In Honour of the Falklands Victory

Pangbourne College, England. 7 April. “Be pleased to inform Her Majesty that the Union Jack once again flies over Stanley. God save the Queen". Those famous words of Brigadier-General Moore resonated last night as I was accorded the singular honour of giving the keynote address at the Thirtieth Anniversary Falklands Command dinner before Britain’s Chief of Defence Staff and the officers and men who had led Britain to victory in 1982. This blog remembers Britain’s stunning victory in the South Atlantic and the defence of freedom through the use of legitimate military power that was its driving force.

My specific purpose was to pay tribute not just to the living but to the 252 British servicemen who did not return from the campaign and the 775 who were wounded in a campaign with I am intimately acquainted. This was not a cost-free conflict. They never are and the Argentinians who fought and died for their country were ever present in my mind and I honour them as well.

However, I also spelt out a warning to Britain’s leaders; the aura of power which Britain will need in what is going to be a big and dangerous century is itself in danger of being lost. London is daily retreating from sound national strategy into a ‘recognise only as much threat as we can afford’ view of the world. Given that warning what was achieved back in 1982 is as relevant to today’s Britain as past Britain.

My theme was British élan - the determined pursuit of a just strategic goal with a style and assurance that is itself power. Élan is something more than men and kit. It is a strategic brand that can change things even before a bullet is fired. 1982 saw a Britain that like today had retreated into a muddled foreign and security policy with strategy made elsewhere. 1982 saw a country in conflict with itself with many of the same doubts and tensions as today. And yet somehow the British armed forces defied the all-pervading sense of national decline of the time and lifted the country above the management of decline so beloved of so much of the political and bureaucratic elite.

Thirty years ago through valour and sacrifice three invaluable victories were won. First, a fundamental principle was defended which was far bigger than the islands or the Islanders – the right of self-determination and the use of great power to that end. Second, ally and adversary alike was shown that the spirit of Britain pertained and that an old great country still understood how to exercise strategic influence. My friend Professor Gwyn Prins told me that when he was in the Advisory Group to former Soviet President Gorbachev back in 1990 Gorbachev told him that it was the Falklands campaign that in part convinced him that the Soviet Union could never win the Cold War. Gwyn also told me of a senior Russian who recently remarked that, “the things we once admired about Britain are today the things that you despise”. Third, a tired and fractious British people at the end of a long, tired and fractious decade were reminded that Britain was more than a place, it was an idea in which still to believe. No post-imperial basket-case but a powerful modern country that could when push came to shove distinguish between values and interests; principles and parochialism.

Where next for British influence? Today a very new idea is needed; an all-national unity of effort and purpose. That will mean inviting all in these islands to be British, rather than trying to turn Britain into what my old friend Lord Glasman calls a mini-United Nations. This is mission critical as we sink ever deeper into the swamp of political correctness that is eating government and society from within with self-doubt.

Strategically and militarily, as Britain move towards a 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review ‘strategy’ will need to be put back into ‘strategic’. For Britain’s armed forces that will mean a modest but nevertheless global role alongside a maritime-strategic America, those Europeans still able and willing to face up to their security responsibilities and the rebuilding of old relationships in the Commonwealth. Central but by no means exclusive to British influence will be the creation of truly joined-up armed forces in which no one service owns land, sea or air and which are themselves part of truly joined-up security policy led by a national strategy worthy of the name. State-of-the art armed forces that are projectable, deployable and sustainable built of a tight concept of fighting power for which the British armed forces are renowned.

Above all, Britain’s leaders must hold their nerve, just like Margaret Thatcher back in 1982; all the basic components are in place for a powerful modern navy, army and air force. This century is not going to get any easier and like it or not whatever happens in there is no hiding place for Britain. Britain will need its capable armed forces.

Thirty years ago the mission was not simply to rescue the Falkland Islanders from a brutal dictatorship, critical though it was. It was to save Britain from a visionless self and to make a proud people feel again the right to be proud by being on the just side of right.

As Europe crumbles and America stumbles Britain is thus faced with a choice: to retreat into irrelevance and put up with whatever an unjust world throws at it; or to galvanise itself as back in 1982 and set out to shape the world for the better. “For God’s sake, act like Britain”, former US Secretary of State Dean Rusk once demanded of George Brown. In 1982 Britain’s armed forces did just that and showed the world a great country that could rise above the daily grind of party game and blame to which today the British people are too often subject.

There is no greater honour I have ever been or will ever be accorded.

Julian Lindley-French

Joint Strike Fighter II: The Best is the Enemy of the Good?

Alphen, the Netherlands. 2 April. Today is the thirtieth anniversary of the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falklands about which I will say more later in the week. Last week I wrote a piece about the spiralling out of control costs of the ‘Fifth Generation’ F-35 Lightning II all-singing, all-dancing multirole combat aircraft. A long supporter of the F-35 I have become profoundly concerned that the ‘balance’ between cost, value, capability and delivery is now so adverse for the non-American members of the US-led consortium that alternatives must be considered. My focus in the last piece was on F-35B and F-35C, the navalised versions of the aircraft, but my concerns apply across the range. Not surprisingly I received a fairly heavy carpet-bombing from the airmen of several nations supported by their allies in certain defence companies. Therefore, in the interests of fairness I went back and did more research and confirmed a simple truth; the unit cost of each F-35 has now reached astronomical and quite frankly indefensible levels.

The research was further encouraged by comments from two very senior military people whom I respect and like enormously. One is a very senior British ex-naval officer and the other a senior Dutch ex-air force officer. The Royal Navy man expressed real concern to me as to whether some twenty years into the project the short and vertical take-off (STOVL) F-35B will ever work. The Dutch air force officer recalled the time in the late 1990s when he was the Dutch Defence Attaché in Paris and was acquainted with a study into the relative costs of the F-35 compared with the French Dassault Rafale fighter. At the time the Dutch could have bought 85 F-35s for the price of 58 Rafales.

Compare that figure with those of today. The 2012 fly away costs for each Dassault Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and F-35 are as follows: Rafale $90.5 million; Eurofighter Typhoon $104 million; F-35A $197 million; F-35B $237.7 million; and F-35C $236.8 million. The F-35 will also incur in-life costs of over $1 trillion over a life-cycle that was conveniently stretched out some time ago from a conventional thirty to a highly suspect fifty years. What technology today enjoys such a lifespan even if one can separate the platform from the systems on board?

To be fair the alternative I suggested for the British and their two new super-carriers was to buy FA-18s off-the-shelf but this option would also involve cost. Indeed, whilst the 2012 fly-away costs for the FA-18 would be some $66.9 million that would be balanced out by the likelihood that the plane would be obsolescent within twenty years.

The causes of this procurement mess are themselves telling and reveal (not for the first time) original cost and performance estimates that never stacked up. Moreover, as a precedent for revolutionary US-led multinational procurement co-operation of a cutting edge ‘big ticket’ aircraft F-35 is a sorry tale.  A March 2012 Forbes article by US defence industry insider Loren Thomson offers six US reasons for the F-35 procurement prang which shakes my British/European confidence in the project to the core. First, whilst the F-35 was to be procured on a plan to hold down costs the plan has been simply ignored with the economies of scale central to the plan based on massively inflated numbers. Second, cost estimates for the F-35 were issued that no-one understood. In 2011 the Pentagon gave figures to the US Congress that the politicians could not understand and which actually undersold the aircraft. Third, whilst Lockheed Martin, F-35’s prime contractor, has been repeatedly blamed by the US Government for cost increases the bulk of such cost increases have been caused by the US Government. Specifically, Washington has changed the way it calculates support costs (whatever that means) and then blamed Lockheed Martin. Fourth, F-35 costs were never put into a meaningful competitor context, such as a detailed cost breakdown of alternatives. Fifth, the long-term consequences of delaying the F-35 programme have never been spelt out, nor indeed the impact of the F-35s rising costs on other key defence programmes. This is particularly important for the non-US members of the consortium. Sixth, the US has routinely sent the wrong signals to domestic and foreign audiences about Washington’s commitment to the F-35. Pentagon insiders attack the project on an almost daily basis.

