The General, the Baroness and the Colonel

Deepest, darkest Yorkshire. I should have been giving an interview this morning to the BBC’s flagship radio news programme on whither Libya. Sadly, the nearest thing to a signal in these here hills is metal, clunks up and down and occasionally stops trains. Well, it would if there were any trains left running to stop. Still, found some coal ‘out back’ and fired up the interweb locomotive (I freely admit to being a not so closet steam railway ‘anorak’). So, this is what I would have told the BBC; both the baroness and the general are right in principle about the colonel, but the general is more right in fact than the baroness.  Here is why. 

General Sir David Richards, Chief of the British Defence Staff, has suggested that pressure must be increased on the regime of Colonal Ghadaffi by expanding the targeting of allied air strikes to include infrastructure – bridges, roads, power-plants and stuff. Richards went as far as to suggest that if “NATO did not up the ante” then Gadhaffi could remain in power. Baroness Amos, the UN’s Under-Secretary for Humanitarian Relief has at the same time called for a 'temporary' cease-fire. She is correct in principle under the strict and narrow interpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 which only authorizes action to protect civilians. There is no question that large numbers of people are suffering.

Well, here’s the thing. Today, the International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor waded in and indicted Gadhaffi and two of his mob seeking their arrest for crimes against humanity. Does that not change the terms of reference of 1973? Now, I am no international lawyer but it strikes me that be it under the UN’s own Responsibility to Protect or indeed not, the issuing of such a warrant is a game-changer.  In principle (a lot of 'principles' being uttered at present) such an indictment also places an additional requirement on those acting under UN mandate to ensure such a warrant is served.  The legal goalposts may have moved today which could, in principle, provide a basis for expanded coalition action.  For all the principle 'thing' these campaigns always come down to politics - new openings and new chances to save face.  The General and the Baroness need to talk.  

But will she? To ease pressure on the Gadhaffi regime as the Baroness suggests would spell be disaster for both the Libyan people and international law. Why?  It is because Gadhaffi and his regime are a princples-free zone.  Remember, Saddam? After one bout of UN-sanctioned action he simple said, “I survive, I win”. Gadhaffi has clearly made similar calculations hoping the coalition will simply run out of steam.

There is I suspect more at work here. General Richards is no bomb-happy martial. Far from it. He is one of the most thinking, considered and humanitarian of military chiefs I have ever met. When a man committed to the minimum use of force commensurate with mission success makes such statements it is for a reason. I do not know Baroness Amos and in her interviews she strikes me as both principled and sincere. That said, I must admit to being a little jaundiced as she was also part of that New Labour Islington champagne socialist elite who were so full of principles that they invited everybody else to live with the consequences. It will take Britain decades to recover, if it ever does. Nor do I like the way failed British politicians somehow end up with plum jobs with plum salaries in plum apartments on the plummy shores of Lake Geneva.  You can read into that what you may.

However, from reading over, under and between her lines I suspect she has a principled objection to the use of force period. If that is the case her calls for a ceasefire must be resisted because the only winner will be Gadhaffi. Rather, she would be better advised telling her UN boss to authorize the on hold EU Operation to provide humanitarian assistance to Misrata and to urge him to seek to expand that mandate. This would enable both the campaign to continue and humanitarian assistance to be provided where it is needed on the ground through military support. Momentum is everything in this business, as is principle.

A couple of weeks ago I was concerned that an ICC indictment of Gadhaffi would make it harder to break his resistance. Those concerns remain. Now that it has been issued it may provide the very basis for the expanded operation that this campaign so desperately needs. The alternative is quagmire.

Where are Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin when you need them?

Julian Lindley-French

Blackadder Builds Aircraft Carriers

Back in London. Another sunny, spring day. Does it ever rain here? Getting used to Britain as a tropical island is taking some doing, but at least the wine is good. Another high-level meeting (yes, I know, all my meetings are ‘high-level’, as opposed to the ‘what on Earth am I doing here’ meetings I often find myself at).

This one again concerned the HMS Highly Unlikelys – those benighted British aircraft carriers the construction of which resembles an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth. You know the episode. It is the one in which ‘Bob’ Parkhurst says, “I want to see how a war is fought, so badly”. To which Blackadder replies: “Well, you've come to the right place, Bob. A war hasn't been fought this badly since Olaf the Hairy, high chief of all the vikings, accidentally ordered 80,000 battle helmets with the horns on the inside”. As Prince Philip once famously said; “What a way to run a railway?”

