Ukraine: Why America MUST Lead

 The Alphen Group
Geopolitics, Strategy and Innovation

Mr Mitch McConnell, US Senate

Mr Chuck Schumer, US Senate

Mr Hakeem Jeffries, US House of Representatives

Mr Steve Scalise, US House of Representatives

December 18^th, 2023

Sirs,

Open letter to the Leaders of the United States Congress

The undersigned members of The Alphen Group (TAG) urge the United States Congress to approve expeditiously the Administration’s request for continuation of assistance to Ukraine, a sovereign nation that was attacked without provocation by Russia and now is valiantly defending its territory, democracy, and the rule of law.

Ukraine’s fight is not only in defense of its own sovereignty and territory, but also on behalf of the West, its values and way of life, which Russia seeks to replace with an international system more welcoming for dictatorships. Russian President Vladimir Putin has no apparent intention to reverse Russia’s aggression or to seek a negotiated settlement on any terms other than complete victory. The United States and its allies must help Ukraine prevent Russia from winning a victory that would both be disastrous for the people and country of Ukraine and threatening the future security of the United States and its allies.

We do not take this position lightly but rather following debate among ourselves around the costs and benefits of a variety of US and NATO policy approaches. This war is at a tipping point at which decisions made by the United States and its NATO allies and partners will determine whether the outcome is favorable to their interests or disastrous for Ukraine and the West. The West must convince Putin that time is not on his side. American aid combined with continued European assistance will do that. Failure of the United States to lead would create conditions for a Russian victory.

Strong action supporting Ukraine at this point would fundamentally strengthen NATO cohesion. The European NATO allies have made important contributions to Ukraine’s defenses and aspirations to become a member of the European Union (EU) and NATO. The EU’s recent decision to open membership negotiations with Ukraine was a major step forward toward Ukraine’s goal of joining Europe and the West. We are urging European and Canadian leaders and parliamentarians to continue their support. In many cases, European allies have been the first to provide certain categories of weapons, such as tanks and longer-range missiles. They have paid large costs implementing sanctions against Russia and shifting away from dependence on Russian energy.

Ukraine is still resolute, but it lacks the means to achieve decisive battlefield results.  Accordingly, the United States needs to accelerate the delivery of fighter aircraft and long-range artillery that Ukraine must have to succeed and end the conflict.  If implemented beginning in early 2024, Ukraine can be equipped with the capabilities it needs to succeed by year’s end.

Not continuing U.S. support for Ukraine would be a huge failure of bipartisan foreign and defense policy and would weaken America’s leadership internationally as well as in Europe. Importantly, reaffirmed U.S. and European support would send a strong message to China, Iran and other authoritarian regimes that aggression against their neighbors cannot succeed.

A Ukrainian success in 2024 would have far-reaching effects, not only in Europe but globally. A defeated Russian military cannot pose a direct threat to its neighbors for years to come. Aggressive and authoritarian regimes like China, North Korea and Iran would be chastened, not encouraged. The stability of the international system and the rule of law would be strengthened.  Global food security and supply chain disruptions would be eased. Most importantly, the prospects for direct conflict with the Russian Federation would be greatly reduced with a Ukraine whole and free.

For these reasons, we urge Members of Congress of both parties to recognize the critical importance of maintaining and increasing support for Ukraine, on behalf of U.S. interests and those of the international system more broadly. Any other choice would represent a failure of U.S. leadership, opening the door to a much more dangerous world in the future.

Michal Baranowski, Poland, Director, German Marshall Fund of the United States

Rob Bertholee, The Netherlands, former Director-General Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service

John Bruni, Australia, Founder/CEO, Sage International, Australia

Paul Beaver, United Kingdom, former Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Defence Committee

Robert Bell, United States, former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense Investment, and Defense Advisor, US Mission to NATO

Hans Binnendijk, United States, former Special Assistant to the President for Defense Policy

Henrich Brauss, Germany, former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Planning

Jan Broeks, The Netherlands, former Director-General, NATO Military Staff

Kerry Buck, Canada, former Canadian Ambassador to NATO

Vincenzo Camporini, Italy, former Chief of Defense Italian Armed Forces

Ivo Daalder, United States, U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 2009-2013

Marta Dassù, Italy, Senior Advisor for European Affairs, Aspen Institute Italia

Gordon B. Davis, Jr. United States, Major General, U.S. Army (ret), former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General

Sławomir Dębski, Poland, Director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs

Camille Grand, (France), former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Defence Investment

Sir Christopher Harper, United Kingdom, former Director-General, NATO International Military Staff

Ben Hodges, United States, former Commander, United States Army Europe

James Holland, United Kingdom, Historian

R.D. Hooker, Jr., United States, former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe and Russia, National Security Council

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, The Netherlands, former NATO Secretary General

Peter Hudson, United Kingdom, former Commander, NATO Maritime Command

Giedrimas Jeglinskas, Lithuania, former NATO Assistant Secretary General for Executive Management

Karl-Heinz Kamp, Germany, former President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy

Sarah Kirchberger, Germany, Director, Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University

Thomas Kleine Brockhoff, Germany, Director, German Marshall Fund of the United States, Berlin

Imants Liegis, Latvia, former Minister of Defence and Ambassador

Julian Lindley French, United Kingdom, Chairman, The Alphen Group

Stephen Neil MacFarlane, Canada, former Lester B. Pearson Professor of International Relations, Oxford University

Antonio Missiroli, Italy, former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Emerging Security Challenges

Zaneta Ozolina, Latvia, Professor, Chair, Latvian Foreign Affairs Council

Giampaolo di Paola, Italy, former Chairman, NATO Military Committee and Minister of Defence of Italy

Jean-Paul Perruche, France, former Head of the EU Military Staff

Eric Povel, The Netherlands, former NATO Public Affairs Officer

Sten Rynning, Denmark, Professor of Business and Social Sciences, University of Southern Denmark

Diego Ruiz Palmer, United States, former NATO Special Advisor for Net Assessment

Paul Schulte, United Kingdom, former Director of Proliferation and Arms Control, UK Ministry of Defence

Hanna Shelest, Ukraine, Director of Security Studies and Global Outreach, Foreign Policy Council, Ukrainian Prism

Richard Shirreff, United Kingdom, former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander

Stanley R. Sloan, United States, former Senior Specialist, International Security Policy, Congressional Research Service

Carsten Sondergaard, Denmark, former Ambassador to NATO and to Russia

Stefano Stefanini, Italy, former Ambassador to NATO

Jim Townsend, United States, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy

Patrick Turner, United Kingdom, former NATO Assistant Secretary-General for Operations; Assistant Secretary-General for Policy and Planning

Sandy Vershbow, United States, former NATO Deputy Secretary General and former U.S. Ambassador to Russia

Peter Watkins, United Kingdom, former Director General, Security Policy, Strategy & International, UK Ministry of Defence

Anna Wieslander, Sweden, Chair of the Board, Institute for Security and Development Policy

Rob de Wijk, The Netherlands, Professor and Founder Hague Centre for Strategic Studies

All signatories participate in a personal capacity.

