Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Why?
Take Australian deployments for example. Since Vietnam, not once have we sent over a balanced force consisting of all the unit types needed in a conflict zone (except perhaps East Timor, but in that case the aircraft were still based in Australia just outside Darwin).
We usually send over a couple of ships, or a medical team, or a battalion or two of infantry plus APCs and a small artillery unit, or some other mix of troops and equipment. All the additional needs are met by other countries - US supplying fighter cover for example, while our units fill in deficiencies in their OOB.
As long as other countries have a reasonable number of the necessary supporting units, and are willing to operate as a combined command, there's no reason I can see for the British reducing committment to the European theatre and redirecting to the arguably less warlike middle east.
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Politics and oil might be a good reason. If the US is providing close to 90% of NATO's ground forces in the Middle East in T2K to guarantee oil supplies to the West, and has essembled an air force in Britain that is as large as the entire RAF, its reasonable to assume that they would like Britain to contribute more to the cause in the Middle East. Excluding a few light infantry/para battalions, it would be a lot easier to send air units to the Middle East than heavy mechanised ground forces.
Also France is building up its forces in the Middle East from 1997, and Britain would want its share of influence over oil supplies as welll. Before the war goes nuclear both Britain and France are on roughly the same military level from an international point of view. No longer powers on the level of the US and USSR, but still powerful nations with a great deal of global influence in their own right.
Remember Britain only pulled its forces out of Asia in 1971, excluding small garrisons in Hong Kong and Brunei, while its realy only since the 1960's that Britain had started to think of itself as a "smaller" power compared to the likes of the USA. Up until the Suez Crisis Britain's Anglo-Persian Oil Company which is the antecendant of British Petrolium, probably had more influence in the Middle Eastern oil industry than any other. If it wasn't for a number of Scitzo British defence white papers in the 1960's, Britain would probably have built a couple of 60,000+ ton aircraft carriers, the Blue Streak IRBM, the TSR-2 bomber, and probably had its own space programme. Old habits can die hard!