British Defence Policy in the 1970s

The 1970s opened with the election of a Conservative government which shortly increased military spending over the level it inherited from the 1964–70 Labour government and developed ambitious spending plans for the second half of the decade. The evolution of policy from the 1950s is marked by withdrawal from Empire, narrowing the global scope of British military power, and by the increasing priority of the commitment to NATO. Defence policy in the 1970s has followed the pattern set in the 1950s and 1960s: the chops and changes which punctuate British defence policy are themselves a constant theme of the policy over the past three decades. Management of British defence policy is a constant compromise between the availability of resources forever inadequate to provide desired capabilities, and the super-availability of military industrial resources able to produce what the budget cannot afford.