BRITISH ‘WAR CABINETS’ IN LIMITED WARS: KOREA, SUEZ AND THE FALKLANDS
| Published date | 01 June 1984 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1984.tb00555.x |
| Date | 01 June 1984 |
BRITISH 'WAR CABINETS' IN LIMITED WARS:
KOREA, SUEZ AND THE FALKLANDS
COLIN
SEYMOUR-URE
In crises leading to a limited war, the Cabinet assigns responsibility for its detailed
management to a 'War Cabinet'. For Korea the standing Defence Committee was used;
the Cabinet's role was effectively limited to parliamentary and public relations. Smaller,
ad hoc committees were used in the Suez and Falklands crises. At times of greatest pressure
the Cabinet
in
each case had the formal opportunity to take major decisions; but
in
practice,
especially during Suez, this amounted to an opportunity for a veto which was unlikely
to be used. Two dangers facing a War Cabinet are those of tunnel vision and
of
the undue
influence of military
or
technical considerations. The
full
Cabinet, best suited in principle
to relate the problems
of
the war to the Government's other problems and goals, risks
finding itself flanked by a War Cabinet
too
close to the war and by a Parliament which
is
too far away and
too
excitable.
How much has the British Cabinet system
run
wars? Not total wars, but limited
wars such as the British involvement in Korea in
1950-3,
the
Suez
War
of
1956
and the Falklands War of
19821
What
sort
of
Cabinet committees were used?
Who
was in them, and how did they relate
to
the Cabinet as a whole? What seem to
have been the problems and dangers?
The subject
is
illuminating because it shows the Cabinet system under stress.
In war, a Cabinet designed to manage political conflict finds itself instead directing
armed force. On the one hand military action must
be
pursued with maximum
efficiency, defined by military criteria. On the other, the uncertainties
of
war are
likely to need the most sensitive political response in terms of the Cabinet's relations
with party, Parliament and public. Cabinet business always involves a mixture
of
political and specialist (or administrative) considerations. (The word 'specialist'
will
be
used throughout as a synonym for military
or
civil administrative factors
and persons). Some matters are no doubt decided only by reference to their intrinsic
merits, others on purely political grounds. But many must involve both; and recon-
ciling them is a purpose to which the Cabinet is specifically suited. In a war,
however, the
two
considerations arguably tug in opposite directions.
To
intrude
political criteria into military decisions risks reducing efficiency at the cost,
Colin Seymour-Ure is Professor
of
Government at
the
University
of
Kent at Canterbury. The research
for
this paper was partly funded by the Nuffield Foundation.
Public Administration Vol.
62
Summer
1984
(181-200)
0
1984
Royal
Institute of Public Administration
182
COLIN
SEYMOUR-URE
conceivably, of disaster.
Yet
the resort to arms is by definition a crisis of politics,
and to neglect the political response for the sake of military considerations may
be just as perilous. There is a further element too
-
the personal stress of war.
The Cabinet
is
only as good as its members. Eden cracked under the strains
of
Suez, and his Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, came close to cracking at times.
(Lloyd’s junior minister, Anthony Nutting, claims Lloyd told him he was
’so
confused and exhausted’ after his secret trip to SPvres
in
October that he had ’no
advice to offer any more‘ [Nutting 1967, 102, Cf. Lloyd 1978, 197
&
1991).
Mrs
Thatcher,
Mr
Pym
and
Mr
Nott at various times all showed publicly the signs
of strain during the Falklands crisis.
SETTING
UP
WAR
CABINETS
It
is taken as axiomatic that large deliberative bodies cannot run wars, nor anythmg
else that needs quick decisions and firm control.
A
British Cabinet is justified in
containing 22 members (the number in 1983) only on political grounds connected
with specific features of Westminster parliamentary government, such as two-party
competition and a
House
of
over 600 members. For the predominantly executive
purpose of managing a crisis leading to war, a much smaller group is better
(Hankey 1945, 79). Each of the three wars considered in this paper was, in effect,
controlled politically by a Cabinet committee. During the Falklands this became
known commonly as ‘the War Cabinet’; in Suez it was ’the Egypt committee’,
though in the press it was referred to as ’the inner Cabinet‘ and latterly ’the Suez
Group of Ministers’, though it was not much mentioned anyway; in Korea,
it
was
known as the Cabinet’s standing Defence Committee.
The relation of these committees to the Cabinet
is
charted in summary form
in Figure
1.
On paper the arrangements look very similar, but in fact there were
significant differences. These reflect the varying predicaments of the three Prime
Ministers. Each had to delegate the running of the war, but to what extent and
to whom? Their answers were governed by the need to keep strong the links in
the chain of political authority
-
from War Cabinet to Cabinet, party, Parliament
and public.
To
keep the Cabinet happy was essential; the party, important;
Parliament as a whole, useful but not essential; and the public? Well, the day of
reckoning at the next general election would be some way
off.
The closest to an ‘administrative’ committee, with key decisions taken by war
specialists, was the Defence Committee in the Korean War. This had been given
a statutory existence with executive powers in 1946 (Johnson 1960,
306-11).
It
was
based on Churchill’s successful war machine
of
1941-5, in which details of the war
were settled under the War Cabinet by a Defence Committee chaired by the Prime
Minister himself. When North Korean troops attacked across the 38th Parallel at
dawn on June 25th, 1950, therefore, Attlee already had machinery in place to
organize the British response. The Defence Committee, under his chairmanship,
comprised the relevant specialist Ministers: Foreign Secretary
(Bevin),
Minister
of
Defence (Shinwell), the three Service Ministers, and the Ministers
of
Supply and
of Labour. The only members not directly concerned with defence were Herbert
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