ANGLO-AMERICAN APPROACHES TO ALLIANCE SECURITY,

Transcription

1 ANGLO-AMERICAN APPROACHES TO ALLIANCE SECURITY,

2 SOUTHAMPTON STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY Published in association with the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, University of Southampton, England General Editor: Dilys M. Hill, Reader in Politics, University of Southampton, and Deputy Director, Mountbatten Centre for International Studies Other academic members of the editorial board: Martin Alexander, Ralph Beddard, Stevan K. Pavlowitch, John Simpson This series was established in 1986 to encourage the publication of multidisciplinary studies of those public policies with significant international components or implications. Areas of special interest include arms-control and defence policies, environmental policies, human rights, maritime and space issues, Third-World development questions and the European Union.

3 Anglo-American Approaches to Alliance Security, G. Wyn Rees Lecturer in International Relations University of Leicester in association with the MOUNTBATTEN CENTRE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

4 First published in Great Britain 1996 hy MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS ami London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN D / ISBN (ebook) First published in the United States of America 1996 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Division, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Hecs, G. Wyn, 1 96~- Anglo-Amcrican approaches to alliance security, I G. Wyn Hecs. - I st ed. p. em.- (Southampton studies in intcmational policy) Includes bibliographical references and index. I. United States- Military rdations-grcat Britain. 2. G reat Britain--Military relations--united States. 1. World politics I. Title. II. Series. E lln.8.g7.r dc CIP G. Wyn Rccs 1996 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be n1ade without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written pe rmission or in accordance with the prnvisions of the Copyright, Designs ami Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence pcnnitting lijnited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tollenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who docs any unauthorised acl in rc lalion to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil clain1s li>r damages ~ :\ I !l 97 96

5 To Marian, Bryan and Susan

6

7 Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1 The United States, Britain and their Alliances 2 The Nature of War 3 The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 4 The Baghdad Pact or Central Treaty Organisation 5 The South East Asia Treaty Organisation 6 Britain and the United States Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index ix X Vll

8 The Mountbatten Centre for International Studies The Mountbatten Centre for International Studies (MCIS), located in the Department of Politics at the University of Southampton, conducts many cooperative and individual research programmes and activities. Current areas of research include nuclear non-proliferation, human rights, international environmental issues, naval peacekeeping, European and Asian security, civil-military relations, and police studies. MCIS activities include residential seminars by its Defence Studies Unit as well as a programme of seminars and public lectures. The Centre is interdisciplinary, relying for its resource base on many departments within the University, including history, law, education, and aeronautics and astronautics. Links have been established with the Centre d'histoire Militaire of the University of Montpellier, the Foundation Pour les Etudes de Defense Nationale, Paris, and with the Faculte des Affaires Internationales, Universite du Havre. The Centre also participates in the work of the team on Political Culture in Eastern Europe at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Members of the Centre have participated in the work of the European Science Foundation and the International Congress of Historical Sciences. Publications of the Centre include the Southampton Studies in International Policy monograph and book senes, the latter in association with Macmillan, and a monograph and newsletter series produced by the programme on nuclear non-proliferation. MCIS was established in 1990 in succession to the Centre for International Policy Studies (founded in 1983). The Mountbatten Centre bears the name of the Earl Mountbatten of Burma ( ), whose papers are housed at the University of Southampton. Vlll

9 Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge my debt to Professor John Simpson, the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies, for his advice at an early stage of this project and to Dr Dilys Hill, University of Southampton, for assistance with publication. I would like to express my thanks to those organisations that have provided financial assistance. Particular thanks are due to the Nuffield Foundation for its grant which enabled me to research in archives in the United States. Money to finance research within the United Kingdom was received from the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research and from the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Leicester. I am also indebted to various institutions for permission to research in their archives. I would like to thank the National Archives in Washington and the library staff and trustees of the Eisenhower Library in Abilene, Kansas. Thanks are also due to the Public Records Office in Kew, London. G. W. R. University of Leicester ix

