). John Cole, The Thatcher Years: a Decade of Revolution in British Politics (London: BBC Books, 1987). Robert Conquest, Present Danger: Towards a Foreign Policy (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1979). Paul Cornish, British Military Planning for the Defence of Germany, 1945–50 (London: Macmillan, 1995). Patrick Cosgrave, Carrington: a Life and a Policy (London: J.M. Dent, 1985). Julian Critchley, Heseltine: an Unauthorised Biography (London: André Deutsch, 1987). Stuart Croft (ed.), British Security Policy: the Thatcher Years and the End of the Cold War (London: HarperCollins, 1991). Alex Danchev, International Perspectives on the Falklands Conflict (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992). Richard Davy (ed.), European Détente: a Reappraisal (London: Sage for the RIIA, 1992). Michael Dewar, Defence of the Nation (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1989). Michael Dockrill, British Defence Policy since 1945 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988). Alan G. Draper, European Defence Equipment Collaboration: Britain’s Involvement 1957–87 (Basingstoke: Macmillan for the RUSI Defence Studies Series, 1990). Martin Edmonds (ed.), The Defence Equation: British Military Systems – Policy, Planning and Performance since 1945 (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986). Eric J. Evans, Thatcher and Thatcherism (London: Routledge, 1997). Norman Fowler, Ministers Decide: a Memoir of the Thatcher Years (London: Chapmans, 1991).

Select Bibliography 203 Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1980). Lawrence Freedman, The Politics of British Defence, 1979–98 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999). Raymond Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1985). John Gooch (ed.), Airpower: Theory and Practice (London: Frank Cass, 1995). John Greenway, Steve Smith and John Street, Deciding Factors in British Politics: a Case Study Approach (London: Routledge, 1992). John Gretton and John Harrison (eds), Reshaping Central Government (Hermitage: Policy Journals, 1987). Eric Grove, Vanguard to Trident: British Naval Policy since World War 2 (London: The Bodley Head, 1987). Eric Grove, Battle of the Fjords: NATO’s Forward Maritime Strategy in Action (London: Ian Allan, 1991). Fred Halliday, The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso Editions and NLB, second edition, 1986). B. Headey, British Cabinet Ministers (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1974). Denis Healey, The Time of My Life (London: W.W. Norton, 1989). Hugh Heclo and Aaron Wildavsky, The Private Government of Public Money: Community and Policy inside British Politics (London: Macmillan, second edition, 1981). Peter Hennessy, Cabinet (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986). Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Fontana, 1990). Peter Hennessy and Anthony Seldon (eds), Ruling Performance: British Governments from Attlee to Thatcher (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). Peter Hennessy, The Hidden Wiring (London: Victor Gollancz, 1995). Michael Heseltine, Where There’s a Will (London: Century Hutchinson, 1987). Michael D. Hobkirk, The Politics of Defence Budgeting: a Study of Organisation and Resource Allocation in the United Kingdom and the United States (Basingstoke: Macmillan for the RUSI, 1984). Brian W. Hogwood and Lewis A. Gunn, Policy Analysis for the Real World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). Michael Howard, The Continental Commitment: the Dilemmas of British Defence Policy in the Era of Two World Wars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (London: Macmillan, 1994). Samuel P. Huntington, the Common Defense: Strategic Programmes in National Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). Bernard Ingham, Kill the Messenger (London: HarperCollins 1991). David C. Isby and Charles Kamps Jnr, Armies of NATO’s Central Front (London: Jane’s, 1983). William Jackson, Britain’s Defence Dilemma: an Inside View (London: B.T. Batsford, 1990). General Sir William Jackson and Field Marshal Lord Brammall, The Chiefs: the Story of the United Kingdom’s Chiefs of Staff (London: Brassey’s, 1992). Simon James, British Cabinet Government (London: Routledge, 1992). A.G. Jordan and J.J. Richardson, British Politics and the Policy Process: an Arena Approach (London: Allen and Unwin, 1987). Simon Jones, British Cabinet Government (London: Routledge, 1992). Dan Keohane, Labour Party Defence Policy since 1945 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1993).

204 Select Bibliography Anthony King, The British Prime Minister (Basingstoke: Macmillan, second edition, 1992). Nigel Lawson, The View from No.11: Memoirs of a Tory Radical (London: Bantam, 1992). Henry Leach, Endure No Makeshifts: some Naval Recollections (London: Leo Cooper, 1993).Colin McInnes, Trident: the Only Option? (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986). Colin McInnes, Trident: the Only Option? (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986). Colin McInnes, NATO’s Changing Strategic Agenda: the Conventional Defence of Western Europe (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990). Malcolm McIntosh, Managing Britain’s Defence (London: Macmillan 1990). John P. MacKintosh, The British Cabinet (London: Stevens, third edition, 1977). Peter Madgwick, British Government: the Central Executive Territory (London: Philip Allen, 1991). Peter Malone, The British Nuclear Deterrent (London: Croom Helm, 1984). Leo Marriott, Royal Navy Destroyers since 1945 (London: Ian Allan, 1989). Leo Marriott, Royal Navy Frigates since 1945 (London: Ian Allan, second edition 1990). David Marsh and Gerry Stoker (eds), Theory and Methods in Political Science (London: Macmillan,1995). Laurence Martin, The Management of Defence (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1976). Reginald Maudling, Memoirs, (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1978). C. Wright Mills, The Power Élite (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956). Maurice Mullard, The Politics of Public Expenditure (London: Routledge, 1993). Francis Pym, The Politics of Consent, (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984). Ritchie Ovendale, British Defence Policy since 1945 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994). David Owen, Time to Declare (London: Michael Joseph, 1991). Cecil Parkinson, Right at the Centre (London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992). Geraint Parry, Political Elites (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969). Andrew J. Pierre, Nuclear Politics: the British Experience with an Independent Strategic Force, 1939–70 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972). Leo Pliatzky, Getting and Spending: Public Expenditure, Employment and Inflation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, revised edition 1984). Air Commodore Henry Probert, High Commanders of the Royal Air Force (London: HMSO for the Air Historical Branch (RAF), 1991). Nicholas Ridley, My Style of Government: the Thatcher Years (London: Harper Collins, 1992). David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 1983). Peter Self, Administrative Theories and Politics (London: George Allen and Unwin), second edition, 1977). Herbert A. Simon, Administrative Behavior: a Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organisation (New York: The Free Press, third edition 1976). John Simpson, The Independent Nuclear State: the United States, Britain and the Military Atom (Basingstoke: Macmillan second edition 1986. Geoffrey Smith, Reagan and Thatcher, (London: Bodley Head, 1990). Steve Smith and Michael Clarke, Foreign Policy Implementation (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985).

