ABSTRACT
Britain's continued military presence East of Suez for nearly a quarter of a century beyond the Second World War in many ways seems to run against the prevailing economic and political logic of Britain's reduced circumstances after the war. While the loss of India logically should have dictated a rundown of the defence establishment in the Indian Ocean in short order, instead the prewar apparatus was resurrected and the region came to be one of the last principal areas where British defence capabilities were extended out of the North Atlantic/European theatre. 1