10 Introduction A wealth of literature has appeared on the subject of the postwar nuclear relationship between the United States and Britain. The period of the 1950s saw major developments in the range and depth of cooperation between these two powers and there have been a wealth of studies that have sought to explore this relationship. Books of considerable scholarship have been written by Botti, Clark and Wheeler, Melissen and Navias. 1 However, along with this preoccupation with nuclear affairs has come a relative neglect of the wider military policies of the United States and Britain during this period. In order to find authoritative texts on this subject, one is forced to revert to books that were written 25 or more years ago. 2 This book seeks to make a contribution towards redressing this imbalance in the literature. It discusses the nuclear policies of the United States and Britain, but only as one element in a broader analysis of their overall military relationship. By focusing on the subject of defence planning it is possible to comment also on the conventional and the cold war strategies of the two states. These were also policy areas in which changes were taking place as both states attempted to adapt their military instruments to meet a variety of threats. Hence this was a period of considerable turbulence in the conventional as well as the nuclear force postures of the United States and the United Kingdom. This study does not pay attention exclusively to the Anglo-American relationship. Instead, its main attempt is to investigate the policies of the two countries towards their alliances. There were three major multilateral alliances, catering for Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia, of which the US and UK were members or to which they were closely aligned. By looking at these organisations it will be possible to trace out the similarities and dissimilarities in the attitudes and policies of the US and the UK towards them. It should also serve to illustrate the nature and extent of Anglo-American collaboration across a broad field of military policy. Two issues will dominate this analysis. The first of these concerns the motivation of the British and American governments in aligning themselves with the three alliances. To what extent did either country treat their membership of alliances as the means to achieve their security objectives? If they did not do so, then what other purposes did these alliances serve and to what extent did the United States and United Kingdom approach these issues in a similar way? x

11 Introduction xi Secondly, this study will seek to determine what the alliance commitments of the United States and Britain meant to them in practice. Did these states consider their alliance obligations to provide a framework for their strategic policies? It would be legitimate to expect that their military planning would be heavily influenced by their membership of the alliances. By focusing upon divergences of view between the two countries and their alliance partners, it will be possible to test their sincerity towards these alliance commitments. At the outset it should be made clear that this study will restrict itself to the subject of military planning and will not attempt to look at the wider role of the alliances. There was an expectation, for example, among some alliance members that they could expect great economic benefits from cooperating with the US and UK, but such issues lie outside the scope of this work. Neither does this study investigate the bilateral relationships between the two countries and their individual alliance partners; nor the military aid programmes that were conducted between Western states and their regional allies. Choosing a precise historical period for such a study is a somewhat arbitrary process as relevant subjects will be found to occur outside the chosen parameters. Nevertheless, the years 1955 to 1960 provide a rich period for analysis. These years were percolated by a sense of crisis; by a fear of conflict and a perception among policymakers in the United States and Britain that the Western position around the world was under pressure. The forces of communism were thought to be on the offensive, advancing and encroaching upon traditional regions of Western influence. The adversary was seen to be exploiting the tide of nationalism in the lessdeveloped areas of the world and riding on a wave of anti-colonialist sentiment. The overall impression was that a significant shift in the balance of power was taking place. This helps to account in this period for the emphasis accorded to alliance formation. The United States and Britain acted as the sponsors for the establishment of a global system of alliances. These alliances were anticommunist in focus and sought to consolidate the interests of Western countries in the cold war. As the nature of the threat changed - from a Soviet-led global war to a more multifaceted undermining of Western interests around the world - the alliances were seen to be a way to arrest these dangers. Joining with a variety of states from all the main theatres of potential conflict offered the opportunity to fashion a bloc of countries that could stand together in unity. The Middle East and South East Asia were areas of the world where those states that were sympathetic to the West were felt to be under attack.

12 Xll Introduction The physical presence of Western forces in these regions was changing. In the Middle East, the presence of British forces was declining as a result of withdrawal agreements reached with states in the region, and this was speeded up by the experience of the Suez crisis in Meanwhile, in South East Asia the French were being forced out of Indochina, leaving only small pockets of US and British forces in Asia. The US and the UK were fearful about the Middle East and South East Asia and recognised the need to cooperate to assure the stability of these areas. Western Europe was in a different position in the latter part of the 1950s because an alliance had been in existence since 1949 and no new structure was required. However, there were a number of vital developments within the existing organisation during this period. Germany began its formal process of rehabilitation into the Western community by its entry into the alliance in May There was also progress in the process of determining the military strategy of the continent and in particulai* the balance of defence effort between the United States and its Western European allies. The key issue of the role of nuclear weapons in the defence of the alliance was worked out, as well as the relative importance of conventional and nuclear forces. In the relationship between the United States and Britain, the latter part of the 1950s was a period of turbulence. On the one hand, the relationship reached its nadir over the subject of the Middle East when the US took active steps to undermine the joint Anglo-French military operation against Egypt. On the other hand, there was a flowering of defence cooperation between the two sides. This reflected a common appreciation of the threats that assailed the Western position in the world as well as a shared assessment that only their two states possessed the power and influence to affect the situation. The result of growing cooperation by the two governments was most visibly demonstrated by their sharing of nuclear weapons information. In order to pursue this study, material has been gathered from a number of different sources. For the British side this has included three main types of archival records. The first of these has been the records from the British Cabinet. The second has been the military planning documents of the Chiefs of Staff (COS) Committee and their subordinate organisation, the Joint Planning Staff (JPS). The third has been the records from the Foreign Office, in particular the Departments relating to South East Asia and to the Levant. On the American side, there has been a similar subdivision among the sources. One source of material has been the records, both official and private, of senior figures in the Eisenhower Administration. These have included the files and diaries of the President himself, the two Secretaries

