TNAG-0539-FCO40-634-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 116

CONNFIDENTIAL

(c)

(a)

(e)

to earmark some additional aircraft to SACLANT/CINCHAN

for reconnaissance;

as part of national deployments to participate in

periodic NATO maritime exercises and in the NATO Naval

On-Call Force in the Mediterranean;

to continue reinforcement options for the Special

Air Service Regiment in the Southern Region of Allied

Command Europe.

32. The Government is prepared on the same understanding to study

nationally and within the Alliance other measures aimed at

mitigating the effects of our reductions. Our ability to implement

measures which our Allies wish us to adopt will depend on their

willingness to give us assistance, e.g. with "host nation"

facilities for ships, men and aircraft. Decisions on these further

measures will be announced, where appropriate, as they are taken 7 *.

Non-NATO Commitments

for a map showing the

Some of these deployments

33. At the beginning of 1975 Britain still maintained forces in

various parts of the world (see Annex

deployment of UK forces in early 1975).

reflect inescapable obligations, notably to the security of our

dependent territories; other are legacies of a former era. They

absorbed a comparatively small proportion of the defence budget:

withdrawal from all of them, including the garrisons in the

Mediterranean, would save £150 million a year at most. But this

represented a signigicant sum in terms of the savings which would

otherwise have had to be found exclusively from our higher priority

NATO tasks. Consequently, we proposed to withdraw from our non-NATO

This section forms part of Annex D to OPD(75)3 therefore subject to Ministerial approval of that paper_7

I-16 CONFIDENTIAL

and is