ABSTRACT
It is convenient that a commonly used starting date for the new Cold War is 1979. This was the year when the Thatcher government first took office and started an unprecedented increase in peace-time defence expenditure in Britain. In some ways the years 1979-86 might have been expected to open a new era in British defence planning. In fact they signalled a time when the appalling constraints that will face the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the rest of this century first became apparent. Between 1979 and 1986 defence expenditure rose by at least 20 per cent, but, by the spring of 1986, it was announced that Britain was not only abandoning the NATO commitment to an annual increase of 3 per cent, but that during the years 1987-89 there would be a 6 per cent cut in defence expenditure (MoD, 1986b). This financial background is examined in more detail later. One simple guide to the implications may help. The 3 per cent per year growth in real expenditure was 1 per cent less than the minimum at which General Rogers, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), argued that the Warsaw Pact’s conventional superiority could be countered. Quite simply, then, Britain (seen as a member of NATO) is not going to have the finances to mount its part in a credible conventional defence of Europe. (Nor is any other European country - Britain was probably the only European member of the Alliance to live up to the 3 per cent guide between 1977 and 1986 (House of Commons, 1985).)
