6
Far East
26
3
10
39
Total divisions
158
20
37
215
Soviet Air Force
3.
Soviet Navy
4.
Army
Baltic & Arctic
Black Sea
Far East
Total
Old Battleships
1
2
-
3
Monitors
1
-
-
1
Cruisers
7
7
3
17
Destroyers
72
20
46
138
Submarines (Ocean)
100 *
15
64
179*
Submarines (Coastal)
54
36
40
130
Midget Submarines and Coastal Craft
Large Numbers
Large Numbers
Large Numbers
Large Numbers
* This includes 25 obsolescent craft under long refits and ex-German submarines.
Atomic Weapons
5. A combined Anglo-U.S. atomic energy intelligence conference has just concluded that the most likely size of the Soviet atom bomb stockpile will be 50 in mid-1951. Production is continuing, and may be stepped up considerably in about two years’ time.
Soviet Armament Production
6. Our estimate of current Soviet production of the principal armaments is as follows:–
Monthly rate of production (units).
(a) Aircraft
Jet fighters
400
Piston-engined fighters
20
Medium bombers
60
Long-range bombers
30
Transports
100
Trainers and others
240
Total Aircraft
850
Monthly rate of production (Units)
(b) Tanks 325 – 350
(c) Self-propelled guns 100 – 125
Annual rate of production (Units)
(d) Submarines (other than midgets) 50
(e) Fast coastal craft 100
Soviet Industry
7. The general level of basic industrial activity in the Soviet Union has since the war surpassed that of the United Kingdom (e.g. her steel production now exceeds the United Kingdom’s by 70% and her electric power production by 55%) but is still greatly inferior to that of the U.S.A. That the Soviet Union has succeeded nevertheless in maintaining a rate of armament production greatly in excess of that of other countries, while proceeding simultaneously with the expansion of her industrial capacity, has been due to her readiness to sacrifice the standard of living of her people. For instance, only 9 per cent of her coal supplies and 13 per cent of her electric power supplies reach the domestic consumer compared with 25 per cent and 37 per cent in the United Kingdom. High as the current rates of Soviet armaments production are, and although they are increasing with the overall expansion of the economy, they could yet be raised to several times the present figures if the Soviet rulers decided to expand war production to the limits of the country’s capacity.
8. The amount spent on defence in the Soviet Union in 1949 was 13.4 per cent of the estimated national income as compared with 7.7 per cent in this country, even though the Soviet Union’s defence budget excludes a number of important defence items, among them research and development and strategic stockpiling.
PRESENT TRENDS
9. Ground Forces . Since September last the Soviet forces in Germany have been over peace establishment by 40,000 men. The demobilisation of the 1927 class which would bring the forces back to normal is now overdue. Since October there has been a large increase in the strength of all of the East European Satellites, both in men and equipment. These facts coupled with recent signs of a redeployment of Soviet Occupation forces and an intensification of civil defence preparations, all indicate increased military preparedness.
10. Air Forces . While not increasing appreciably in total numbers the air forces are steadily increasing in efficiency, both technically and in training. The recent decision to standardise on a single type of jet fighter and the development of a ring of modern airfields in the West also increases military preparedness.
TOP SECRET
11. Naval Forces . The efficiency of the Soviet Navy is rising steadily and considerable effort is being devoted to the production of a high speed prototype ocean-going submarine, suitable for mass production on a scale of 150 submarines a year. Cruisers and destroyers are being built to the limit of capacity and 4 cruisers and 16 destroyers will be added to the fleet this year.
12. Economic . While continuing to expand its basic industries, the Soviet Union is now paying increased attention to developing the engineering and other manufacturing industries, and in particular to the electronics industry, to increasing industrial efficiency and to training skilled labour. These measures will all contribute to strengthening her economic war potential. Stockpiling, though not yet on a large scale, is diminishing the Soviet bloc’s dependence on supplies of raw materials from non-Communist countries.
THE CASE FOR REARMAMENT
13. Except for the atomic bomb the Soviet Union has an immense superiority over the West in ground and air forces. It also has the largest submarine fleet in the world.
14. In the present state of the defences of the free world, there is a grave danger that, through aggression by proxy or subversion from within, the Soviet Union will gain control of the raw materials, especially tin and rubber, of South-East Asia: materials which not only earn dollars, but contribute to the independent defence effort of the United Kingdom. In the same way it might well secure the Middle East oil which is vital to the economy of the United Kingdom in peace and without which the West could not sustain a prolonged war. In a global war the Soviet Union could very probably carry out at one and the same time campaigns which would win it not only these prizes but also the industrial heart of Western Europe.
15. The only way in which the West can be sure of preventing these developments is to provide itself, before it loses the benefit of the deterrent of the atomic bomb, with armed forces adequate to deter or defeat local aggression and to deter the Soviet Union from deliberately starting a global war.