13 Introduction xm of State in the period and the reports of meetings of the National Security Council (NSC). The second has been the military files of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the files of the Chairmen of that Committee and the personal files of the Supreme Commanders in Europe. Finally, material has been drawn from the various records of the Department of State. Secondary sources, such as books and articles, have been consulted where available. It is not the purpose of this book to explore in depth the complex disagreements within the bureaucracies of the British and American governments. Clearly, within the various state structures there were a variety of views and opinions regarding the optimum approaches to military planning. For example, there were often competing views between the Army, Air Force and Navy within the British COS and the American JCS during this period. However, to trace out all of these arguments would lie beyond the scope of this book. This study will touch upon some of these arguments where they are pertinent to alliance military planning, but it will not seek to review all of these issues in detail. The approach adopted by this book is to attempt to describe the outputs of policy by the United States and Britain towards the three alliances and towards each other. In doing so it is appreciated that to treat the state as a unitary actor has long been open to challenge. A number of competing interests help to determine a state's actions and policy outcomes can best be understood as the result of a pulling and hauling process between intrastate groups. 3 The justification for not exploring these pressures is that the policy outcomes would be overshadowed by.the attempt to understand how the process occurs. Wolfers drew attention to the problem of the decision making approach when he stated that it could: pose a serious problem for the theorist whose task is not to establish the uniqueness of events but rather to gain a generalized knowledge of behaviour in international politics Therefore, while acknowledging that the unitary actor approach is a simplification, for the purposes of this study it will enable the focus to remain on the policy outputs of the United States and Britain towards the three alliances. The aim of the book will be to explore to what extent these outputs were influenced by alliance considerations. The first chapter in this book will begin by looking at the international position of the United States and Britain in the period and the nature of the threats that they perceived to their own interests. It will review the three alliances that existed in the theatres of Western Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia and the processes by which they

14 XIV Introduction became established. The latter part of the chapter will seek to do two things. Firstly, to elucidate the possible motivations of the US and UK in joining the alliances. Secondly, it will investigate the ways in which it is possible to measure the policies of the two states in implementing their alliance obligations. The second chapter investigates the way in which the two countries understood the nature of modern warfare and the implications of different types of conflict for their national security. Only by understanding how decision makers on both sides of the Atlantic conceived of conflict, can their policies towards the alliances be comprehended. The US and Britain saw conflict as occurring potentially on a number of different levels. Their alliances would have different roles to play according to the level and intensity of the conflict. They conceived of a descending order of conflict determined by the destructiveness and the scope of the military hostilities: at the summit was war that involved the unrestrained use of nuclear weapons while at the bottom was minor conflict perpetrated by sub-national groups across state borders. The following three chapters look at the military planning of the US and UK in relation to their alliances in Europe, the Middle East and South East Asia. The aim in these chapters is to analyse the way in which both powers developed policies towards the alliances according to the various levels of conflict. Each chapter will attempt to determine the relative priority that the US and the UK attached to each of the alliances and the threats that they perceived to exist to each of the theatres. Chapter 6 switches the focus of the study to the bilateral relationship between the US and the UK. Having sought to determine the relative importance of each of the alliances, the book will compare this to the steps that the two countries were prepared to take in developing cooperation with each other. This chapter will pay particular attention to their unique nuclear collaboration, as well as to their patterns of collaboration in the Middle East and South East Asia that took place outside the ambit of the alliances. The concluding chapter attempts to draw the various threads of the study together. It will seek to answer the questions that are raised in Chapter 1 concerning the motivations of the United States and Britain in acceding to the three alliances and the extent to which they were willing to go to operationalise the organisations.