Alphen, Netherlands. 23
July. Predictably the EU fell apart
yesterday over what to do about Russia. Naturally the assembled foreign ministers all pretended otherwise but
the only winner was President Putin. There was a motley extension to the motley
collection of asset freezes and travel bans and some talk of future sanctions
covering the energy, financial services and defence sectors. It was only talk. And of course Britain and France
fell out (again). France accused Britain
of hypocrisy over London’s demand that Paris halt the €1.2bn sale of two
state-of-the-art French warships to Russia.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius not unreasonably pointed out that
Britain has been far too “no questions asked” about the London money of Russian
oligarchs close to President Putin. The
French were too polite to point out that Britain still has some 252 active arms
export licenses worth some £132m for the sale of weapons to Russia. For all that it is inconceivable that in the
current situation France would help Russia create an entirely new expeditionary
military capability.
These are not any old
new warships. Weighing in at 21500 tons
the Mistral-class ships are
state-of-the-art marine amphibious command and assault ships that for the first
time ever will give Russia the ability to launch from the sea 450 special and
specialised forces supported by helicopters and tanks. The first of the ships is due to be handed
over to the Russia Navy in October. France
says that Russia has promised not to use them in its ‘near abroad’.
Nonsense. These two ships could be deployed
anywhere around Europe from the High North to the Baltic Sea, from the Black
Sea to the Mediterranean.
France must stop
talking contracts and start thinking strategy.
That means seizing the ships.
There is a precedent. One hundred years ago in August 1914 the British
seized a brand new battleship they had been building first for the Brazilians
and then when that deal fell through for the Turks. Winston Churchill personally insisted the
ship be taken into British custody. She
was a state-of-the art Super-Dreadnought battleship with 14 12 inch guns,
displacing 30,000 tons and capable of 22 knots.
Although contractually
obliged the British Government of the day felt the strategic situation of the
day warranted seizure. As one can
imagine the Ottoman Empire was none too pleased by the seizure (along with one
other new battleship) and some scholars believe it helped to push
Constantinople towards Wilhelmine Germany.
Still, they could have been used against the Royal Navy and that would
have been just a tad embarrassing.
The problem of course with
seizure (apart from a seriously peeved Putin) would be what to do with the
ships. The French Navy has neither the
personnel nor the budget needed to crew two new ships of this size. However, there
are three alternative, very non-Russian options that Paris may wish to consider:
1. create a new Anglo-French strike force; 2. make the ships NATO common assets
paid for by NATO Europe; or 3. make the ships the first EU-owned assets at the
core of a new maritime amphibious Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF).
Under the 2010 Franco-British
Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty the two countries are working up a CJEF. Current efforts have been focused on
co-operation between air and land forces.
However, with the launch of the two British super aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales the addition of the
two Mistrals to a maritime amphibious CJEF would markedly enhance the ability
of the two countries to launch and sustain significant operations from the
sea. This would ensure Britain and
France were at the centre of efforts to enhance the expeditionary capabilities
of Europeans but also offer real support to hard-pressed Americans. The problem as with all ships of this size is
their crewing but that is not beyond the bounds of sensible solution.
One of the big issues
at September’s NATO Wales Summit will be burden-sharing. The ships could become a NATO-owned asset in
which all Alliance members invest. The
Alliance would then in effect purchase the ships from France and they would be
crewed by personnel from all NATO nations – just like the Luxembourg-registered
E3 aerial surveillance vessels. The
beauty of this elegant solution to France’s dilemma is that the purchase and
subsequent crewing would go some way to helping some NATO members get towards
the 2% GDP defence investment target the Americans regard as the minimum. It would also help the Alliance develop a
serious European High Readiness Force (Maritime).
A third option would be
to make them the first EU-owned common defence assets to give EU Battle Groups
a much-needed capability boost. Indeed,
the ships would certainly help to create an enhanced EU maritime amphibious capability. It would help France lead the way towards the
5000 strong expeditionary EU force former President Sarkozy called for back in
2008. One option would be to place the
ships at the heart of a project cluster involving several EU member-states
under permanent structured co-operation, possibly the Weimar Triangle. By making such a move France would again be firmly
at the helm of efforts to enhance the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy
(CSDP).
There is one other
option; one hundred years on from Entente Cordiale France could generously give
one of the ships to the Royal Navy. The
Russians had intended to name one of the ships Vladivostok and the other somewhat provocatively Sevastopol. Again there is a precedent for such name changes. In 1914 the British christened the new battleship
HMS Agincourt (of course). In 2014 the British could offer the French a
choice; HMS Crecy, HMS Waterloo or how about HMS Trafalgar?
Just a thought.
Julian Lindley-French