Select Bibliography 205 Keith Speed, Sea Change: the Battle for the Falklands and the Future of the Royal Navy (Bath: Ashgrove Press, 1982). Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988). Trevor Taylor and Keith Hayward, The UK Defence Industrial Base: Development and Future Policy Options (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers for the RUSI, 1989). John Terraine, Business in Great Waters: the U-Boat Wars 1916–45 (London: Leo Cooper, 1989). Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (London: HarperCollins, 1993). Margaret Thatcher, Path to Power (London: HarperCollins, 1995). Geoffrey Till, Modern Sea Power (London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1987). Geoffrey Till (ed.), The Future of British Sea Power (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1984). Andrew G.B. Vallance, The Air Weapon: Doctrines of Air Power Strategy and Operational Art (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995). Desmond Wettern, The Decline of British Seapower (London: Jane’s, 1982). Brian White, Britain, Détente and Changing East-West Relations (London: Routledge, 1992). William Whitelaw, The Whitelaw Memoirs (London: Headline, 1990). Admiral Sandy Woodward, One Hundred Days (London: HarperCollins, 1992). James H. Wylie, The Influence of British Arms: an Analysis of British Military Intervention since 1956 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1984). Humphrey Wynn, RAF Nuclear Deterrent Forces (London: HMSO, 1994). Hugo Young, One of Us: a Biography of Margaret Thatcher (London: Macmillan London, 1989).

Journal articles V. Adams, ‘Logistical Support for the Falklands Campaign’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 43–9. General Sir John Akehurst, ‘NATO and Europe: Practical Issues and Military Interests’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 1, Spring 1989, pp. 9–14. Air Vice-Marshal M.J. Armitage, ‘Air Power in the Central Region’, RUSI Journal, vol. 124, no. 4, December 1979, pp. 33–8. M. Asteris, ‘British Arms Procurement: Protection Versus Freer Trade’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 1, March 1984, pp. 30–6. General Sir Nigel Bagnall, ‘Concepts of Land/Air Operations in the Central Region I’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 59–62. Major B.W. Barry (leading a Camberley team),‘Future Airmobile Forces’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 3, Autumn 1988, pp. 33–40. John Baylis, ‘Defence Decision-Making in Britain and the Determinants of Foreign Policy’, RUSI Journal, vol. 120, no. 1, March 1975, pp. 42–8. Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael Beetham, ‘Air Power and the Royal Air Force: Today and the Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 4, December 1982, pp. 21–5. Chris Bellamy, ‘Antecedents of the Modern Soviet Operational Manoeuvre Group’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 50–8. James Bellini, ‘BAOR: the Next Test for NATO?’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 2, June 1977. Christoph Bertram, ‘The Implications of Theatre Nuclear Weapons in Europe’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no. 2, Winter 1981–82, pp. 305–26.

206 Select Bibliography Richard K. Betts, ‘Hedging against Surprise Attack’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 4, July/August 1981, pp. 146–56. Richard K. Betts, ‘Conventional Forces: What Price Readiness?’, Survival, vol. 25, no. 1, January/February 1983, pp. 25–34. Richard K. Betts, ‘NATO’s Mid-Life Crisis’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, no. 2, Spring 1989, pp. 37–52. Stephen D. Biddle, ‘The European Conventional Balance: a Reinterpretation of the Debate’, Survival, vol. 30, no. 2, March/April 1988, pp. 99–121. Paul Bracken, ‘The NATO Defence Problem’, Orbis, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 1983, pp. 83–105. General Sir Edwin Bramall, ‘British Land Forces: the Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 2, June 1982, pp. 17–22. Abbott A. Brayton, ‘American Mobilisation Policies for the 1980s’, RUSI Journal, vol. 126, no. 1, March 1981, pp. 26–33. Abbott A. Brayton, ‘US Mobilisation Policies under Reagan’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 3, Autumn 1989, pp. 45–52. Michael J. Brenner, ‘Tactical Nuclear Strategy and European Defense: a Critical Appraisal’, International Affairs, vol. 51, no. 1, January 1975, pp. 23–42. Hedley Bull, ‘European Self-Reliance and the Reform of NATO’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 61, no. 4, Spring 1983, pp. 874–92. McGeorge Bundy, ‘America in the 1980s: Reframing Our Relations with Our Friends and among Our Allies’, Survival, vol. 24, no. 1, January/February 1982, pp. 24–8. McGeorge Bundy, George F. Kennan, Robert S. McNamara and Gerard Smith, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Atlantic Alliance’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no. 4, Spring 1982, pp. 753–68. Richard Burt, ‘New Weapons Technologies and European Security’, Orbis, vol. 19, no. 2, Summer 1975, pp. 514–32. Steven L. Canby, ‘Damping Nuclear Counterforce Incentives: Correcting NATO’s Inferiority in Conventional Military Strength’, Orbis, vol. 19, no. 1, Spring 1975, pp. 47–71. Steven Canby, ‘NATO: Reassessing the Conventional Wisdom’, Survival, vol. 19, no. 4, July/August 1977, pp. 164–8. Raymond W. Capson and Richard P. Cronin, ‘The “Reagan Doctrine” and its Prospects’, Survival, vol. 29, no. 1, January/February 1987, pp. 40–55. Sir Michael Carey, ‘Britain’s Armed Forces after the Defence Cuts’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 1, March 1976, pp. 1–6. Lord Carrington, ‘The Atlantic Alliance and European Security’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 3, September 1985, pp. 3–6. Lord Carrington, ‘NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Future Relationships and Strategies’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 4, December 1987, pp. 3–7. Field Marshal Lord Carver, ‘Conventional Defence of Europe’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 2, June 1983, pp. 7–11. Lord Chalfont, ‘SALT II and America’s European Allies’, International Affairs, vol. 55, no. 4, October 1979, pp. 559–64. General Leopold Cheloupa, ‘The Defence of Central Europe: Implications of Change’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 1, March 1985, pp. 13–17. Michael Clarke, ‘Foreign Policy Implementation: Problems and Approaches’, Review of International Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, July 1989, pp. 112–28.

