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On the RAF's fiftieth. birthd * . - - we ‘ _ . : ry . . Thos “ey * . . . 4 . ' ¥XPRESS LONDON MARCIE #1 1588 _ SXPRES ARCT v omiy @ TOMORROW the Royal Air Force is 50 years old. As it reaches this anniversary the air force that was once the mightiest in the . world finds its conventional strength reduced to the level ‘of MetT-o countries like Turkey and North Korea, Sweden and India. 4 7". @ At present the hitting power of the’ R-A.F.-is-concentrated in its: - ageing V-bomber force. - In every other department the run dowa?? =. - ' has been drastic. _ ON te @ But does this matter? For in the H-bomb era, do conventional forces count? Would not any war quickly become an H-bomb war? @ Today the Sunday Express publishes an article with an important bearing on these questions. It puts forward a revolu- tionary view of strategy in the years immediately ahead and Namara took his departure from the Johnson Administra- tion earlier this year —— States exposes the blunders of official mili risks of conventional war... WHEN Robert Mc- | ‘he left.a .time bomb | “by THE RT. HON. ENOCH P r os . ry tary planners in writing-off the 4 OWELL, we Shadow Defence Minister behind in the Penta- slung between two alterna- " The Royal Navy fought— f° gon. tives : elther a wat pwaich and lost;—ihe ” battle of the ; ‘ endangered their safety and carriers n -6 withou It is Piped setting off a existence would not break © any reference to an Atlantic series of explosions which, out at all, or, if it did, it war or an “all-out war at tha: before they are finished, would 0 nuclear in a matter . sea.” the will have reduced the of a few days at most. We. Controversy, true. there def official military thinking ave now been cut down has been about a “ broken- 20 f Ww and pitched on to the hard backed war” at sea, after ate: of the est for the las floor of a very different the nuclear salvoes had 4t¢- 20 years to rubble, reality. ; been exchanged: but a war R The bomb was his valedic- The Pentagon has left no at sea before the nuclear bee tory Report to Congress. doubt that it means just exchange or without any of The fuse was a single sen- what it says when it talks nuclear exchange has not bell tence therein: “The threat ‘about the threat of an even been discussed. And bel of an incredible action is not incredible action not being now the Americans have bel. an effective deterrent.” == = an_ effective deterrent. made it the tentre-plece of fou “ _ The Defence Secretary's their naval thinking, anc ALTERNATIVES |: message to Congress firmly _- wit : .: @nvisages that the U.S. NATO CREED Mc. Just that. But after all, might have to fight “an - car that was everything; for. ail-out war at sea"— The change-over on iand T the “incredible action” {8 MecNamara's own words— has been every bit as Co which would last many dramatic. For almost the equ. Mee Sh le see commtauiaadle wages Aetpts. read ombele wf Mata’ “ip. Na