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- <text id=90TT2117>
- <title>
- Aug. 13, 1990: World Notes:Britain
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Aug. 13, 1990 Iraq On The March
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 31
- World Notes
- BRITAIN
- Making Peace Pay at Home
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Even before British Defense Secretary Tom King unveiled his
- five-year plan for reductions in the country's armed forces in
- Parliament two weeks ago, lawmakers were debating how to spend
- the resulting "peace dividend." King's program, a response to
- the decreased threat from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union,
- calls for reducing regular forces 18% over five years.
- </p>
- <p> The cuts, according to some estimates, will trim $1.1
- billion from Britain's $38.6 billion defense budget. There is
- no dearth of ideas on how best to spend the windfall:
- suggestions range from funding Britain's flagging social
- services to protecting the environment. But, warns David
- Greenwood, director of the Center for Defense Studies at the
- University of Aberdeen, "it's not a political gold mine for the
- Health Minister or the Transport Minister to put his hand in
- now." Inflation and modernization programs could gobble up most
- of the money before a single pound gets spent.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-