British plans to reach Finland through Narvik need to be read alongside the commitments of the units assigned to them. The units identified in this discussion were already elsewhere or scheduled for other operations. Carrying out the plan would therefore require additional partners and the cancellation of other important tasks. The interpretation offered here is that senior officers could satisfy a political demand for a plan while making its resource costs sufficiently unattractive to discourage approval.
Notable Point · 25:40-26:40
Reading the resource commitments behind Britain's Narvik plans
The units allocated to a proposed operation can reveal whether planners regarded it as practical or were exposing costs that politicians would be reluctant to accept.