Warning Time and Forward Defence

Steven K. Holloway was Assistant Professor of Political Science, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia.

The author, a West German Air Force major, wrote this book while he was a visiting Defence Fellow at the Queen’s University Centre for International Relations. His well-organised and -argued study is based on two premises: that a real danger of surprise attack in Central Europe exists and that Forward Defence (defence that meets the attack head-on at the border) is still the best NATO response. The second chapter supports the first premise by describing the Soviet military buildup in Central Europe and by chronicling the development of Soviet military doctrine to support the principles of blitzkrieg. The third chapter traces the history of NATO strategic thought on Central Europe. He describes the present deployment of NATO forces and operations of the Air Defence System using very legible charts and maps. In this section he also considers some alternatives to Forward Defence but finds none satisfactory. The rest of the study focuses on the conduct of Forward Defence under conditions of limited warning time. It leads him to a series of recommendations, including an integration of NATO intelligence operations, pre-planning of reaction to specific Warsaw Pact activity, the strengthening of NATO’s conventional forces, and an increased capacity for “deep strike” attacks on the Warsaw Pact’s reserve forces.

The work is short, concise, and very readable for the non-military-strategist. The only question is whether a West German major could have argued for anything but Forward Defence.