Select Bibliography 207 Paul Cockle, ‘Analysing Soviet Defence Spending: the Debate in Perspective’, Survival, vol. 20, no. 5, September/October 1978, pp. 209–19. Eliot A. Cohen, ‘The Long-Term Crisis of the Alliance’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 61, no. 2, Winter 1982–83, pp. 325–43. Sir Frank Cooper, ‘Perhaps, Minister: Political and Military Relations Today and in the Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 1, March 1983, pp. 3–6. Neil Cooper, ‘British Defence Exports: Trends, Policy and Security Implications’, Contemporary Security Policy, vol. 16, no. 2, August 1995, pp. 219–39. Admiral William J. Crowe Jnr, ‘US Military Power and Global Security’, RUSI Journal, vol. 131, no. 4, December 1986, pp. 9–12. Major Christopher J.T. Davey, ‘Sultan, Clansman and the Integrations of Forward Communications within NATO’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 1, March 1977 pp. 37–9. Lynn E. Davis, ‘Lessons of the INF Treaty’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 66, no. 4, Spring 1988, pp. 720–34. François De Rose, ‘European Concerns and SALT II’, Survival, vol. 21, no. 5, September/October 1979, pp. 206–8. François De Rose, ‘Updating Deterrence in Europe: Inflexible Response?’, Survival, vol. 24, no. 1, January/February 1982, pp. 19–23. Charles Dick, ‘The Growing Soviet Artillery Threat’, RUSI Journal, vol. 124, no. 2, June 1979, pp. 66–73. Captain Charles Dick, ‘MLRS: Firepower for the 1990s’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 4, December 1983, pp. 17–22. Keith A. Dunn and William O. Staudenmaier, ‘The Retaliatory Offensive and Operational Realities in NATO’, Survival, vol. 27, no. 3, May/June 1985, pp. 108–18. James Eberle, John Toper, William Wallace and Phil Williams, ‘European Security Co-operation and British Interests’, International Affairs, vol. 60, no. 4, Autumn 1984, pp. 545–60. Martin Edmonds, ‘United Kingdom National Security and Defence Dependence: the Technological Dimension’, Government and Opposition, vol. 26, no. 4, Autumn 1991, pp. 427–48. Joshua M. Epstein, ‘On Conventional Deterrence in Europe: Questions of Soviet Confidence’, Orbis, vol. 26, no. 1, Spring 1982, pp. 71–88. Major R.S. Evans, ‘The Need for Offensive Operations on Land’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 3, September 1976, pp. 28–33. Ori Even-Tou, ‘The NATO Conventional Defense: Back to Reality’, Orbis, vol. 23, no. 1, Spring 1979, pp. 35–49. General Sir Martin Farndale, ‘Counter Stroke: Future Requirements’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 4, December 1985, pp. 6–9. General Sir Martin Farndale, ‘The Operational Level of Command’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 3, Autumn 1988, pp. 23–9. General Sir Martin Farndale, ‘The Role of Helicopters in the Central Region to the Year 2000’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 4, Winter 1989, pp. 2–6. General Sir Anthony Farrar-Hockley, ‘Dynamic Defence: the Northern Flank’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 4, December 1983, pp. 5–11. Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fieldhouse, ‘Flexible Response: a Credible Defence Posture?’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 2, Summer 1988, pp. 3–4. Gregory A. Flynn, ‘The Content of European Détente’, Orbis, vol. 20, no. 2, Summer 1976, pp. 401–16.

208 Select Bibliography Lawrence Freedman. ‘Britain’s Contribution to NATO’, International Affairs, vol. 54, no. 1, January 1978, pp. 30–47. Lawrence Freedman, ‘Limited War, Unlimited Protest’, Orbis, vol. 26, no. 1, Spring 1982, pp. 89–103. Lawrence Freedman. ‘The Atlantic Crisis’, International Affairs, vol. 58, no. 3, Summer 1982, pp. 395–412. Lawrence Freedman, ‘The Case of Westland and the Bias to Europe’, International Affairs, vol. 63, no. 1, January 1987, pp. 1–19. Lawrence Freedman, ‘Time for a Reappraisal’, Survival, vol. 21, no. 5, September/October 1979, pp. 198–201. Walter Freedman, ‘The Falklands War: Lessons Learned and Unlearned’, Orbis, vol. 26, no. 4, Winter 1983, pp. 907–40. Sir Kenneth Freeman, ‘Defence Procurement Policy in Europe: Competition, Industrial Policy and Restructuring’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 4, December 1987, pp. 23–32. Alton Frye, ‘Nuclear Weapons in Europe: No Exit from Ambivalence’, Survival, vol. 22, no. 3, May/June 1980, pp. 98–106. John R. Galvin, ‘The Continuing Validity of Flexible Response and Forward Defence’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 2, Summer 1988, pp. 5–9. General John R. Galvin, ‘Some Thoughts on Conventional Arms Control’, Survival, vol. 31, no. 2, March/April 1989, pp. 99–107. Raymond L. Garthoff, ‘The Soviet SS-20 Decision’, Survival, vol. 25, no. 3, May/June 1983, pp. 110–19. Bruce George and Michael Coughlin, ‘British Defence Policy after the Falklands’, Survival, vol. 24, no. 5, September/October 1982, pp. 201–10. Bruce George and Jonathan Marcus, ‘Change and Continuity in French Defence Policy: Growing Signs of European Dimension in French Thinking’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 2, June 1984, pp. 13–19. Robert A. Gessert, ‘The Airland Battle and NATO’s New Doctrinal Debate’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 2, June 1984, pp. 52–60. Daniel Gouré, and Gordon McCormick, ‘PGM: No Panacea’, Survival, vol. 22, no. 1, January/February 1980, pp. 15–19. G.H. Green, ‘British Policy for Defence Procurement’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 3, September 1976, pp. 20–8. David Greenwood, ‘Constraints and Choices in the Transformation of Britain’s Defence Effort since 1945’, Review of International Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1976, pp. 5–26. David Greenwood, ‘NATO’s Three Per Cent Solution’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 6, November/December 1981, pp. 252–60. Brigadier R.D. Grist, ‘Airmobile Forces in Central Europe’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 1, Spring 1988, pp. 41–8. General F.H. Zeiner Gundersen, ‘NATO – a Military Appraisal’, RUSI Journal, vol. 123, no. 3, September 1978, pp. 17–22. General Alexander M. Haig, ‘Allied Command Europe’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 3, September 1977, pp. 18–22. Air Chief Marshal Sir Peter Harding, ‘Prospects for Air Power’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 3, September 1987, pp. 3–8. Michael M. Harrison, ‘Reagan’s World’, Foreign Policy, no. 43, Summer 1981, pp. 3–16.