Four things come out of Thomson’s study. First, the US has little understanding of what multinational procurement co-operation really means. Second, this is what happens when project engineers and their military counterparts operate beyond proper management. Third, what oversight has been forthcoming from Washington has too often come in the form of competing requirements from different services.  Fourth, there is always a price to be paid by partner taxpayers for investment without influence. Indeed, this is a mess made almost entirely in America.  Thompson offers a stark warning. F-35 “...is the story of what happens to major technology programs in a balkanized, distracted political system when there is no danger to push them forward. Bureaucratic and personal agendas fill the fill the vacuum once occupied by the threat, and so programs seldom stay on track”.

Now, as a European taxpayer I am still prepared to fund this aircraft if I can be convinced that it will give European forces the tools to do their respective jobs at reasonable cost and risk over the fifty years claimed. However, that is not at all clear from either the airmen or the defence-industry people telling me I am wrong.  Indeed, I fear I am being sold a pup. So, just please tell what am I really going to get for my money, when and for how long?

The aim of F-35 was a military super-Ferrari on the cheap. However, as one senior officer put it to me, “we have ended up with a cross between a Ferrari and a Fiat”. That is one very expensive Fiat!

F-35: the best is the enemy of the good?

Julian Lindley-French

Bradford: The Coming Crisis of European Democracy

Alphen, the Netherlands. 30 March. Strange week this. I have just emerged form hospital after an operation on my right eye. So, this piece is even more ‘one-eyed’ than normal. My wife thinks I am mad even writing this. However, a political earthquake took place last night in the city of Bradford, in my home county of Yorkshire, that is relevant not only to Britain but could well signal a coming crisis of European democracy – the revolt of the people against the professional political caste. The defeat of the long-incumbent Labour Party by George Galloway, a populist, self-promoting left-winger long used to conning the politically gullible, is quite simply stunning.

With a large Asian community the anti-war stance of Galloway’s Respect Party on both Iraq and Afghanistan was always going to appeal. However, the sheer scale of Labour’s defeat and the collapse of both the Conservative and Liberal-Democrat vote heralds something much more profound. Quite simply Bradford showed an electorate not apathetic as the mainstream parties like to claim, but actively hostile to mainstream political parties and politicians. It is a phenomenon evident across Europe, not least here in the Netherlands where right-wing populist Geert Wilders represents a growing disillusionment with cosy elites and a move towards more extreme politics.

Why is this happening? Regular readers will recall that I have often warned about the European democratic deficit and the rise of a Euro-Aristocracy. However, the professional political caste is not only limited to ‘Brussels’, but is evident across all European countries. My own country, England, is a case in point as its political leaders show all the signs of becoming just such a caste. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Ed Milliband belong to this caste. They went straight from university politics into a special advisor position with a minister and then onto a safe elected seat which was set up for them to win by their respective party establishments prior to then being fast-tracked into a ministerial position. Neither of them have any real-life experience of the world outside the rarefied world of high politics. According to the House of Commons in 1982 the number of such people in Parliament was some 4%, in 2001 it was 14% and today it is 25% with almost all of them either in Government or the Shadow Cabinet (leadership group for the opposition).

The result is a new layer of influence between the governing and the governed. This has encouraged the rise of political lobbyists, single-issue special interest groups and think-tanks who seek to exert influence over the caste often at the expense of the people. Politics is thus seen by the caste as a narrow ideological game played out between small Westminster elites with lobbyists and activists acting as both seconds and the only constituencies of note. Politics beyond Westminster has thus become irrelevant to the point of being pointless. Indeed, the people are seen only as the distant objects of political and media management with their representatives in Parliament reduced to being merely the window-dressing of democracy, with little or no influence over the caste.

The most obvious example of this was how both the two leading parties not only failed to deal with hyper-immigration, but in Labour’s case actively encouraged it. The English people have always rightly been open to a reasonable level of immigration. However, according to a leaked secret Labour Party report what happened from 2000 onwards was the deliberate attempt by Downing Street political advisors to change England forever by a deliberate policy of mass migration so as to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date”. It was an ideological war between and within a small Westminster political caste with no regard as to the social and cultural consequences on ordinary English people who have had to live with the consequences. Indeed, such is England’s unhappiness that the caste must now resort to the use of draconian anti-racism laws to suppress the anger of a people who believe they have been conspired against by the caste to take their country away from them. Go to my home town of Sheffield if you do not believe me. The only way forward is for ordinary decent people of all creeds, cultures and colours to find a way to live together but the signs are not encouraging. The politicians caused this mess; they will not fix it.

Fast forward England’s unhappiness to Brussels, which has always been the home to a professional political caste. Every time I go the European Parliament I am shocked by the number of Members of European Parliament (MEPs) who are the ‘sons, daughters, family members of’ or at least well-connected to, national political elites across Europe. With the pressure now mounting for more power to be given to ‘Europe’ i.e. Brussels, the growth in influence of Europe’s political caste is likely to match the growing distance between Europe’s governing and governed. The abyss which already exists between the European citizen and Europe’s elite is not only a recipe for political corruption on a grand scale but could well herald the coming crisis of European democracy.

In both and England and the wider Europe there is a pressing need to get more real-life politicians into power who know what it is like to struggle to balance the weekly budget, to deal daily with unyielding bureaucracies, to confront discrimination and prejudice, who have known unemployment, and to face the reality of fractured societies in which mistrust, fear and even hatred stalk the streets.

If mainstream politicians do not move to reconnect with ordinary people there will be more Bradfords and more George Galloways and Geert Wilders across Europe. This is a dangerous political moment and our leaders need to start treating the rest of us with the respect we deserve.

Now I will go back to bed.

Julian Lindley-French

Joint Strike Fighter: How Not to Build an Aircraft

Alphen, the Netherlands. 26 March. F-35 Lightning II is a name to conjure with. Otherwise known as Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) ten countries are collaborating under US leadership to build a fifth generation multirole fighter that can apparently do everything and not be seen doing it – whatever it is it does. Last week BaE systems announced the opening of a $175m plant in Lancashire, England to build the things. Being a Yorkshireman this is a bad mistake in and of itself as nothing good has come out of Lancashire since the fifteenth century Wars of the Roses (which was not very good either). Suspiciously this announcement comes hot on the heels of news that the British Government is having yet another wobble over whether to buy the F-35B STOVL (Short Take-Off or Vertical Landing) version or the F-35C conventional aircraft-carrier version for the two mythical British super-carriers HMS Not at All Sure We Can Afford This After All and HMS We Can Afford Either the Ship or the Plane but Not Both.

Now, the reason I was compelled to pen this blog is entirely the fault of my Dutch wife, Corine (brave woman bless her). In her infinite, supreme commander way she decided that I needed to be compelled to stop thinking quite so much about work. Having heard me drone on about the models I used to build as a kid she bought me an Airfix kit (I think you call it Revelle in Yankdom) of HMS Iron Duke (known affectionately by its crew as the Iron Duck due to a tendency to waddle), the flagship of the grandest fleet of the greatest navy ever to sail the seven seas. It sat accusingly in its box for a year or so until no longer able to bear the shame I last week took the myriad of tiny pieces out of the box and began to ‘build’ it.

Unfortunately, I had failed to tell my wife of two important failings that had slipped between the cracks of nostalgia. First, as a shipbuilder I was complete rubbish. Second, my childhood purchases were invariably models of the German battleship Bismarck which with a firework inserted inside (a ‘banger’ in English vernacular) invariably and rapidly met a watery demise in the stream outside my house. It was a happy 1970s childhood. Entirely in keeping with past efforts some hours into the project both the glue and the paint seemed to have gotten everywhere except where intended. This project was clearly going to take far longer, cost more and become a real mess. Just like the F-35 Lighting II.

To mix my metaphors the F-35 is fast flying into a tipping point. Estimated at $237.7m per F-35B and $236.8m per F-35C costs have doubled since the original estimates of its manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Moreover, the plane will not now see service until sometime “after 2016”. Last month the Japanese warned they would cancel the contract if prices inflated further and Italy cut its order by 30%. This month the Pentagon announced that it was delaying an order for 179 F-35s which surprise, surprise will push up the price further. Having made a decision in 2010 to re-design the carriers for F-35C, the potential British flip-flop back to the F-35B (which has half the range and can carry half the weapons of the F-35C) threatens to destabilise an already precarious British defence strategy. The Dutch? The savagery with which they are cutting their defence budget and the rate of climb of F-35 costs means that they will probably only be able to afford one F-35 and only if they scrap the Dutch Army and Navy.

