Spitzenlanden: European Union, Alliance or Empire?

Alphen, Netherlands. 10 July. Last week’s Franco-German coup effectively ended hopes of a real European political union, and set Europe back on the road to a European alliance of states, with a touch of empire thrown in. Having followed much of the commentary over the past week I am surprised how few have realised the enormity of what has just happened. 

A mediocre German defence minister is suddenly parachuted into the post of European Commission President. A member of the French Establishment, and current Head of the International Monetary Fund, is summarily made Head of the European Central Bank. A placeman, lame duck Belgian Prime Minister, the second Belgian out of three, is appointed President of the European Council, whilst a septuagenarian placeman Spanish foreign minister is confirmed as the next High Representative of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. Last week’s imposition by Germany and France of Ursula von der Leyen, Christine Lagarde, Charles Michel and Josep Borrell certainly came as a surprise to most Members of the European Parliament.  As an exercise in closed-door Euro-elitism/power-play it is straight from the annals of Richelieu and Bismarck. It was not meant to be like this. What happened and what are the implications for the future of the EU?

What happened? French and German power ‘happened’. There are few things that unite the very disparate ranks of the European Parliament and current Commission President Jean Claude Juncker, but last week’s Franco-German coup did.  The European Parliament had believed that a precedent had been set with the appointment of Juncker.  He had been the ‘spitzenkandidat’, chosen, and thus legitimised, by the largest political grouping in the European Parliament, the EPP.  European federalists had hoped that such a process would deepen political integration by enabling the European Parliament to ensure appointments to the Commission, and the other great offices of the European would-be ‘state, would be in its gift. Some have suggested the appointments came about because the EU 27 could not agree on other candidates. This is not the case. Berlin and Paris simply moved to decisively re-exert their control by exploiting the divisions between the member-states.

What are the implications? Last week was certainly a big step back from European Union. Whilst there have been ‘big’ country Commission presidents in the past, Roy Jenkins and Jacques Delors come to mind, the political balance within the EU has tended to be best served by having those from the smaller states as the respective heads of the European Council and European Commission.  It was assumed that such a ‘balance’ would be maintained, which is why the Dutch Socialist and Commission Vice-President, Frans Timmermans and the Swedish Commissioner, Cecilia Malmstrom, were touted so strongly for the Commission job.  Now, that political balance has been effectively demolished by Berlin and Paris, with a German taking control of ‘power’ within the EU, whilst a Frenchwoman has been put in charge of the money. 

         

Here was Europe’s two power-states, Germany and France (in that order), effectively taking back control  - spitzenklanden? It is not difficult to see why. Efforts to ‘democratise’ power in the EU have left it rudderless and leaderless, adrift in a sea of dangerous change.  Critically, little has really been done of note to solve the underlying structural weaknesses of the Euro, or to prepare for a more secure Europe. Berlin and Paris clearly agree it is time for some leadership to be injected into political and economic union, albeit by stepping back from political and economic union.

Do Germany and France share a vision for the future European Union? No. President Macron appears to want to move faster towards banking and fiscal union than Germany, and wants Germans to pay for the debt mutualisation such integration would entail. Conversely, Germany wants to move towards some form of European Defence Union, with ‘VDL’ an enthusiastic champion, whilst France wants to keep defence a strictly intergovernmental business, not least to maintain links with the British.

Could Britain have stopped the coup if it had not been consumed by the disaster that is Not Brexit?  Probably not. With a few notable exceptions Germany and France have traditionally sought reasons to block the appointment of a Briton to the EU’s two senior positions – the twin presidencies of the Council and the Commission.  The reason offered has usually been that Britain is not ‘European’ enough. It is certainly not ‘European’ enough now.

There is a profound Brexit irony in these Franco-German shenanigans.  The Franco-German coup shifts the EU back to being precisely the kind of super-alliance between states London long championed, and decisively away from the European super-state that London so feared.  In a sense, the coup simply re-confirms the essential paradox at the heart of the European project: more ‘Europe’ means less European state, but few, if any, European states want less of themselves. It is also clear that neither Germany nor France are really willing to countenance any decisive loss of national sovereignty in the name of ‘Europe’, preferring instead to control ‘Europe’ in pursuit of their respective, vital national interests.

 

In other words, when power-push comes to power-shove the Franco-German idea of ‘Europe’, is not that far from the traditional British idea of ‘Europe’. For Germany, ‘Europe’ remains a legitimate institution in which to embed German power, so long as Germany effectively controls it. France, ‘Europe’ still simply a mechanism for a bigger France. Plus ca change…

European Union, Alliance or Empire?

Julian Lindley-French     

ACE 2: America, NATO and the Future Defence of Europe

ARRC Poland follow-up

As a follow-up to my previous blog, below is my considered response to a senior and much-respected British colleague and friend who contacted me about the wider strategic utility/challenge of deploying the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) to Poland. 

Dear…

Many thanks for the comment and good, as ever, to hear from you. Of course, you are right about HQ ARRC, it is only an HQ. Therefore, key to my thinking would be the new ACE Heavy Mobile-style force (recognising the limitations on the old one) I recommend, which the ARRC would develop and command. My colleague and friend Paul Cornish suggests the emphasis should be on ‘heavy’ as we have far too many light mobile (i.e. cheap) forces in Europe.  He is correct, even if I would take twenty-first century ‘heavy’ to mean any force big enough, agile enough and lethal enough to seriously complicate the thinking and planning of General Gerasimov and his Staff, or any group or force that threatens Europe. In that light, ‘heavy’ today means the capability and capacity to generate intended effects and outcomes across the seven domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge/awareness.  

Let me deal with the issues implicit in such an idea over two periods – the short-term and the medium to longer-term. Over the short-term, which is pretty much between now and 2024, what I am suggesting is a make-fix with a focus on boosting the deterrent value, and thus messaging, of the new NATO Military Strategy. As you know, all such planning requires a series of balances and trade-offs. The primary aim must be to maintain the forces, resources and infrastructure of US forces in Germany central to any meaningful Allied defence, whilst enabling Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE) to maintain its vital strategic focus and to enhance its capability and credibility in that role. Having examined the issue at some length a ‘Fort Trump’ in Poland, that some are calling for, would be little more than a short-term political gesture at the expense of longer-term deterrent and defence.  This is because it would simply create another trip-wire, albeit at the expense and capability of the very US force central to the defence of the Eastern Flank. 