Select Bibliography 209 Keith Hartley and Edward Lynk, ‘The Political Economy of UK Defence Expenditure’, RUSI Journal, vol. 125, no. 1, March 1980, pp. 29–34. David Hazel, ‘The Sudden Attack Debate: Arguments and Alternatives’, RUSI Journal, vol. 123, no. 4, December 1978, pp. 37–43. Michael Heseltine, ‘The United Kingdom’s Strategic Interests and Priorities’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 4, December 1983, pp. 3–5. Michael Heseltine, ‘The Defence of Europe: Europe’s Interests, Europe’s Choices’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 4, December 1984, pp. 3–9. Air Marshal Sir Patrick Hine, ‘Concepts of Land/Air Operations in the Central Region II’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 3, September 1984, pp. 63–6. Michael Hobkirk, ‘The Heseltine Reorganisation of Defence: Kill or Cure?’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 1, March 1985, pp. 45–50. Michael Hobkirk, ‘Reform across the Sea: a Comparison of Defence Policy Making in the UK and the USA’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 3, September 1987, pp. 55–60. Arthur Hockaday, ‘Budgeting for Defence’, RUSI Journal, vol. 124, no. 4, December 1979, pp. 3–10. Stanley Hoffman, ‘NATO and Nuclear Weapons: Reasons and Unreason’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no. 2, Winter 1981–82, pp. 327–46. Stanley Hoffman, ‘The US and Western Europe: Wait and Worry’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 63, no. 3, 1984, pp. 631–52. F. Hogarth, ‘Dynamic Density: a Deterrent for the OMG’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 2, June 1987, pp. 29–34. Michael Howard, ‘A European Perspective on the Reagan Years’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 66, no. 3, 1987, pp. 478–93. Michael Howard, ‘Return to the Cold War?’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 59, no. 3, 1980, pp. 459–73. Geoffrey Howe, ‘The European Pillar’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 63, no. 2, Winter 1984–85, pp. 330–43. Geoffrey Howe, ‘Europe’s Role in NATO’s Fifth Decade’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 1–6. Sir G. Howlett, ‘Concepts and Future Capabilities in NATO’s Northern Region’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 3, Autumn 1988, pp. 13–18. Douglas Hurd, ‘Political Co-operation’, International Affairs, vol. 57, no. 3, Summer 1981, pp. 383–93. Faroq Hussain, Ian Kemp and Philip McCarty ‘The Future of the Military Helicopter’, Whitehall Papers, London, RUSI, 1986. William G. Hyland, ‘Soviet Theatre Forces and Arms Control Policy’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 5, September/October 1981, pp. 194–9. Peter M. Jones, ‘British Defence Policy: the Breakdown of Inter-Party Consensus’, Review of International Studies, vol. 13, no. 2, April 1987, pp. 111–31. Lieutenant-General Sir Maurice Johnston, ‘More Power to the Centre: MOD Reorganisation’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 1, March 1983, pp. 7–10. Gavin Kennedy, ‘Strains and Prospects in Defence Procurement’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 45–50. Robert Kennedy, ‘Precision ATGMs and NATO Defense’, Orbis, vol. 22, no. 4, Winter 1979, pp. 897–928. Robert Kennedy, ‘Soviet Theatre-Nuclear Forces: Implications for NATO Defense’, Orbis, vol. 25, no. 2, Summer 1981, pp. 331–50.

210 Select Bibliography Henry A. Kissinger, ‘Strategy and the Atlantic Alliance’, Survival, vol. 24, no. 5, September/October 1982, pp. 194–200. Major-General Frank Kitson, ‘The New British Armoured Division’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 1, March 1977, pp. 17–19. Stanley Kober, ‘Can NATO Survive?’, International Affairs, vol. 59, no. 3, Summer 1983, pp. 339–49. Robert W. Komer, ‘Maritime Strategy vs Coalition Defense’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 60, no. 5, Summer 1982, pp. 1124–44. Lawrence J. Korb, ‘US Military Power: Manpower and Logistics’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 4, December 1982, pp. 7–10. Robbin Laird and David Robertson, ‘Grenades from the Candy Store: British Defence Policy in the 1990s’, Orbis, vol. 31, no. 2, Summer 1987, pp. 193–205. Admiral Sir Henry Leach, ‘British Maritime Forces: the Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 3, September 1982, pp. 10–15. Robert Legvold, ‘The Nature of Soviet Power’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 56, no. 1, October 1977, pp. 49–71. John Lehman, ‘Utility of Military Power: the Restoration of US Naval Strength’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 3, September 1983, pp. 13–18. Pierre Lellouche, ‘SALT and European Security: the French Dilemma’, Survival, vol. 22, no. 1, January/February 1980, pp. 2–6. Pierre Lellouche, ‘Europe and Her Defense’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 59, no. 4, Spring 1981, pp. 813–34. Peter Levene, ‘Competition and Collaboration: UK Defence Procurement Policy’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 2, June 1987, pp. 3–6. Evan Luard, ‘Western Europe and the Reagan Doctrine’, International Affairs, vol. 63, no. 4, August 1987, pp. 563–74. Christopher J. Makins, ‘Bringing in the Allies’, Foreign Policy, no. 35, Summer 1979, pp. 91–108. Christopher J. Makins, ‘TNF Modernisation and “Countervailing Strategy”’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 4, July/August 1981, pp. 157–64. John Marriott, ‘Aerospace’, NATO’s Fifteen Nations, April–May 1976, pp. 35–44. John Marriott, ‘The Industry’, NATO’s Fifteen Nations, April–May 1976, pp. 29–31. J.J. Martin, ‘Nuclear Weapons in NATO’s Deterrent Strategy’, Orbis, vol. 22, no. 4, Winter 1979, pp. 875–95. Air Commodore R.A. Mason, ‘“Hay and the Hobby Horses”: Reflections on the Air War in the South Atlantic 1982’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 4, December 1982, pp. 34–41. Professor Sir Ronald Mason, ‘Emerging Technology in Defence: Real Gain or False Economy?’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 2, June 1984, pp. 6–9. John H. Maurer and Gordon H. McCormick, ‘Surprise Attack and Conventional Defence in Europe’, Orbis, vol. 27, no. 1, Spring 1983, pp. 107–26. Catherine McArdle Kelleher, ‘Managing NATO’s Tactical Nuclear Options’, Survival, vol. 30, no. 1, January/February 1988, pp. 59–78. Michael MccGwire, ‘Soviet Military Doctrine: Contingency Planning and the Reality of World War’, Survival, vol. 22, no. 3, May/June 1980, pp. 107–13. Colin J. McInnes, ‘BAOR in the 1980s: Changes in Doctrine and Organisation’, Defense Analysis, vol. 4, no. 4, December 1988, pp. 377–94. John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Precision-Guided Munitions and Conventional Deterrence’, Survival, vol. 21, no. 2, March/April 1979, pp. 68–76.