What has gone wrong? Essentially the F-35 suffers from what is known as the 80-20 problem; expecting a system to do too much too soon given the available and untried technologies being built into it on the budgets available. This has been compounded by the savage cuts to defence budgets that have taken place in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Moreover, the project management of Lockheed and its government partners has left much to be desired, further complicated by American concerns about technology transfers and the shifting needs of clients. The only saving grace is that it has made Europe’s incompetent weapons-makers look positively nimble by comparison.

What to do? For the Europeans there are two options – scrap or pool. Take the British as an example. In London’s position I would reconsider F-35 not simply in terms of cost but defence strategy. It is evident that with the US shifting towards a maritime strategy and with a main aim of British defence policy to have sufficient deployable military power on call to influence Washington the two aircraft carriers are more important than the F-35 per se. In such circumstances it would make far more sense to buy a proven system off the shelf, such as the US F-18 or French Rafale, and equip them with the latest avionics and weapons systems.

By adopting such an approach the British could afford a full fifty aircraft wing for the carriers, including airborne early warning. Striking such balances is one function of sound defence strategy. Alternatively, all the European F-35 end users (Britain, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Turkey) could pool their respective efforts and look for economies of scale and maybe invite Australia, Canada, Israel and Japan to form a new end-users group to exert more control over the bloated US-led procurement process.

If not I suspect F-35 will suffer the same fate as my Duck - it too will probably never be completed.

Julian Lindley-French

Sixty Years of Royal Duty

Alphen, the Netherlands. 21 March. Edmund Spenser’s 1590 Faerie Queen was an ill-concealed homage to Queen Elizabeth I, one of England’s greatest monarchs. “Ill can he rule the great that cannot reach the small”, he wrote (note the somewhat gender-bending concept of kingship in the sixteenth century). He could well have been writing of Queen Elizabeth II, who yesterday addressed both Houses of Parliament in the majestic St George’s Hall on the occasion of the official launch of her diamond jubilee; the celebration of sixty years on the throne. The fourteenth century gothic monument is the centre-piece of the Palace of Westminster and all that is left of the palace from which her eminent forebear ruled.

House of Commons speaker, John Bercow, demonstrating yet again his self-serving talent for the ill-timed and inappropriate, called the Queen, “the kaleidoscope queen’. He suggested that Her Majesty has been at the forefront of change as England slowly at first and now with great and ill-considered haste continues on its way to no longer being the England I once knew and loved. In fact the Queen has been the opposite. She has managed to confer upon a troubled country an aura of stability but has done so in the absence of nostalgia, which for an octogenarian monarch is quite an achievement. Indeed, she has been personally responsible in no small measure for much needed reassurance without which the revolutionary change and national decline that has taken place in her reign could well have descended into chaos.

Now, I am no royal flunky, far from it. Indeed, I find the whole edifice of the Royal Household at times absurd and arrogant. There are people within it who have really earned the royal patronage they enjoy because of the service they have given both society and country. There are also those within the Household who continue to look down their rather snooty upper-class noses at the rest of us in spite of having done little else in their lives than to have been born into the right family. Yes, twenty-first century Britain still suffers from such class nonsense.

So, why do I, a Yorkshire democrat, believe so firmly in the Queen and the institution of monarchy? It is a question those of you unlucky enough not to have been born English will doubtless find puzzling. The short answer can be found about a mile (no kilometres here) down the road in the House of Commons. The merest glance at Britain’s politicians is enough to convince most sane British people of the value of and need for a constitutional monarchy.

That said the monarchy can ill afford to be complacent. This most permanent of institutions has survived democracy precisely because it has been able to adapt and it will need to do so again. The affection in which Her Majesty is rightly held does not automatically extend to the institution of monarchy itself. The Queen has ‘ruled’ (she does not of course) with unusual intelligence and sensitivity to the sensibilities of an increasingly complex people and indeed those of the fifty-three other countries in her beloved Commonwealth. She remains head of state in some sixteen countries. She should, of course, have been Queen of America, but the Yanks were ejected from the Empire for failing to understand the difference between rugby and football and coming up instead with an extended TV commercial which is neither.  The only time her assured grip of the public mood slipped was in the immediate aftermath of the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales. She has also offered sage advice to twelve prime ministers, occasionally reminding them of the distinction between the interests of their political party and that of the country.

However, without wishing to be morbid Her Majesty is in her late-eighties. Soon Britain, if it lasts, will need to consider a future without her. That will be a shock to many of us. She has been a constant during all my fifty-four years. When she goes the undoubted majesty she has conferred on the monarchy will doubtless go with her. She is after all the last Imperial Britannic Majesty. His Royal Highness Prince Charles to my mind will be a good king, albeit in a very different manner as he too shares a deep understanding of the needs of a restless people. As for Prince William, he is very much a man of his era and far less stuffy than many in the Household that serves him. Therefore I am confident that in future the monarchy will indeed learn to be more modest, like the country it serves and like the monarchy here in the Netherlands.

So, not only am I confident that the monarchy will survive but it shall continue to enjoy my support and loyalty. That might, as I say, seem strange to foreigners, but it is simply our way of ordering power in a complex state. And, to have an institution at the head of state that is by definition bipartisan and above the political fray is to my mind a very real blessing.

Thank you, your Majesty for your sixty years of duty to our country. I remain a humble, loyal citizen of the country you head, but you will forgive me if I will never be your subject. Those days are gone. And no, I am not looking for a knighthood. An OBE (Order of the British Empire) would be nice though.

Lord Lindley-French of Bramall Lane

Marius Montius Caesar: A Latter Day Shakespearean Tragedy?

Rome, Imperial Capital. 19 March, 2012 AD. “Beware the ides of March” a Soothsayer warns Caesar. Marius Montius Caesar is made Dictator of the Roman Republic to save the Republic in the name of the Republic. Critical is the support Caesar enjoys from the heads of the two leading families of the Empire, Angela Portia Merkela, formerly of the Germanic tribe, and Nicholatus Minimus Sarkozius, formerly of Gaul. Silvius Brutus Berlisconius, who has been deposed by Marius as leader of the corrupt, bloated Senate, plots his revenge. He utters bitterly, “I do fear the people choose Caesar for their king. I was born free as Caesar, and this man is now become a god”. The Roman die is cast.

Brutus Berlisconius, one time friend of Caesar, is all too conscious that his electoral chances depend on his playing to the fears of the Plebs now gathering in their uneasy impotence on the Appenine Hill across the deep valley of the Circo Massimo from the Capitoline where this great drama is unfolding. Caesar, gripped by the acute vulnerability of his position, has a vision of the fate that awaits him. Fatalistically he accepts that death “will come when it will come”. So, charged with his duty to save Rome from itself Caesar goes to the Senate to explain his plan.

Caesar is slain. As Brutus Berlisconius plunges a bloody dagger into Caesar the Dictator utters his final words, “Et tu, Brute”. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”, cries Brutus Berlisconius, “I come here to bury Caesar, not to praise him”. Romans, he warns, would have been slaves under Caesar, before he departs to his luxury island for a party.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is no Julius Caesar. He is a good man in a terrible position at a terrible time. However, his political (hopefully not personal) fate could be similar if he does not succeed in what is an almost impossible task – to drive down Italy’s public debt. As I walk the streets of this magnificent city and talk to Romans the mood here is one of uneasy calm.  The Italian debt hangs in the air like a gathering Shakespearean storm. The atmosphere is unworldly; a heavy calm before a cataclysmic social and political upheaval. Either Hannibal will bypass the city or the market barbarians will storm the ramparts. Cannae or Carthage?

My sources tell me that Monti sees himself being in power for no longer than one more year. He believes that not only will elections be necessary by then but that he and his technocratic government will have done all they can to stabilise Italy’s finances. If truth be told a year is probably nothing like enough time. Italy is a country wedded to debt. And, just like Caesar before him it was the failure of a corrupt political class that put the Republic in danger. Indeed, Italy’s politicians have traditionally survived on a system of patronage which has encouraged over-mighty subjects and special interest groups. Europe and the Eurozone was seen by many of them merely as a means to extend patronage via the cheap money that the Euro afforded. Indeed, the moment France and Germany broke the Euro’s stringent rules it became open season for many in the Italian elite to use government to over-spend.