Is This Ukraine’s Munich Moment?

 

“The settlement of the Ukrainian problem, which has now been achieved is, in my view, only the prelude to a larger settlement in which all Europe may find peace. This morning I had another talk with the Russian President, Mr Putin, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. Some of you, perhaps, have already heard what it contains but I would just like to read it to you: " ... We regard the agreement signed last night and the Western-brokered Russo-Ukrainian Peace Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our peoples never to go to war with one another again”.

What Neville Chamberlain might say about a possible Russo-Ukrainian ‘peace’ agreement

November 28^th. Is this Ukraine’s Munich moment?  It certainly looks that way.  News that the Americans and Germans (ironically) are pressuring the Ukrainians to negotiate with the Russians looks to any historian of any worth like a prelude to a very European ‘peace’ deal in which the aggressor gets rewarded and the victim compensated.  The flurry of visits to Kyiv last week by US Secretary of State Tony Blinken and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austen, not to mention the German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius were for a reason.  Naturally, the visits were given political top cover by announcements of increased support for Ukraine’s hard pressed armed forces but that was not the real aim.  Word is that President Biden does not want the war hanging over him during the US presidential election campaign or the NATO 75 summit in Washington in July.  The mercantilist Germans simply feel very uncomfortable being at loggerheads with the Russians, which explains why so many of the European companies who have set up in Turkey and other places to get around EU sanctions on Russia are German.    For once, at least the appeasers are not British.

In 1938, as part of the settlement of the “Czechoslovak problem” Chamberlain negotiated away 20% of the then Czechoslovakia. Any such deal would doubtless require Ukraine to hand over 20% of its territory to the Russians who would get to keep much of the Donbas and Crimea it has taken illegally by force, as well as Mariupol, a major Ukrainian grain port on the Black Sea.  I do not want to say I told you so, but I told you so. Back in August I wrote, “…it will also become apparent that the Allies have already given 90% of what they are going to give Ukraine, whether it is delivered as promised or not.”  I also wrote that in May that the 28 Western-trained and equipped Ukrainian brigades lacked the military weight to break through the Russian defensive lines in the south and east of Ukraine.  This was partly because the Russian General Staff had learned some painful lessons, but also because the West took so long to deliver the relatively limited supplies of arms it had promised.  Artillery is the defining feature of this very Russian war and it now transpires that the EU will fail to deliver the promised 1 million artillery shells by next March mainly due to an inability to upscale rapidly European arms production.  Meanwhile, Russia has received over 1 million artillery shells since early August from North Korea, and clearly with Chinese backing. In other words, Russia is winning the artillery war.

Why is this demarche happening now?  Keeping Ukraine alive IS a vital Western interest, restoring Ukraine’s 2014 borders, let alone its 1991 borders, is not.  There are several other factors, the most salient of which is the lack of a coherent Western strategy since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.  The West has got into a habit of giving Ukraine just enough weapons to prevent Russia from conquering the whole country, but never signed up to Ukraine’s war aim of recapturing all the territory the Russians had taken.  Frankly, the risk of a wider war with the Russians over the Donbas and Crimea has self-deterred the West, which several European countries see as Ukraine having only borrowed from Russia, whilst for many Americans Ukraine is a large country faraway about which they know little.  Hard but true.

How would the West justify such a retreat (and it would be)? First, should there be negotiations (there are already extensive contacts with the Russians) the Americans and the Germans would play up the ‘victory’ of a rump Ukraine.  Second, Berlin and Washington, and no doubt Brussels and Paris (not to mention in time London) would say that by simply surviving as an independent country the sacrifice of so many brave Ukrainians was worth it.  Third, they would hint how much cheaper it would be for the West, with Europeans to the fore, to rebuild Ukraine if they do not have to pay for the war-torn Donbas and occupied Crimea.  Fourth, they would have secured an end to the killing by sacrificing some Ukrainian territory in support of Ukrainian sovereignty.    

How would Moscow and Beijing see such a Russian victory for that is how Putin would present it?  They would doubtless point again to the lack of Western resolve and the wide gap between Western rhetoric about values at the beginning of the war and the West’s interests during it. They would also point again to the West’s lack of collective strategic patience evident in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria and may well be shaping the response to Gaza’s 7/10 attack on Israel and Tel Aviv’s response. They would cite further proof that the West, Western Europeans in particular, are profoundly risk averse to the point of appeasement and all Moscow and Beijing must do is to out-wait them.  They would also highlight the seemingly eternal lack of Western cohesion and any really meaningful relationship between the ends the West claims to believe in, and the ways, means and risks the West is willing to invest to realise them - action without strategy. Above all, Moscow and Beijing would suggest that if the Americans and Germans acquiesced in such a ‘peace’ it would be little different from that imposed on Afghanistan, although its consequence for NATO and Europeans would be far more immediate and more dangerous.

Putin would see his vision of a Novorossiya and the rebuilding of a Russian Empire vindicated and doubtless believe he had successfully completed phases one and two. Phase one was the seizing of Crimea. Phase two, the successful if costly occupation of Donbas and Mariupol.  Phase 3? After he had rebuilt Russian forces, say 2030, he would move to seize Odessa and cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea. He would also seize all of Ukraine east of the River Dnieper, including the bread-basket. Phase 4 would take a tad longer, the timing of which would depend on the extent to which the Americans were preoccupied with the Indo-Pacific and the extent to which Putin could lure the Germans back into strategic somnolence and energy dependency.  The target?  Well, that is fairly obvious. The Baltic States.

In other words, the Americans and Germans had better understand the longer-term geopolitical consequences of any fix they impose on Ukraine for short-term political relief. If they fail to learn the real lesson from the Russo-Ukraine War that Putin really is a militarist and an adventurer and if Europeans again fail to properly rearm then all Europe would have gained is a strategic pause. It is also hard to believe Kyiv could possibly accept such a deal unless what is left of Ukraine is offered NATO membership the moment any such agreement comes into force.  That begs a further question: would all NATO members sign up to Ukrainian membership? 

The Munich Agreement is a warning.  In March 1939, Hitler broke the agreement and occupied Prague and the rest of Czechoslovakia made defenceless by Munich.   The irony was that Neville Chamberlain did understand the consequences and I should know. I wrote my Oxford thesis on British rearmament in the 1930s.   Britain brought time to further repair its defences by selling Czech sovereignty.  Are ‘we’ about to do the same thing to Ukraine?

