GREAT BRITAIN: Turboprop Strategy

With the U.S. assuming major responsibility for defending the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middie East, the British were adapting their strategic posture to their reduced military requirements and their straitened economic circumstances. By next April the headquarters of Middle Eastern defense will be moved from Cyprus 1,700 miles south to Aden, near the mouth of the Red Sea. But, to escape Aden’s 120° heat, several thousand troops of a mobile “strategic reserve” will be quartered in cool Kenya.

In time of crisis, the troops will be airlifted 1,000 miles from Kenya to Aden, to pick up the heavy vehicles and weapons stored there for them (thereby saving the cost of a new base in Kenya). The new force is designed primarily to deal with trouble or brush-fire rebellions in such oil-rich domains as Bahrein and Kuwait or in the string of other British protectorates to whose defense Britain is committed by treaty. An attack on Britain’s Baghdad Pact allies—Turkey, Iran. Iraq and Pakistan—would require a far wider response than Aden could provide.

In case of trouble in the Far East, Kenya-based troops will be flown 4,500 miles to Singapore, where equipment will be stockpiled as at Aden. With landing rights in India ended and those in Ceylon scheduled to go in two years, a new refueling base is under construction at Gan in the Maldive Islands. As the R.A.F.’s Transport Command beefs up with new turboprop Bristol Britannias, Britain’s scattered garrisons will be stripped and more men concentrated in Kenya.

Last week the British moved on the diplomatic front to secure the two pivots of the new command. Into London, with a jeweled dagger in his belt, flew Seif el Islam Mohammed el Badr, 28-year-old Crown Prince of Yemen, the feudal Arab kingdom that borders on the Aden protectorate. With his aged father ailing, the bearded young prince now rules the country. Last year he negotiated in Moscow for shipments of Soviet arms, but recently has shown signs of nervousness over Soviet penetration. The British hoped to persuade him to help restore peace on the Aden-Yemen border.

In Kenya, the British abandoned their months-long attempt to bring Africans into a liberalized colonial government. The natives held out for increased representation, refused to compromise. In no mood to retreat further, Colonial Secretary Alan Lennox-Boyd declared coldly that British control of Kenya will continue “for a very long time.”