There
are three questions Britain must consider concerning international institutions
given their centrality to British strategy. What does Britain want institutions
to do? What will be the future strategic
and future operating environment (FOE) in which institutions will
function? What must Britain bring to the
institutions to ensure their effectiveness and London’s influence over
them? The three questions underpin two
strategic truisms; Britain’s influence over international institutions will be
directly proportionate to the political and intellectual capital Britain
invests in them, and Britain’s political capital will only be realised if
supported by hard power.
If
Britain stays in the EU, its first aim must be to keep security and defence
firmly under national control, even if limited defence integration takes place
between smaller EU member-states.
However, to achieve such a goal when non-Eurozone Britain is so marginal
to EU politics will demand of the British a military force that is
unequivocally Europe’s leader and thus most powerful. Moreover, only by confirming Britain’s
position as Europe’s strongest military power will London confirm NATO as the
central institution for the security and defence of Europe, preserve American
commitment to Europe and ensure British influence in and over Europe is
commensurate with the national interest.
It
is hard to over-state the damage Britain’s 2010 defence cuts did to the
international institutions Britain holds dear.
Indeed, British strategy will only leverage influence through
international institutions if institutions are not seen as mechanisms to
compensate for cuts, particularly defence cuts.
Indeed, to generate such influence at this critical juncture, London
must invest institutions with real power.
The need is pressing, as the three most important institutions for
Britain – EU, NATO and the UN are all in deep trouble in one way or
another.
There
are three axes of influence that British strategy must pursue. First, Britain must remind European partners
that there are others with whom Britain can act. Second, the British must remind allies and
partners that membership of either the EU or NATO is a contract in which
British support for the security of allies and partners must be matched in
return by the real support of allies and partners for Britain’s security needs
and responsibilities. Third, Britain
must actively seek to influence new partners by using its institutions as
frameworks for strategic relationships that possess a clear commitment to the
just and effective application of both coercive and non-coercive security
policy when needs be.
Central
to British strategy must be the maintenance of Britain’s status as a Permanent
Member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Indeed, even though the UN itself is
dysfunctional, it remains the world’s supreme international political
authority. The UNSC is not an executive
committee but rather a security council upon which only the world’s most
capable military powers hold permanent seats.
For the foreseeable future Britain will remain one of the world’s top
five military powers and Britain’s armed forces must be consciously and purposively
maintained as such. Permanent membership
of the UNSC also places Britain at the heart of influence networks such as the
G8, G20 and G all-the-rest and is thus critical to British influence.
NATO
is in deep crisis and in need of radical overhaul. The Alliance is still configured for a past
world which has been masked by over a decade of operations in Afghanistan that
will soon come to an end. The agenda of
the September 2014 NATO Summit, due to take place in Britain, will consider the
Alliance beyond Afghanistan and little less than a NATO 3.0 will suffice to
re-establish a link between the strategic political and military mechanism that
is the purpose of the Alliance and the future operating environment. However, before any such radical overhaul of
the Alliance can take place, Britain must finally abandon the idea that NATO
means one for all and all for one.
Different member nations need different things from NATO and in future will
offer different things.
Three
topics will dominate the summit – the need for military capabilities, the need
for connected forces that can think, talk and act together and co-operative
security with partners, most notably the EU, but also with partners the world
over. The one thing that will not be
discussed at the summit will be the radical re-structuring of the European
military effort to provide credible hard power influence at affordable cost,
towards which Britain should be leading Europeans. For Britain this is critical as NATO provides
invaluable structures and military standards and will remain the most likely
enabler and force generator of credible military coalitions.
Julian Lindley-French
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