Julian Lindley-French       

   

    

 

What Jinping Really Said to Joe

 

November 16^th. Understandably focused on the grief, death and mire of Israel, Gaza, and Ukraine there has been little coverage in much of the media of yesterday’s ‘walk in the woods’ by US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (first given name Jinping). And yet, historians might look back on their stroll through the carefully coiffured gardens of a Californian estate as one of the most important moments in what President Xi rightly calls the “most important bilateral relationship in the world”.  So, how did the conversation go?

Joe:  Things have gotten pretty testy between us of late, Jinping.  We don’t want a war any more than you do but sometimes you make it very hard.  We need each other if we are going to survive politically, even you, Mr Dictator.

Jinping: Agreed, Joe, and thanks for the compliment. Why don’t you try dictatorship? Still, you also fail to understand that my position as President-for-Life is not as easy as you may think.  There are a host of factions defying me within the Chinese Communist Party and all of which are more not less nationalistic than I am.  If you want a war then let those morons replace me.  You see, as ever you Americans cannot be bothered to learn anybody else’s history but your own much-exaggerated greatness. The world looks very different from where I sit given what those imperialistic bastards the British did to us a few years ago back in the 1840s.  The Chinese people want payback and at the very least some contrition from you arrogant, ever weaker and not to mention very ugly Westerners.  A bit of kow-towing would not go amiss either.

Joe: Look, Jinping, we are not the British.  In fact, not even the British are any longer the British, just an irrelevant and utterly chaotic little island off Europe led by a bunch of inbred aristocratic buttheads. In other words, get over it!  The real problem is you Chinese and your enormous historical chip on your shoulders. Sure, we’ll show you respect, but we will never kowtow before you because we know the price we would pay. We also know you are facing your own self-inflicted economic time-bomb caused by your imploding property bubble.  Your aggressive regional policies and restrictive corporate policies have also seen many Western companies flee China just at the moment you need them.  So, knock yourself out.  

Jinping: You over-state our problems, Joe. Our economy is sound, tremendously resilient and has great potential. My problem is not economic at all but political.  In the wake of a little local difficulty in 1989…

Joe: You mean the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre…

Jinping: …our little local difficulty in 1989, Joe, we promised the Chinese people the Party would improve their living standards year on year so long as they NEVER contested our authority.  Sadly, COVID and some other minor difficulties mean that we can no longer offer that deal and the people are getting a little uppity.   

Joe: So, what do you plan to do about it? 

Jinping: Well, that’s what I here to tell you about so we can avoid any further unnecessary friction. First, do a deal with you to dial down your anti-Chinese rhetoric so that you Westerners calm down as we go back to what you call ‘globalisation’, but what we call ‘China-isation” and return to making us rich and powerful by buying what we make.   Second, do what we must do to steal from you what you want and then simply sell it back to you more cheaply.  Third, use the money to continue investing in the People’s Liberation Army to shore up the position of the Party domestically and project our, erm, peaceful influence internationally. Fourth, mire your in any case useless European allies in debt thus weakening the Western Alliance.  We will even give them some money so that can pretend to share the burdens of NATO. Fifth, and above all, reunite the breakaway province of Taiwan with the Chinese fatherland which you must understand is “unstoppable”.  None of what I have said is in the least anti-American.  In fact, if you let us do what we need to do in our sphere of influence, we will let you do what you need to do in your own. No names, no pack drill. What possible problem could you have with that?  You get rich, we get rich, and the rest simply don't matter.

Joe: Well, hold on there a moment, Jinping. We may have a few minor concerns. Is it really in the American interest to make you so strong that in time you force us out of East Asia?  The fool you support in Russia has already revealed to us your global dominance strategy by trashing international law by invading Ukraine with his two-bit military.  Even though most Americans don’t give a damn, just a few of us do!  We also know that your whole PLA gig is to make our already complicated lives in DC even more complicated by stretching US forces globally so that when you do decide to act against Taiwan you will ensure we are busy in places like Ukraine and the Middle East. The kind of investments you are making in the PLA, your so-called String of Pearls, not to mention your support for Pyongyang are very clearly designed force us out of the Indo-Pacific and subjugate our fellow democracies in the region. 

Then there is Taiwan.  Good luck with that. Your military men might have noticed that the shortest distance between mainland China and Taiwan is just about the same as the shortest distance between England and Normandy. When we and the Brits did D-Day we had already practiced such operations several times elsewhere, we were already the world’s leading maritime-amphibious powers, and we enjoyed complete air superiority. What you really want is for us Americans to turn a blind eye whilst you use whatever means necessary to subjugate the Taiwanese, as you did in Hong Kong, and as you are doing against the Uighur people.

By the way, it’s your wife’s birthday next Monday. My intelligence people tell me you have forgotten.

Jinping: Joe, its none of your bloody business. You accept that Taiwan is legally part of the People’s Republic of China.  In other words, you accept our sovereignty over Taiwan and all you are doing is quibbling over how we do it.  Do you really want to go to war over a small island faraway about which you know nothing? Your Allies?  They cannot even defeat my useful idiot in Moscow.  So, I think not.

The bottom-line is this, Joe: I have come all this way for a four hour meeting as a courtesy to tell you we ARE going to bring Taiwan back into the Chinese family. We would prefer you accepted that reality and we both got back to mutually enriching ourselves. If you do not, then we have a REAL problem and much sooner than you think because I must do this. You Americans really must wake up and smell your own appalling coffee… you really are not the power you used to be.  We, on the other hand…

In any case, there is always President Trump for us to deal with when we have arranged his re-election…

Julian Lindley-French   

Israel, Hamas, and the Iran Trap

 

“There is nothing so likely to succeed as what the enemy believes you cannot attempt”.

Nicolo Machiavelli, The Art of War

Friday, October 13^th. Do what your enemy least wants! That is the first dictum of war that has endured from Lao Tzu and Sun Tzu to Machiavelli and Clausewitz. My silence in the wake of the ‘710’ Hamas terrorist atrocity carried out by their Iranian-trained Nukhba commando-style force and which saw the murder of over 1000 Israeli was not in any way due to some moral equivalency on my part.  Hamas are as much a curse for the Palestinian people of Gaza as they are for Israel. First, I was directing a major conference on future war at which we discussed what had happened in Israel.  Second, I always take time to consider the geopolitical and strategic implications of such an atrocity, which are profound. Israel, Hamas, and the regime in Tehran are all engaged in a war of existence, even if it is often a proxy war of existence. That is why the US and Britain have moved to support Israel to stop any temptation the Iranians may have to attempt to widen this war.

