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XI. OPTION C - THE CRITICAL LEVEL
86.
The security of the United Kingdom rests on the continuing credibility of NATO strategy. This is made up of a land/air strategy to deter aggression in Western Europe: and a sea/air strategy to retain the use of the sea for NATO and to prevent the sea link with the S from being severed. Common to both strategies is a need for air power to strike the enemy, support land and sea forces and provide air defence.
87. Our vital interests in a proper balance between each of these interdependent aspects of NATO strategy call for a significant UK contribution to each, as at present, together with adequate protection of the K base and the sea and air space around it. If our contri-
bution to either aspect of the strategy were to fall below a certain level we would be weakening NATO's overall military capability and should thus risk forfeiting our Allies' confidence and support, and
undermining the cohesion of the Alliance. It is therefore of the
highest importance, when considering reductions in our forces of the order of those postulated by Ministers, to try to determine what is the minimum level of military forces which the United Kingdom could contribute to NATO and at the same time preserve the confidence of the Allies in the continuing credibility of NATO strategy. The question of how much would be saved is secondary to this consideration.
It is this level of forces which we call the Critical level. It
has been determined entirely on military and strategic criteria, and without reference to any specific assumed level of savings. 88.
Nowhere in the Alliance do the Allies deploy more than the minimum of forces they need to counter the Soviet threat; indeed
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