SEOR EYES A
AYES
with oned fu kis ! Mr your
necessary; and that our commitments outside the NATO alliance must
be reduced. It is not necessary to rehearse in detail the various
redu
measures upon which the Government decided. But we announced our
intention to reduce defence expenditure as a proportion of GNP
by about 1%, to 41%, over the next 10 years. In money terms
wakeup
this meant that substantial savings measured against planned
programmes, would-be made, rising from £300 million in 1975/76 to
about £500million a year by 1978/79, and to some £750 million a year
by 1983/84; and a total saving of £4700 million over the period.
6.
I must emphasise that in military terms these were painful steps
to take; and that our NATO allies, while sympathetic to our economic
is pack
difficulties, [felt and expressed considerable concern at the scale of
reduction we proposed and their effect on NATO's political and military
capabilities. I want to make this very clear; that even our first
line of defence of the UK, our military contribution to NATO could
not be exempted from cuts and that our economic situation was such as
to necessitate overall measures so far-ranging as to seriously disturb
our major Allies. You will therefore understand with how rigorous
an eye we had to view our military commitments outside the NATO
Alliance
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du
anilon chil
7. (We are therefore) proposing two steps. The first, is to limit
25%
*
our contribution to 25%. The second is to limit the size of the garrison
what yn and we are and foololo to ally pocommning to [no more than is absolutely necessary. We have therefore undertaken
}
careful and prolonged study of the minimum garrison that would be
opoma / adequate
ato.]
adequate. In 1974 the garrison comprised 5 infantry battalions, an
artillery regiment, an armoured reconnaissance squadron, engineers,
a frigate and patrol craft, and a helicopter aquadron. At September
74 prices it cost about £50m, 600,000,000 HK dollare. Careful study
*
+
4
}
}