Though the new strategy looks like a five-year plan, defence stances are subject to redefinition each year.
At a packed meeting of Labour MPs on the evening of November 7th, he made a passionate defence of his stance on the proposed power and his conviction that a lack of discipline and a retreat from the centre ground would wreck Labour as a party of government.
The Dutch have indeed taken a clear stance in defence of their beloved Pete.
Even a relatively obscure foreign policy issue - Zimbabwe and the treatment of white farmers - was related back to its impact on Labour's stance on defence.
The GMB will have to get the support of its own members – which include engineers, lollipop ladies and defence workers – for its stance on the EU, in a vote to be held shortly.
He has a good voice, a firm manner (he is comfortable with himself in a way that Mr Gore never was) and, as his stance on defence shows, he is not a shrink-wrapped liberal.
He managed the 1977 election campaign for the right-wing Likud's Menachem Begin, and became the first Likud defence minister.Yet his strategic stance was as pragmatic as his politics; and it was softening.
As a result of his pro-Spanish stance and defence of relaxations in the penal laws against Catholics, Calvert became estranged from many in the Commons, who were suspicious of his close familiarity with the Spanish ambassador's court.
However, the government crackdown had provoked a more overtly political stance in defence of the traveller and free-party lifestyles, and several fundraising all-nighters were held under the "All Systems Go" moniker, with over £30,000 being raised to fight the CJA.
Some Scandinavian upstarts frame their anti-immigrant stance as a defence of the welfare state.
