Defence and deterrence

The political will and the 'flexible response'

A Senior Officer

The Spectator publishes this article as matter of vital interest and concern, and is as assured of the accuracy of the facts as of the bona fides of the author. Further articles, from comparable sources, on the direction and disposition of naval and air forces will also be published.

The news that, yet again, a socialist government is to conduct a massive study of British defence commitments has, predictably, aroused speculation as to where the axe will fall. Cyprus, Malta and Singapore are strong contenders for the chop. One area which has never seriously been considered as suitable for defence retrenchement is Germany. Here, the British contribution to the NATO central region is the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and Royal Air Force Germany (RAF(G)). Specifically, I am concerned with the land element of this contribution and its place in the equation of deterrence.

During the 1964 election, much was made of the British nuclear deterrent. Both Wilson and Healey proposed that, rather than maintain a national nuclear deterrent, we should have larger conventional forces. At present, we still have the Polaris force, upon which the present Government is about to spend considerable sums, and we have smaller conventional forces. Clearly, the realities of nuclear -power have now impressed themselves sufficently on both main parties, so that Britain's nuclear force is no longer the subject of serious political controversy.

In understanding the role that land forces play in the deterrent strategy of NATO, in the central region, we must be clear as to what these forces are, and in particular what the British contribution is.

The overall Commander of the Central Region, CINCENT, has under him four principal subordinate commands. These are the Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) and Central Army Group (CENTAG). These are both land formations, but the Commander also has Second and Fourth Allied Tactical Air Forces (ATAF). Basically, 2 ATAF supports NORTHAG, with 4 ATAF supporting CENTAG. However, through procedural arrangements, aircraft from 4 ATAG can support NORTHAG and vice versa.

Each army group consists. of four corps. NORTHAG, with which we are more con cerned, has a corps each from Holland, Belgium, Germany and Britain. It is commanded by a British officer, C-in-C BAOR, at present General Sir Harry Tuzo (COMNORTHAG).

Before considering the pressures on the various army commanders in the central region, one must look first at the enemy. The Warsaw Pact poses a considerable military threat. It always has done. It must be made quite clear that this threat is increasing. Within the last eighteen months a comprehensive re-equipment programme has been going on and, in particular, the T62 tank has been issued. What is of special interest is that the old tanks have not been shipped back to Russia. Thus a de facto increase of about two thousand tanks has been achieved. Why this has been done is a matter of speculation but, for the NATO military commanders it represents a significant increase in capability which has not been matched by the west. Our political masters should reflect that, whereas intentions can change overnight, military capability, or incapability, remains a fact.

The military threat against the Central Region posed by the Warsaw Pact land forces amounts to over eighty divisions. Of these it is thought that against NORTHAG would be ranged a first echelon of fourteen divisions with a supporting echelon of a further seven. Behind these is a strategic echelon of some twenty-eight divisions of which, possibly, half might be directed against northern Germany. This powerful force would, if committed, be supported by a massive use of chemical weaponry. It is anticipated that, confident of initial success, the Warsaw Pact will not use nuclear weapons unless compelled to do so, either by their initial use by NATO or by an unforeseen tactical defeat early in the battle.

The Russians have, in this area, three basic options, although there are of course a number of other scenarios based on these three. They could, by the deliberate raising of tension, accompanied by a major military build-up, hope to force a weakened and

demoralised Western Europe to give wa! diplomatically. (If this failed, then a Ina military aggression could take place'^ Secondly, at the other end of the scale, ar, attack without warning could be launcher Such an attack by its very nature would havi to be limited in size, as large troop movementl would be quickly spotted. It would, therefored he limited in its objectives, with the aim elr'l presenting the west after, say, twenty-1oll,'1 hours, with a military situation (Denrnaf,A"I occupied?) about which the Russians woll'r be prepared to talk. Current thinking at HQ Central Regin (AFCENT) is that neither of these options very likely although, of the two, the secoi poses the greater threat. The third scenario that the Warsaw Pact would deliver a major' attack after a short build-up, possibly LIP ten days' duration, which would be sufficie," for reserve forces to be pre-placed so that tP$ strategic objective could still be the circlement of the Rhine. As far as the Army Group Commanders are concerned, the difference in the actual thror on the ground between the attack after 3J major build-up and a short build-up is nil. BLI,t there is a small but significant difference 'lir the forces available to NATO. This differencee arises because a certain proportion of tli,e formations allocated to the various corps stationed outside Germany, and some of thef: are reserve formations which have to u: mobilised. Thus the land forces, and to lesser extent the air forces, have to have a series of plans to deal with each eventualitYi

These plans are complex and things are i made easier by the fact that the key deci5I°,1 on their implementation are not militarY t political.