ACE 2

There can be no perfect defence given the correlation of forces in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea Regions, but boosting deterrent values therein would be a useful first step. Moving the ARRC to Poland would also help plug NATO’s two deterrent gaps: between Allied conventional and nuclear forces, and between the forward deployed forces and the bulk of all-too-slow-to-move NATO European forces.  Critically, the deployment of the ARRC would also need to be linked to the creation and development of a new ACE-style Heavy Mobile Force (ACE2?).

Project ACE 2 would also inject impetus to the now politically-becalmed enhanced NATO Response Force (eNRF), give some meaning to the concept of an agile 360 degree Alliance that can support all of its flank states in an emergency, and firm up the Eastern and South-Eastern Flanks by creating a much firmer, interlocking command and force hub between US forces in Germany and EFP/TFP forces. In the first instance, the US and UK would have to support such a deployment with both forces and resources, over time the nature of the force and its very capability and capacity would act as a real framework for the development of more deployable, more agile, and more lethal European forces.  Having lived through too many false dawns of European defence such a framework would be far more useful than yet more meaningless EU defence ‘aspirations’, or more empty, hollowed-out force acronyms.

Europeans must wake up and smell the American coffee

Let me now turn to the medium to longer terms, and my wider vision implicit herein. At the heart of my thinking is the need for Europeans to generate sufficiency of strategic ambition that would in turn generate a force/forces that could act as a credible first responder in the event of an emergency with Russia or elsewhere, or even simultaneously, the ‘worst-case’ which Europe’s leaders have for too long dangerously refused to countenance.  

NATO’s adapted strategic concept should be a future Alliance that enables US forces to act as the global West’s GRAND STRATEGIC GLOBAL HEAVY MOBILE FORCE (deliberate caps) designed to add support to front line allies, be they in Asia-Pacific or Europe. To that end, the work the Alliance has done on establishing NATO Standards from force generation to coalition command and control (C2) and beyond should be shared, and further developed, with the likes of Australia, Japan and South Korea. This would enable the word’s democracies, centred upon the United States, to form a matrix of capable first responders to which the US could add critical weight when and where necessary. 

Indeed, I am increasingly of the view that if Allied 'deterrence' is to work it must be seen in the context of the global challenge from strategic autocracies, and the strategically intolerant, to the US-centric global 'West', which is more idea than place. Such 'deterrence' will not be established or assured by diluting the cross domain fighting power of US forces by forcing them to offset Allied weaknesses in disparate theatres. All that does is afford the adversary the timing, nature and opportunity to do their worst in the way they would wish. Rather, any adversary must be fully aware that the future US strategic global heavy mobile force could and would act swiftly and decisively across the seven domains of contemporary and future warfare.  

Less balance sheet, more power

Let me now conclude with some thoughts about the role of the UK, our own country. My hope is that we will soon see the end of the elite managerial/balance sheet/defeatist London with the injection of at least some strategic ambition. Your central point about the UK is entirely right:  “For our size, and wealth, if not destroyed by bad policies, we should be able to field two good and deployable divisions, and two carriers, with proper escort and logistic support”. What concerns me is that if London’s current strategic illiteracy is maintained you other point will be equally valid, “At a pinch I see one just about deployable division and one thinly protected carrier as the most that we shall achieve”. 

Britain today punches far beneath its weight so this moment of transition offers at least a chance for the UK to demonstrate a return to strategic seriousness and commitment, but only if London is equally willing to commit fully to the defence of Europe. My sense is that will only happen if the Americans tell the Brits to do it, as Whitehall has become far too defeatist, the very essence of Little Britain.

There is another key role for Britain to play. ACE 2 would also need a maritime/amphibious component. Another line of British strategy would be for the Royal Navy, in partnership with the French Navy, to act as THE maritime/amphibious command hub for European navies in the North Atlantic and, if needs be, the Mediterranean. After all, the Royal Navy is developing into an important coalition hub force.  Such an ambition/force if realised would certainly ease the pressure on US forces in and around Europe, thus boosting the deterrent effect of those same forces world-wide.  However, for such a new European force concept to be realised Paris will need to stop trying to punish Britain for Brexit. France can punish Britain, or have a strategic partnership with Britain that would add defence value, it cannot have or do both! It could even be called a European Intervention Initiative if that made the French happy. 

The new global transatlantic relationship

In a sense, formal alliances are becoming less formal with the command centre of gravity of Western deterrence/defence moving towards Five Eyes-type structures, organised around and with global reach US forces at their core.  Fleet of mind, eye and foot they must be capable of striking anywhere and anytime across many domains. If Europeans stopped conspiring to weaken US forces, and began instead to enable them, the Americans would be able to reverse the current, adverse strategic situation in which it is all too easy for our adversaries to keep us off-balance – politically, socially and militarily. If such a new transatlantic relationship would be realised adversaries would be unsure where, how, when and with what the US would strike in support of their allies the world-over, all of whom would, in effect, become trip-wires, albeit powerful ones.  Britain can help lead such thinking and doing.

The simple, hard, and immutable big truth is that Britain’s national defence, and that of the rest of Europe, is utterly dependent on the US, and will be so for the foreseeable future. And, given that the over-stretch of US forces will intensify if the current European ‘strategies’ and ‘capabilities’ are adhered to, Britain’s security and defence policy across the civil-military spectrum will need to established on a simple premise: how to help maintain the power of the US, and the value of its conventional and nuclear deterrent in and around Europe.  By the way, what else does NATO actually exist for?

