Defence White Paper

The 1957 Defence White Paper made clear that there would be fewer research and development projects and production orders for military aircraft in future. In July 1957 a backgroimd paper was circulated to the Cabinet listing a number of well-known aircraft firms where workers were likely to be made redundant as a result. It was expected that over the next four or five years the numbers employed in the manufacture of airframes, aero-engines and related equipment, excluding electrical equipment, would fall by about 100,000 to about 150,000, or what had been the level before the Korean War. ° The programmes for guided... 

The main thrust of the Swinton Committee s report in November 1954 was its support for the RAF s case for a nuclear deterrent of 240 V-bombers. It was argued that the very survival of Britain in war would depend upon the prompt elimination of Soviet air bases, and that that task could not be left to the US Strategic Air Command as there could be no assurance about American priorities as regards targets. This argument was publicly stated by Churchill on 1 March 1955 in the debate on the 1955 Defence White Paper, which announced the decision to develop the hydrogen bomb. ° Yet the priority for the nuclear deterrent was not absolute the White Paper also stated that Britain must play its part in defending the interests of the free world as a whole, and particularly the Commonwealth and Empire , in the Cold War, for which role the army and navy were required. ... 

The likelihood that British strategy would place less emphasis on the deterrent was increased by the appointment in 1959 of Mountbatten as CDS, given the doubts he had expressed the previous year about whether the West would ever use nuclear weapons. The 1961 Defence White Paper pointed out that many of Britain s most important responsibilities were not concerned with direct deterrence of nuclear war but rather with the checking of small conflicts that might develop into one. There was a need for rapid-reaction forces capable of dealing with a whole spectrum of possible aggression and military threats. The 1962 Defence White Paper stressed the need for NATO forces and strategy to be balanced and flexible, and noted the re-equipment of the army with... 

Global Strategy paper in 1952 and the Defence White Paper in 1957, were motivated by an understanding that too much defence expenditure would undermine Britain s economic strength. There was a need to match strategic ends and economic means. 

The following year the government issued a momentous Defence White Paper entitled Defence Outline of Future Policy which detailed the most far-reaching changes to the British armed forces since the 1930s. Britain s policy was defined as ... 

This concept was based on the 1994 Defence White Paper (DWP) (Commonwealth of Australia, 1994, p. 27), which stressed the need for the Australian Defenee Force to become more selective abont identifying those areas in whieh it needed to maintain a decisive lead and give priority to them . Selective capabilities rather than technological edge became the new conceptnal framewoik for Australia s defence policy. 

Australian Department of Defence (2000). Our Future Defence Force - Defence White Paper 2000. Australian Department of Defence, Canberra, 6 December, pp. 82. Available from http //www.defence.gov.au/publications/wpaper2000.PDF [accessed 18 November 2010]. 

Commonwealth of Australia (1994). Australian Defence White Paper Defending Australia. Canberra, ACT Australian Government Publishing Service. 

The Federal Ministry of Defence, White Paper 1983, p. 152. See also U. Nerlich, Chemical Warfare Policy Alternatives Defense and Negotiations Options , NA TO s Strategic Options Arms Control and Defense, ed. by D. S. Yost (New York Pergammon Press, 1981) p. 206. 

Federal Minister of Defence. White Paper 1983. The Security of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn, 1983. 

The 1987 and 1988 Statements on the Defence Estimates did not quantify the Soviet CW stockpile. The 1988 Defence White Paper simply stated The Soviet Union has produced and stockpiled a wide variety of chemical agents and munitions and has a massive tonnage of nerve agent alone. . but the Defence Secretary, George Younger, confirmed to the House of Commons that the Ministry of Defence still held by its estimate. He did, however, acknowledge that there was a degree of uncertainty. ... 

Open sources suggest that Warsaw Pact countries other than the Soviet Union may have an offensive chemical warfare capability. Earlier British Defence White Papers had referred only to a Soviet capability the 1987 White Paper explicitly mentions a Warsaw Pact... 

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