“They are warming up for another one [world war]”. Heartbroken British D-Day veteran remembering his dead mates, June 6, 2026
Critical Defence Theory
June 12th. Today’s resignation of
John Healey MP, Britain’s Secretary of State for Defence comes as no surprise. I
skewered him and his argument at the recent London Defence Conference shortly
after he had spoken. It was clear to me
then that Healey was a decent man and was being asked (excuse the pun) to
defend the indefensible. What is also clear is that Sir Keir Starmer and his
government do not just dislike spending on defence, it is ideologically opposed
to it.
To govern is to choose and my contention
herein is that there is a continuum between critical race theory and what I
call critical defence theory which will be implicit in the long-delayed British
Defence Investment Plan. This is why I do not need to wait for it to know
what it will say. Or, to put it another way, the collapse of British streets
into something like anarchy is a choice. If a government chooses not to secure
their citizens by dealing with crime it is a short step for such a government
not to defend them either. For some weeks I have focused on the disaster
that is British defence policy. In part it is because it is my own
country, but it is also because what is being inflicted upon the British armed
forces and the British people by its government is a warning to all
Europeans. This is a self-inflicted defence crisis. Proof? NATO now ranks the vital readiness of the
British armed forces 31 out of 32 allies. Only Iceland ranks lower than Britain
and it has no armed forces!
It is my contention herein that CRT is now
embedded in defence policy and that the Defence Investment Plan will be clear
evidence of Critical Defence Theory in action. Let me explain. CDT is a
product of critical race theory or CRT. CRT focuses on race in the belief
that racism is structural and normal in societies that are historically
majority white with perpetual racial inequality the consequence. In the
last twenty years or so CRT has embedded itself in British government institutions
though the politicization of the civil service. It is also now endemic in
education. CRT’s central tenet is that merit and competition are merely
mechanisms to confirm white privilege. Its adherents believe the only way
‘white privilege’ can be reversed is ‘affirmative action’ to re-balance what is
claimed to be the disproportionate share of power and wealth enjoyed by white
people, whatever their individual circumstances. The aim of this activist
theory (or rather manifesto) is to engineer ‘equal outcomes’ rather than
promote equality with all and any critique dismissed as “hate speech” and the
sanction being cancelled. Go ahead. Make my day!
DEI and defence
In majority white societies, such as
Britain, a range of methods are used to promote change through diversity,
equity (not equality), and inclusion.
One of which is to replace the hero narrative (Nelson, Wellington,
Churchill et al) of British history with an alternative guilt narrative
(slavery, imperial genocide et al) with associated accusations of ‘toxic
masculinity’.
In 2018, the left-leaning More in Common
circulated a questionnaire entitled “Hidden Tribes” which found that 90% of the
staff in public bodies described themselves as “progressive activists”, even if
they only represented 10% of the population. In the past weeks and months
evidence that two-tier policing exists in Britain has become overwhelming.
Police forces across Britain apply different standards of law to different
ethnic communities as part of the Establishment obsession with diversity,
equity and inclusion. This policy has led to the widespread and growing feeling
amongst huge swathes of the British population that the government no longer
believes its duty is to act in their interests, as evidenced by the collapse in
trust in government and the police.
The abandonment of political realism
My contention is that the underfunding of
defence is no longer simply a consequence of misrule and debt, but rather
ideology. I am a political Realist and Oxford historian. For years I have been
trying to get British governments to adopt a properly threat-based defence
policy commensurate with Britain’s still considerable regional strategic geopolitical
weight. I have written op-eds, articles and even books but all to no
avail. Why? Because I have been naive. In the immediate aftermath of the
2008 US-created banking crisis such strategic defence illiteracy could at least
be justified. When Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and US banks (possibly with
the collusion of the US government) inflicted their toxic loans on the rest of
us, the cost of simply saving the banking system was ruinous public
expenditure. After all, there is no cozier relationship than that between
senior bankers, senior bureaucrats and senior politicians. Back then,
defence was emasculated to keep the banks afloat.
The result was the brutal 10% cut to the
British defence budget in 2010, even though British forces were deep in a major
campaign in Afghanistan and had a host of other responsibilities.
The already taut relationship between ends, ways and means began to
fray. By putting the entire cost of the
nuclear deterrent in the defence budget London effectively weakened and cut
both Britain’s nuclear and conventional forces. Now the relationship has
snapped.
Some will say Britain’s defence pretence is
simply a function of debt. After all, British debt now stands close to $3
trillion with the annual cost of servicing that debt significantly higher than
the annual defence budget.
The little DIPper
The short term is once again triumphing
over the longer-term, the cost of defence over the value of peace, the
fashionable over the fundamental, and a dangerous ideology over sound defence
policy and strategy.
Britain’s service chiefs are becoming
desperate. Last week, the Chief of the British Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal
Sir Richard Knighton, pleaded with the government to increase not only
investment in Britain’s defence but also the speed with which investment will
take place. “This is the most dangerous
period that I have known. The risks and threats to this country are greater
than I have known since the Cold War,” Knighton said.
It is easy to see why he is desperate given
the ‘say-do gap’. To realise the vision
in the government’s own 2025 Strategic Defence Review the armed forces would
need at least a further £28 billion invested. Starmer would like to offer
£18 billion. The Treasury has watered that down to a paltry increase of
0.08% GDP by 2030. It is now clear the ‘DIP’ will simply be yet another plan
to plunder defence to fund welfare by a government that does not believe in
either Britain or defending it. It is politics dressed up as strategy by
a government that is little more than a student’s union for which the future of
Britain’s defence is mortgaged simply to maintain the appearance of defence
‘investment’ now.
Forget the media spin Whitehall is
preparing. There will a lot of talk of drones
and hybrid forces and that the DIP places Britain’s armed forces on a war
footing and that it represents the greatest single investment in the armed
forces since the end of the Cold War. It does not and it is not.
Critical Defence Theory can thus be
summarised: Weakness is virtue. Britain and its people are guilty of a host of
historic crimes and thus must live with the consequences by having increased risk
and threat imposed upon them. This is because Western privilege can only
be countered by accepting that those who threaten Britain have also been
wronged by the British. By choosing to be weak Britain is signalling to
adversaries that the British no longer pose a threat to anybody or anyone,
however predatory or dangerous they may be.
Wilful weakness is a threat in and of
itself. As the threats become relatively greater Britain’s armed forces are
becoming relatively weaker and tipping NATO into crisis. Such weakness is not
only wilful, it is exceedingly dangerous because it destabilises further an
already unstable Europe. It not only
imposes costs on allies and partners, it encourages likes of Putin and Xi. As that brave D-Day veteran said, we seem to
be warming up for another war.
Julian Lindley-French