Therefore, Monti faces a terrible choice.  If he does indeed go in a year or so and hands power back to a political class that shows little or no sign that it will mend its ways financial oblivion will beckon and Monti will be accused of a dereliction of duty. However, if Monti hangs onto power indefinitely he will be accused of being a latter day Caesar hell bent on destroying the ancient virtues and freedoms of the Republic. Italy, far more than Greece, will be the true test as to whether or not the Euro’s empire can survive the assault by the market barbarians. And, of course, Brutus Berlisconius waits in the wings.

Italy is a serious country with serious people who have deserved far better from their past leaders. In my years living in Florence, speaking the language, studying the place and the people I was constantly struck by the daily battle that was fought out between the state and the people. It is a battle that continues apace.  It is now one in which the future of Europe not just Italy is at stake. The Italian people deserve our support…and our vigilance.

As for the Eurozone crisis, the ides of March may indeed have come.  “Ay, Caesar, but not gone”.

Julius Livy-Cicerench

Obameron versus Merkozy

A NATO military base somewhere in deepest England. 14 March. I could tell you where I am but then I would have to kill you. I have just spent the day annoying NATO generals, the majority of whom are British, which is one of my purposes in life. Much of the day was spent by the British explaining the debt-fuelled contradiction that is likely to be Britain’s future defence strategy – to remain close to America whilst relying more on NATO. On the face of it such military parochialism might seem a world away from the Obameron high politics/grand strategy taking place in Washington.  It is not. Let me start with the high politics first.

Officially Obameron will consider the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, and of course the joint position the US and UK will likely adopt at May’s NATO Chicago Summit. It is also clear from the red carpet treatment PR-Meister Dave is receiving in DC that the Americans again see a wider significance to the ‘special (yawn) relationship’. After many months of the Merkozy duarchy assuming the right to speak for Europe Obameron are in effect formalising the new fault-line in the transatlantic relationship. Berlin and Paris be warned; Obameron will henceforth contest the European strategic piece with Merkozy.

Those of you out there who react to this statement with bewilderment and object to my suggestion that the German Chancellor and French President could be acting out of anything but the most altruistic of impulses have something of a point...but only something. The Eurozone crisis needed leaders and Germany and France had to act. However, like any power capital Berlin and Paris are complex places with a range of complex political and strategic motives.  A clear sub-text from the start of the duarchy has been the establishment of a precedent for the future leadership of Europe by Berlin and Paris. It is leadership that neither America nor Britain will ever accept.

Many continental Europeans simply do not understand this and they need to. ‘Liberty’, as defined by national parliamentary democracies exercising sovereign will, was precisely what the Americans and British fought for together and died together in their millions in two world wars. The ‘political’ system on offer today for future Europe is not parliamentary democracy. For one I desperately do not want my country to leave the European Union. However, the plutocratic/technocratic path the EU has now taken threatens a shared Anglo-American heritage in which I also passionately believe to make Europe safe for democracy.

This brings me back to my meeting here in xxxxxxxxxx. The fatal flaw in London’s logic is to equate NATO with the US. NATO is increasingly a European organisation in which the Americans have at best a waning passing interest. To rely more on NATO means the British relying more on continental Europeans. Not only are the defence budgets of said Europeans in meltdown, but even more importantly so is the political will to use legitimate force and crucially Britain's at best meagre political influence in Europe is also in meltdown.

The contradiction in British defence policy is thus clear.  On the one hand the British want to save money by relying more heavily on a NATO command structure in which the US has little interest and on European partners that either do not want to act with Britain or simply cannot.    On the other hand the British want to stay close to the Americans militarily even though that will cost a lot of money, especially so as the Americans are about to make the final break from a land-centric defence strategy with Europe at its core to a maritime strategy which does not at all have Europe at its core.

Is there a way out?  Possibly, but it is a long shot. First, Chicago must reaffirm the principles of national parliamentary sovereignty the defence of which is NATO’s core mission. Second, Britain, France and Germany must be seen to come together and reaffirm the idea of a united Europe established firmly on the principles of national parliamentary sovereignty. Third, the very practical defence pact that France and Britain share must be expanded to include Germany so that Europe’s new strategic triangle could then begin Europe’s long road back to strategic seriousness.

There is one thing that all parties to this schism need to understand fast; the stakes are very high indeed.  Fail and Obameron versus Merkozy could be just the beginning of a strategic realignment that would in time render the Channel wider than the Atlantic.

Mind you what could come next does not sound at all appealing – Romron versus Merkholl?  Heaven forbid Merkland-e!

Julian Lindley-French

Tough but Correct Call Prime Minister!

Alphen, the Netherlands. 12 March.  The 7 March attempt to free Briton Mr Chris McManus and Italian Mr Franco Lamonilara from Nigerian kidnappers by Britain's Special Boat Service (SBS) and Royal Marine Commandos British ended in failure.  Tragically, Mr McManus and Mr Lamolinara were killed by their captors.  The Italian President has attacked London for launching the raid without informing Rome prior to the operation. 

Regular readers of this blog know that I have my issues with what I regard as Prime Minister Cameron's lack of strategic vision and his tendency to cave-in to London's supine officials at key strategic moments, particularly over Europe.  Not on this occasion.  The 'go' decision took real steel.  These operations are always intelligence-led and sometimes action must be taken at very short notice.  Moreover, there are a thousand things that can go wrong in what are by definition extremely high-risk operations.

Of course I deeply regret the killing of the two men and my heart go out to their families.  However, there is a deeper point; once again British forces put their own lives on the line to save the lives of others.  I can understand Italy's frustration as London and Rome are close.  However, the Italian Government may also wish to reflect on the dangers British and Nigerian forces were willing to face to free their citizen.

There is also a wider point that informs the future of Britain's armed forces.  The very fact that Britain could put a significant force of very specialised troops into Nigeria is a significant precedent that must be factored into the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review.  Britain's twenty-first century military must be built around a small but very specialised professional army, deliverable and protectable by small but global reach naval and air forces of the highest quality centred on the two new super-carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. 

To realise such an 'influence force' Britain's political class will have to lift itself out of the mire, nay the cult, of self-imposed decline into which it has fallen.  Indeed, the decline management culture that pervades Westminster and Whitehall was reflected in last week's House of Commons review of the National Security Strategy in what was otherwise a solid report.  As per usual the politicians simply accepted Britain's decline as a fait accompli.  Yes, it is true Britain will have to confront a twenty-first century world in which new actors emerge.  However, London's political class routinely exaggerate the strength of others, and routinely exaggerate the weakness of Britain.  This is supported an elite bureaucratic class that too often questions Britain's right to strategic influence and to keen to appease reality.

Quality is the key to Britain's future strategic influence; quality of thought, quality of strategy, quality of action and quality of force.    

Thank you for making a tough but correct call Prime Minister.  I am sorry it did not work out as planned.

Julian Lindley-French

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Is it Time for a Nuclear Mutual Assistance Pact?

Alphen, the Netherlands. 9 March. Is it time for a Nuclear Mutual Assistance Pact? Yesterday’s ‘P5+1’ statement urging Iran to enter into “serious dialogue” on its nuclear programme “without preconditions” suggests the danger of nuclear proliferation is now so real that something new is needed to prevent it. The statement is also an important precedent. The very fact that the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States have come together with Germany demonstrates the gravity of the growing crisis. As British Foreign Secretary William Hague said, if Iran gets nukes others will follow.

Israel and Iran are clearly on collision course. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Tuesday night US speech made it clear that time is running out and Israel will “…not live in the shadow of annihilation”. Netanyahu was to some extent exaggerating for effect and talking to a particular audience, but Israeli perceptions cannot be ignored. Indeed they are central to this crisis. A Nuclear Mutual Assistance Pact would reinforce Chapter Seven of the UN Charter which allows for self-defence by authorising the P5 to act in the event of a nuclear threat including the use of military force if the threat was imminent. The immediate purpose of the pact would be to stabilise the Middle East. As Hague implies if Iran gets the bomb Saudi Arabia, possibly the Gulf States and others will doubtless follow.

