GREAT BRITAIN: Entering the Missile Age

With an almost audible sigh of relief, Great Britain last week laid down its role of policeman to the world, and in one bold step advanced into the nuclear age, where its troops will be fewer, its weapons deadlier, and its costs lower. In doing so, Britain almost gratefully abandoned its claim, which has sounded increasingly hollow even to British ears, to rank with the world's two major military powers.

The deed was done in a lucid, ten-page White Paper on Defense, written by 49-year-old Minister of Defense Duncan Sandys, who called it "the biggest change in military policy ever...