All best,

Julian

Julian Lindley-French

NATO: Fort Trump? Try ARRC Poland

“The [NATO military] strategy will guide Allied military decision-making and provide NATO’s Military Authorities with a definitive policy reference, enabling us to deliver our core mission – defending almost 1 billion people”.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stuart Peach, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, 22 May 2019

2 July 2019

NATO’s Ten Day Nightmare

At the core of NATO’s many challenges is a refusal by many of the Allies to consider the worst-case. NATO’s nightmare is a Russian war plan that fits all-too neatly into NATO’s defence plan, or what passes for one given there is no actual standing defence plan. Put simply, the Russians could well have achieved their ‘limited’ war aims in the Baltic States and stopped by the time the bulk of NATO forces begin to move. NATO would re-discover all too quickly von Moltke’s old dictum that all plans collapse on contact with the enemy. In such circumstances, there would be little or no time to rotate forces and resources through some neatly conceived campaign plan.  They would be faced, instead, with a Russian fait accompli in the Baltic States (or indeed elsewhere), and with it a very profound question; are NATO Europeans willing to go to war with Russia to rescue their allies? If they did, they would do so knowing all too well the risk of nuclear war. If they did not, NATO would be dead.

Last Monday, I went to Szczecin in Poland to visit Headquarters, Multinational Corps Northeast (MNC NE) to brief the impressive Lieutenant-General Slawomir Wojchiechowski, together wih senior NATO commanders, on my assessment of the strategic situation in the Baltic Sea Region.  On Wednesday, I went in to Tartu, Estonia, close to the Russian border, to address an important event on hybrid warfare and grey zone operations, which was co-hosted by the Baltic Defence College and Washington’s National Defense University, of which I have the honour to be a Distinguished Fellow. This extended think/do piece is both my assessment of the week and my recommendations.

My message? The ‘correlation of forces’ between Russian forces in Moscow’s Western Military District, and those on NATO’s Eastern Flank, is dangerously out of balance. It is an imbalance that is exacerbated by a lack of joined-upness between Allied governments, a lack of cohesion between NATO headquarters, and a critical lack of forces and resources that would be available to NATO commanders in an emergency.

Deterring means defending

If NATO cannot defend, it cannot deter. That to me is the implicit message in NATO’s new military strategy which is good, as far as it goes. However, growing world-wide pressures on US forces, allied to severe limitations on the capabilities and capacities of NATO’s European forces, mean the strategy is simply unable ease the profound and growing tensions that exist between the ends, ways and means of NATO’s Strategic Concept – the real one, not the out-of-date published one.  It also falls far short of the strategic ambition needed to provide a credible deterrent and defence posture around 360 degrees of threat because NATO forces lack both the weight of arms and speed of response upon which credible deterrence stands. Critically, the strategy fails to adequately close NATO’s two critical and dangerous deterrence gaps. First, between NATO’s conventional and nuclear deterrents, and, second, between NATO’s forward deployed forces and the bulk of the national forces the Alliance would need to call upon in an emergency.  Quality, heavy, rapidly-deployable forces are the Achilles’ heel of the NATO command and force structures. Critically, those that do exist are simply too slow, too few in number, subject to too many national caveats, or too distant to meet an attack by Russia that General Gerasimov and his Staff spend much of their time planning.  It is a crisis, for that is what it is, that would be made far worse if the Allies faced simultaneous crises on multiple fronts, as could well be the reality. What to do?

The facts speak for themselves. In the Baltic States there are four brigades with no tanks, combat aircraft and little artillery and air defence, reinforced by one multinational NATO battlegroup in each of the Baltic States designed to act as a ‘trip wire’ force in the event of a Russian attack. Trip-wire to what?

On the other side of the Estonian-Russian border, close to where I was speaking last week, the Russian Order of Battle includes the 1^st Guards Tank Army, 6^th and 20^th Combined Arms Armies, 11^th Army Corps in Kaliningrad, 3 airborne divisions, 3 Spetsnaz Special Forces Brigades, 10 rocket and artillery brigades and 30 tank/motor rifle brigades/regiments plus one naval infantry brigade. There are also significant Russian air and naval assets in the region, all of which are reinforced by Russia’s short-range, theatre and strategic nuclear forces.

In other words, Russian forces enjoy such local, and possibly regional-strategic superiority that NATO deterrence is close to being a dangerous bluff. New military strategy or no, at their current level of readiness the bulk of NATO forces would take months to assemble. Critically, in a war, vital US reinforcements will need to cross a contested Atlantic and land at vulnerable Bremerhaven, whilst military mobility across Europe will remain severely compromised for the foreseeable future.  

Complex strategic coercion: adapting to what?

If the credibility of NATO deterrence is to be reinforced, and quickly, existing forces and command resources need to be used far more effectively and efficiently across the entire 360 degree bandwidth of complex strategic coercion. That imperative places particular importance on NATO’s force hub in Germany and Poland, around which NATO pivots. This space is vital both for the defence of the Eastern Flank and the Baltic Sea Region, as well as for reinforcing support for Allies in south-east and southern Europe.

At the 2018 Brussels Summit NATO took some steps to ‘adapt’ the Alliance to meet that 360 degree challenge posed by an array of evolving and dynamic threats, and thus ease the deterrence and defence dilemma with which NATO forces must contend. The modernisation of Alliance collective defence will be reinforced with the so-called 4x30 initiative.  Efforts will also be made to enhance and improve military mobility in an emergency, much of the work to be done in conjunction with the EU. The NATO Command Structure and Force Structure are in the process of being reinforced and modernised, with a new Atlantic Command and the German-led Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC) being stood up. The Alliance is also moving to strengthened defences against irregular threats with the establishment of a Cyberspace Operations Centre and Counter Hybrid Support Teams.

For all that I remain deeply concerned and sceptical. NATO’s collective defences are extremely brittle and could well crack in the face of a determined enemy. My specific concerns focus on the NATO command structure, the location of key commands and the cohesion between them, as well as the false assumptions underpinning policy and planning about the nature of future conflict, and how it would impact upon Alliance forces.

Take Multinational Corps Northeast as an example. It is NATO’s ‘unblinking eye’ on NATO’s Eastern Flank, and thus central to Alliance deterrence and defence.  From my observations, MNC NE is doing all in its power to meet a central challenge to the Alliance that would be more realistic if its Area of Responsibility (AOR) was re-christened NATO’s Eastern Front, although that may resonate too eloquently with history. In any case, HQ MNC NE would be at the core of any organised NATO response to a Russian attack on the Baltic States.