However, the pact would also be designed to reinforce the failing 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty. The first atomic bomb was exploded in 1945 and the first modern missiles flew in 1944. Such is the pace and scale of technology creep that nothing that old can be kept forever in a locked treaty box, especially when a treaty reflect a past age. Sooner or later the bomb is going to spread well beyond the current eight nuclear powers. Indeed, an uncomfortable truth is that sooner or later the world is probably going to have to find a way to properly police a multi-multipolar nuclear reality.

Under the pact the five nuclear UN Security Council Permanent Members would immediately and collectively threaten an offender with overwhelming military action and render humanitarian assistance in the event of an attack. The pact could be established as an addendum to the Non-Proliferation Treaty which was extended indefinitely in 1995. The pact would also authorise the establishment of criteria for ever-tougher sanctions for unauthorised possession of nuclear weapons. Of course, sooner or later consideration would also have to be given to what President Obama called in his 2009 Prague Speech “Global Zero”, or general and comprehensive nuclear disarmament. However, that would be then, not now.

Part of the problem is that facing up to the reality of nuclear proliferation is simply too uncomfortable for leaders and publics. They simply want the problem to go away. Indeed, there are even people out there who have convinced themselves that Tehran’s ambitions go no further than the peaceful exploitation of nuclear power. That is the latter day equivalent of holocaust-denial.

If action is not taken the threat that Israel launches an air-strike against Iran will grow. At some point Israel may judge the threat so great and the chance that conventional air strikes do the job so unlikely that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran becomes an option. Israel possesses an estimated 250 nuclear warheads at Dimona. Remember, there is an extra dimension to Iran-Israel relations that makes this particular nuclear stand-off particularly dangerous. Alternatively, the Western powers offer an exclusive nuclear mutual assistance pact solely to Israel with all that entails for the Middle East...and the transatlantic relationship.

The price of proliferation will also strike closer to home. The very fact of a world with multiple nuclear powers would undermine the ability of the great power to shape events. Indeed, for all the fancy conventional forces the Americans, Chinese, Russians and their like may in future possess the whole point of nuclear weapons is that they equalise and neutralise power. The only way to stop the drift towards a very dangerous nuclear world would be to make the possession of them hideously costly and the use of them utterly ruinous.

The simple truth is that like it or not we are indeed entering a new nuclear age. And whatever the situation in the Middle East we need to start thinking about new control, verification and if necessary punishment regimes for those states that might contemplate using nuclear weapons. The nuclear genie is not yet out of the bottle but the lid is getting looser by the day.

We need to act now.

Julian Lindley-French

In Honour of Britain's Afghan Fallen

Alphen, the Netherlands. 7 March. Today it was announced that six British soldiers serving in Afghanistan are missing presumed dead. Five of them were serving with The Yorkshire Regiment, my own county regiment, and the other with the Duke of Lancaster Regiment. My heart goes out to the family and friends of the fallen. They were part of a sustained British effort that stands second only to that of the United States in its commitment to bring peace to the people of Afghanistan. Today’s sorry tally takes the number of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan past the 400 mark since British troops first deployed in 2001.

In the House of Commons today Prime Minister Cameron paid fitting tribute to the men. He also re-iterated the determination of his government to maintain the commitment of British troops to Afghanistan prior to the planned drawdown of combat forces at the end of 2014.  Prime Minister Cameron also reaffirmed the three reasons for the continued presence of British troops in Afghanistan: to prevent the Taliban returning to power in Afghanistan; to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming an ungoverned space for terrorists to exploit; to keep violent Islamism at strategic distance from Britain.

My support for Britain’s troops is absolute. For much of the past ten years I have worked on Afghanistan, I have been to Afghanistan and I believe passionately that Afghans be afforded every opportunity to live at peace with each other and their neighbours. However, in honour of my fellow Yorkshiremen I must warn the Prime Minister that he needs to make a much better case for the continued sacrifice of our young men. He can no longer continue to trot out now tired mantras to justify the sacrifice.

First, the claim that Britain’s troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan to keep Islamism at strategic distance is hard for the British people to accept when in the past decade over a million people have been permitted to enter the United Kingdom from some of the most conservative parts of Islam. Second, Afghan President Karzai yesterday welcomed “guidelines for women” from the Ulema Council which he funds. Comprised of senior clerics the Council demanded that women must henceforth wear headscarves, be permitted in public only if escorted by male family members, and forbidden to work alongside men. If brought to pass such restrictions would undo much of the progress made since 2001. The British people will not understand the sacrifice of British forces if all they are doing is keeping Afghanistan warm for the post-2014 return of the Taliban. Third, my sources tell me that President Karzai and much of his senior cohort are preparing for a swift exit from Afghanistan should things turn ugly. It needs to be made very clear to President Karzai that he can expect no taxpayer-funded safe haven in London. There can be no Mayfair apartment if he fails.

Britain’s armed forces, working within NATO and with American and other allies, have achieved much this past decade. Unfortunately, however effective a military campaign, whatever the number of Afghan soldiers and policemen trained, it will be as nothing if the political strategy fails. Indeed, the only purpose of military campaigns is to create the conditions for a just political solution. The Talibanisation/Pashtunisation of the Afghan Government would dishonour our troops. 

Next week in Washington Prime Minister Cameron will meet President Obama. There would be no better tribute to the fallen of both America and Britain than for President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron to re-state clearly their political strategy between now and end 2014. Specifically, we the British people need an urgent answer to two simple questions; what is the specific political objective you seek in Afghanistan and how do you intend to achieve it? The answer is now not at all clear. You need to make it so.

In honour of our Yorkshire fallen – God’s Own County!

Requiescat in Pace.

Julian Lindley-French

Refused Bail: Christopher Tappin Update

Alphen, the Netherlands. 6 March.  65 year old English businessman Christopher Tappin has been denied bail by a US court because he apparently poses "a flight risk".  Mr Tappin, who was extradited from England to the US under an unbalanced extradition that blatantly favours Americans, is to be tried for allegedly selling batteries that could be used to fire Iranian missiles. He denies the charges.  Not surprisingly Mr Tappin's wife Elaine believes the decision by Judge Robert Castaneda to keep him in custody as "heartbreaking" and an "outrage".   The judge had agreed that Mr Tappin could be monitored if released, but still decided to refuse bail citing what he described as discrepancies in Mr Tappin's financial statement. 

Sadly, the British Government is doing nothing to ease Mr Tappin's plight which is fast bordering on the cruel and inhumane punishment banned under English law.    This is not least because no date has been set for his trial, he is solitary in confinement, allowed out from his cell only one hour in twenty four, denied reading materials and forced to sleep with lights shining day and night.  He has also been refused effective communication with his defence team to prepare for his trial. 

For those of us who have been life-long supporters of the United States, believers in American justice and who have defended America from its many critics Mr Tappin's appalling treatment must force a re-consideration. London feebly suggests that the matter is now entirely for the US courts to decide.  Apparently, the human rights of English people abroad is no longer of interest to Her Majesty's Government.  Indeed, it now seems Mr Tappin is being unjustly punished by the Americans precisely to make a point that in the US we English are seen as second-class citizens.  There is at least some consistency in this because we English are also seen as second-class citizens in Britain too these days.

Julian Lindley-French 

Big Weekend for the Big Brothers

Alphen, the Netherlands. 5 March. This has been a big weekend for the big brothers. President-elect Vladimir Putin somehow managed to get himself ‘re-elected’ in Russia. He should next time try to become EU President as the system is by and large the same. China announced a paltry 11.2% increase in defence expenditure, whilst at the same time highlighting ‘disappointing’ economic growth figures of 7.2%, the lowest ‘for decades’, which is never a good combination. Meanwhile, President Obama, speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), said that the US “will not hesitate” to use force to stop Iran obtaining nuclear weapons, but says diplomacy could still succeed. All three events imply a rocky road ahead.

What is also interesting is that all three events take place against a backdrop of change at the top of world affairs. Indeed, four of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council are either in the midst of election campaigns (France and the US), or handover campaigns (China and Russia). The only one that is not is Britain. However, Britain today cuts a rather forlorn figure of a Permanent Member with a government in London patently running out of both ideas and steam leading a country that due to self-inflicted decline is losing influence by the day - both in Europe and the wider world. France is locked into the Eurozone crisis and increasingly a surrogate of Germany, Europe’s only real power of influence, albeit power of a distinctly soft nature. So, what does this moment of change imply for world peace?

