I entirely agree, but we must remember that in that case we had the advantage that the Americans had moved first. When moving up a reserve force to a situation which in a measure has stabilised itself, then the priority of preparedness may prevail over getting there first. But I do not wish to modify my congratulations to my right hon. Friend on a very notable achievement by the British Army in Korea.

Of course, there were defects and mistakes in the Kuwait operation. They were enumerated at considerable length by my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley. The water carrying, owing to a lack of maintenance, was inadequate. Some of the buses were not suitable for the conditions. My hon. Friend told us that a soldier became ill through drinking too much beer. These are accidents which will happen, and the only thing that I say to the Minister is this: do not make these same mistakes next time. I am certain that in each operation as we come to it we shall make a whole lot of new mistakes. What we can rightly demand is that we shall not add to the new mistakes old ones which ought to have been corrected.

Having said that, I feel, not being unduly optimistic, that if we get away with operations with as little going wrong as went wrong in the Kuwait operation, I shall be reasonably satisfied.

I now turn to what I regard as infinitely the more important question. I rather hope that in the Minister's reply, the Kuwait affair, whilst we hope to hear whether corrections have been made, will not occupy as disproportionate a part of the reply as it has done of the debate, because infinitely the more important question is the one touched upon by my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell)—that is, the grave peril of the British Army of the Rhine. It is in a perilous position.

For what purpose is that Army there? Is it there simply as a token that we are committed? Is it, in effect, performing the job of strikers who lie down in front of a bus and dare it to run over them? Are, indeed, the N.A.T.O. Forces in Germany merely there to commit the participating nations to a sufficient share in a mutual disaster to give each confidence in the other's seriousness? Or are they there to defend Germany, and, if so, how?

Consider what that Army is facing. In East Germany alone, there are twenty-two armoured or mechanised divisions. There are 6,000 tanks and they are backed for quick follow-up by nine airborne divisions—and they have the initiative. One remembers the lesson that Stalin learned in Russia. There, the Germans had about half the tanks which the Russians have in East Germany—3,200. They had nineteen armoured divisions only and even those had their tanks at half complement. Substantially, the rest of their army was horse-drawn.

Stalin was warned. As a deterrent, he moved up divisions to the frontier, but it was an unguarded frontier. In fact, he moved up a 50 per cent, superiority to the Germans in both armour and in divisions. With those troops being undeployed on an undefended frontier within reach of the enemy, when the Germans moved they penetrated 200 miles in a matter of three or four days, and within a fortnight 100 divisions were destroyed or surrendered. Eighty per cent. of them had never been able to fight at all. That was the position then. Undeployed forces within reach of an enemy and without any barrier between them are in deadly peril.

What of B.A.O.R.? Is its function to defend the North German plain? Is it at present situated in barracks merely because it was placed in those barracks when it was an occupying army? Are its deployment areas on the Weser? How long will it take it to get there? Do some of the units with a front-line function have to go 100 miles to get to their position? Does that involve going through roads that cross? Even in peacetime as an exercise, could they get to their defensive positions in 48 hours? And what would be the situation if those roads were blocked with refugees? And again, as to saying, "Well, when the time comes we can get more ready," was anything done, for instance, even to recall from leave during the Cuban crisis?

Is it not in the Russian capacity on any Friday night they choose to move to reach the Rhine before we could even reach our defensive positions on the Weser—long before? On any Friday night would not the Russian invading forces be mixed with ours before morning so that we could not possibly use nuclears? And having come to the Rhine is there anything to stop them swinging down to Switzerland? In fact, so far as the defence of Germany is concerned, is it seriously thought that if they were attacked by the Russians using only conventional weapons we could really hold them off even for a week? How long is this situation going to go an being acceptable? We are committed to a forward policy. The main contributor to the N.A.T.O. forces is Germany, and Germany is not going to be there if it is not the function of that army to defend Germany.

The answer is that we have got to face the situation that the forces in Germany will have to go up. We originally committed ourselves to four divisions. I do not believe that even if we go up to performing that, our Treaty obligation, it is going to prove enough. Most certainly they will have to be redeployed, and redeployment is a highly expensive operation. If they are not simply going to be a sacrificial force, they must be moved to a situation in which they are at least in range of the places where they would have to fight. Finally, I believe that we shall be getting a demand from N.A.T.O. for the construction of some form of defensive barrier along the frontier or at least along the northern part where there are no natural obstacles.

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has read the first article in the N.A.T.O. Journal of September by Colonel Mische, but this seems to be an indication, un ballon d'essai, in this direction, and it is going to be expensive in money, it is going to be expensive in guns, and it is going to be expensive in troops, and that is the sort of situation with which, I feel, we are going to be faced.