Unfortunately, the constraints on MNC NE typify the ends, ways and means crisis faced by the Alliance as a whole.  It has no authority to co-ordinate between the separate forces of the three Baltic States in the event of an attack, even though it would provide command and control for Baltic ground forces and act as a Baltic Corps HQ with NATO-trained, Baltic commanders and staff officers. MNC NE would also be pivotal for organising the reception, staging and onward movement of reinforcing NATO forces into Poland, whilst also acting as a corps-level HQ to command Polish forces that would be critical in any emergency.  And yet, Szczecin is some 900km from the Lithuanian border!  

Move the ARRC to Poland

What is needed is a reinforced heavy command hub in NATO’s German-Poland pivot space that could respond to emergencies in strength across the full bandwidth of Alliance contingencies. A cluster of mutually-reinforcing, hardened, deployable headquarters able to shift their respective centres of gravity in support of each other to meet all and any emergency.  

The Poles are acutely aware that they sit not only in the midst of NATO’s pivotal space, but also in the middle of NATO’s deterrence gaps, which is why there have been calls from Warsaw for American forces to be stationed in Poland, at what President Duda rather mischievously dubbed Fort Trump. This would be a mistake. The Americans need their German command and logistics hub, as well as their vital strategic relationship with the Bundeswehr, to provide the hard core foundation of any reinforced defence should the need arise. It would be better to leave US forces permanently-stationed in Germany.

Solution? Move the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) from sleepy Gloucestershire in the UK, where it is currently based, to Poland, possibly supported by a US Army corps.  There would be a range of benefits from such a redeployment:

 

1. The ARRC could provide the command backbone for a new mobile heavy force that would see a much upgraded enhanced NATO Response Force evolve into a twenty-first century Allied Command Europe Heavy Mobile Force.  Such a force would be a true 360 degree force and would work closely with and in an emergency reinforce, MNC NE and MND NE.

2. NATO planning is built on the premise that its nine deployable corps headquarters would rotate command during an extended emergency. In fact, there is every possibility that an emergency would be far from ‘extended’. What is needed is to prevent such a crisis from happening in the first place. Moving the ARRC to Poland would send a strong message of reinforced deterrence and enable MNC NE to retain its ‘unblinking eye’ on the defence of the Baltic Sea Region.

3. The deployment of the ARRC to Poland would improve interoperability between the respective headquarters and promote mutual mentoring. The deployment of the ARRC to Poland would thus not only create a much heavier command and response cluster centred on Poland, it could also help establish a new NATO standard for command cohesion and interoperability through a series of pan-command, ‘test to fail’ development exercises.

4. Moving the ARRC to Poland would help to break down command barriers between the nations. For all NATO’s on-paper cohesion each deployable headquarters is very much a national (and/or separate entity) over which the two Joint Force Commands have at best nominal control.  There is also a lot of petty jealousy between the headquarters. The ARRC is a case in point. It emerged from the old British I Corps and was withdrawn (ridiculously) from Rheindahlen in Germany in 2010, when Britain stopped being a power and became a balance-sheet. It also has a reputation amongst the other corps headquarters of being arrogant and stand-offish. Deploying the ARRC to Poland with the support of US forces in Germany would help reduce such perceptions.

5. The deployment of the ARRC to Poland would show that America’s European allies are willing to solve Alliance problems and share the necessary burdens with the US needed to make the new NATO military strategy credible. It would also demonstrate that the Allies were conscious of the growing global responsibilities of US forces, and the growing pressures they are under.

6. In the wake of the Brexit mess a decision by London to offer the ARRC for such a role would go far beyond the current work Britain is doing with the Joint Expeditionary Force. It would send a strong political signal that Britain remains firmly committed to the defence of continental Europe and is not going to withdraw behind its nuclear shield.  A signal that would be further strengthened if the new British prime minister offered more British forces in support of the deployment.   

7. The deployment of the ARRC to Poland, together with (inter alia) the Eurocorps, the German-Netherlands Corps, and NRDC-Italy, could also help establish an active framework for the development of high-end, US-friendly European intervention forces. As such, the deployment would be in line with President Macron’s European Intervention Initiative and an extension of the Franco-British Combined Joint Expeditionary Force. In so doing, it would help promote a European force development hub centred on France, Germany, Poland and the UK.

 

Fort Trump? Try ARRC Poland

Some will no doubt suggest that such a forward deployment of the ARRC would make it vulnerable to a Russian first strike.  Such a threat is real, be it in Poland or Gloucestershire. However, whilst deploying the ARRC to Poland would not completely close the deterrence gaps, it would immediately add weight, speed and credibility to NATO’s deterrence, NATO agility, and NATO responsiveness across the collective defence, crisis management and cooperative security missions. Critically, it would reinforce the mission and credibility of the Alliance’s forward deployed forces in the Baltic States and Poland by establishing a more credible graduated response to threats across the conflict spectrum. Above all, it would complicate the thinking of Russia’s General Gerasimov, as well as his experienced and able Staff, by reinforcing NATO’s spine in the critical strategic space in Poland. At present, President Putin and General Gerasimov believe NATO’s Eastern and South-Eastern Flanks enjoy peace at their discretion.

    

Of course, the deployment of the ARRC to Poland would not compensate for a lack of sufficiently robust European forces, armed with sufficient weight and agility, upon which credible deterrence really rests. To solve that conundrum NATO’s Europeans need to wake up to the new reality of the contemporary and future transatlantic relationship.  The Americans will only be able to assure the security and defence of Europe if Europeans do an awful lot more deterring and defending themselves. In other words, and for the sake of NATO and Europe’s citizens, European leaders must finally stop talking defence and start doing it! Deploying the ARRC to Poland would be an important first step up that particular road.

Julian Lindley-French        

    

Anglo Nostalgia?