President Putin claims to have won over 64% of the vote this weekend but amidst allegations of vote rigging the figure is probably nearer 50%. It is clear that Putin has lost a lot of support across Russia and his term could face significant challenge from an increasingly vocal big city opposition. Like many a previous Russian leader he seems to be leaning towards nationalism as a means to shore up his regime. Two weeks ago Putin wrote that “For Russia to feel secure and for our partners to listen carefully to what our country has to say,” Russia will about $775 billion by 2022 for new armaments and a more professional military. That will be a heavy burden for the Russian economy to bear but the intent is clear.

Beijing’s announcement this weekend that it will grow the Chinese defence budget by 11.2% in 2012 (although slightly lower than the 12.7% in 2011) is but the latest double digit increase. Indeed, China has been growing its military at that rate since 1989 and the official figures are probably ‘conservative’. What makes this year’s increase interesting is the timing. It is likely that Vice-President Xi Jingping will succeed President Hu Jintao when he steps down in 2013. Xi is known to be close to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and his accession will doubtless strengthen the influence of the forces and with it their sustained access to investment. Worryingly, during Xi’s recent visit to Washington the Americans tried to interest him in new military-to-military exchanges. They were met with a flat ‘no’.

President Obama’s weekend warning to Iran comes in the wake of Israeli President Shimon Peres saying that Iran “was a danger to the world”. What makes Iran particularly worrying is that Teheran is also in the midst of what passes for democracy in the Islamic Republic and with it an implied power struggle between the clerical elite and radical elements around President Ahmadinejad. Worried that Israel might be tempted to launch a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear sites President Obama said, “Iran’s leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment – I have a policy to prevent Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon”.  Cue confrontation - soon!

It is not simply leaderships that are changing (well, sort of). Russia, China and the US are also changing their respective strategic orientations. Russia is increasingly looking east towards China.  Expect and increase in the Kremlin’s anti-Western rumblings and tensions in the High North and with Ukraine over the coming years, not to mention another stand-off with NATO as it tries to update its collective defence structure.

China is beginning to move beyond the Strategic Harmony which has driven its growth-friendly foreign policy for many years. Beijing is also beginning to use the wealth it has generated to begin to assert itself both in its own neighbourhood and beyond. With the PLA now ascendant one can expect a more techy relationship between Beijing and its neighbours and, of course, with Washington.

For Washinton real difficulties lay ahead.  The US is drawing down both its global military and diplomatic footprint even as forced obligations expand. Rather like Britain in the 1930s, which could no longer defend its Eastern Empire, the Suez Canal and the home base, Washington is being forced into hard choices. Implicit in both Beijing’s and Moscow’s defence hikes are efforts to make America’s choices just that bit harder. Were they up to the task the UN’s two other Permanent Members, Britain and France, would realise the game that is afoot and re-discover true strategy. It is vital London and Paris assist the US by exploring ways to take the pressure of an over-stretched America by leading efforts to maintain stability in Europe and its neighbourhood.

Tragically, it will also mean that 'in-between' places such as Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, together with a host of others, will see little concerted humanitarian action as big brother politics again paralyses the United Nations.

Julian Lindley-French

Mark Easton's Attack on Britain

Alphen, the Netherlands. 3 March.  Mark Easton is the BBC's Home Editor. It is a mark of the BBC's shift to the political Left that Mr Easton has been appointed Home Editor.  On the BBC website today Mr Easton has written an extended blog questioning what it is to be British.  In fact this is just the latest of a series of Mr Easton's serial attempts to undermine the concept of Britishness.  His basic point is that Britishness is all things to all people and is therefore nothing.  He occupies the usual space of the Left on this issue by implying that all other countries - the French, the Germans, the Dutch and the rest of course have national identities but not we British.  He also regularly champions all minority identities particularly against the English and is quick to find any range of excuses for law-breaking and criminality.  In Mr Easton's world no-one is ever responsible for anything unless that is one is English.  He is a Scot by background. 

Precisely because Britain is comprised four of consitituent nations (and thanks to hyper-immigration many more now) being British is by definition a construct.  However, that is the point - it is an important construct that offers a complex society a chance of social cohesion without which no society can function.   The whole point of Britain has been to establish a common identity sufficiently strong enough around which we can all gther. Moreover, we British all live on an island called Britain and are therefore British simply by association with the rock that keeps our collectiuve heads above water.  

In fact Britain has been both successful idea and defined place. Take it from my Dutch neighbours who have no problem with understanding Britishness.  Not least because by and large the Dutch are also pretty comfortable with the multiple identities that each of them possesses. 

What Mr Easton and his friends on the Left really seek is an end to Britain as an idea and the BBC should have nothing to do with that.  

If you value your reputation for balance and objectivity BBC then get rid of Mr Easton before he does any more damage.

Julian Lindley-French 

Onion Blarney

Alphen, the Netherlands. 2 March. Irish wit Oscar Wilde once said, “Before you call for one for one for the road, be sure you know the road”. Europe’s road has now been chosen. With today's signing of the European Fiscal Stability Treaty (or Treaty of Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union to give it the sexy title)  who knows where the road will eventually lead. However, the inference is clear – fiscal union. Do the people of Europe have a say? 

No.  The extent of the changes being pushed through with this treaty go far beyond “fiscal consolidation as an essential condition of higher growth” as called for in a letter by the German and French duarchy. Without any reference to 'we' the European people Herman van Rompuy has been made EU president...again. Maybe it is my age but I do not recall ever having elected ‘Mr’ van Rompuy. As such he is no president of mine. Clearly, being Greek the Onion's euro-aristocracy have decided this democracy thing is not for them. Mr van Rompuy's 're-election' merely confirms that.

PR Meister David Cameron is of course twittering from the margins into which he cast himself by retreating from his principled position of 8 December. Cameron is fast becoming a parody of Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher. She once famously said, “U-turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning”. Be it over Europe, health care reform, immigration and asylum policy, Scottish independence and a host of other things that matter to the British people Cameron’s mantra is ‘U-turn if you want to, if you are at all nasty to me I will turn with you’.

To cover his somewhat supine political back he has wrangled 11 other European leaders into signing a wholly meaningless ‘letter for growth’ which he wanted inserted into the final communique of today's summit. Far from demonstrating his influence the letter merely serves to highlight his impotence. Over dinner last night Cameron complained that his calls for a growth-friendly reduction in Omission bureaucracy were being ignored by the European Omission. Really, David?

The true test for Cameron will come when the Omission accelerates efforts to impose a financial services tax of which Britain will pay 80% to save a currency of which it is not part. There is no such thing as a free tax. The very growth which Cameron needs is now under severe threat from the ambitions of Germany, France and the Omission. All the PR-Meister has done has delayed the final battle and what a battle royal it will be. Will Cameron be King Arthur or King Harold (Battle of Hastings and all that)? Sadly, I suspect the latter. The last few months have revealed a sad truth about Cameron – more iron maybe than iron ‘lady’. He is no leader.

Cameron apart what really matters at this summit is what is not in the headlines – the quiet but inexorable retreat from democratic oversight implicit in this treaty. Not for the first time it is the Irish, long used to dealing with over-bearing power, who have revealed a dangerous sleight of political hand. Not far from Cork lies the Blarney Stone, a block of bluestone built into Blarney Castle. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with an ability to tell wonderful tales, to flatter and to coax the unwary. Perhaps the Irish should send the stone to Brussels where it clearly belongs. 

The Irish are about to hold their third referendum in four years because of all Europe’s people they know blarney when they see it. Although the new treaty is not an EU-treaty per se the fact and nature of it means it will be seen as such. Sadly, this treaty makes it much easier for the euro-aristocracy to ignore the people of Europe. In the past fundamental changes to the way the EU did business required all member-states to ratify a treaty at national level either via parliamentary vote, popular referendum or both. However, this treaty establishes a precedent which gravely undermines this principle of unanimity and replaces it with a new kind of what is called qualified majority voting in Onion-speak. If there is one principle over which Cameron should have stood his ground this is it.  He did not. 