To take, as an instance, the mobilisation elf rt the Territorial Army in the United Kingd015, t this'can be considered a technical prohleSi ( dependent on movement, resources availau;)I etc, or it could be considered, in a period, u; uncertainty, as escalatory. One of the rnat./ worries that the military planners have is Oa E on the day, the political will to act will 1;1 found wanting. And there are precedents to confirm this fear. The paralY5' which seized the British, American French governments when the first inovA`e which resulted in the Berlin Wall were nia, is still remembered in Germany. The inactivit. of the west while the build-up went on PrM„ to the brilliantly-executed invasion Czechoslovakia, suggests that it is not beyo",▪ i the bounds of possibility for our present • E ticians to do nothing when presented with r'' i indicators of a build-up taking place. . However, the major problem which face:I the land force commanders in the ceritr," I I 1 regiOT1 is that posed by the current NATO io strategy. In the late 'fifties and early 'sixties e. „the strategy was simple, basic, and effective. 0,%1Ilis was the so-called trip-wire strategy inOwing a practically automatic nuclear resParise. In this context the role of the Army 10,,vas, in a sense, secondary to that of the Air rrce. Once the red button was pushed the air dforees and, of course the Polaris submarines, W ,Guld have proceeded to carry out their prerlPtianned nuclear strikes which, as these were ,Ilanned, were on the other side of the einarcation line. The land forces, in the on rleantime, planned to carry out a delaying Oattle and hoped to be able, eventually, to neheld the enemy along a natural obstacle Ovhich had been prepared during the first or Phase of battle.

,,161, lit the late 'sixties, NATO strategy changed h"`c' what has been called the flexible response „ s,trategy. A more correct name would be the e43Pr0priate response strategy. The practical re„ffect of this new doctrine has been the ai'mPhasis placed on the probability of a nonarlhelear phase lasting, possibly, for some days. atsust how many days nobody is prepared to ip„,aY• Certainly, some interesting defence :e 'rliticlies have been done using computer tech/11,clues and the answers that have come have, re am all reports, been revealing. 5E , Since the introduction of this latest stratem,. t, , 6,Y a significant pressure has been put on ,s'e military to adopt a forward defensive 3 t'osture. This pressure has come, not unexy eectedly, from the Germans. After all, the 01°,attle will be fought over their territory, and the nuclear phase is to be delayed, then, ivi,hen it does start, it will be on West rather t'an East German soil. There is also a deOtehrrent value in forward defence: clearly, if 11t'h'e land forces are seen to be in strength with eueir main forces well forward, the chances of

arlY, limited success for the aggressor are d 'ess.

() The problem of the forward defence, it'a4°wever, is that in peacetime the land forces dre, in the main, in the wrong place. The tl!terrent value of land forces depends on "eir being able to reach their war locations hickly and in strength, and to be seen to 6, ue this capability. Deterrence ceases to be ,e ifterrence if the potential enemy believes that ,ile Political will to act is wanting or not there 't all, and the strength of readily available o r ound forces might be taken to be some t'd,lcation of that will.

II rtere again the military planners are up agai . nst the failure of the politicians, who have

hltroduced the flexible response strategy, to ,4nclerstand the military consequences of this 9 4Ple strategy. The need for the national ar / to be stationed conveniently close to their war positions is even more important ian in the old automatic nuclear response s,aYs. Yet the Belgian government, despite `rang advice from their own commanders arld from CINCENT, is proposing to pull back early half the Belgian Corps from Germany 1-0 Belgium. This can only weaken the ‘141efens1ve posture of the alliance. The Dutch save only ever had one brigade stationed in i:.r.rnany, and the lag between the time when butch Corps is ordered to deploy and the tictual time it is operational in its war loca.,ris is a significant factor in the minds of 11■10ENT and COMNORTHAG in their Peacetime planning. h Paradoxically, the Americans too seem to ave powerful figures who are unaware of the ct4rfference in the role of the land forces now ,hat the immediate nuclear response strategy `as been abandoned. Senator Mike Mansfield seriously suggesting that all that is needed an independent brigade "to symbolise the fr1,/nerican nuclear commitment to Europe." bOIS would have made sense in the late 'fifties, [lrat today it makes no sense at all, unless he as •

In mind a return to an automatic nuclear response strategy. The plain fact is that, once the immediate nuclear response has ceased to be the core of NATO's defence strategy, it 'must be replaced by the immediate deterrent value of strong land and air forces in being in the right place and in sufficent strength to be effective.