Select Bibliography 211 Air Vice-Marshal Stewart Menaul, ‘British Defence Perspectives after the Falklands War’, Strategic Review, vol. XII, no. 1, Winter 1984, pp. 43–50. Dominique Moisi, ‘French Foreign Policy: the Challenge of Adaption’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 67, no. 1, 1987–88, pp. 151–64. Major General Sir Jeremy Moore and Rear Admiral Sir John Woodward, ‘The Falklands Experience’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 1, March 1983, pp. 25–32. Douglas W. Nelms, ‘HCMk1: New Chinook Helicopter for the RAF’, RUSI Journal, vol. 125, no. 2, June 1980, pp. 65–9. Paul H. Nitze, ‘Strategy in the Decade of the 1980s’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 59, no. 1, Fall 1980, pp. 82–101. Brigadier C.R.S. Notley and Group Captain J.J.R. Cohn, ‘Armour/Anti-Armour: the Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 1, March 1987, pp. 17–22. Admiral Sir Julian Oswald, ‘Maritime Concepts of Operations: New Thinking’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 2, Summer 1988, pp. 10–14. General Glenn K. Otis, ‘Future Concepts and Capabilities in NATO’s Central Region’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 4, Winter 1988, pp. 17–19. Dr David Owen, ‘A New Realism in East-West Relations’, RUSI Journal, vol. 129, no. 1, March 1984, pp. 3–8. Air Marshal Sir R. Palin, ‘An Airman’s Thoughts about the Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 135, no. 3, Autumn 1990, pp. 7–12. Lieutenant-Colonel John E. Peters, ‘Evaluating FOFA as a Deterrent’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 4, December 1987, pp. 39–44. Elizabeth Pond, ‘The Security Debate in West Germany’, Survival, vol. 28, no. 4, July/August 1986, pp. 322–36. Stephen Pullinger, ‘Modernisation of Sub-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe’, International Security Information Service Briefing no. 5, London, 1989. Francis Pym, ‘The Nuclear Element for British Defence Policy’, RUSI Journal, vol. 126, no. 2, June 1981, pp. 3–9. Francis Pym, ‘British Foreign Policy: Constraints and Opportunities’, International Affairs, vol. 59, no. 1, Winter 1982–83, pp. 1–6. Jeffrey Record and David B. Rovkin Jnr, ‘Defending Post-INF Europe’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 66, no. 4, Spring 1988, pp. 735–54. Lieutenant-General Clifford H. Rees Jnr, ‘Air Power and the Central Region: New Challenges and New Thinking’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 2, Summer 1989, pp. 28–32. David Reynolds, ‘A “Special Relationship”: America, Britain and International Order since the Second Cold War’, International Affairs, vol. 62, no. 1, Winter 1985–86, pp. 1–20. Brigadier J.F. Rickett, ‘Employment of Non-Mechanised Infantry in 1 (Br) Corps’, RUSI Journal, vol. 131, no. 2, June 1986, pp. 29–32. General Bernard W. Rogers, ‘NATO: the Next Decade’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 4, December 1982, pp. 3–6. Robert S. Rudney, ‘Mitterand’s New Atlanticism: Evolving French Attitudes toward NATO’, Orbis, vol. 28, no. 1, Spring 1984, pp. 83–101. Alan Ned Sabrosky, ‘America in NATO: the Conventional Delusion’, Orbis, vol. 25, no. 2, Summer 1981, pp. 293–306. David M. Schilling, ‘Europe’s Conventional Defence: Solid Progress but Challenges Remain’, Survival, vol. 30, no. 2, March/April 1988, pp. 122–33. Helmut Schmidt, ‘The 1977 Alastair Buchan Memorial Lecture’, Survival, vol. 20, no. 1, January/February 1978, pp. 2–10.

212 Select Bibliography Helmut Schmidt, ‘A Policy of Reliable Partnership’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 59, no. 4, Spring 1981, pp. 743–55. Lieutenant-General Sir William Scotter, ‘The British Army Today’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 2, June 1976, pp. 16–22. Stanley R. Sloan, ‘European Co-operation and the Future of NATO’, Survival, vol. 26, no. 6, November/December 1984, pp. 242–61. Ian Smart, ‘British Defence Policy Part 1: an International View’, RUSI Journal, vol. 122, no. 4, December 1977, pp. 8–14. Theo Sommer, ‘The Neutron Bomb: Nuclear War without Tears?’, Survival, vol. 19, no. 6, November/December 1977, pp. 263–6. Keith Speed, ‘Decision-Making’, RUSI Journal, vol. 126, no. 2, June 1981, pp. 10–14. Dr Edward Spiers, ‘Conventional Defence: No Alternative to Trident’, RUSI Journal, vol. 127, no. 3, September 1982, pp. 21–7. J. Moray Stewart, ‘The Development of Anglo-French Relations in Defence Equipment’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 4, Winter 1989, pp. 55–8. Richard Stubbing, ‘The Defense Program: Build up or Binge?’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 63, no. 4, Spring 1985, pp. 848–72. Boyd D. Sutton, John R. Landry, Malcolm B. Armstrong, Howell M. Estes III and Wesley K. Clark, ‘Deep Attack Concepts and the Defence of Central Europe’, Survival, vol. 26, no. 2, March/April 1984, pp. 50–70. Strobe Talbott, ‘US-Soviet Relations: from Bad to Worse’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 58, no. 3, 1979, pp. 515–39. James A. Thomson, ‘Planning for NATO’s Nuclear Deterrent in the 1980s and 1990s’, Survival, vol. 25, no. 3, May/June 1983, pp. 98–109. Robert W. Tucker, ‘America in Decline: the Foreign Policy of “Maturity”’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 58, no. 3, 1979, pp. 449–84. Robert W. Tucker, ‘Reagan’s Foreign Policy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 68, no. 1, 1988–89, pp. 1–27. General Sir Harry Tuzo, ‘Northern Army Group and its British Component’, RUSI Journal, vol. 120, no. 2, June 1975, pp. 9–17. Peter Unwin, ‘British Foreign Policy Opportunities Part 1 – the Global Context’, International Affairs, vol. 57, no. 2, Spring 1981, pp. 225–35. General Von Senger und Etterlin, ‘The Air-Mobile Divisions: Operational Reserves for NATO’, RUSI Journal, vol. 132, no. 1, March 1987, pp. 23–30. Air Vice-Marshal J.R. Walker, ‘Air Power: Present and Future’, RUSI Journal, vol. 131, no. 2, June 1986, pp. 15–20. Air Vice-Marshal J.R. Walker, ‘The Conundrum of Air-Land Warfare’, RUSI Journal, vol. 133, no. 2, Summer 1988, pp. 15–22. Peter Walker, ‘The Opposition’s View of British Defence Policy’, RUSI Journal, vol. 120, no. 2, June 1975, pp. 3–8. Casper Weinberger, ‘US Defense Strategy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 64, no. 4, Spring 1986, pp. 675–97. Cliff White, ‘Reinforcing Reassurance and Deterrence’, RUSI Journal, vol. 128, no. 3, September 1983, pp. 32–5. Sir Clive Whitmore, ‘Ministry of Defence Reorganisation: the Implementation of Change’, RUSI Journal, vol. 130, no. 1, March 1985, pp. 7–12. Phil Williams, ‘Puzzles, Paradoxes and Ambiguities: the US Commitment to Western Europe’, RUSI Journal, vol. 125, no. 4, December 1980, pp. 29–34. Phil Williams, ‘The Nunn Amendment, Burden-Sharing and US Troops in Europe’, Survival, vol. 27, no. 1, January/February 1985, pp. 2–6.