Israel is also in the same place the Americans were in the immediate aftermath of 911 – trapped between anger and strategy.  My fear is that over the next 24 hours Israel will launch something like Operation Protective Edge.  In 2014, Israel invaded Gaza, one of the most densely packed urban environments on Earth, with a range of armoured vehicles including Merkava main battle tanks, armoured personnel carriers and D9 bulldozers.  The idea was to minimise casualties amongst the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) but not only were over 500 Israelis killed, civilian casualties were horrendous.

This time most of Israel’s armoured vehicles will be protected against anti-armour weapons with the advanced Trophy Active Protection System (APS) which can defend a vehicle autonomously from its crew against shoulder-launched anti-armour systems. Together with lighter versions of the system called indicatively “Iron Fist” Israeli commanders will be confident that they can limit Israeli casualties but the likelihood they will “cut off the head of the Hamas snake”, is small.  The likelihood they will destroy Nukhba and its commanders is also small, whilst the casualties amongst ordinary Palestinians, which is already climbing, will be appalling. 

What then is in Israel’s interests to do?  A massive Israeli attack which kills potentially thousands of Palestinians will thus play directly into Tehran’s hands and destroy any chance of a strategic working relationship with the Saudis.  It will also turn much of the world against Israel. As with the Americans post 911 the Israeli need for vengeance will be overwhelming.  When British cities were bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940 and 1941 few in Britain questioned the RAF striking back at German cities and civilians, but neither response made for great warfighting strategy.  First, the reason for the 710 attacks on Israel is different to previous attacks by both Hamas and Hezbollah.  Israel already has an effective working relationship with Egypt which has also closed its border with Gaza in the wake of the attacks.  Israel is also close to a regional-strategic rapprochement with the Saudis with profound implications for Israelis and the wider Middle East.  If such a relationship can be secured it will further isolate Iran and by extension Hamas and Hezbollah.

There is little question the Iranians are behind this attack.  At the conference I spoke with a senior practitioners who believe several elements of the attacks are becoming clear. First, the planning for the land, sea and air attack was so sophisticated it was clearly carried out in Tehran and bears all the hallmarks of the Quds Force.  Second, Israel’s normally effective Shin Bet and Mossad intelligence services completely missed the preparations for the attack.  Third, Iran provides Hamas with $100 million every year and Iranian engineers have been training Hamas in the construction of missiles.  Fourth, Quds keeps an increasingly tight control over proxies such as Hamas.  There is another reason, increased Israeli pressure on Hezbollah in the north of Lebanon. For Iran it is vital that Hezbollah is preserved as a force in being and the best way to achieve this is to force the Israelis to move the bulk of their effort southwards.

Apologists for the Nukhba attack are suggesting the highly trained commandos were not responsible for the attack on Israeli civilians but by others who swept over the security fence when they realised there was little Israeli military presence. This is nonsense.  Footage from the Supernova music festival clearly shows an aerial and ground assault by men wearing the same distinctive military uniforms.  

However, despite Israel’s understandable anger, the political damage done to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the Israeli tradition of an ‘iron fist’ response to all and any such attacks it is not in Israel’s interest to again kill large numbers of Palestinians or to deny them food, water, and medical treatment. That is precisely what Iran and Hamas want them to do.  Rather, Israel should rebuild the defences on its southern border with Gaza and go after the Hamas leadership over time and space in that time-honoured and highly effective Israeli way. 

The best way to defy Iran and Hamas is to build on Tel Aviv’s relationships with Riyadh and Cairo (and listen to Egyptian intelligence), and by so doing preserve the sympathy of those who support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself proportionately.  In other words, Israel will succeed in this struggle if it does what Hamas and Iran do not believe Tel Aviv will or can attempt: a proportionate and merciful response that respects the constraints of international humanitarian law.

Julian Lindley-French

Diego Garcia and Britain’s Virtue Imperialism

 

"Systemic competition: the intensification of competition between states and with non-state actors, manifested in: a growing contest over international rules and norms; the formation of competing geopolitical and economic blocs of influence and values that cut across our security, economy and the institutions that underpin our way of life; the deliberate targeting of the vulnerabilities within democratic systems by authoritarian states and malign actors; and the testing of the boundary between war and peace, as states use a growing range of instruments to undermine and coerce others”.

“Global Britain in a Competitive Age”, Her Majesty’s Government 2021

September 26^th, 2023. Britain’s virtue imperialism is a declaratory end unsupported by either means nor ways in the hope that the world will follow where London dares to tread precisely because in so doing Britain is prepared to sacrifice its own vital interests. Virtue imperialism is also strategically and geopolitically perverse because even if the British could achieve its stated goal, such as resolving climate change, Britain’s contribution would be next to zero. Or is that Net Zero.  Virtue imperialism is driven by historic guilt and is the last vestige of British imperialism.  Guilt is also the main driver of British foreign and security policy these days at the upper levels of Britain’s political and bureaucratic establishment.  Guilt in Whitehall about who the British are and who the British once were. 

Virtue imperialism is the only way to explain London’s decision to negotiate with Chinese-aligned Mauritius to hand over sovereignty of the strategically vital island Diego Garcia some 2152 kilometres distant. Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that any such transfer of the Chagos Archipelago, which contains Diego Garcia, as a “colossal mistake”. He is right.  Diego Garcia may be a tiny speck of an island in the Indian Ocean, but it also hosts the most strategically important US air and logistics base in the Indian Ocean.  The FCDO response has been to issue the usual bromide that no decision is imminent and in any case were Diego Garcia to be handed to the Mauritians the American base would not be threatened.  Really? There can be little doubt the Chinese are pushing Mauritius to claim Diego Garcia and that China would love to turn Diego Garcia into another of its ever-extending ‘string of pearls’ island fortresses. The depth of the Sino-Mauritius relationship is evident in the 47 official Chinese development finance projects on the island.  

The Integrated Review Refresh 2023 was sub-titled “Responding to a more contested and volatile world”.  The problem is that much of Whitehall, with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to the fore, simply does not want to respond, let alone contest anything.  For the FCDO and their ‘right-on’ fellow travellers if Britain should lead at all it should be through virtue.  Not only is no-one else listening, by placing values before interests Britain’s elite are both undermining core British security interests, and threatening to undermine those of key allies, most notably the United States.  By agreeing the very principle of a Mauritian claim over Diego Garcia they are also putting at risk other British Overseas Territories. For example, there are strikingly similar historical parallels between the claim by Mauritius for Diego Garcia (2152 km shortest distance) and the Argentine claim on the Falkland Islands (393 km shortest distance). Precedent matters in the sovereignty game!