The problem for the euro-aristocracy has been the rather annoying tendency of Europe’s people to say 'no'. Back in 2008 the Irish people said ‘no’ to the Lisbon Treaty. They were then told to vote again until they got the answer right. The same happened back in 2005 when French and Dutch voters rejected the putative European Constitution, only for it to reappear in another form pushed through by the euro-aristocracy. To avoid 'we' the euro-peasantry inflicting another such inconvenience on the euro-aristocracy the new treaty now requires the approval of only 12 countries to enter into force.

Even if the Irish people say no it will be meaningless. The leadership of Germany will be confirmed and with it the unaccountable influence of the European Omission will be extended as the Onion takes one more step on the road to Imperium. Of course our Dear Leaders as per usual have omitted to tell we peasantry about all of this as it would be far too hard for us to understand. Rather, the suffocating shroud of the ‘Brussels omerta’ has once again been draped over what passes for democracy these days in Europe.

Why is this important? A close friend of mine was having dinner with a very senior official from the Omission in Washington recently.  After a good glass of claret or two the latter explained that the European elite had always pushed forward its integrating project using what he called the “strategy of creative crisis”. By said gambit crises such as the Eurozone crisis are seen by the Omission as an opportunity. The trick, the official explained, was first to create panic and then to use that panic to push for more power for the Omission. Recognise it?

Oscar Wilde also said, “A man who does not think for himself, does not think at all”. Maybe, just maybe, a dose of Irish bravery might just wake up Europe’s slumbering masses to what is taking place in their name...and at their expense.

Erin go Bragh!

Julian Lindley-French

Christopher Tappin Update

Alphen, the Netherlands.  1 March.  You may recall that last week 65 year-old Englishman Mr Christopher Tappin was extradited to the US under the terms of a wholly unbalanced extradition treaty.  Under the treaty British citizens are deemed to enjoy an inferior status to American citizens.  Even though Mr Tappin's alleged crimes never took place in the US the Americans who demanded his extradition were able to do so because the British Government refuses to afford the same level of legal protection to British citizens as the Americans insist are applied to their own.  Today I have learnt that Mr Tappin, who is yet to face trial and is therefore innocent, is in solitary confinement, has had all reading materials confiscated, is forced to stay in his cell 23 hours out of 24, with lights shining 24 hours out of 24.  The aim seems to be to cower Mr Tappin into accepting a plea bargain and plead guilty even if he is, as he claims, innocent.  I am a friend and ally of the United States and have long stood up for the US often at a profound cost to my career here in Europe.  I will remain a friend of the United States.  However, the treatment of Mr Tappin is shaking my belief in American justice.  I am particularly saddened that a citizen of such a close ally should be treated as though the presumption of innocence no longer exists - a concept of justice that both America and England are meant to share and for which we have fought wars together.  As for the British Government it is doing little or nothing to protect a British citizen.  Nothing new there then. Were Mr Tappin a foreign national the British Government would be pulling all the stops out...and getting the British taxpayer to fund the bill.  As Mr Tappin said, "It is a disgrace". 

Julian Lindley-French  

Libya: The Transition Clock

Alphen, the Netherlands. 29 February. PRISM, the Journal for the Center for Complex Operations at the National Defence University in Washington has just published a significant article of mine entitled, “Libya: The Transition Clock” (http://www.ndu.edu/press/prism3-2.html). Some three months on from the October 2011 slaying of Gadhafi the piece offers a realistic appreciation of Libya’s progress on the transitional road to a stable, functioning, representative state.

Imagine an imaginary twelve hour clock face on which zero hour is chaos and twelve hours is a stable, functioning, representative Libya. Against that clock-face I set five principles of conflict transition established by the United States Institute for Peace and the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute: a safe and secure environment; rule of law; stable governance; a sustainable economy; and social well-being.

A safe and secure environment (3 o’clock) is defined as the "ability of the people to conduct their daily lives without fear of systematic or large-scale violence." With much of the country effectively lawless public order is virtually non-existent. The physical challenge alone is daunting. Even though 90 per cent of Libya’s 6.5 million people live on the coastal strip, the country is roughly the size of Alaska with 1.1 million square kms/680,000 square miles of territory. The coast alone is 1,758 kms/1,099 miles long with land borders totalling 4,357kms/2,723 miles. Furthermore, with so many militias spread across the country it is going to be some time before legitimate state monopoly over the means of violence is reasserted or indeed control over borders re-established. Critical to the entire transition process and, indeed, one of the key indicators will be to what extent, and at what pace, Tripoli can weld all the militias into a single national army.

Rule of law (3 o’clock) is defined as the "ability of the people to have equal access to just laws and a trusted system of justice that holds all persons accountable, protects their human rights and ensures their safety and security." Logically, the first order principle for Tripoli is to establish the equitable rule of national law in Libya’s two major population centres—Tripoli and Benghazi—and then expand its writ across the country once the seat of government has been firmly established.  However, a just legal framework for the whole of Libya will not only take time, but will prove an intensely political process. Islamist groups insist on a strict interpretation of Sharia law, a position that led Berber representatives to walk out of meetings to discuss transitional arrangements. Public order, another key facet of rule of law, is fragmented and uncertain. Furthermore, accountability under the law, access to justice, and eventually a culture of lawfulness will likely require the establishment of an entirely new system for the administration of justice.

Stable governance (4 o’clock) is defined as the "ability of the people to share access or compete for power through non-violent political processes and to enjoy the collective benefits and services of the state." Libya is in early post-conflict transition which requires the steady and sustained reduction of conflict across security, economic, and political spheres. Tripoli is only taking the first and most tentative steps toward representative government. And, what is emerging is a hybrid, instable political structure involving secular, tribal, and Islamist elements with all three vying for supreme state authority. How this equilibrium is institutionalized with the necessary checks and balances to ensure that no single group dominates will be a critical test of transition.

A sustainable economy (2 o’clock) is defined as the "ability of the people to pursue opportunities for livelihoods within a system of economic governance bound by law." According to the UN Development Programme Human Development Index, Libya ranked 53rd out of 169 states prior to the civil war. Libya thus enjoys a relatively educated population with enough of a middle class to in principle provide an entrepreneurial impetus to the economy. One of the first order requirements for the new government is to re-establish macroeconomic control over consumer price inflation, growth in the gross domestic product over one or more business cycles, changes in measured unemployment and employment, the effective management of fluctuations in government finances, and currency stability. However, Tripoli at present lacks any real influence over its conflict-torn economy and is thus incapable of establishing the functioning structures critical for effective economic governance.

Social well-being (2 o’clock) is defined as the "ability of the people to be free from want of basic needs and to coexist peacefully in communities with opportunities for advancement." Libya’s greatest assets (apart from its people) are its high-grade hydrocarbon and gas reserves. These will in time fund the resources for meeting the basic needs of the people, but only in time. Encouragingly, Tripoli has moved rapidly to establish new contracts with potential partners. At an estimated 41.5 billion barrels, Libya has the largest proven oil reserves in Africa—about 3 per cent of the global total—with much of the country unexplored due to past sanctions. The geology, however, looks very promising. Even without further discoveries, Libya has some 20 years of reserves at 2009 production rates. Libyan oil is also easy to recover. In addition, the country has proven gas reserves of 52 trillion cubic feet, making Libya the world’s 14th largest producer. That said there are profound tensions between the rural-based militias that did much of the fighting and the city dwellers that sat on the fence for much of the conflict, particularly in Tripoli, which could hamper exploitation. Moreover, it is the intellectual capital represented by Tripoli that is vital to Libya’s future stability.

Libya is thus only at 3 o’clock on the transition clock with the next year or so being pivotal for the transition process. With Tripoli only some 294 kms/184 miles from both the EU and NATO now is the moment when the transitional government in Tripoli needs maximum support.

Libya, sadly, is still a country at war with itself.

Julian Lindley-French

How Much More Discrimination Must the English Suffer?

Alphen, the Netherlands. 27 February. You will recall in yesterday’s blog I talked of how in Britain all minorities are given higher priority than the English, be they from within the British Islands or beyond. Tonight there is definitive proof.