Select Bibliography 213 Phil Williams, ‘Détente and US Domestic Politics’, International Affairs, vol. 61, no. 3, Summer 1985, pp. 431–47. Phil Williams, ‘The Limits of American Power: from Nixon to Reagan’, International Affairs, vol. 63, no. 4, August 1987, pp. 575–87. Phil Williams and William Wallace, ‘Emerging Technologies and European Security’, Survival, vol. 26, no. 2, March/April 1984, pp. 70–8. Manfred Wöerner, ‘Managing European Security’, Survival, vol. 31, no. 1, January/February 1989, pp. 3–12. Wing Commander G.A. Woolley, ‘The RAF’s Helicopter Forces’, RUSI Journal, vol. 134, no. 1, Spring 1989, pp. 27–32. David S. Yost, ‘French Defence Budgeting: Executive Dominance and Resource Constraints’, Orbis, vol. 23, no. 3, Fall 1979, pp. 579–608. David S. Yost, ‘Beyond SALT II: European Security and the Prospects for SALT III’, Orbis, vol. 24, no. 3, Fall 1980, pp. 625–55. David S. Yost, ‘The French Defence Debate’, Survival, vol. 23, no. 1, January/February 1981, pp. 19–28. David S. Yost, ‘Radical Change in French Defence Policy?’, Survival, vol. 28, no. 1, January/February 1986, pp. 53–68. David S. Yost, ‘Beyond MBFR: the Atlantic to the Urals Gambit’, Orbis, vol. 31, no. 1, Spring 1987, pp. 99–134. George Younger, ‘British Defence Policy: a Critical Analysis’, RUSI Journal, vol. 121, no. 1, March 1976, pp. 15–22.

Index Action–reaction cycle 8 Afghanistan 37 Aircraft, helicopters and equipment A-129 120–1, 125, 138 ALARM 52, 115 Apache 120–1, 125, 138 ASRAAM 118 AST-403 29, 36, 40, 53, 66, 79, 80, 84, 88, 91, 95, 118 AST-404 123 AST-411 53, 66, 80 AST-414 115 AV-8B 26, 53, 80 Backfire 26–7 Bloodhound 39, 46, 57, 103, 139 Buccaneer 25, 27, 40, 52–3, 65, 80, 82–3, 103, 121, 149 Canberra 40, 56, 80, 88 Chinook 28, 123, 140, 147 DC-10 94, 99 E-3A 27, 122, 138–40, 149 EH-101 103, 111, 123, 135, 140, 147 European Fighter Aircraft (EFA) 123, 125, 131, 148–9, 151 F-4 39–40 F-15 39–40 F-18 122 Fencer 26 Foxhunter 131, 139, 152 Future Large Aircraft 104 Gazelle 24 HARM 115 Harpoon 103, Harrier 26, 29, 36, 53, 66, 80, 118, 121, 131, 139, 149 Hawk 28, 39–40, 46, 52, 79, 190 Hercules 28, 73, 94, 104 Jaguar 25–6, 29, 36, 53, 66, 79–80, 82, 94, 115–16, 149 Jet Provost 28 Jetstream 52 JP-233 88, 94

Lightning 27, 39, 52, 57, 59, 175 Lynx 24, 43, 84, 118, 123, 138, 146–7 Martel 27 Merlin 131 Midget 103 Naval, Ground and Air Staff Target 1236 131 Nimrod 1, 27–8, 44, 56, 65, 70–1, 76, 80, 94, 103–4, 115, 117–19, 121, 122, 125, 127, 131–2, 138–40, 149, 152, 160, 172 P.110 84, 88, 94 PC-9 122, 190 Phantom 26–7, 36, 79, 83, 91, 94, 115–16, 149 Puma 28, 123, 147 Scout 24 Sea Eagle 27, 103, 121 Sea Harrier 20, 50, 76, 84, 131, 146 Sea King 29, 76, 85, 91 Shackleton 121–2 Sioux 24 Tornado 26–7, 40, 43–4, 48–9, 52–3, 56–7, 79–80, 82, 84, 88–9, 91, 102–4, 114–15, 117–18, 121–2, 125, 131, 135, 139, 149–51, 190 TriStar 94, 99, 115, 139 Tucano 122, 125, 127–8 VC-10 26, 37, 94, 104, 115, 122, 139, 149 Victor 26, 115, 139, 149 Vulcan 25–7, 35, 40, 44, 56, 65, 80, 88, 150 WE-177 118, 149–50 Wessex 28, 116, 122–3 Westland 30 123 Air-land battle 6 Anti-submarine warfare 20–1 Argentina 89 Armstrong, R. 119

214

Index 215 Armilla Patrol 37 Arms sales 28, 61 Augusta 103, 138 Australia 85, 89 Bagnall, N. 56, 68, 78–9, 87, 102, 112–13, 120, 126–7, 133, 136, 146, 159–61 Baker, K. 165 Barrow-in-Furness 50, 111, 145 Beetham, M. 69 Belize 87 Benn, T. 4 Berlin Wall vi, x, 1, 151 Bermudagram 71, 74, 78, 81, 89, 97, 181–2 Bramall, E. 69, 101, 126 Brazil 122 British Aerospace 52, 66, 79–80, 82, 84, 115, 121–2, 133 British Airways 94 British Army and units 22–5, 35 5 Airborne Brigade 147 3rd Armoured Division 87, 112–13 Army Air Corps 24 Bounty Scheme 41 1 (Br) Corps 22, 35, 43, 48, 51, 56, 67–9, 82–3, 87–9, 95, 98, 102, 126, 147, 159–60 6 Brigade 113, 123, 131, 137, 141, 146–7 British Army of the Rhine 22, 51, 56, 68, 78, 98, 114, 116, 120, 137, 146–7, 151 Exercise Crusader 80 42, 51, 55–6 6 Field Force 37, 171 Gurkhas 148 Home Service Force 87–8, 114 16 Independent Parachute Brigade 171 1 Infantry Brigade 136–7, 147 5 Infantry Brigade 93, 110, 114 24 Infantry Brigade 147 2 Infantry Division 147 Parachute Regiment 37, 46, 113 Territorial Army 41, 79, 87, 114, 147, 189 United Kingdom Mobile Force 22, 136–7, 147, 193

British Shipbuilders 119, 133 Burden-sharing 143, 146 Cabinet 5, 10–12, 21, 32–3, 38, 53–4, 59, 63, 68, 84, 89, 109, 116–17, 122, 124, 126, 129, 155 Cabinet Secretary 119 Callaghan, J. 3, 44, 164, 166 Cammell Laird 50, 75, 118–19, 145 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 1, 3, 6, 86, 100, 125–7 Capabilities Group 70–2, 75, 79, 81–2, 96–7 Carrington, P. 64, 74, 89, 97, 137 Carter, J. 3, 6 Central Front 22–3, 35, 37, 55, 67–70, 80–1, 84, 87, 89, 102, 112–13, 120, 127, 131, 136–7, 140, 144, 146 Central Intelligence Agency 5, 167 Central Staff 12, 19, 49, 54, 57, 60, 72, 88, 95–7, 106–7, 126, 128, 150–1 Chatham Dockyard 73, 75, 170 Chevaline 3, 21, 44, 47 Chief of Defence Procurement 107, 127, 162 Chief of the Air Staff 36, 41, 69, 79 Chief of the Defence Staff 13, 66, 69–70, 74, 81, 83, 88, 95–8, 101–2, 106–7, 114, 128, 146, 159 Chief of the General Staff 51, 67, 69, 101, 120, 133, 136, 159 Chief of the Naval Staff 67, 69, 78, 85, 95, 135, 141, 144, 159 Chief Scientific Adviser 13, 51, 55, 70, 72–3, 88, 107, 127–8, 162 Churchill, W. 17 Civil Service ix, 3, 10, 13, 61, 71, 96, 102, 106 Cold War vi, viii, 2, 3, 5, 7, 164 Coltishall 80 3 Commando Brigade 20, 93, 110 Conservatives 2, 4, 12, 15, 26, 30, 32–3, 38–9, 41, 44, 46–7, 54–5, 58, 61, 63, 67, 73, 77, 81, 85, 89–93, 96–8, 100, 104, 106, 108, 116–18, 122, 128–32, 139–40, 144, 152–3, 156, 160–2, 165