We have seen that the British contribution to the Central Region land forces is a single corps. This consists, basically, of three divisions and two artillery brigades with supporting and logistic units, all in Germany in peacetime. The British corps depends, however, upon the arrival of two more brigades, one of them territorial, and most of its second-line logistics units, which are virtually all TA, to bring it up to war establishment. Without these additional formations it is not able to conduct the extended war operations demanded by a forward defence posture. The problem presented by the movement of men, vehicles and equipment from the UK to continental Europe is aggravated by the probability that it will have to be done during a period of high tension, if not actual hostilities, when there will be conflicting claims on the RAF transport fleet.

As we all know, a proportion of BAOR units are serving in Northern Ireland, a commitment not foreseen when the vast reinforcement plans were drawn up. This unfortunate task appears at present to be openended and, although there are certain professional gains to the Army, the efficency of the British corps in carrying out its primary task has been adversely affected.

Despite the very considerable doubts there must be about the ability of the British corps effectively to respond to all of the Warsaw Pact options so long as the Irish commitment remains, it is still an effective deterrent force. A generation of young officers and NCOs is being developed who have seen active service. Many have been under fire; all have borne responsibilities in which lack of judgement or discipline could have wide-reaching political consequences. In NORTHAG the British corps is unique in this respect.

The cloud in this particular sky is that the repeated tours which these young men are having to undergo is becoming a strain on their wives. The recent concessions on travel for soldiers' families left in Germany have come not before time. This pressure on the British soldier has not yet translated itself into loss of morale, which remains high. However, there is evidence, if one digs deep enough, that the rising tide of contempt, both for the Northern Irish people of all parties, and for the British politicians who have produced no solutions whatsoever, might in the end produce a disaffected professional army whose junior and middle ranks have little respect for the political system which failed them. This situation is not helped when a young NCO is convicted for killing in the course of his duties, while daily the gunman and the bomber continue their campaign unchecked, or, when confined in conditions often better than the soldiers enjoy, are, apparently, viewed with sympathy by a number of semi-political organisations. The final deterrent must remain the ability of NATO to resort to nuclear war. There is much debate about whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield will lead automatically to a strategic exchange. As far as the land force commanders are concerned,. this debate is of only academic interest. What they require is a control system which will allow them to change, quickly and effectively, from non-nuclear to nuclear operations. The forward defence strategy, which is not British in origin, and indeed is not much liked by them, will mean that, in the event of major aggression, the main forces in the Central Region of the two army groups will be totally committed within a very short time, certainly within the first forty-eight hours. One consequence of forward defence is that, whereas in the past time was bought by trading space (the delaying battle), now time will be traded for lives. It is now planned that the British in Germany, together with the other national forces, will be required to fulfil a function not unlike that performed by the 'Old Contemptibles' in 1914. It will be virtually destroyed. The difference this time, however, is that whereas in 1914 there was time for a new Army to be created, now there will not. This is the potential result of the flexible response, and it has yet to be made clear by the political leaders of the NATO nations that this is indeed the price they intend to pay. Is it acceptable? Judging from Senator Mansfield's, pronouncements, it is not to the Americans. This price, hoWever, would not be inevitable if the procedure for the initial release of tactical nuclear weapons was flexible enough. Here again one comes up against the problem of the militarily sensible solution being unacceptable to the politicians who, quite rightly, wish to retain absolute control over this awesome decision. To understand the problem more fully we must be clear that all tactical nuclear weapons held by the land forces are owned by the Americans, who provide special custodial units with each nuclear battalion. The request for nuclear release is a military request, based upon the tactical situation at a given time. The decision for nuclear release is a political one, taken at the highest level after consultation between governments. The problem is, with the limitations imposed by communications and security, that the timelag between first request and first release is far too long for the military commanders, faced as they are with a situation which will be changing rapidly hour by hour. What the military would like is a series of pre-conditions which, when met, will produce automatic selective release. This, of course, is perilously close to the old trip-wire strategy, which was at least effective. Unfortunately, this is the last thing that the Defence Planning Committee at NATO headquarters will allow. This time-lag between request and initial release is viewed with extreme seriousness by a significant number of commanders and staff at all levels. One corps commander has felt so strongly about it that he made his views public in his own country and resigned, although there were, it is understood, other military matters about which he .was at variance with his government. Until this problem is solved, therefore, we should all be clear on the implications of the present NATO strategy. The land forces must be strong, and in the right place. There must be no weakening of the British contribution to this element of deterrence. Indeed, most commanders believe that the British corps should, in fact, be strengthened. We must also be clear that we are planning for the virtual destruction of the British corps in war and, because, alone among the European NATO powers, we have an all-regular army, there is no pool of exnational servicemen to take their place. This is a serious state of affairs and one can only hope that, as with our independent nuclear deterrent, the realities of ;power will impose themselves upon the minds of the present Government when they come to consider what, if any, cuts to our military establishment are to be made.