SECRET UK EYES A
alliance. However, for the foreseeable future full US participation will remain vital to any Western defence organization designed to counter a Soviet threat, and while the WEU has potential to develop usefully as a means of coordinating European military actions 00A, it will remain secondary to NATO.
16. The Commonwealth. The Commonwealth will remain a unique association of disparate states and races and has potential both as a moderating influence in the Third World, and as an
entrée for the UK not enjoyed by any other EC nation, the USA or Japan. There will therefore probably be a continuing need for military activity in support of British government policies promoting stability.
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17. The UN. The UN is likely to remain as the world's major international forum. Its primary function is to maintain international peace and security, but its provisions for this are based on an assumption of unanimity among the permanent members of the Security Council China, France, the Soviet Union, the UK and the US. There has therefore been a gulf between theory and practice, and any expansion of the UN's military rôle beyond peacekeeping will depend on the developing relationships between those powers, especially on the attitudes of the China and the Soviet Union and their
acceptance of negotiated settlements to regional conflicts. However, if the East/West rapprochement holds, the Council may become inclined to play a more assertive role. There may well be growing pressure on the UK to yield its permanent place, and it will behove it to be seen to play an appropriately active part in security affairs.
18. SE Asia. The countries of chief security and economic concern to the UK (Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia) seem likely to enjoy increasing affluence, and the risk of serious external threats developing against any of them seems low. However, those countries which profess communism face major tasks of economic re-construction and may
suffer from internal turbulence. In these circumstances the
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UK EYES A SECRET
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