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involve the abandonment or expensive reprovision of an important part of our intelligence effort. If it is decided that we must maintain come presence for intelligence and/or political reasons, further detailed study will have to be made of our requirements in terms of force levels, eto. On the assumption that if we stay at all we shall have to retain both SBAS, the savings would be a little less than half the present cost, ie we would have to spend £M20 a year.
35. Malta We retain forces and facilities in Malta out of regard for NATO opinion. The present Agroement with Mintoff continues until 1979. If we withdrew our nain forces before then he would certainly make an issue of the matter and might seek to take us to the Inter- national Court for breach of agreement, We would also have difficulty with our MATO allies, who cover the larger part of the subsidy paid to Malta in return for the facilities, Some force reduotions might nevertheless be made between 1977 and 1979 and the Agreement should not be renewed.
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36. Gibraltar Gibraltar is no longer of any great military importance to us, although it has some value for NATO. So long as it remains an issue between us and Spain, and so long as the Spanish regime is such that we cannot in good conscience put pressure on Gibraltar to come to an accommodation with them, there is little scope for savings. Our present commitments cost £M13 a year, half of which goes on subsidising the dockyard.
The cost of the small Falkland
37. Caribbean and South Atlantic
Islands detachment is minimal: if we were to make progress in our current exchanges with Argentina the need for the detachment could come to an end, If we are to retain forces in Belize the garrison of 600 men could not sensibly be reduced, and in the absence of a diplomatic settlement its removal would very probably lead to the invasion of Belize by Guatemala'and Mexico. The loss to our material
interests would not be significant, but the abandonment of a dependent territory to predatory neighbours would be a serious act of policy.
38 Support Aspects If any of these overseas commitments are retained there would be communication, routine trooping and freighting tasks, a degree of sea maintenance, and perhaps a larger United Kingdom support and training base than would be necessary for thə NATO Critical Level alone.
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