“Brexit cannot guarantee a promising return to a post-imperial nation-state partly because the balance of power has shifted (in favour of non-European and non-Western powers), structurally weakening Western democracies in front of authoritarian powers. And yet, a nostalgic view of Britain has been crucial to the Brexit debate, and will not quickly disappear, leaving the United Kingdom more internally divided than in recent history. The dream of a “Global Britain” has a great deal in com­mon with the historical concept of “Greater Britain”—in this sense it is indeed nostalgic and grounded in an idealised past. But it actually rests on the legacy of a “Little England” that is a little too specifically English”.

Anglo Nostalgia – The Politics of Emotion in a Fractured West?

Dante’s Britain?

Alphen, Netherlands. 13 June. Abandon all hope ye who enter here? That was the impression I gained from reading a new, hard-hitting book by Edoardo Campanella and Marta Dassu entitled Anglo Nostalgia – The Politics of Emotion in a Fractured West? (London: Hurst). In fact, the book may well have been entitled, Anglo Nostalgia – A Warning to Italians. Still, this is an important book, and an excellent read, because it has the courage to consider the structural implications of Brexit for Europe head on. This is hardly surprising as one of the authors, Marta Dassu, I have known, liked and admired for many years. Still, rather than me eulogise the work, you can make up your own mind and I would encourage you to do that, let me challenge some of the fundamental assumptions at the books core. The picture it paints of my country, Britain and the Brexit mess, as well as that of the US and President Trump’s America First, is one that I only partially recognise.

The most important message of the book for the British, or more specifically ‘we’ English, is that we should recognise that we are little different from, say, Italy, or any other European nation, and invest what fading power ‘we’ have left in a “hybrid Europe”. Britain’s latent strategic ambition is pretence born of a form of myth-based patriotism/nationalism and archaic identity. Worse, it is dangerous nostalgia that prolongs the fantasy that Britain can somehow act as a bridge between America and Europe.

Therefore, it was perhaps fitting that I read the book on various planes bouncing around Europe in the run up to the D-Day 75 commemorations.  The book is certainly eloquent and compelling concerning Brexit, particularly the danger posed by ‘buy one, get one free’ populists offering simplistic solutions to complex problems. The discussion about the role myth plays, and has played in the British national story is powerful. For much of my career as both historian and analyst I have fought a battle between head and heart over what role in the world post-imperial Britain should aspire to, and what hard realities Britain needs to face.  It is precisely because I am both historian and analyst that it is a battle I think I have by and large won, without having to abandon my deep-seated and, I hope, moderate British patriotism.

Patriotism or nostalgia?

My problem with this book is that there is no place for even my idea of patriotism, which the book suggests is part of some “epidemic of nostalgia”. Rather, I must accept that Little Britain abandon all and any pretence to strategic ambition for that is the only hope there is of eventually making the EU work in a globalized world in which ‘one size fits all’ European states count for little and, by extension, the European citizen even less. This smacks not only of a denial of identity, but also a form of defeatism and that the only way for Europeans to counter big, inefficient political blobs like China is to create yet another big, inefficient political blob called ‘Europe’.

Central to the book is a particularly scathing view of hard-line Brexiteers, and what it sees as their nostalgic fantasies about the rebuilding of the British Empire, or something such like. First, it seems to confuse Brexiteers at times with all mainstream Brits. Second, in my many debates with Brexiteers I have yet to come across anyone who harbours such illusions of Empire reborn. Rather, the main impulse for most Brexiteers I engage with is both the scale and scope of mass immigration and/or concerns about who really governs us and the degree to which people are accountable to any electorate. There is a particular concern, given the direction of travel of the European Project about who or what will govern ‘us’ thirty years hence if Britain remains in the EU. Brexit is also as much about Britain as ‘Europe’ with many Brexiteers simply frustrated with a political mainstream that seems unwilling and/or unable to address the very big issues of change with anything approaching competence.

A central and strong argument of the book is that no single state, let alone European state, can alone deal with many of these big issues. This is undoubtedly correct. However, the book would have been strengthened if it had tried harder to understand Brexit and posed the question all Europeans need to consider: to what extent must European states constrain/pool sovereign action in the name of the collective, possibly common good, action, given that any such ‘action’, by definition, weakens influence over policy and the accountability of power to the people.

Much of the Brexit insurgency, for that is what it is, has more to do with the ever-weakening relationship between voting and power in Europe’s fading democracy, than nostalgic concerns for some long-lost glorious past. Where I disagree with the book is when it suggests that what it sees as specifically English nostalgia for a return to what it calls “pure sovereignty”. In fact, much of the Brexit angst is simply a cri de Coeur for democracy to matter, and even a Remainer like me harbours those concerns, which is hardly nostalgia.

Pure sovereignty

This apparent English desire for a return to “pure sovereignty” suggests a lack of understanding of English political philosophy and culture.  First, if there is a nostalgic aspect to Brexit it has little to do with Empire of which most Britons today under the age of fifty have only the faintest memory. This is not least because ‘history’, as I know it, is no longer taught in schools. If Brexit has any roots it is in the political philosophy that emerged in the seventeenth century with Hobbes, and evolved through Hume, Burke and Mill. The English civil war was essentially about the nature of the relationship between power and people in a “Commonwealth”. The English have long been suspicious of distant ‘we know best’ Leviathans, be they rigid Stuart kings or suave Eurocrats. England’s civil war in time gave birth to modern liberal democracy because it set limits on monarchy and, as such, its creed was also evident in the ‘no taxation without representation’ nature of the American Revolution over a century later. It is an explanatory historical link the book fails to exploit.

The book also fails to properly understand the impact ‘hybrid Europe’ has had on the hybrid political artifice that is the United Kingdom. The UK was, in effect, born in 1707 of a strategic, imperial narrative that emphasised a certain ‘national’ myth to hold Britain together by creating a story beyond English hegemony. It is the retreat from that narrative/myth that was implicit in Empire, allied to EU membership that has helped to loosen the ties between the peoples of Britain and which now renders the future of NATO open to question. The emergence of Brussels as an alternative pole of power has weakened all of Europe’s composite states.

