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it is the considered view of the Major NATO Commanders that in every
area Alliance effort is barely adequate or inadequate to provide
confidence about the Allies' ability to meet the threat.
Domestic
political trends among the Allies, in contrast to that in the
Soviet Union, tend towards producing less defence rather than more.
If we were to reduce our committed forces beyond the Critical level,
we should be placing in jeopardy the credibility of NATO Strategy as
a whole. Confidence in that strategy would be undermined, and the
cohesion of Alliance endangered.
89. In assessing the minimum capabilities we need in order to meet
current NATO commitments and to maintain the viability of Alliance
strategy, precision is impossible because no-one can say exactly
for every category of forces at what stage the removal of a British
capability at the margin will irrevocably undermine NATO's strategy.
The assessment of the composition of forces at the Critical level
therefore calls for a delicate exercise of professional judgement
about each of the force components against the basic criterion in
paragraph 87 above. In total, however, we are necessarily concerned
with a critical level of defence capability, within which the
emphasis between different capabilities and forces may need to be
varied after consultation with our Allies. The assessment is not
casy because there is no analytical basis for comparing, for example,
anti-submarine warfare forces, the holding of a specific mileage of
the NATO front line on land, or air interdiction capabilities.
90. All the above arguments are set out much more fully in Annex B.
Reductions in Non-NATO Commitments
91. As the most appropriate means of making major savings with the
least damage to UK and NATO security and within the reductions to
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