After a ten-year (China-backed?) campaign by Mauritius London finally agreed last November to open negotiations.  It is hardly surprising given that the Sunak Government is fast becoming the leitmotif for value imperialism with short-term politics presented as long-term strategy.  Britain’s acquiescence to talks is at the least bizarre given that the claim by Mauritius is dubious at best. When in 1810 the British seized Diego Garcia from the French there were no permanent settlements on Mauritius and there had never been.  The country of Mauritius simply did not exist. Rather, the Chagos Archipelago was simply a part of the British colony of Mauritius for administrative convenience. If there is any legitimate grievance it is on the part of the descendants of those who were living on Diego Garcia at the time the joint UK/US air base was established between 1968 and 1973 and who were forcibly expelled.

Unfortunately, the fact that London is even talking to Mauritius about Diego Garcia fits a wider pattern of contemporary British foreign policy – virtue imperialism. The Oxford Concise Dictionary defines ‘imperialism’ as “acquiring colonies and dependencies, or extending a country’s influence through trade, diplomacy, etc”.  Thankfully, the age of Britain seeking to acquire territories is over, but not so China. The Integrated Review 2021 implied this when it described “Global Britain in a Competitive Age”. Again, not only does Whitehall reject ‘Global Britain’ it seems to be doing everything in its power NOT to compete in what is a self-evidently geopolitically competitive age.  It is as though those responsible do not think Britain has a right to preserve its legitimate critical interests necessary. 

This tendency has been all too evident in the Net Zero debate. Few would deny there is a climate change challenge we all need to address, even if it is clouded in climate hysteria in Britain.  However, Whitehall has taken the view that Britain must be at the forefront of efforts to cut carbon emissions even if the very process further impoverishes Britons.  The only reason that such a ‘strategy’ (it is in fact the antithesis of strategy) is entertained by Britain’s not-so-great and good is that it makes them feel better about themselves. The only reason they believe the rest of the world will listen (as opposed to laugh) is the arrogance of the virtue imperialist.

Britain’s retreat from realism as a retreat from reality and it is time Britain got over its past. Most of us do not feel any guilt about Britain’s past, far from it, and in any case that was then, and this is now.  We really do live in a strategically competitive age, and it is high time Britain once again competed rather than kow-towed because if the likes of Britain do not compete strategically freedom will in time be lost.  Thank the Republic of Mauritius for its interest in Diego Garcia and bid them a good day. 

It is time to toughen up, London! Diego Garcia must stay British!

Julian Lindley-French

War, Peace, and Power

 

“What is the cause of historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the sum total of wills transferred to one person. On what condition are the will of the masses transferred to one person? On condition that the person express the will of the whole people. That is, power is power. That is, power is a word the meaning of which we do not understand.”

Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Abstract: War is a very, very, very, bad thing. One can, of course, prevent war by capitulating but given the nature of a regime like Putin’s that is close to being as bad as war itself. The alternative is to force the ‘other’ to avoid war. That can only happen if deterrence is credible which in turn needs coercive power in all its form and a demonstrable willingness to convince the threat that such power will be used irrespective of the risk.  Deterrence is a ‘contract’ between friend and enemy that to work both sides must believe.  Right now, Putin, Xi and others simply do not believe most Europeans mean what they say.  However, strong NATO’s ‘family of plans’ at the end of the day there are two critical failings in Western deterrence: endemic short-termism allied to the hard truth that Putin wants to wipe Ukraine of the face of the European map far more than many Western leaders want to defend it by giving Kyiv NATO membership.

Hope over experience?

How do democracies deal with autocratic regimes for which war is an end in itself? It is perhaps no surprise that it was a Russian, Leon Trotsky, who said, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you”. The war in Ukraine is the most dangerous single event to have taken place in Europe since World War Two and yet I am increasingly bemused by the wishful thinking of Western leaders.  Despite all of history’s eloquence, misplaced hope seems once again to be triumphing over bitter experience.  A proper understanding of just how dangerous this war in Europe is would see a plan in place to end it on terms favourable to Ukraine and the West. There is no such plan. Just a vague hope the inadequately supported Ukrainian counter-offensive will prevail and then see…

Peace and war?  From my experience there are three kinds of politicians all of whom are by and large hard power illiterates.  The first group is made up of idealists who go into politics to realise the ‘Europe’ or whatever Utopian dream they have.  Members of this group love the sound of their own voices which generate far more heat than light.  They fail. The second group is political psychotics who are in politics for themselves but brilliant at pretending they are not. This group avoids any issue from which they cannot personally profit and tend to have far more ambition than either talent or principle. The third group is full of managers who lack both political vision and strategic ambition.  These are the ‘short termers’ who see politics as little more than an extension of this week’s bureaucratic struggle and country’s as little more than health services with a state attached.

All the above are abetted but rarely aided by high bureaucrats who prefer power without accountability and disparage the Great Unwashed because they are far more highly qualified than the average citizen even if they are far less qualified than me. Versed in cutting the shoddy day to day deals that is the stuff of contemporary European politics.  It is these people we charge with crafting consistent strategy and conducting statecraft across soft and hard power in pursuit of grand strategic ends they simply do not understand.  Their very nature makes it impossible to see the viewpoint of the ‘other’ or ask the most important questions. What matters to them is to appear to us that they know what they are doing.  In peacetime such a charade is not so important, at times of war and peace it is.   

Tipping points and bullet points

The problem is that the geopolitical implications of the Russo-Ukraine War are enormous, but most Western leaders, particularly in Europe, are geopolitical pygmies simply unable to understand the dangerous situation into which they have led the democracies. All the above is evident at this tipping point in the European epoch-defining Russo-Ukraine War, although one would be hard pressed to realise that from the contemporary political discourse in Western Europe. First, Western European leaders only see power in terms of self and the short-term. The Russo-Ukraine War is part of a wider systemic struggle that is not unlike the interbellum between World War One and Two. Whilst the war in Ukraine could lead to World War Three the way we democrats conceive of both needs to stand alone and interact.  One the one hand, a concerted response (yet to happen) to the war needs different approaches, solutions, and planning.  Equally, it is that very response will shape what happens after the Russo-Ukraine War and much of the geopolitics of the twenty-first century.

We also need to separate Russia and Putin, at least to some extent and at least for now.  This is because there is little worth discussing with Putin given that the very reason for his war on Ukraine is his warped worldview and his screwing up of Russia and its economy.  There are a whole host of back-channel contacts between the West and the Putin regime to end the war and they all founder on the same rock: Whilst one day the West will need to find an accommodation with Russia if for no other reason than it is there, any such accommodation must be subject to its management.  There can be no such accommodation with the current management because war is the very ethos of a militaristic Kremlin that NEEDS war and a narrative 'empire' to justify its failing domestic power.  Having failed to grasp the opportunity for modernisation in the 1990s Putin and his cronies can only now double down on a fantastical past.

