Denis Healey
Essay
Spring
1987
Urges NATO to re-assess its military strategy in line with changes in the military, economic and political climate. Charts the origins of flexible response, showing that it was concerned (1) with reconciling the USA to its nuclear dilemmas (2) with the conventional balance (3) with giving a sense of security to Western Europe. These factors, together with present progress in arms control, suggest a non-nuclear defensive deterrent strategy for NATO. A Labour Britain would change to this strategy, but not without full consultation with her allies, and allowing all US non-nuclear bases and facilities to remain in Britain, as well as US nuclear naval visits. If Britain improves its conventional defences together with its allies, it will strengthen the alliance and encourage the USA in its nuclear and conventional guarantee to Europe.
Essay
Winter
1979
For about a quarter of a century after the end of the Second World War, the market economies of the non-communist world enjoyed an unprecedented rate of growth, an exceptionally low level of unemployment, and comparatively low inflation. The average growth of the gross national product (GNP) in the advanced industrial nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) from 1951 to 1973 was 4.8 percent a year in real terms. It was not until 1975 that output actually fell in the noncommunist world as a whole--and then by only one percent--whereas before the war there were periods when it fell very dramatically by from five to seven percent. Since 1975, growth has been averaging less than it did from 1951 to 1973--about 3.8 as against 4.8 percent--but there are ominous signs that it may settle down over the next decade to an average significantly lower than the current rate. Moreover, all the evidence is that, in the foreseeable future, the average growth of output in the free world is not going to recover to the level we experienced during those golden years from 1951 to 1973.
