As from January 2010 The Israeli Journal of Aquaculture -Bamidgeh (IJA) will be published exclusively as an on-line Open Access (OA) quarterly accessible by all AquacultureHub (http://www.aquaculturehub.org) members and registered individuals and institutions. Please visit our website (http://siamb.org.il) for free registration form, further information and instructions.This transformation from a subscription printed version to an on-line OA journal, aims at supporting the concept that scientific peer-reviewed publications should be made available to all, including those with limited resources. The OA IJA does not enforce author or subscription fees and will endeavor to obtain alternative sources of income to support this policy for as long as possible.

No abstract

Chapter 5 follows the course of the Wilson Government's Defence Expenditure Studies. This policy review process was much more acrimonious than before, the sharpening conflict between Britain's economic and international political interests manifesting itself in arguments between the Treasury and the defence and overseas departments. This wrangling meant that the review had reached no useful conclusion when, in February 1967, the Parliamentary Labour Party revolted against what they perceived to be the conservatism of the Government's defence policy. The revolt appeared to energise all the Party and Cabinet critics to speak out. It provoked Defence Secretary, Denis Healey, to leapfrog the second defence review with a new plan for a staged withdrawal from Malaysia and Singapore, with the intention of forestalling any further revolt. His plan was passed by Cabinet, with difficulty, in April 1967.

Chapter 6 examines the period following April 1967, during which the fundamental issue shifted from whether or not Britain should withdraw from Malaysia and Singapore—which had now been decided—to how Britain should withdraw. On the one side, Britain's international allies, Malaysia and Singapore as well as the ANZUS powers, and the defence and foreign policy departments hoped that the public extent of the change in policy would be minimised and the symbolic remnants of Britain's role maximised. On the other side, Labour Party and Cabinet critics of the previous defence policy hoped for as full and public a reversal as possible. These debates produced the strained outcome evidenced in the Wilson Government's 1967 Supplementary Statement on Defence Policy: an announcement of a staged withdrawal from Malaysia and Singapore, coupled to a declaration that Britain intended to retain a capability for use in the region to meet its remaining commitments, all wrapped up in the rhetoric of a continuing world role.

In 1964, Britain's defence presence in Malaysia and Singapore was the largest and most expensive component of the country's world‐wide role. Yet within three and a half years, the Wilson Government had announced that Britain would be withdrawing from its major Southeast Asian bases and abandoning any special military role ‘East of Suez’. The purpose of this book is to document and explain the British policy process leading to the decisions to withdraw. The book argues that the Wilson Government faced two fundamental dilemmas regarding its defence policy. The first was a conflict between Britain's limited economic means, which compelled cuts to the country's defence role, and its need to maintain its relations with its major allies, especially the Johnson Administration in the United States, all of whom wanted Britain to maintain a significant military presence in Southeast Asia. This conflict was fundamentally resolved after the Labour Party revolted over defence policy in early 1967, when the Government decided to withdraw from the bases in Singapore and Malaysia. Thereafter, the Wilson Government faced a second dilemma over whether to minimise the political and symbolic impact of its decisions for the sake of its international allies, or to maximise it for domestic political advantage. This conflict was not fully settled until January 1968, when the Government announced a faster withdrawal and complete abandonment of Britain's ‘East of Suez’ role, as a means of gaining acceptance for the social cuts it was implementing in the aftermath of the devaluation of the Pound.