216 Index Containment vi Contractualization

93, 108, 110

Defence Arms Control Unit 104 Defence Intelligence 13 Defence Operational Analysis Establishment 70 Defence Programme Working Party 49, 53–4, 56–7, 60, 65, 67, 84, 152, 157, 162 Defence reviews 1957 26 1966 36, 172 1975 19, 22, 28, 35 1981 15, 128, 152, 156, 161 Options for Change 162 Defence White Papers/Estimates 1948 17 1975 5, 67, 172 1976 5 1981 72 1982 91 1987 134 Denmark 136–7 Détente 2–3, 143 Devonport 75, 170 East of Suez 5, 14, 19, 30, 33, 36–7, 45–7, 55, 57, 60–1, 63, 69, 72, 81, 156 Electronic warfare 93 European Union vii Exercise Purple Warrior 134, 145 Exercise Swift Sword 134 Falklands viii, 1, 4, 15, 83, 88, 89–91, 93–6, 99, 102–3, 105, 107, 110–12, 115, 122–3, 156, 161 ‘Falklands factor’ 90–1 Fieldhouse, J. 146 Fighter gap 27, 39 First Sea Lord see Chief of the Naval Staff Fleet Air Arm 20–1 Follow-on Forces Attack 6 Foot, M. 3 Force d’action rapide 110 Foreign and Commonwealth Office 32, 37, 64, 77

France 16, 109–10, 115, 130, 142–3, 150, 153 General Elections 1983 4, 7, 127, 164 1987 4, 7, 15, 153, 161, 164 Germany vii, 16, 23, 24, 26, 33, 39, 41–2, 68–9, 79–82, 87, 91, 93–4, 102, 112–15, 137–9, 142, 147, 149 Gibraltar 75 Gorbachev, M. 141 Greenham Common 1, 104 Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom gap 34, 70–1, 74, 110 Greenwich 66–7, 70, 157 Ground-launched cruise missile 6, 80, 104, 150 Hall Russell 42 Harland and Wolff 133 Healey, D. 106 Heath, E. 4 Heseltine, M. viii, ix, 15, 32, 100–30, 138, 140, 152–4, 156–7, 160, 162 Home defence 22, 65 Hong Kong 5, 148 House of Commons Defence Committee 106, 132, 148 Howe 54, 58, 63, 78, 109, 130, 142–3 Independent European Planning Group 109, 126 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces 6, 141–3 Iran 24, 29, 37, 43, 48, 57, 62, 79, 142, 159, 161 Italy 16, 24, 111, 115, 131, 138 Johnston, M. King’s Bay

70, 75

119, 127

Labour 3–5, 44–5, 47, 58, 68, 74, 81, 92, 98, 104, 108, 119–20, 124, 127, 131–2, 134, 139, 140, 161, 167

Index 217 Lawson, N. 4, 104, 123 Leach, H. 70, 78, 90 Levene, P. 107–8 Lewin, T. 69, 70 Liberals 4, 104, 132, 140, 161 Long-term Defence Programme 6 Long-term costings 12–13, 18–20, 22, 28, 30–1, 40, 45–51, 53, 64–6, 72, 79, 81–2, 85–6, 89, 117–20, 131–2, 135–6, 138–41, 146–7, 155, 159

Nott, J. viii, ix, 14–15, 45, 55, 58, 63–99, 100, 102, 105, 110–11, 115–16, 126, 128, 134, 136, 141, 144, 150–2, 156–7, 159–62, 179

Major, J. 165 Malta 172 Management Information System for Ministers 106, 126, 154 Manoeuvre warfare 6, 87 Mason, R. 55, 70, 128 Maudling, R. 164 Ministry of Defence 2–3, 9–13, 15, 18–19, 28, 30, 32–3, 38, 41, 44–5, 47–9, 53–4, 58–61, 63–4, 66, 68–9, 71–4, 77, 81, 83, 85–6, 89–90, 94–101, 104–9, 116–17, 122–4, 126–7, 130, 132–3, 138–41, 143, 146, 148–50, 152, 154–7, 159–62 Moratorium 53, 64 Moscow criteria 21, 44, 55 Molesworth 1 Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction talks 5

Pan Am 115 Pattie, G. 32, 169 Peace Movement see Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Portsmouth 75, 85 Port Stanley 94 Prime Minister 2, 11–13, 17, 33, 44, 54, 57–8, 63–4, 69, 72, 74, 78, 81, 89–90, 95, 97–9, 101, 104, 106–7, 117, 122, 124, 129, 141, 143, 156, 160, 165 Privatization ix, 1, 2, 43, 51, 62, 94, 99, 108–9, 116–17, 119, 122, 124, 126, 128, 130, 133, 144, 151, 153, 161–3 Public Expenditure Survey 18 Pym, F. viii, ix, 14, 32–62, 64, 66, 89, 96, 126, 130, 151–2, 156–7, 160, 162

Netherlands 138 New Right 2 North Atlantic Treaty Organization vii, ix, 2, 5–7, 18–19, 22–3, 30, 34, 36–7, 39, 45–7, 52, 58, 65, 68–9, 73–4, 76–8, 80, 82, 90–1, 98, 102, 110, 115, 117, 119, 130, 134, 136–7, 143, 146, 150, 153, 161, 165 Flexible Response 26 NATO’s Northern Army Group 22, 102, 112–13, 126–7, 147, 159 Physical Protection Programme 39 Northern Ireland 22, 35, 68, 93, 151 Norway 20, 75, 110, 136, 145

Oman 134 Operational Manoeuvre Group 37, 102 Overseas and Defence Committee 12, 45, 63–4, 118, 122, 126 Owen, D. 5, 123

Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force 37, 46, 72, 110 Reagan, R. 1, 3, 7, 86, 110, 141, 143 Reykjavik 141–2 Rosyth 75, 170 Royal Air Force and units 25–8, 30, 35–6, 40, 46, 52, 56, 65, 67, 69, 76, 80, 94, 102, 113, 115, 121–3, 128, 139–40, 149, 151 18 Group 21, 27 216 Squadron 27 Lightning Training Flight 52 Reserves 36, 116 Royal Auxiliary Air Force 41, 46, 52, 57, 79, 122 Tornado Operational Evaluation Unit 107

218 Index Royal Dockyards 20, 71, 75 Royal Fleet Auxiliary 20, 21, 42, 146 Royal Marines 77, 90, 135, 145 Royal Naval Air Service 27 Royal Navy 17, 19–22, 27, 33–4, 37, 45–6, 52, 96–7 Reserve Air Branch 41 Reserve Divisions 41 Standby squadron 38, 55, 57, 59, 78, 93, 98, 110, 136 Reserve forces 33, 35–6, 40–1 Royal Ordnance 43, 51, 60, 62, 120, 133, 148, 161 Saudi Arabia 121 Schmidt, H. 6 Scott Lithgow 42, 75, 119, 133, 145 Security dilemma 8 Selsdon Park 4 Service pay 33, 38, 46, 49 Ships, submarines and equipment Abdiel, HMS 146 AOR 21, 66, 76, 103, 118–19, 133, 141, 145 Argus, RFA 119, 135, 145 Aviation Support Ship 112, 135, 145 Bristol, HMS 144 Britannia, HMY 77 Bulwark, HMS 55 Chevaline 166 Contender Ardent, SS 119 Dreadnought, HMS 75 Endurance, HMS 77, 92, 97 Exocet 66 Hecate, HMS 135 Hecla, HMS 135 Hermes, HMS 20, 75, 112, 119, 135 Hunt, HMS 34, 111 Hydra, HMS 135 Invincible, HMS 20, 75, 85, 135 Leander, HMS 21, 35, 78 LPD 20, 50, 75, 77, 83, 85, 87, 89, 90, 112, 119, 135, 145, 182, LSL 75, 92, 110, 145 MCMVs 34, 41, 57, 118, 141 NFR-90 135, 142 Offshore patrol vessels 42

Polaris 3, 20, 21, 33, 44, 47, 60, 67, 69, 75, 86, 89 Roebuck, HMS 135 Resolution, HMS 170 Sea Dart 50, 135 Sea Skua 50 Sea Wolf 85 Seabed operations vessel 42 Sheffield, HMS 92 Single-role minehunter 111, 118, 146 Sir Galahad, RFA 92, 110 Sir Tristram, RFA 92, 110 Southampton, HMS 144 SSBN 20, 21, 50, 118–19, 145 SSK 20, 34, 49, 61, 75, 103, 108, 111, 118–19, 144–5 SSN 20, 27, 42, 50, 55, 70, 74–5, 93, 103, 111, 117–19, 131, 142, 145 Stingray 45, 54, 61 Survey Ships 50 Swiftsure, HMS 182 Tarbatness, RFA 50 Trafalgar, HMS 20, 34, 42, 50 Trident 1, 6, 44, 50, 52, 55–8, 63–4, 67, 72, 75, 77, 82, 85–7, 89, 93, 98, 111, 118–19, 132, 141, 145, 161 Triumph, HMS 55, 57 Type 14 34 Type 21 21, 92 Type 22 21, 34, 74, 85, 89, 92, 118–19, 124, 127–8, 135, 170 Type 23 49, 66, 71, 74, 76, 83, 85, 89, 91–2, 95, 103, 110–11, 117–20, 133, 141, 144, 146, 151 Type 42 21, 34, 66, 91, 92, 103, 117, 131, 142, 144, 170, 181 Type 44 34, 66, 74 Type 81 35 Type 2400 34, 75, 111 Shorts 122, 138 Sikorsky 123 Social Democratic Party 2, 3, 4, 7, 74, 81, 98, 104, 123, 132, 140, 156, 161 Sound Surveillance System 70–1

Index 219 Soviet Union vi, vii, ix, 1–3, 5–6, 16–17, 23–4, 26, 30–1, 33, 55–6, 67, 71, 141, 143, 150 Spain 115, 138 Special relationship 5, 16, 141 Speed, K. 59, 60, 73, 81, 83, 97 Spetsnatz 35 Staveley, W. 78, 136, 159–60, 162 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks 6 Strategic Defence Review vii Structure and agency 7, 14, 159 Swan Hunter 118–19, 133, 135, 146 Thatcher, M. viii, ix, x, 1–3, 7, 9, 12, 32–3, 37, 45, 54, 58, 60–1, 63, 72–3, 75, 78, 85, 89, 91–2, 96, 100, 104, 108–10, 117–19, 122–5, 141–3, 146, 151, 153–4, 160, 162–5 Thatcherism see Thatcher Trade and Industry 109, 116 Train, H. 34 Treasury 2, 12–13, 18, 38, 44–5, 51, 53–4, 58, 60, 67, 69, 84, 90–2, 95, 105, 110, 132, 143, 148, 156 UK/NL Amphibious Force 75, 134, 135 United States of America 1, 3, 5–6, 16–17, 27, 33, 68–9, 72, 76–7, 82, 85–7, 89, 98, 100, 109–10, 115, 120, 122–4, 134, 142–3, 146, 149–51, 153, 161 United States Navy 102, 110, 119 Value for money 107 Vehicles and equipment Abbot 24, 137–8, 148 Abrams 147 AS-90 148 BATES 25 Blowpipe 24, 41 Bradley IFV 24, 51 Challenger 51–2, 57, 68, 78–9, 103, 113–14, 120, 125, 133, 147–8, 161

Chieftain 23, 43, 51, 91, 103, 120, 131, 133, 147 Clansman 25 DROPS 138 FH-70 24, 29, 114 FV-432 51–2 Light gun 24 Javelin 24, 118 Le Clerc 147 Leopard 114, 147, 188 M-107 114 M-109 43, 137–8, 148 M1A1 147 MBT-80 23–4, 42, 51, 103 MLRS 24, 29, 43, 79, 114, MCV-80 24 Ptarmigan 25 Rapier 24, 79, 87, 94, 114, 135, 138 Saxon 114, 120 Shir-1 43 Shir-2 43, 51, 62 SP-70 24, 29, 43, 79, 114, 120, 125, 131, 137–8, 152 Starstreak 138 Stormer 138 Sultan 25 Tracked Rapier 24, 79, 82, 94, 99, 114, 161, 188 Trigat 142 Warrior 24, 52, 57, 60 Wavell 25 Vickers Ltd 133, 147–8 Western European Union 109, 126, 130, 142–3, 161 Westland viii, 1, 15, 91, 103, 116, 123–5, 129, 132, 140, 147, 157, 160 Whitmore 102 Wilson, H. 3, 166 Yarrow 133 Yom Kippur War 23 Younger viii, ix, 15, 129–54, 156–7, 160 Yugoslavia vi, viii