Brief Regarding Great Britain and the Military Assistance Program

COPY BRIEF "NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS and SERVICE" His Ma jesty's Government have every intention of carrying out the obligations of self help and mutual aid which they accepted under the North Atlantic Pact. Indeed, they are already doing so. 2. So far as self help is concerned, the total military expenditure of the United Kingdom in the current financial year amounts to L 760 million. This is equivalent to 7.7% of the national income in the year 1948. of the principal members of the North Atlantic Treaty only one other country is spending a higher percentage of its national income. Admittedly not all this expenditure is connected with the defence of Western Europe. A large part of the residue, however, has been incurred in the defence of other areas whose security is of interest to the United States as well as to the United Kingdom. 3. So far as mutual aid is concerned, the United Kingdom is in fact the only one amongst the European countries which has in recent years provided, and is now providing, military assistance to the Atlantic Treaty and other friendly countries. This assistance to other coun- tries has already, since the war, totalled some 1400 million. Of this total more than half was in the form of gifts, loans and sales at greatly reduced prices, and thus represents an entirely unrequited contribution to the defence of the West. Furthernore, as part of the special defence programme agreed on by the Brussels Powers last spring, His Majesty's Government are spending an additional 181 1/2 million over the two-year period beginning in the summer of 1949. According to the information available in Washington, the expenditure of well over half the total sum of 1 81 1/2 million has already been planned in detail. Of the expenditure already planned, by far the larger proportion, i.e. about 70%, is not for the United Kingdom itself, but for the other Western Union countries, and for building up a Western Union Tactical Air Force and a Western Union General Air Reserve at the disposal of the Western Union Command Organisation. Thus a great part of the aircraft and other armaments produced are to go to other Western European countries and will not remain in Britain.