If one concludes that the West is involved in two ‘wars’ at the same time even if its leaders are in denial about it that begs a series of further questions. First, what is the balance those of us backing Ukraine must strike between enabling Ukraine to achieve its legitimate war aims (which Ukrainians agree on but which the rest of us do not) AND defending ourselves against the developing pan-spectrum of information, digital, technology, and fighting war? Second, and even more importantly, what are the criteria for making such an assessment?  Third, how can we in the West plan to prevent such wars when the very reason many in the West are supporting Ukraine is so that we can continue to deny we are at war?  Ukrainians fighting the war that our leaders prefer not to think about.

The incapable in pursuit of the indefensible?

The essential dilemma is thus: what actions would end the war equitably without the West fighting Russia and prevent future war without bankrupting the West.  It is precisely for such challenges that statecraft exists. Statecraft is the judicious and considered application of power over time and space and in all forms.  It is not science; it is art, and it is precisely what the West needs today.  Our leaders, as ever, have focussed on an entirely different question: what can we agree on?  In other words, the focus of statecraft has been on cohesion rather than effect even if the preservation of such cohesion comes at the expense of desired effect. The gap between the two is about as wide as the River Dnieper at its widest. Closing that gap will, as ever, rely first and foremost on what an increasingly irresolute and capricious US first decides what it is 'we' want. The rest of us? We have become the incapable in pursuit of the indefensible using our own self-willed weakness as an alibi for the very failure we claim to lament.

The Russo-Ukraine War has revealed the dangerous split in the West between two groups.  Those in power across much of Western Europe in particular who cling to the false belief that the 'old' European security order must be rescued, and that this Russia can still be accommodated within it.  They see such ‘strategy’ as the rational consequence of managing decline rather than delaying oblivion. The other group, of which I am a member, comprises those of us who believe the very purpose of Russia's aggression is to bring a wrecking ball to the entire institutional structure underpinning peace and order in Europe. They wish to return Europe to the anarchy that is a balance of power.  It was the Europe of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Stalin, and Hitler.  It is also the Europe of Putin.  

So, what does Putin want? Putin has a deranged vision of Mother Russia which in his mind is full of the romantic but dangerous nationalism Tolstoy wrote.  It is a vision underpinned by a warped sense of glory built on a mythical past that never happened.  The contrast with many Western leaders is striking.  Several of them seem not to like their countries, are ashamed of them, or simply believe them to be doomed and thus all that can be done is to manage their decline. The one thing both Putin and such Western political and bureaucratic elites can agree upon is the vital need to ignore the views of the frightful irrational people they rule over. Rationality is the great gate keeper to power in European democracies, but it is defined by the economists and lawyers who dominate European governments in particular. Economists are incapable of understanding why human beings do things, whilst lawyers simply believe law is power. It is not. Neither economists nor lawyers understand the power of geopolitics. One reason for the mess Britain is in is the naiveté of economists and their misplaced belief that globalisation would ensure peace.  The only thing that it ensured was Chinese enrichment at the expense of the West, and London’s kowtowing to Beijing given China’s hold over many of Britain’s institutions.

War, Peace, Power…and Risk

Consequently, there is a dangerous flaw at the heart of the entire Ukraine-enabling 'Western' strategy - Western leaders do not believe Ukraine can win.  For that reason what passes for 'strategy' is not linked to any form of applied statecraft.  Much of this is due to the utter risk aversion of a pacifistic decadent elite cowed by their failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Putin is a product of Western pacifism and failure and only possible because these same leaders now believe they can take no action that involves risk.  Most strategy and all action involve risk for without it there is not the slightest chance of realising aims for which 'strategy' or rather change is 'designed'. Statecraft is about the effective management of strategy, actions and risk over time and space in such a way that one’s interests are realised without undue cost.  For statecraft to succeed there must first be a clear understanding about the desired goal. What is now clear is that a new European security order will be needed, and that 'we' in the West will at some point need to impose it and manage it. Only then can we in the West pose THE war and peace question Moscow too must sooner or later confront: does Russia wish to be part of Europe, distinct from it, or a danger to it?  If Putin does indeed want to play the role of strategic hooligan, he must be made to understand there can be no conceivable action or risk the Kremlin could take from which Russia or the Kremlin could possibly benefit.

In essence, what these leaders are doing is purposely but dangerously de-linking the war in Ukraine from the wider war even if a Ukrainian defeat would not only make the wider war more likely but also hasten it. The reason they are doing this is because they still lack a firm understanding of the consequences of a Ukrainian defeat.  This in turn reveals a profoundly dangerous managerial approach to geopolitics bereft of the very thing that defines it – hard military power!

It is true that Western leaders are not interested in war, but war is already taking an ever-closer interest in them, their people, and their countries.

Julian Lindley-French

Ukraine Peace by Peace

 “Hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue”.

Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucauld

August 23rd.  On this day in 1939 Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia signed the Non-Aggression Pact” which not only paved the way for Hitler’s September 1st invasion of Poland but also set the scene for the most climactic event of the twentieth century – the June 22^nd, 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.  It was as cold and calculated an exercise in cynicism and hypocrisy as any in Europe’s long and undistinguished history of hypocrisy.  The Pact gave time to both Berlin and Moscow in return for Poland’s land. Is something similar about to happen in Ukraine?

There is a phrase that always raises my concerns: “The official policy is…”. It normally means there is an unofficial policy which is pretty much the opposite of that stated in public. That is precisely why last week there was a micro-frenzy when a senior NATO official appeared to suggest that Ukraine might have to accept the loss of land to Russia in return for membership of the Alliance.  For the record, he did not say that.  The official in question is known to me and he is the consummate professional.  The person chairing the meeting at which he is alleged to have suggested is also one of my closest friends.  The suggestion, such as it was, took place as part of a two-hour panel discussion as one of many scenarios that might transpire given the nature, scope, and levels of support for Ukraine.  What the reaction did reveal is how many governments are indeed thinking along those lines.

There are certain realities that Ukraine and its Western partners must now confront.  As I suggested in May, and despite the heroic efforts of Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is stalling because it never had the necessary military weight to break the Russian land bridge in eastern and southern Ukraine, let alone re-take Crimea.  At the forthcoming meeting of NATO defence ministers in October it will also become apparent that the Allies have already given 90% of what they are going to give Ukraine, whether it is delivered as promised or not. As the Rasputitsa or General Mud begins to impose itself the war will become a stalemate.  The question will then become what the Alliance and its fellow travellers can do for Ukraine come the spring and the new campaign season.  A season, I might add, that will coincide with NATO’s 75^th anniversary celebrations in Washington.