The UK-US ‘special relationship’ is also painted by the book as one of ‘co-operative nostalgia’, which will fail on the rocks of America First.  For me, this was one of the least convincing analyses in the book because it presents the still important relationship between America and Britain as the strategic equivalent of those two old Muppet characters, Waldorf and Stadler, who sit in the stalls of the theatre criticizing the work of others whilst longing for the good old days. As I see myself on a regular basis, the UK-US relationship remains that of two modern, powerful states, admittedly one far more powerful than the other, which operates to effect both in public and far beyond, and which continues to be the core relationship upon which the defence of Europe and NATO is established.

  

Little, Ordinary, Britain

It is the central thesis of the book that is most worthy of challenge. To the authors Britain is simply another ‘ordinary’ European state, like Italy, and for its own good, and that of ‘Europe’, must accept its ordinariness. Whilst I am very comfortable, as a European with the European bit, I am less convinced about Britain being simply another, ‘ordinary’ European state. All European states are distinct but Britain, along with France and Germany, are not as ‘ordinary’ as many other European states. Britain remains larger and far more powerful than most other European states, and I can say that without any delusions of post-imperial grandeur. It is plain fact. States remain the essential building blocks of international relations, including European states. States must also compete and to compete successfully they must constantly tell themselves a story, about themselves and to and for themselves. It was ever thus. This is not nostalgia, it is an essential part of identity which is precisely what the EU lacks, and which is the main reason Project Europe has stalled.

The simple reality is that Britain today is an important regional power with the second or third largest economy in Europe (depending on the exchange rate on any given day), with one of Europe’s more capable armed forces. Britain still has weight if not the weight it had 150 years ago, and most Britons of all stripes are entirely comfortable with that. ‘Europe’, hybrid or the full Espresso, will not be built if all Europeans are forced to prostrate themselves before the ‘reality’ of their own weakness by exaggerating that relative weakness. This is simply wrong about the nature of power in the twenty-first century world. For the EU to work it must aggregate the power of its member-states, celebrate them, and encourage them all to be all that they can be, not force them into a single strait-jacket for the sake of the political convenience of Brussels marked ‘historical has-beens’.

It is also a vision built on a false set of assumptions. First, it implies that the likes of China, and much of the rest of Asia, will rise inexorably. This reveals a misunderstanding about China and Asia, and the many internal contradictions therein. Second, it suggests that a relative rebalancing of American power is a mark of American decline. And, that even the vital strategic ambition of the United States, upon which Europe relies for its freedom, is little more than some form of America First nostalgia that exaggerates the American sense of self-importance, and thus America’s role in the world.

Little Britain or Little Europe?

For all of the above this is still an important book, and I heartily recommend it to you. Power, narrative and identity DO co-exist and CAN all too easily tip over into nostalgia. That Britain is particularly vulnerable to such nostalgia is a fair point for the book to make. As is the argument that elements of nostalgia are clearly present in the Brexit (and the America First) debate. That Britain and the British (the differentiation in the book between the English and the other four nations that make up the UK – Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and…London, is far too simplistic) might at times come across as arrogant, nostalgic and mired in the past is a legitimate observation for the book to make because that is how many fellow Europeans see us. Europeans who also now see a Britain humbled before its own Brexit hubris, even if I rarely detect much schadenfreude about that.

 

However, what the book calls ‘nostalgia’ is too often confused with a latent and legitimate sense of British strategic ambition that is, with respect, lost to many Italians with their very different set of national myths. It is strategic ambition that is, by and large, shared with France and which will be essential if ‘Europe’ is ever to be a global actor rather than a defensive European bunch of pathetic patries lost pathetically in the pathos and myths of their respective vainglorious pasts. Critically, it is strategic ambition that mercantilist Germany does not share, which perhaps explains more about Little Europe’s little place in a big world than power fantasist Little Britons.

However, the book should be careful for what it wishes. Had it not been for ‘Anglo Saxon’ strategic conceits it would have been unlikely that Italy, or the rest of Western Europe, would have been freed from the Fascism of Mussolini, or the Nazism of Hitler, and protected from the Stalinism of the Soviet Union. It is unlikely if left to Continental Europeans, that the Cold War would have been fought with such authority with an America and supportive Britain at the core of the dozen or so democracies that fought it. Those thousands of Britons who died liberating Italy, or were mown down storming the Normandy beaches, or cut down struggling through the entanglements of its bocage, seventy-five years ago, were no doubt armed in part by what the book calls Anglo Nostalgia. It is just as well they were!

Julian Lindley-French         

D-Day: The Forging of an Alliance

“Once more a supreme test has to be faced. This time the challenge is not to fight to survive, but to fight to win the final victory for the good cause. Once again what is demanded of us all is something more than courage, more than endurance. We need the revival of spirit, the new unconquerable resolve”.

His Majesty King George VI, 6 June 1944

D-Day.

6 June. D plus 75 years. At 20 minutes past midnight on 6 June 1944 Lieutenant Herbert Denham (Den) Brotheridge, Commander, 25 Platoon, 2^nd Battalion, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry became the first Allied soldier to give his life on D-Day as he stormed a German machine-gun nest at Pegasus Bridge.

As I write this, 75 years ago British, American and Canadian forces were storming ashore along a 50 mile/80 kilometre front on the five landing beaches of Normandy – Gold, Juno, Sword, Omaha and Utah. ‘D-Day’ was a true effort of alliance with men taking part from Australia, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland and, of course, France.  Others were also present. Much has been made this year about the 70^th anniversary of NATO. Much of the alliance that was to become the Alliance was forged on those five historic Norman beaches.

D-Day was also the high-water mark of British strategic influence and military strike power. Contrary to much of the theatre that has ensued ever since D-Day, Operation Overlord was primarily a British-led operation and success. Whilst US General Dwight D. Eisenhower was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, all of his operational commanders were British. The Deputy Supreme Allied Commander was Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder, Royal Air Force. Commander-in-Chief Air was Air Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh Mallory, Commander-in-Chief Sea was Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey, whilst Commander-in-Chief Land (21^st Army Group) was Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery. The operational plan was British as was the air campaign to isolate Normandy from German reinforcements (Operation Transportation), as well as the massive deception campaign (Operation Bodyguard) that convinced the Nazis that the real objective for any invasion force would be the Pas de Calais.