This was London at its Whitehall goldfish bowl worst with politicians and officials swimming around in an ever-diminishing pool of fratricide and carrier-cide as though the real world beyond had nothing to do with them. Sorry, it has.

The only defence of the Whitehallers is that this incompetence is passed down from generation to generation. The story goes something like this. First, there is an over-ambitious statement of over-strategy, normally to correct a previous statement of under-strategy. That is followed by a period of over-engagement in which plucky British servicemen daily defeat an entire Wehrmacht division armed with a piece of chewing gum, an umbrella and a square jaw. The ensuing disaster is then followed by a hopelessly under-strategic review run by the Treasury which a) pretends that British taxpayer’s money actually belongs to them; and b) which states that for the next four hundred years nothing nasty is going to happen. When it does we then expect the Americans to sort it out...and call it burden sharing. This is where we are today.

The sad fact is that Britain will need those ships because the world will not leave Britain alone, and the Americans will rightly expect at least a bit of a global effort.  Indeed, the two ships will serve at the core of Britain's future military effort for much of this century.

For me the saddest aspect of this sorry saga is the opportunity being missed to tell a great British story. The construction of these ships represents world-beating innovation. If we were Yanks we would have made at least ten hollywood blockbusters by now. With a British people desperate to feel proud again it is a story that desperately needs telling. But no, according to the Illuminati sections of society apparently would not like the fact that Britain at least retains some pretentions to the ambition that once made this nation great. Sod them – get on with it!

As a testament to poor political and bureaucratic leadership there can be no peer. There is one episode of Yes, Minister in which Sir Humphrey describes the Byzantine methods employed by civil servants to kill projects they dislike. First, they add on bells and whistles that inflate the price and make the whole process hideously expensive. Second, they delay the project so long that by the time it is ready it is time to scrap it. Third, they cut the numbers to make the development costs look absurd. Finally, they talk only of cost and never of value, and use their media chums to distort the message to a disbelieving public. Well, something along those lines. That is precisely what the out of control bureaucrats are doing to HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Where is the Prime Minister in all of this?  Leading from the rear, as ever.

For me the saddest spectacle is to witness the utter strategic vacuum that this debacle represents. Inside the Whitehall goldfish bowl politicians are obsessed with dodging any bullet that can possibly harm them, leaving strategy-hating bureaucrats to out-manoeuvre the under-political military chiefs - lambs to the slaughter.

The key issue? Not the future strategic influence of the United Kingdom, oh no, but rather how to ensure one’s fingerprints are not found at the scene of the forthcoming crime. Nor can the military chiefs absolve themselves. They are too often too busy fighting each other over their bit of a small cake that is rapidly becoming a small tart. It is an appalling spectacle the result of short-term, narrow behavior from people who really should know better. It is quite simply pathetic!

Thirteen years into this project it is still under review. Thirteen years into the project those responsible for it wake up each morning not knowing if they still have a project at all. Thirteen years into this project no-one actually knows the cost. Thirteen years into this project no-one is actually sure what will actually fly off them.

I am off to Paris today for another meeting, another speech. At least I might get some common sense there, but not here in this Whitehall Village of the Damned.

Whitehall; grow up, get your act together and start putting Britain’s strategic interests first. If not, history (and me) will condemn you all.

One final thought. Why not put horns on the inside?

Julian Lindley-French

Nuking NATO

Tallinn, Estonia. Sitting here on the banks of the serene Baltic in a beautiful city founded by eighth century Danish knights it is difficult to imagine the tsunamis of violent history that have washed over this place. And yet, for the past two days I have been discussing a seismic shift in NATO’s nuclear reality that in time could reduce the very ‘sea’ defences Estonians have a right to expect. Right now the tsunami is merely a fast-travelling disturbance in the strategic sea upon the shores of which the Alliance village sits. Yet one day the wave could crash upon these shores with force and venom. NATO’s nuclear future ain’t what it used to be.

NATO has always been a nuclear alliance. Indeed, with Russia a few hundred kilometres to my right as I write this, one is struck by the proximity of the past; only a stone’s throw away. Or is that a short-range nuke away, none of which were covered by the 2009 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by Moscow and Washington.