The stalemate is about more than two exhausted armies stuck in the Ukrainian mud.  The Russo-Ukraine War is also geopolitical Rasputitsa.  China is determined that Russia will not lose and is supplying Moscow directly with helicopters and other vital materiel, and indirectly using North Korea as a conduit for other materiel.  Today, a “Crimea Summit” is taking place in Kyiv with President Zelensky talking about preparations for re-taking Crimea.  However, the West, for all its verbal and actual support of Ukraine, has not and is not doing enough to ensure Ukraine has any chance of reclaiming its pre-2014 borders, let alone its pre-1991 borders. The news that the Danish and Dutch will send ‘dozens’ of F-16s to Ukraine with American approval is to be welcomed, but it will not be a war game-changer.

Worse, there are countries inside the Alliance, with Belgium and Italy to the fore, who are suggesting that the war has proven Russia to be a paper tiger and that there is little urgency to fulfil the goals set out in the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept. Any strategy pause, for that is what this stalemate will amount to, will thus give Russia the time and space it needs to learn the lessons of its own incompetence and rebuild its armed forces, whatever the economic consequences. That is precisely what former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev meant when in May he suggested the war could last for decades.

There are several peace initiatives/peace feelers underway, most notably that being proposed by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.  What strikes me about all these peace initiatives is how very European they are. The history of European peace treaties are traditionally built on a celebrated lack of principle by which the aggressor is partially rewarded for its aggression in return for the aggressed being partially compensated.  Even the Congress of Vienna and the treatment of defeated Nazi Germany by the Western Allies fitted that pattern.  The only ‘peace’ treaty that did not was the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and that simply created the conditions for World War Two.

Therefore, the governments saying that, “The official policy is…” are looking at alternatives. This is because Ukraine’s backers are not going to step up further which means that when they say it is up to Ukraine to decide when the war ends, it isn’t. At some point there will be a ceasefire, that will turn into some form of typically European ‘peace’ by which Russia gets to hold on to some of the Ukrainian land it has conquered in return for what is left of Ukraine being offered NATO membership.

And, if Ukraine does not get NATO membership? It will be conquered peace by peace.  It is as clear as mud!

Julian Lindley-French  

Addenda

1. My sources are impeccable and extremely well-placed. However, after I posted this piece a very senior Italian official said Italy was absolutely not retreating from its commitments to the goals set out in the NATO Strategic Concept 2022. 

2.  The assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin yesterday tells one everything one needs to know about the Russia and its dangerous elite.  It also explains why Ukraine is fighting for its life and all and any democrat must support it.   

Emperor Xi

 “Woe and death to all who resist my will”.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

August 4^th, 2023. On this day in 1914 World War One broke out. It was caused by the insane imperial ambitions of a deluded ultra-nationalist German emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II. In September 1939 World War Two was caused by the insane ultra-nationalist ambitions of Chancellor-for-Life Adolf Hitler.  In fact, almost all systemic wars have been caused by ultra-nationalists in power for life.  The Russo-Ukraine War was launched by the Russian ultra-nationalist President-for-Life Vladimir Putin in thrall to the even more extreme nationalists with whom he has surrounded himself. And now in Beijing there is a new Chinese ‘Emperor’, President-for-Life Xi Jingping who is showing all the signs of the same mix of absolute domestic power, insane ambition and deluded ultra-nationalism.

The first signs of Xi’s growing megalomania were the October 2022 humiliation of his predecessor Hu Jintao, by having him forcibly ejected from the Great Hall of the People. Like all ultra-nationalists Xi’s power base is the military, the burgeoning People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

And, like all past emperors he is moving first to quell any dissent within the Chinese Communist Party, whilst weakening adversaries abroad. Over the past month Xi has ‘vanished’ China’s erstwhile Foreign Minister Qin Gang and purged almost all the senior officers of the PLA Rocket Force. Abroad, China is engaged daily in industrial levels of cyber attacks and espionage, with the US now trying to eradicate malware Washington believes the Chinese have inserted into critical national infrastructure upon which the American armed forces depend.

There was one other thing the ultra-nationalists of the past have with the ultra-nationalists of the present – a distracted free world in denial about the systemic threat they pose. Xi has made the aims of his ambition clear: the forced reintegration of Taiwan into the Chinese state, the forced subjugation of states around the South China Sea into a Chinese sphere of influence, the expulsion of the United States from East Asia, the use of Chinese money to push the West out of the Middle East and beyond, and debt traps to create de facto Trojan Horses within both NATO and the EU.

European states are belatedly awakening to the threat. This week the Italian Defence Minister warned about the threat posed by Italy’s membership of Beijing’s Belt and Chains Initiative. At the July 2022 NATO Madrid Summit, the Alliance finally confirmed that “the PRC’s malicious hybrid and cyber operations and its confrontational rhetoric and disinformation target allies and harm Alliance security”.  In July 2023, a report by the UK’s House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee said that China had penetrated almost all levels of British society and government whilst London’s response was fragmented and disjointed.  As ever, the British cannot decide which is more important: Chinese money or the threat China poses.  

Whilst it is vital the West continues to talk to China and avoids ‘war is inevitable’ syndrome it is also now vital that China is made to realise the costs it would incur if Xi were ever to go for broke (for that is what it would mean) and attempt to realise his ultra-nationalist ambitions.

When will we the West ever learn?

Julian Lindley-French

The NATO Shadow Plan?

“Give us the tools and we will finish the job” 

Winston Churchill

Shadow Boxing

July 13th. That was interesting. It was not the ‘historic’ summit politicians always suggest when they have avoided declaring war on each other, but the NATO Vilnius Summit was more than a bus-stop on the road from Madrid to Washington. Ukraine was not offered either membership of the Alliance or a road map to it but rather a vague commitment that at some point its future is in NATO. Déjà vu Bucharest all over again? The final Turkish obstacle to Swedish membership was removed. A Defence Investment Pledge 2.0 was agreed under the terms of which 2% GDP on defence so many have so hard to achieve since 2014 has now become a baseline, the minimum Allies should spend on defence. This includes 20% on new equipment annually which will include research and development. Plenty of scope for fiddling the figures there. The much-vaunted Regional Defence Plans and robust in-place combat forces were confirmed but where and when the new 300,000 agile, multi-domain Allied Reaction Force of mainly Europeans will see the light of day remains unclear. There was the usual cyber, space and China guff in the Summit Communiqué leavened by the equally usual NATO political correctness.

However, there was one agreement which most commentators missed but which might for once stand the test of time and which might also in time be the thing the Vilnius Summit is remembered for - Defence Production Action Plan or DPAP. It will have to survive the NATO bureaucracy first and ‘HQs’ almost genetically predisposed to strangle any innovative idea at birth in the name of ‘unity’. Look what is happening to poor old DIANA. That said, the idea that NATO will act as “convener, standard-setter, requirement-setter and aggregator and defence enabler to promote defence industrial capacity” is desperately needed.

