Central organizations of defence in Great Britain

Edmonds, Martin (2019) Central organizations of defence in Great Britain. In: Central Organizations of Defense. Taylor and Francis, pp. 85-107. ISBN 9780429705625 (ISBN); 0865316848 (ISBN); 9780367014858 (ISBN)

Abstract

The 1946 Central Organisation for Defence clearly laid down the basic principles underlying British post-war defence management, principles that have continually been challenged and debated, and constantly modified since then. One aspect of defence reorganization that received less attention at the time was the supply side, but it was one that was increasingly to become a focus of concern. The details of the restructured central organization for defence were contained in a White Paper dated July 1963. The War Cabinet contained two defence committees, one for operations and one for supply, with a common secretariat, and through Winston Churchill’s dual role a unified defence policy was achieved. The development of the central organization for defence in Great Britain since the end of World War II was characterized in 1971 by Professor Michael Howard, arguably the country’s foremost exponent of the subject, as a reflection of the dialectic between two contrasting conceptions, or models.