Labour Party Defence Policy Since 1945 - Hardcover

The book begins with an analysis of Labour's approach to foreign and defence policy in the immediate post-war years, and describes how the Attlee Government's perceptions of the Soviet Union played a leading part in the formation of NATO in 1949. Thereafter, it explores Labour's divided approach to defence policy from the 1950s until the mid 1970s. Although the issue of British nuclear weapons first emerged at this time, Labour's splits were not confined to this topic. There was disagreement about German rearmament, American troops in Britain and the absolute level of defence expenditures. It leads on to an exploration of how Labour adopted a unilateral non-nuclear defence policy and accepted the concept of common security and defensive deterrents in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In turn the book considers the potential implications of Labour's changed policy for British relations with the United States, Europe, the USSR and its allies, and the British Empire, lately the Commonwealth. The last part of the study focuses on Labour's return to multilateralism at the end of the 1980s and on the party's muted response to the transformation of Britain's strategic environment in the early 1990s. Although the central concern of the book is with Labour's defence policy, obviously it has to examine many of the basic questions about the United Kingdom's defence arrangements. As a result, it is a study of post-war British as well as Labour party defence policy.