English

DTIC ADA526244: Military Intervention: A Case Study of Britain's Use of Force in the 1956 Suez Crisis

Great Britain's management of the 1956 Suez crisis has been universally condemned and has raised fundamental questions concerning application of force in the nuclear age. Suez has also been described as a successful Soviet effort to expand Communist power or orchestrating sub-threshold conflict techniques together with accelerating nationalist revolutions in developing areas. It is the purpose of this thesis first to examine Britain's legal, politico-military, and moral justification for the employment of force with the view toward crystallizing the implications of military intervention in the nuclear age and, second, to assess Soviet Russia's role in the crisis in an effort to establish a relationship between this role and the utilization of military force. Analysis of the military factors influencing the Suez crisis indicates that US and British preoccupation with the theory of massive retaliation resulted in a distortion of vital strategic planning factors such as the requirement for forward base areas and the protection of vital geographic communications links. Concomitantly, the supporting structure required to conduct efficient conventional operations was no longer maintained

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