It is about time! NATO Europe’s leaders have not so much taken their eye off the ball these past thirty years, they handed it over to potential enemies and invited them to kick us all in the teeth! The fielding times and affordability of European military equipment is so appalling it borders at times on the criminal and is a potential critical weakness in NATO’s defence and deterrence posture. The lessons emerging from the Ukraine war are also clear: modern war is a giant black hole into which people and materiel vanish at an alarming rate far beyond that envisaged by the peacetime NATO establishment. At the very least, NATO European forces will need far more robust logistics, far more forward deployed, with enhanced and far more secure military supply chains particularly important. Far more materiel is also needed, most notably ammunition, not least because of the rate at which Ukraine has been using up the weapons stocks of NATO Allies.

If Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area, the DDA, is to be anything more than a communiqué writer's wet dream the Allies desperately need to rebuild and build infrastructure to assist military mobility and remove all legal impediments to rapid cross border movements in a pre-war emergency. Deployed NATO forces will also need much improved force protection with the need to reduce the detectability and thus digital footprint of force concentrations (‘bright butterflies’) particularly pressing.

The war in Ukraine has also revealed the vulnerability of armour unsupported by infantry and helicopters in the battlespace, as well as the need for NATO forces to be able to dominate both fires and counter-fires, not least by using large numbers of expendable drones, strike drones and loitering systems allied to extremely expensive precision-guided munitions, such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow. Enhanced land-based, protected battlefield mobility is also needed together with increased force command resilience given how often the Ukrainians have been able to detect and ‘kill’ Russian forward (and less forward) deployed headquarters.

None of the above can be realised without a new partnership with defence industries on both sides of the Atlantic and further partnerships with those in other democracies, which will include commitments to contracts that are both longer and more stable than hitherto.  This is because both military platforms and the systems that sit on them are about to undergo a technological revolution in which speed of data will drive speed of information which in turn will dictate both the speed of command and its relevance on the battlefield.Europe is, as per usual, lagging way behind its competitors and not only going to have to spend more but the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) far beyond the traditional metal-bashers and their hangers on. ‘Defence’ will have to reach out to new tech communities and learn to operate at their rate of tempo.

The Shadow Scheme

Thankfully, there is a lesson from history from which NATO might draw. In 1935, the “Shadow Scheme” was established by the British Government the aim of was to subsidise manufacturers to construct a system of new ‘shadow factories’, reinforced by additional capabilities at existing aircraft and motor industrial plants that could immediately increase war production on the outbreak of war. It was this scheme that led rapidly to radar, the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters and eventually the Lancaster bomber. It also enabled Britain to surpass Nazi Germany in aircraft production in June 1940, a lead Britain never lost not least because of the entry into the skilled workforce of millions of British women.

Improved efficiency was also as important to Britain in 1940 as it is to the Alliance today. For example, the Ministry of Aircraft Production had an immediate galvanising effect. Upon taking over Royal Air Force storage facilities it was discovered that whilst the RAF had accepted over 1,000 aircraft from industry, only 650 had been despatched to squadrons. Managerial and organisational changes were introduced that also had an immediate effect. Between January and March 1940 2,729 aircraft were produced by British industry, of which 638 were front-line fighters. However, between April to May 1940 aircraft production increased to 4,578 aircraft, some 1,875 of which were fighters. By June 1940 British fighter production reached 250% of German fighter production, whilst the overhauled repair service returned nearly 1,900 aircraft to action many times more than their German counterparts. As a consequence, German fighters available for operations over Britain during the Battle of Britain fell from 725 to 275, whilst fighters available for RAF operations increased from 644 on July 1^st, 1940 to 732 on October 1^st.

Key to the success of the Plan was the Directorate of Aeronautical Production which began work in March 1936 and had two goals: rapid expansion of defence industrial production; and the dispersal of the defence industrial base to protect against air attack. By October 1937, there were five Shadow Factories already in production, whilst in July 1938 one Shadow Factory completed its first complete bomber. The Plan was also extended to industry in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The most famous of the Shadow Factories was at Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, which today is the home of Jaguar Cars. The plant opened in June 1940 and after some initial problems went on to build 12,000 Spitfires of 22 variants!  The Shadow Plan also standardised development and production. For example, the Rolls Royce Merlin engine became the powerplant for most (but not all) wartime aircraft. The Plan also looked to the future by helping to fund the development of the jet engine and the world’s second operational jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, which entered service with the RAF three months after the German Me 262.

By 1944 there were 175 dispersed Shadow Factories in operation, many of which were linked to industries not traditionally associated with defence but with relevant supply chain expertise. The most famous aircraft to come from the Plan apart from the Spitfire and Lancaster was the ‘wooden wonder’, the de Havilland Mosquito, a twin-engined fighter bomber that could outstrip most single-engined fighters. The RAF was not the only service to benefit. The new King George V class battleships were built from 1936 on by many workers and technicians recruited under the Shadow Plan, whilst the British Army got new tanks some of which, contrary to popular myth, were not at all bad.

The NATO Shadow Plan

Much of the European Defence, Technological and Industrial Base has been left to rot since the end of the Cold War. Production facilities are few, many are obsolete and orders even fewer and only seem to come when there is a political rather than a strategic imperative. Major systems only survive from cradle to grave because industry has learnt the vital need to tie government into contracts with punitive consequences when broken, whilst much of the ‘kit’ ordered has more to do with industrial policy rather than defence policy.

Consequently, the unit cost of equipment Allied forces desperately need is inflated, much of it obsolete before it is even fielded and/or because innovation and technological advancement have been ‘de-prioritised’. This has led to procurement disasters, Britain’s Ajax armoured infantry fighting vehicle, a platform that has had so many systems put on it looks more like a Christmas tree than an armoured vehicle. 

The Ukraine War has demonstrated the folly of emaciating Europe’s defence industrial base.  The Defence Production Action Plan is not yet a Shadow Plan and is not to be yet another of those ‘wizard wheezes’ announced with much NATO fanfare only to be lost in the vacuum of political irresolution it will need to be pushed through. It will also need to forge new partnerships across the entirety of a radically reconceived European security and defence supply chain that includes the Alliance, EU, governments, prime contractors, defence sub-contractors, systems-developers and providers who have thus far had little or nothing to do with defence.

The Shadow Plan is the great unsung hero of the British war effort between 1935 and 1945. Without the Plan Britain would have been defeated in 1940.  The Alliance may not be AT war but is certainly engaged IN war and, like Britain in 1935, it most certainly is engaged in a systemic struggle, even if many leaders are in denial whatever the rhetoric. Such struggles are not won by fine words, lofty summits and well-written communiqués crafted to meet the political need of the moment.  They are won by the sustained, systemic, and considered application of resources, technologies, equipment and forces over time and space. 

One final thought: if NATO does not learn and apply such lessons from the past the Chinese and Russians will.

Julian Lindley-French