Alphen, Netherlands.
Armistice Day. Strategic illiteracy is an inability to understand how power and
influence work in international relations. President Putin exaggerates Russia’s
power because of maps, David Cameron under-estimates Britain’s power because of
maps…and strategic illiteracy. On this day on which the eleventh hour chimes on
the eleventh day of the eleventh month it is not just loss that is foremost in
my mind. It is history and the ever-dynamic influence map of Europe, which was the
actual cause of World War One. Critically, power and change continue to dance in
tandem across the European power landscape.
Hands up, I suppose today
of all days I should write about Cameron’s letter to European Council President
Donald Tusk setting out the very modest British demands for a very modest
change to the way the EU does business. Sadly, Cameron’s letter has nothing to
do with the power map of Europe or the new political settlement the new EU will
vitally need between those within the Eurozone and those without. Rather, it is
the modest letter of a very modest politician who through his own strategic illiteracy
is turning a great power into a very modest one.
Next Tuesday I will give
evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. The session will be
entitled, “Shifting the Goalposts: Defence Expenditure and the 2% Pledge”. On the
face of it the session is part of a study into whether Britain’s renewed
commitment to spend 2% GDP on defence up to 2020 is real or illusory. In fact,
the session is really about Britain’s level of strategic ambition, or rather
the lack of it within much of the very modest British political class which
spawned David Cameron.
Much of the British political
class seem to have convinced themselves that Great Britain is in fact Little
Britain. They look at a map of the world and convince themselves that Little
Britain is no longer a great power and that Britain is doomed to decline
because Britain is so well, err, small. Too often these days I hear British
politicians say something along the lines of, “we are only a little island of
65 million people”. They confuse size
with power; strategic illiteracy at its most eloquently nonsensical.
Contrast Britain
(population in 2014 65 million, GDP $2.95 trillion, world rank 5 (IMF)) with
Russia (population in 2014 142 million, GDP $1.86 trillion, world rank 10
(IMF)) and the respective conclusions of London and Moscow about power and
influence in the world. On the one hand, the London Establishment has convinced
itself Britain can aspire to be little more than an outlying satellite of the
Berlin-Brussels Axis, or ‘at best’ perhaps a super car boot sale for the
Chinese and Indians. On the other hand,
the Putin Establishment has convinced itself that Russia is again a superpower,
a ‘co-hegemon’ to use the language of Moscow. Both views are barking mad; the
British because they exaggerate Britain’s weakness, and the Russians because
they exaggerate Russia’s power. Much of these illusions of faiblesse/grandeur
are down to maps and both reflect the strategic illiteracy from which the two respective
elites suffer.
Many of you will recall
that now somewhat ageing and delightfully risqué Peugeot commercial ‘size mat-tears’
(my hopeless attempt at a written French accent). It now seems that in
measuring the respective ‘power’ of a state in today’s world physical ‘size’
really does ‘mat-tear’. The other mantra
one often hears trotted out without any regard to reality is that Brazil, Russia,
China and India will soon inherit the earth, and that the rest of us are doomed
to be strategic and political minnows. Again, this is strategic illiteracy at
its worst, or to use technical language, complete and utter crap!
The facts appear to speak
for themselves. According to CEBR the coming
global top table economic balance will look something like this. First, China’s
GDP may indeed overtake that of the US, but only in 2025 at the earliest, and
only if all things remain equal – which they will not. In 2014 the UK overtook France (again) to (again)
become the world’s fifth largest economy. However, India’s economy could well
overtake that of the UK in 2018, and by 2024 could be the world’s third largest
economy. Critically, the Russian economy dropped back from eighth largest in
the world in 2013 to tenth in 2014, and is likely to stay there until 2030. By 2030 Germany will be overtaken by the UK for the first time for since
1954. and drop back to seventh largest economy in the world.
In fact, there is only a
limited correlation between size of geography, size of economy, size of
population and scope and extent of power. Indeed, the bigger the state, the
more populous it is, unless it is the United States, the more difficult it is to likely find the governmental wherewithal to generate real power and influence
on the world stage. China for all its impressive growth of late faces huge
internal challenges, India even more so. Brazil? Forget it! No offence but
Brazil’s elite could not organise/prevent a tree-felling in a rain forest. As
such Brasilia is run by strategic infants with corruption and incompetence on
such a scale that it will prevent Brazil’s emergence as a great power for years
to come. As for Russia, it is a broken state with broken systems and broken communities
spread across nine time zones run by an incompetent and corrupt government overseeing
an ailing one-shot economy that simply to maintain contro invents
and/or creates enemies where none exists.
No, the greatest danger
to Britain’s influence is an EU that enmeshes it into a
mechanism that functions more like Brazil or Russia than the United States, and
the incompetence of a strategically-illiterate political class who do not
believe in Britain as a power, and who confuse size with power, strategy with
politics. That is why the EU desperately
needs reform and that is why Cameron is not up to it. Indeed, precisely because
Cameron does not believe in Britain as a power he has failed to make the right
case for EU reform. Rather, he has abandoned British national strategy for
mercantilism, and with the support of Chancellor George Osborne is busy sacrificing
the tools of strategy and influence, most notably Britain’s once-superb
diplomatic service.
Britain’s tragic irony is
it could influence so much more than it does.
Britain, like France and Germany, is a Goldilocks state, well-connected,
and well-networked with an advanced economy that is neither too large, nor too populous.
Such states are likely to remain for the foreseeable future the most effective
and efficient states on the planet, and thus powerful and influential. However, that is only if they are well led. This is especially so for a state such as Britain, which
combines both significant hard and soft power, is the font of the world
language, and which sits in a time zone between east and west.
Sadly, it is the absence of
strategic leadership that drips from Cameron’s letter to Tusk. Worse, there is
irony in the letter which Cameron’s own strategic illiteracy prevents him from
understanding; the British are probably about to get their way with or without a
Brexit. Over the next decade those
inside the Euro will abandon any freedom for strategic manoeuvre as they
venture deeper into the anti-democratic strait-jacket of Euro-land. As they do
so they will take many of the EU’s ‘common’ structures with them, such as home
affairs, foreign affairs and defence. This will be the Real EU. Those outside the
Euro are soon to be members of EU-lite, whatever Cameron and the British do.
EU-lite will be focussed
almost exclusively on the Single Market. Consequently, the EU-liters are going
to have to learn to think again strategically for themselves. That will demand
strategic literacy and leadership. However, facing reality, be it over the EU’s
self-paralysing contradictions, the strategic and societal implications of hyper-migration,
and the changing military world balance, British leaders of late have shown
themselves to be appeasers of reality. Too often they hope against hope they
can be re-elected before the consequences of their own inaction destroys them. The
strategic leadership of the country in a complex Europe and a dangerous world
is merely secondary to narrow political calculation.
Therefore, all the Brexit
vote will do is put Britain and Europe through an unnecessary political mangle.
Indeed, the Brexit referendum will only address Cameron’s letter. rather than
anything serious or substantive. In that light I worry not about a Britain
outside the EU per se, but whether Britain’s leaders would be any good at
leading a newly-independent Britain. The evidence would suggest not.
On the face of it the
argument that a Britain outside the EU would be reduced to a Switzerland
(population 2014 in 7.4m, GDP 703bn, world rank 20 (IMF)) or a Norway
(population in 2014 5.2m, GDP 500bn, world rank 27 (IMF) would appear
nonsense. However, if ‘leaders’ are not up
to leadership then however powerfully power talks, the language of power will
not be understood, and power and the state will be much reduced.
Still, there is always
Jeremy Corbyn.
Julian Lindley-French