16. Unless such a force is at the disposal of the Western Powers the Soviet Union holds the strategic initiative, and the West will remain powerless to stop continued encroachment by the Soviet Union over the territories of the free world, or, in the event of war, the over-running of Continental Europe. The survival of the United Kingdom would then be in jeopardy. At best we should be faced with a long war of recovery and reconquest backed only by the resources of the Western Hemisphere. In such circumstances we should be forced to comply with the wishes of the United States.
17. It is therefore imperative to deprive the Soviet Union of the power to use this initiative. We cannot tell when or even whether the Soviet Government will use it. But we do know that only the existing preponderance of the Soviet Army vis-a-vis the Western Powers made it possible for the Soviet Government to carry out its programme of expansion in Europe since the end of the war without direct resort to force. Either Soviet Communism or Russian Imperialism may be the main spring. In either case it is most unlikely that the expansionist programme is complete. The pronouncements of all Soviet Communist leaders proclaim their implacable hostility to all non-Communist Governments. Even today it is clear that the existence of Soviet forces on their present scale without any comparable force to set against them contributes to defeatism in France and in parts of Western Germany, and paves the way for further expansion.<
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18. The main purpose of Western rearmament is therefore to take the political initiative from the Soviet Union and to show that no easy conquests await it or its Satellites, either in isolated acts of military aggression in the cold war, or in global war. There is no question of building a force designed for aggression. The Western defence effort must be sustained until it is made clear to the Soviet leaders that the strength of the West forbids any further advance and makes some sort of negotiation essential. In this we must negotiate from strength. We cannot estimate how soon this point will be reached. We must recognise that the Soviet leaders think and plan in terms of a very long struggle.
19. Meanwhile, however, we can expect the Soviet Government to make strenuous efforts to hamper Western rearmament. Their efforts are unlikely to be confined to abuse and denunciation of the West. As they see the West building up its strength they may well try to reinforce their own position by accelerating their expansionist programme. They are likely to look for further key economic and strategic points to seize. The success achieved in Korea will no doubt in any case tempt them to accelerate their programme; the massive intervention of China in Far Eastern affairs leaves the Soviet Government greater freedom to act earlier elsewhere.
20. Some further Soviet expansion may have to be accepted. Other moves must be opposed by the Western Powers if their position is not to be weakened beyond hope of repair. Unless we have the forces to oppose such moves whenever they occur, the Western world will continue to be beset by threats of military aggression in the cold war against a background of a grave threat of global war. These conditions must render abortive all Allied efforts in diplomacy and social and economic progress, and we may well have no alternative left (short of surrendering ourselves to Communism) but to make full atomic war on the Soviet Union itself. Atomic war is no longer likely to be one-sided. The prospect is so grim that we can no longer allow ourselves to rely on this means of defence alone. We must in fact provide ourselves with other arms as an insurance against being drawn irresistibly into another world war.
Recommendation
21. We recommend that the Chiefs of Staff approve this report and use it as an intelligence brief for discussions on increased defence expenditure.
(Signed)
D.P. REILLY.
E.W.L. LONGLEY-COOK.
A.C. SHORTT.
N.C. OGILVIE-FORBES.
K.W.D. STRONG.
B.K. BLOUNT.
Ministry of Defence, S.W.1.
19th January, 1951 .
* J.I.C. (48) 100 (Final)
J.I.C. (47) 42 (0)
Notes
1 . For more detail see Michael S. Goodman, Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007).
2 . JIC/2124/49, ‘Implications of Soviet Atomic Development’, TNA: CAB 176/24.
3 . ‘Nuclear Sufficiency’, note by Chief of the Air Staff, September 1958, TNA: AIR 8/1942.
4 . Slessor to Vice-Chief of the Air Staff, 20 December 1949, TNA: AIR 75/92.
5 . Ian Clark and Nicholas J. Wheeler. The British Origins of Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1955 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 137.
6 . JIC/2150/52, ‘Likelihood of War’, 22 September 1952, TNA: CAB 176/38.
7 . JIC(54) 104th Meeting, 18 November 1954, TNA: CAB 159/17.
8 . JIC(57)41(Final)(Revise), ‘Soviet Ground–Ground Guided Missiles Threat to the United Kingdom’, 10 May 1957, TNA: CAB 158/26.
9 . JIC(47)7/2 Final, ‘Soviet Interests, Intentions and Capabilities – General’, 6 August 1947, TNA: CAB 158/1.
