uk75: I'll bite by flouncing with TINA (There Is {was} No Alternative) to the Sandys Storm.
Suez, 11/56. Last Hurrah! for UK/France as any-form-of mentor, role-model for civilisation (that had been UK/France's self-belief for ...well, ever). While RAF was failing to hit bases very recently in Middle East Air Force, USSR crushed Hungary, Ike crushed us, odd folk in the desert cut off our fuel, so it was rationed so absurdly soon after we had recovered from WW2. This, not Mac's speech in 1960, was the origin of winds of change affecting Brits' view of their place in the world. Which was as partner to US and other good eggs.
The Sandys Storm merely tidied and implemented inherited decisions consequent on 6/54 lapse of Mutual Defense Assistance: i.e: $ So: all- Regular Armed Forces; no weekend club jollies in RAuxAF; reducing our cost in defending our pupils, now graduated and capable of looking after themselves - about time too. Much, much more significant was Sandys' work culminating in 4/8/58 US/UK Mutual Defence Agreement by which he achieved what Churchill had failed to extract from Ike, 7/1/53: Access to US AW Art and Articles (J.Simpson, The Independent Nuclear State,Macmillan,1983,Pp.88,283n.1).
The MDA continues in effect today. He should of course immediately have chopped Blue Streak, because he had secured coverage of its share of "our" share of US' targets, nearly-free in Thor (the reason he kept it going was, quite oddly, US was contributing cash+kit - such as tooling for DH' new Stevenage site. The MRBM was why {noted by Hood, #39}, Sandys, autumn 1959, would not let DH die).
The MDA meant UK need no longer try to be Independent, thus succeeding in not well doing...very much at all, Land, Sea, Air, here, there and everywhere. We could begin, what has proven to be, a tortuous, expensive journey to Task-, Role-sharing with Allies. This journey was launched by Mac, not Sandys. He won 1959 Election on: "most of our people have never had it so good", which was precisely so, and stamping out squander was core to this: as Chancellor he had told PM Eden, 3/56 "“defence (spend) has broken our backs. We also know that we get no defence from (it. We need) wholesale cancellation of defence orders (If) we do all this, we may escape our greatest danger (not) war, but financial collapse”A.Horne,Mac/Vol.1,Macmillan,1988,P390. Mac+Min.Def.Monckton, 20/3/56 to PM: Defence spend is “little more than a façade” Proceedings/RAFHS,4,9/88,P11 - and that was pre-fiasco Suez!
So: my A to OP's Q is not to promote resurrections, but to suggest we should have chopped more solo-oddities sooner, Task-shared sooner, Land Sea and Air. Why did RN retain a Caribbean Station? What was RAF's Task in permanent, family-accompanied Akrotiri which could not cheaper have been by rolling detachments? What were Kai Tak Hunters for to 1/67? Solo-centric led to Basset and Belfast, Nimrod AEW3 and MRA4 - which at chop was down to maybe 9 a/c. How long did we meander before buying MOTS for short-orders like C-17, P-8, E-7? Why did Defence Planners and Politicians not learn from....Hawker Siddeley Group (!?) who made no claim to Final Assembly in 1967 founding negotiations for (to be Airbus Industrie), but who grasped the role of Centre of Excellence, Wings.
en.wikipedia.org