Of the 156,000 troops that were landed on D-Day 73,000 were American, whilst 83,115 were under British command, of which 61,715 were British and some 21,000 were Canadian.   Of the 1213 principal warships supporting the landings 892 were Royal Navy ships, whilst the British supplied 3261 of the 4126 landing craft deployed, with only 200 US craft present, mainly due to pressures in the Pacific theatre.  In the air, 70% of the almost 12000 aircraft that took part were either Royal Air Force or Royal Canadian Air Force.  

D-day was also a triumph of British innovation.  Without the two giant floating Mulberry Harbours the campaign to free north-west Europe simply would not have been possible. The British also successfully deployed-in-strength specially-adapted tanks, known as Hobart’s Funnies, which helped clear a path for the invading British and Canadian troops. American commanders had, for a range of reasons, eschewed the use of such innovation. British Airborne Forces and Special Forces were particularly effective, with the famous and vital midnight glider assault on Pegasus Bridge by Den Brotheridge and his colleagues merely the most celebrated.

These facts in no way underplay the US contribution to D-Day. The two US beaches Omaha and Utah were tough nuts to crack and, together with their Airborne colleagues, US forces demonstrated American valour and courage that Day of the highest order. It is what happens after D-Day that truly shines a light on the American future and begins a story of American power and leadership that has secured freedom in Europe ever since.  From D+1 the Americans pour men and materiel into the fight for Normandy on a scale that was unimaginable for their war-tired British ally. By June 1944, the British are beginning to reach the limits of their manpower and industrial capacity, whilst the Americans are only just beginning to exploit their own such capacity, in spite of fighting two major wars simultaneously in the Pacific and Europe.

   

Churchill had once said of Montgomery’s 1942 victory over Rommel at El Alamein that, whilst it was most certainly not the beginning of the end, it was, perhaps, the end of the beginning. With Soviet forces sweeping in from the east D-Day was clearly the beginning of the end for Hitler. 

D-Day: the forging of an alliance

Something else takes place on D-Day: the building of foundations for a multinational alliance of democracies. Take the Dutch. The number of Dutch personnel at D-Day itself was relatively modest, with many of those who had escaped to Britain in 1940 on the fall of The Netherlands (the so-called ‘Engelandvaarders’) embedded in British forces.  However, on August 6 1944, the 2000-strong Royal Netherlands Motorised Infantry Brigade (Prinses Irene Brigade) landed at Graye-sur-Mer in Normandy. First under Canadian command, and then under the command of General Dempsey’s 2^nd British Army, the Dutch fought their way from Normandy back to their homeland, joined in the liberation of Tilburg in October 1944 alongside their British allies, before entering The Hague in triumph at the very end of the war, on 9 May 1945.

The essential success of D-Day was precisely because it was a team effort, forged from an alliance that, in time, forged THE Alliance of today. Very different and differing cultures and personalities (Montgomery and Patton!!!!) learned to work together for the common good under by and large enlightened American leadership. it was that team effort, and the shared culture it created, that lay the foundation for the creation of NATO in April 1949.  What made it a success was not just American power, or the immense investment of brains, men and material by the British and Canadians, but the shared sense of mission, as burdens and risks were shared on that Day in pursuit of a cause that was the very antithesis of nationalism. Above all, D-Day saw a force of, and for, democracy and liberty land on those beaches. A force, that by its very democratic nature also enabled in time former enemies – Italy first, and then the Federal Republic of Germany – to join the Alliance once they had been freed from Fascism and Nazism.

Action this Day!

Today, the lessons afforded us by the great citizen armies of Tommies, GIs, Canucks et al that  battled so bravely to gain those first, fledgling footholds on the sweeping, machine-gunned, machine-mortared sands of Normandy 75 years ago are no less poignant. If we do not wish to put our young men, and increasingly women, through the horrors of some twenty-first century D-Day (a digital D-Day or DD-Day?) somewhere, sometime, then our leaders must stop appeasing the dangerous reality of today and face down together latter day destroyers of democracy and would-be slayers of freedom.

To mark D-Day, British Prime Minister Theresa May led the leaders of Allied and Partner nations in the signing of a D-Day Proclamation. It called on the Free World to again find common cause in the face of new challenges to democracy and stability. Words are not enough. Action this day is needed.

This week I was on a US-German military base in deepest Bavaria attending a meeting of the Loisach Group, co-organised by the Munich Security Conference and the George C. Marshall Center. The Group’s mission is to consider the forging of a renewed, deep, twenty-first century strategic freedom partnership between the US and Germany.  The eloquence of this week’s history was loud and clear at the meeting and rang in my ears. It led me, a proud and patriotic Briton, to tell senior Americans and Germans to get their act together and build a Special Relationship between Americans and Germans. It is precisely because of D-Day we need Americans and Germans to help lead our great community of freedom together if peace is to be preserved. No more pretence, no more petty shortsightedness. Britain? In spite of my country’s many current challenges Britain will be there…as always.

The irony of the Loisach Group mission was thus made stark by memories of D-Day. Much of the effort to preserve freedom in this century will depend not only (and again) on American leadership. It will demand of all Europeans the collective strategic vision and fortitude that has been so lacking these thirty years past. Such European leadership will only come if, as King George VI suggested, we can find ‘endurance that is more than courage’. It is leadership that also calls upon modern, legitimate, democratic Germany to be at the beating heart of freedom and its defence. Free Germany must now show its commitment to freedom’s cause by sharpening its swords, as well as its many ploughs.  It is time.  

In honour of a very special Band of Brothers

This blog is dedicated to Lieutenant Den Brotheridge and the brave men of many nations who on D-Day began the long march to a free Europe which continues to this day. In particular, I honour and salute the 6603 Americans, 2700 Britons and 946 Canadians and others who watched the sun rise on D-Day, but not its setting. Not only did they forge a path to freedom, they forged on the anvil of unity an enduring Alliance that must be preserved, both in their name and our own.