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COUNTERINSURGENCY
S INCE THE SECOND World War the United Kingdom has been confronted by a continual stream of insurgencies. After 1945 colonial and Cold War concerns converged, since imperial real estate – and especially the bases that overseas territories provided – was seen as central to the process of containing the Soviet Union. Whilst the transfer of power in India in 1947 pointed the way unambiguously towards the future, Britain was in no hurry to leave and a constant stream of colonial crises pressed upon Whitehall’s security concerns. 1 Meanwhile, as Britain’s global power dwindled, a growing intellectual and cultural consensus emerged challenging traditional forms of imperialism. Nationalist unrest spanned the entire empire, from the Americas to Asia to Africa. In part, this explains why the hotter moments of the Cold War increasingly occurred in the Third World. 2
This unrest exploded into a number of violent insurgencies. Zionist insurrection in the mandate of Palestine interrupted the celebrations at the end of the Second World War. Britain was ultimately forced to hand responsibility to the United Nations, which created the new state of Israel in 1948. In that same year, communist guerrillas launched an insurgency from the jungles of Malaya. Although Britain granted Malaya independence in 1957, the fighting continued for three more years. During the 1950s, British security forces were despatched to quell two more nationalist uprisings: Kenya (1952–6) and Cyprus (1955–9). Both colonies achieved independence. However, there was no let-up for British forces in the following decade. Prime Minister Harold Macmillan might have noticed the ‘wind of change’ blowing against imperialism, but Britain refused to relinquish the strategic colony of Aden without a fight. From 1963, security forces countered a brewing insurgency in the mountainous hinterland of southern Arabia and a vicious urban terrorism campaign inside Aden itself. Britain lost and was forced to evacuate in 1967, leaving behind the leftist state of South Yemen. By the early 1970s, when trouble was brewing in Northern Ireland and Oman, Whitehall had experienced a quarter of a century of almost unbroken counterinsurgency. 3
The JIC was unprepared for insurgency and was therefore often taken by surprise. Since its origins, the committee had served the Chiefs of Staff. It therefore traditionally focused on narrow military issues relating to conventional security threats. Naturally, this revolved around watching the Soviet Union and the communist bloc. And yet the rampant spread of insurgency raised two major problems. Firstly, it tied down increasing numbers of British troops. Security forces engaged in colonial policing operations would have been unable to combat the Soviets had they marched across central Europe. Secondly, Whitehall increasingly saw the colonial territories as a front line in the Cold War. Not only were they hotbeds for communist subversion and intrigue during the uneasy peace, but the empire was perceived as an arc of vulnerability in a potential Third World War.
Insurgencies could no longer escape the JIC’s attention. The Colonial Office reluctantly agreed to join the committee in October 1948. This was too late for the outbreak of violence in Malaya, and the JIC consistently misunderstood the insurgency as directly instigated by the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the JIC began to expand its role to consider intelligence more broadly, as opposed merely to defence intelligence, and gradually evolved to challenge the military’s narrow understanding of security and threats. Firstly, the committee slowly attempted to monitor and provide warning of colonial unrest. Secondly, it devoted more attention to assessing insurgencies and their implications for British strategic planning. Thirdly, it even sought (generally unsuccessfully) to oversee reforms to colonial intelligence structures. 4
As Michael Herman has argued, immediately prior to Suez the JIC was firmly focused on traditional strategic issues. In the first six months of 1955, the JIC’s weekly ‘Survey of Intelligence’ (later known as the Red Book) was focused on the Soviet Union and major Cold War confrontations such as the Taiwan Strait. There were some ninety items on the USSR and eastern Europe, fifty on China, fifty-seven on Indochina and eighty-two on the Middle East, focused mostly on Egypt. Few other subjects were mentioned. More than 75 per cent of the JIC’s full papers in this period were on the Soviet Union. 5
The government was aware of this lacuna in the British assessment system. In early 1955, a senior Cabinet committee asked General Gerald Templer to conduct a review into colonial security. Then Vice-Chief of the
Imperial General Staff, Templer had recently returned from two years in Malaya where he had served as combined high commissioner and director of operations – earning himself the epithet ‘Tiger of Malaya’. He valued intelligence highly and had wasted little time in revamping the Malayan Special Branch.
Templer sought the JIC’s advice and commissioned an assessment on colonial intelligence and security. The JIC issued its report on 23 March 1955. The timing and context are important: the assessment came in the wake of failures to predict (and swiftly respond to) the insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya, whilst violence in Cyprus erupted just one week later. Things clearly needed to change.
The JIC made a number of recommendations to Templer, which are clearly stated in the document reproduced below. Overall, however, the JIC pushed for greater coordination between the colonies and London. The committee sought clearer channels of communication to ensure that intelligence reached consumers in Whitehall as swiftly as possible. It also recommended that the Colonial Office be better integrated with the central intelligence machinery as a whole. As things stood, the weekly intelligence reviews did not cover colonial territories, whilst colonial officials were not properly integrated into the intelligence-drafting process. As a result, the JIC was unable to adequately consider insurgencies. The uprisings in Malaya and Kenya went unpredicted, whilst policymakers received inaccurate intelligence about the nature and causes of the violence.
The JIC’s assessment was highly influential in the policymaking sphere. Templer drew heavily on the committee’s conclusions in his report to the Cabinet. 6 His survey was a bombshell and made impact at the highest levels of government. Indeed the Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, was warned by his private secretary, Philip de Zulueta, that the report was ‘frightening’. Consequently, Eden requested that the Cabinet discuss the findings as urgently as possible. 7 Templer’s report was so candid and critical that the government only released the full text in 2011 – a full fifty-six years after it was written.
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