Britain: An official handbook > 1966

4
in
DEFENCE
Collective
Defence
Britain’s defence policy has two purposes: to guarantee the nation’s security
and to contribute towards peace and stability in the world as a whole. These
purposes are inseparable. Neither can be achieved by armed force alone.
In the long run the security of Britain, like that of every other country, can
be assured only by general and comprehensive disarmament under the
United Nations; even in the short run it will be difficult to maintain unless
countries of different political ideologies reach greater understanding on the
limitation and control of armaments. Meanwhile Britain’s security will depend
on alliances with its friends in many parts of the world. Interdependence is
the only basis for national security in the nuclear age.
Similarly, world peace and stability can best be assured by strengthening
the peace-keeping powers of the United Nations, and this must remain the
principal objective. But until the United Nations is able to exercise the
responsibility for maintaining world peace, Britain must, to meet its obliga¬
tions to Commonwealth and allied countries, maintain a capacity for providing
military assistance in many parts of the world.
Information about defence policy and the armed forces is given annually
in a Statement on the Defence Estimates.1 The arrangements provide for closely
integrated well-trained, highly mobile, all-regular forces equipped with the
most modern weapons and organised on up-to-date lines; and for a central
strategic reserve maintained in Britain, with means of transport, including
airlift, to take it rapidly to the scene of any trouble.
The national defence policy has been increasingly based on the realisation
that no country can protect itself in isolation and the defence of Britain is
possible only as part of a system of collective defence. Britain maintains
forces in three areas of the world as contributions to the collective security
alliances of which it is a member—the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
(NATO) and the Western European Union (WEU), the Central Treaty
Organisation (CENTO) and the SEATO defence system in South-East Asia.
Close liaison is maintained with other Commonwealth countries, facilitating
considerable standardisation of equipment and training and interchange of
personnel.
Britain’s contribution to NATO includes over three-quarters of the opera¬
tional and reserve fleets, a considerable proportion of the Royal Air Force
front-line aircraft including the whole of Fighter Command and the V-bomber
force, RAF Germany, nearly all Coastal Command, and the British Army of
the Rhine. The British Polaris submarines now under construction will be
assigned to a NATO Commander. A further contribution is the provision of
facilities for a depot ship in the Holy Loch (Firth of Clyde, Scotland) for the
United States Polaris submarines.
Under an agreement between the British and United States Governments
signed in i960, a joint Ballistic Missile Early Warning Station has been built
at Fylingdales Moor, Yorkshire. The United States has provided equipment
1 The defence programme is being reviewed; this chapter describes the position in
June 1965.