Therefore, let those of us to whom our Fallen gave this precious gift of freedom not squander it through inadequacy and indifference. A freedom that I am exercising right here, right now in my freely-expressed thought. A freedom which could so easily be lost if we dishonour the sacrifice and memory of brave men through ignorance and wilful weakness.

 

D-Day: the forging of THE Alliance.

Julian Lindley-French            

(Not) Figuring out the Future of Europe’s Defence

On the up?

Alphen, Netherlands. 31 May. Europeans will not start really fearing what they should fear in the wider world, until they stop secretly fearing each other.  Consequently, deep down they cannot decide if they want to empower other Europeans or enfeeble them. That is why real European defence remains still-born, why Europeans have become cheap defence junkies, and why Europeans continue to ask Americans to defend them from the world and each other.

   

The trigger for that opening statement was a piece I read on a plane to Rome this week to address the Conference of Commandants of Alliance defence academies hosted by the NATO Defence College and the Italian Centre for High Defence Studies (CASD). Entitled “On the up: Western defence spending in 2018”, published by IISS, and written by Canadian academic Lucie Beraud-Sudreau, the piece endeavoured to apply some ‘science’ to the problem of defence expenditure by Europeans. However, there was also a political message; that Europeans do spend a lot on defence and that American claims to bear too high a burden for the defence of Europe are misplaced.

The theme of the piece is established early. “After years of reduced spending after the end of the Cold War and in the wake of the financial crisis, NATO’s European members increased their defence budgets by 4.2% in real terms in 2018”. It goes on: “Their [NATO Europeans] total spending would – if the aggregated figure of US$264bn were considered on its own – amount to the second largest defence budget in the world”. The crunch sentence is thus: “…given Washington’s other global commitments, attributing to European defence the entirety of the US commitment would…seem to overstate the US commitment [to European defence JLF]”.  So, Europeans DO spend a lot on their own defence, possibly enough, and the Americans overstate their commitment to the defence of Europe. According to the piece all that is needed now is for Europeans to spend what they spend a bit more efficiently (common defence?) and more cooperatively.

   

Europe’s no pies in the sky defence

Now, I have been reading this stuff for decades. Of its kind this is not one of the bigger ‘pie in the sky’ pieces on European defence that I have read. It is well-written, well-researched, well-argued, and just plain wrong. It makes the mistake many such ‘Europeans ARE spending enough but not well enough’ pieces make by failing to address WHY Europeans still refuse to spend better, what defence outcomes Europeans should collectively aspire to, and just how much defending themselves without the Americans would cost. With regard to the latter, forget NATO’s 2% GDP Defence Investment Pledge, a truly autonomous European defence investment pledge would require at least each state to spend 4% GDP per annum on defence, probably more, with much of that funding ‘sunk’ into a central European defence fund. Only then could Europeans hope to replace the high-end forces and resources which the Americans bring to bear and which are the true granite of Europe’s defence, and the rock upon which deterrence stands.

So, why do Europeans refuse to pool their resources after decades of empty European defence rhetoric? There is at least one equation that must be understood if one is to grasp the ghastly politics of European defence: the more money promised the smaller the force becomes whilst conversely the smaller the force the more tasks assigned to whilst the number of acronyms (‘new’ forces) created to carry out such tasks expand exponentially.  In other words, European defence remains an essentially political project rather than a serious defence.

The hard truth is that Europeans still do not trust each other enough to pool sufficient forces and resources to become “more efficient and cooperative”. For many of European countries their armed forces are intrinsically tied-up with their sense of national identity. They also act as sources of labour represented by vested political interests that have real clout in many European countries. Europeans also suffer from their own version of ‘pork barrel politics’ with defence industries not only strongly-represented in the political class, but also a vital source of employment often in swing parliamentary constituencies. That latter imperative is why Britain’s two enormous and hugely-expensive new aircraft carriers really got built. It is also the reason why the fielding times and project costs of so much new European defence equipment is so often lamentable, bordering on the criminal.

What to do?

The piece is at its weakest when it implies that a direct comparison of the annual cost to the Americans for the defence of the Alliance with European defence outlays is the true test of burden-sharing. Yes, the Americans may have forces spread the world-over but those forces also have the strategic enablers across air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge which Europeans, by and large, lack. Strategic enablers without which most forward deployed European forces would simply be sausage-meat in the making in any war. Strategic enablers that the Americans routinely make available to Europeans through the Alliance and which many Europeans too often now take for granted.

Here’s the twist: only in the extreme event of a new high-end world war could one envisage the Americans being forced to deny Europeans such support. Yes, as the piece states, European defence expenditure is “…equivalent of 1.5 times China’s official [note ‘official’ JLF] budget (US$168bn), and almost four times Russia’s estimated total military expenditure (US$63bn)…” And yet, there is no serious comparison to be made between Europe’s generated defence outcomes and those of contemporary China and Russia.

Given that stark reality the piece would have been immeasurably stronger if the essentially defence economic argument had been balanced and reinforced with the sage words of General Mark Milley in his May 2018 testimony to the US Congress.  Milley stated, “I’ve seen comparative numbers of US defense budget versus China, US defense budget versus Russia. What is not often commented on is the cost of labor. We’re the best paid military in the world by a long shot. The cost of Russian soldiers or Chinese soldiers is a tiny fraction”.  Milley then went on to suggest that if one strips out the relative high cost of US labour the defence outcomes China and Russia generate are dangerously close to those generated by the US.

Critically, Chinese and Russia defence outcomes in the scope and mass of forces they generate are way beyond any forces Europeans can aspire to simply because there is no, and there can be no comparison between the bang for the buck America, China and Russia generate, and the squeak for the buck Europeans generate. And, for all the rhetoric to the contrary, there is little sign that Europe’s defence squeak is going to get any louder any time soon.

Beraud-Sudreau is essentially correct when she suggests Europeans SHOULD spend more effectively and cooperatively. Sadly, there is little chance they will. What she can expect are yet more ‘big’ announcements, and even ‘bigger’ European claims about not an awful lot. European defence is the mouse that squeaked, and it was ever thus.

Julian Lindley-French