I have just been watching the BBC TV News during which three stories stood out. First, English students attending Scottish universities are required to pay full fees, whilst those from the rest of the EU pay nothing. Welsh students are subsidised and a cap exists in Northern Ireland on all fees paid by students. This is because the English taxpayer subsidises Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. However, English students studying at English universities are required to pay up to £9000 per annum for their university fees. English students are thus facing indefensible discrimination.

Second, the sorry plight of Indian citizens who had come to Britain illegally was shown. It is a disgrace that a civilised country should treat any human being in such a way with many forced to seek shelter on London’s streets in cardboard boxes. What is more galling is that many of these people have asked for voluntary deportation but cannot leave due to appalling bureaucratic incompetence by both the British and Indian governments. There is a wider picture here – such is the uncontrolled level of immigration to England (not Scotland or Wales) that some English towns are ceasing to be English. Lincolnshire is now known as Lincolnshiregrad. And yet the government refuses to take action claiming as usual that ‘Europe’ would not permit it. I am more than willing to accept managed immigration but the current levels of immigration – both legal and illegal – are simply out of control. All government ministers can offer are the usual platitudes.

Third, the wife of Englishman Mr Christopher Timmins, who was extradited last Friday to the US under a wholly unbalanced extradition treaty that is loaded overwhelmingly in favour of the US, gave evidence today to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. She explained that Mr Timmins was not even allowed to give his side of the story to an English court prior to extradition. I have checked with an American lawyer friend of mine who works in this area and he tells me that as part of American legal proceedings under this treaty a US citizen does indeed have the right to put his or her case before an American court. It now transpires that Mr Timmins is allowed one hour a day out of his cell and has had his reading materials confiscated. Does that not constitute torture? If so why did the European Court of Human Rights refuse to hear Mr Timmins’s case and yet blocked the extradition from Britain of radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada to Jordan who has called for Jihad against Britain and its citizens? This is in spite of written assurances from the Jordanians that he would not be subject to torture and verbal assurances that no evidence in his trial would be gathered using coercion.

The British government is becoming very good at inventing excuses as to why the English suffer such blatant discrimination but is doing little or nothing to stop it. During my trip to Oxford last week I talked to a lot English people and all expressed deep concerns about a government that refuses to listen or act - all talk, no action.  No wonder that is a recent poll 59% of English people said they did not believe the British Government acts in their best interest. Moreover, a 2011 study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that active discrimination was taking place by both local and national authorities against low income English communities.

Be careful government.  Your inability/refusal to stem the rising tide of discrimination aganst the English is stoking real anger across the length and breadth of England. Politicians, you seem to have forgotten a fundamental tenet of democracy to listen to the people who put you in power.

Julian Lindley-French

British Security Policy: A Mess of Olympic Proportions

Oxford, England. 27 February. To paraphrase US President Richard M. Nixon; finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver, finishing second in security risks oblivion. I have returned to my alma mater University College, Oxford to present a copy of my new book – The Oxford Handbook of War. Olympic-mania is already apparent in this country from the moment one steps off the plane at Heathrow Airport until the moment (with relief) one gets climbs back on again. In my short stay here in Oxford several stories have broken in the British press that demonstrate not only that the London Olympics are vulnerable to terrorist attack, but that the security of Britain itself is now at risk from a dangerously unconnected and disconnected British government. Put simply, British security policy is about as ‘un-joined up’ (in the terrible jargon of Whitehall) as it is possible to be.

National security policy is comprised of six elements: effective control over national borders; effective management of immigration; the prevention of extremism and its export; the legal protection and punishment of citizens and others; (and credible) defence. The sixth and most important element of security policy is that the people trust the system and believe government is acting efficiently in their best interests. The British Government is failing in all six areas. Let me take you through a week in the life of security failure.

On 20 February Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Theresa May ordered the splitting up of the UK Border Agency after hundreds of thousands of people were let into the country without appropriate checks. This is some five months prior to the Olympics. Specifically, some 500,000 nationals from the European Economic Area travelling on Eurostar services from France were not checked against security warning lists. Secure ID checks were suspended at London Heathrow Airport some 463 times between June 2010 and November 2011. Between January and June 2011 a system for reading a biometric chip was deactivated 14,812 occasions at various British ports.

On 21 February Janes Defence Weekly reported that China would spend $120 billion on defence this year climbing to $238 billion by 2015, a rise of 18.75%. This is in addition to the 256% increase in China’s defence spending since 2005. The same day President Putin announced that Russia would spend $775 billion by 2020, including the deployment of 400 new intercontinental ballistic missiles. The two sets of increases are clearly linked. Meanwhile Britain is cutting its defence budget by a nominal 8% between 2010 and 2015 (in fact the cuts go far deeper) and is likely to cut further. Clearly the balance of power both in Europe and the wider world is shifting dangerously but government is impervious to this.

On 23 February the Office for National Statistics reported that in the year up to June 2011 some 593,000 people entered Britain with net migration rising by 250,000. Immigrants from Africa and the Indian sub-Continent totalled 170,000. The massive majority are of course perfectly decent people seeking a better life and who make a real contribution to society, although the sheer pace and scale of immigration is imposing huge pressures on British society. Equally, many come from the most conservative regions of the Islamic world, such as Nigeria, Pakistan and Somalia. This makes a mockery of government claims that British troops are fighting and dying in a corner of an Afghan field to keep radical Islam away from Britain. It is entering via the front door.

On 23 February, Prime Minister Cameron hosted the London Somalia Conference designed to kick-start serious international aid to a country that is now one of the epicentres of international terrorism. Nothing wrong with that, although it does seem strange that having failed in Afghanistan Britain is now so keen to fail in Somalia.  Once again, British taxpayers money is being 'invested' in another failed state with no particular strategy in sight. It may have something to do with the fact that there are 50 ‘British’ members of Somali Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabab, the greatest number from any foreign country.  It would make more sense for the government to focus properly on home-grown threats. The government’s PREVENT counter-terrorism strategy is in tatters mainly because of problems in the Home Office (Interior Ministry). This weakening of effort is reinforced by the 11.3% cuts to the security services which have taken place since 2010.

On 24 February, 65 year old British citizen Mr Christopher Tappin was taken by two US Marshals from Éngland to America to face trial under an extradition treaty that is so blatantly loaded in favour of the US as to render England little more than a colony. Indeed, whilst the US population is some five times greater than that of Britain the US has successfully carted off some 75 British citizens against only 40 US citizens being sent the other way. This is due to the much higher burden of evidence demanded by American courts.

The sheer scale of the complacency at the top of government was revealed to me this week in evidence apparently given by Cabinet Office minister Oliver Letwin to the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration. Mr Letwin was responding to a report to which I had contributed which highlighted the need for a real national strategy to foster high-level unity of effort and purpose in British security.  Sadly, his testimony was worthy of Sir Humphrey Appleby of Yes Minister fame at his dissembling worst. Mr Letwin rejected both the idea and language of a national strategy as something he did not recognise. He implicitly trashed both the National Security Strategy and the Strategic Defence and Security Review by suggesting that all Britain needed was vague ‘strategic aims’ and to ‘scan horizons’. It was as though Britain was still an imperial power of such influence and resources that hard choices and disciplined, cohesive government in pursuit of sound security policy – the very rational for strategy - was not really at all necessary.  This was not an exercise in the management of decline, but the active encouragement of it. To Letwin’s mind it was OK for Britain to simply muddle along.  It is the job of the Cabinet Office to ensure coherence across government.  It has palpably failed.

Why is this happening? First, the culture of political correctness is now so pervasive amongst the Whitehall elite that the interests of all minorities, be they from within these islands or beyond, are placed above those of the majority English. Second, Britain has effectively lost control over much of its border to the EU and the European Court of Human Rights, which now effectively controls just who Britain can and cannot deport. Third, in the absence of strategy and leadership from Downing Street a form of market competition has broken out between the key ministries for what little money and resources are available. The tail is most definitely wagging the dog. Sadly, it is competition reinforced by profound ideological divisions within and between key ministries as to how security should be pursued which effectively prevents a coherent and cohesive cross-government security policy.

Does all this matter?  A very senior American colleague told me this week that the many contradictions in Britain’s security policy make Britain not simply a security risk, but a risk to US security and that of allies and partners.

This is a security mess of Olympic proportions….and come this summer the Olympics will be in the front-line.

Julian Lindley-French