The British Army of the Rhine, Middle East Land Forces, and Conventional Deterrence: 1948 to 1956

Abstract

This chapter examines how the army prepared to fight high intensity conventional operations against Soviet forces in Europe or the Middle East. It explores the development of its war‐fighting doctrine for conventional operations in the decade after 1945, and suggests that critics who have argued that its thinking had stultified are mistaken. It looks at the likely balance of forces that might have been pitted against each other in the two theatres, and examine the plans that the British evolved. Finally, it explores the army's readiness to fight in Europe, which would have been the decisive theatre, by analysing the conduct of the series of manoeuvres that it conducted between 1949 and 1952.