Nuclear weapons are still with us, particularly short and intermediate range nukes.  And, for an old wonk like me who cut his teeth on the searing tears in detente (wonderful – mixed metaphors!) caused by Euromissiles back in the 1970s and early 80s, deja vu is really all over again. It is a sad fact that our nuclear past still lays ahead of us, although most of we Europeans simply cannot bring ourselves to face it, we are soon going to be back to the future.

The obsession here is of course the neighbours from hell, although in reality the Russian-NATO relationship is as much symbiotic as dangerous – a failing power obsessed with a failing institution. Hard though it is to explain to Estonians (for very obvious reasons) Russia is not the real strategic threat. They bluster and of course occasionally misbehave – that is what the Russians do. However, even the most cursory glance of a map will demonstrate that Russia actually needs the West, offering Moscow its only stable border and source of income.

No, the coming crisis concerns what I call free defence and the role of nuclear forces therein. In other words, the price Americans will demand for Europe’s defence and the extent (or otherwise) NATO Europe is willing to help bear the cost - both actual and political.

Much of the crisis will concern the role and place of American short-range nukes on European soil and the willingness of all the allies to share the burden of nuclear responsibility. There are some two hundred such nukes at present, although I cannot disclose where. If I did so I might have to kill you, or at least bore you to death.

Normally, the reason for nuclear weapons is to offset the weakness of conventional forces. NATO’s future deterrence and defence posture would ideally see the number of nuclear forces reduced, offset by a limited but capable missile defence system, and enhanced and deployable conventional military forces. And yet, NATO’s forthcoming Deterrence and Defence Posture Review (DDPR) faces an almost impossible mission – balancing demands for reduced nukes, reduced conventional forces, and constraints on missile defence with demands for enhanced security and defence. Even for this rather innumerate Yorkshireman NATO’s contemporary strategic equation simply does not add up.

Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are signalling they soon will no longer permit US nuclear forces on their territory. The ‘De-nuked Three’ join a host of other European allies who are also cutting defence budgets and yet expect the Americans to proceed with missile defence at American expense. I think the Yanks call it chutzpah! 

One delegate from a very large central European country that shall remain nameless, but with a fondness for worst, suggested not only the removal of American nukes, but that their defence should be assured by a real missile shield.  Although, of course, the interceptors would need to be hosted by the neighbours. A clearer definition of free defence/free-riding I have yet to hear.

In effect, the ‘Du-nuked Three’ (not to mention the relatives) want free US defence, as well as the right to shift the burden of nuclear responsibility onto the three NATO nuclear powers – Britain, France and the US. The lunches were nice in Tallinn, but I do not think they were free.

Thus far, the US Congress has not become too excited over such free-riding. However, with Bin Laden dead the true nature of twenty-first centuryt strategy will emerge and with it the place of the Alliance in America’s global role – which will be Asia-centric. And all of this just when the US finally confronts its budget deficit. I think I will absent myself when that credit card final demand drops on the front door mat of Congress.  With no ‘war’ to justify such largesse the role of allies in squaring America’s strategy-austerity circle could well swell from a ripple of discontent at present to become a giant political wave that threatens to engulf the Alliance.  Brussels as Atlantis - now there's a thought.

NATO is built on burden-sharing, which concerns as much the sharing of risk as cost.  The US gets very little of either.  The Americans are an historically generous people, but they are not stupid. Right now there is a strange calm as the waters of the strategic foreshore begin to retreat ahead of the coming tsunami. And yet the wave marches on.

First, we are moving back into a nuclear world. Iran will get nuclear weapons, North Korea has them, as do several of its Asian neighbours with quite a few more simply waiting to throw the switch if America’s stabilising hand is withdrawn or becomes arthritic. Second, in a globalised world no technology or commodity can be ring-fenced forever. Nuclear technology is now over seventy years old.  Third, the archaic 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT) is showing all the signs of being swamped by proliferation.  The European solution?  Build a tsunami defying picket fence of good intentions.  That should keep the damp out.

Sooner or later in the absence of the highly unlikely global nuclear zero we will need to re-nuke NATO. If the burden falls disproportionately on the Americans and/or the extended deterrence of the one and a half other NATO nuclear powers (France and Britain) then the Alliance could well fail. Why? Once again solidarity will have failed the test of danger.

(Re-)Nuking NATO – it is on its way...but only after lunch of course.

Julian Lindley-French