A T a moment when the British, deeply in debt, are attempting to cut their overseas defence expenditure to bare essentials, their bases in the Middle East are being scrutinised afresh. Are bases in Cylprus and Libya, Aden and Bahrain serving up-to-date British interests, or are they being maintained out of force of habit, and because one of the first rules of diplomacy is to hold on to assets unless their surrender brings compensating advantages? And how far are they still assets? These questions can pertinently be asked, not only by the British taxpayer but by his American counterpart, for the United States now maintains several bases in ithe same zone-military bases in Turkey and Libya, the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and a communications centre in Eritrea. What is more, it is about to embark, jointly with Britain, on installing apparatus for communications and refuelling on some sparsely inhabited British atolls in the Indian Ocean. This last move suggests that one of the prime concerns of both Powers is to maintain an eastabout link with their defence forces in South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, because the westabout route via the Arctic and Pacific is, for Britain, inefficient and dear. Maintaining the military transit route across the Middle East, and containing Russian expansion in the process, has been a prime British concern for well over a century. It became an American concern also once the United States, in her anxiety strategically to encircle the Warsaw Pact, entered into bilateral defence agreements with Turkey, Persia and Pakistan. At the height of the cold war, British and American bases and alliances formed an unbroken chain of friends and clients all the way from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. These alliances were of unequal worth. A few were solid bargains, struck for a shared purpose and founded on popular support; the NATO agreement with Turkey was in this category. Others were bargained for by the departing tutelary Power at the moment of granting independence, and were later to become, in local eyes, humiliating reminders of immaturity. A third brand was the bargain struck with an independent ruler, part of whose motive was to use the resultant armaments to bolster his own regime;