Analysis Paper: The Battle of Brexit

“The highest pivot of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it”.

Thomas Babington MacCauley, 1^stBaron MacCauley

Abstract: This brief personal analysis paper examines why it is so hard to agree a Brexit settlement. It considers the challenges through the lens of two issues; the post-Brexit inner-Irish border and the aims and strategy of the European Commission. The analysis concludes by suggesting that Tony Blair’s call for a bespoke deal to keep Britain in the EU is the only way to stop Brexit, but for all the reasons discussed below it is extremely unlikely Britain would or could be offered such a deal.

The Battle of Brexit

Brexit is at its inevitable schwerpunkt when fudge can no longer be fudged, and choices have to be made. Today, British Prime Minister May will lay out five tests for Brexit which will essentially say that Britain’s decision to leave the EU must be respected, frictionless trade with the EU must be maintained, London decides which of the four fundamental EU freedoms (goods, people, services and capital) London will observe, with any disputes to be decided not solely by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

This week the real Battle of Brexit broke out. On one side is a hard-line, unelected, and effectively unaccountable European Commission committed to its self-appointed political role to drive towards some form of European Federation. On the other side, is a top five world power that is seeking to leave the European Union, not least because of profound unease in many of its quarters about the EU’s attitude to democracy, legitimacy and the sovereign will of the people. In the middle is a people appalled by the divisions within its leading political class, and increasingly irritated by the hard-line stance of Brussels. The Battle of Brexit is also a battle fought through proxies, but it is nevertheless an existential battle not only about who rules ‘Europe’, but the future of Europe.

The publication this week of TF50 (2018) 33 or European Commission Draft Withdrawal Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Agreement is far more than a dry technical, bureaucratic document. Rather, it firmly establishes the strategic and political battle-lines between a European Commission that is playing very hard-ball indeed over Brexit, and a British Government that has thus far avoided setting out anything that might be called a negotiating position. This is because the May Government is unable to agree one, and she is too weak to impose one. Born of a mix of ideological fundamentalism and frustration the Draft Agreement is thus deliberately designed to put Theresa May in a position where she has no option other than to say what she wants. There are two issues upon which this analysis will focus, one of which demonstrates the lack of any political will to agree a settlement, and the other explains why; the Brexit Irish Question and the aims and strategy of the European Commission.

The Irish Tail Wagging the British Dog?

In the 1980s I spent time in Northern Ireland and I am acutely sensitive to Britain’s tarnished, at times appalling history on the island of Ireland. My respect for Ireland and the Irish people runs deep, and I remain firm in my belief that should the majority of people in the north of Ireland ever vote to become part of the Republic I would honour such a decision. As someone intelligent said to me recently, “Ireland is like an innocent passer-by walking down a street in a storm who suddenly gets drenched by a bloody big, poorly-driven lorry driving through a puddle of its own making”.

What is fast becoming known as the Irish Question amidst calls for a ‘common regulatory area’ on the island of Ireland, perhaps shine the best light on the politics of the Draft Agreement. As such it reflects as much Brussels’ legitimate frustration with a hitherto hopeless London, as it implies any power grab on a part of the United Kingdom. Yes, Brexit is complicated, but it is being made far more complicated by Theresa May’s lack of leadership, a Cabinet so divided they probably could not even agree on the time of day when it comes to Brexit, and a negotiating team most of whom give the strong impression they would prefer to be batting for the other side. When historians come to write about the sordid tale that is Brexit they will doubtless conclude that London conducted perhaps the worst set of negotiations in Britain’s long history.

With the Battle of Brexit now turning nasty some accuse the Commission of diverging significantly from at least the spirit of the December Joint Agreement, which agreed the overall cost to Britain of its pending departure from the EU. Others suggest the Commission even wants to ‘annex’ Northern Ireland. In fact, the text of the Joint Agreement is pretty clear. “In the absence [my italics] of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all island economy and the protection of the 1998 [Belfast] Agreement. A second sentence states that, “In all circumstances, the United Kingdom [not the EU] will continue to ensure the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland's businesses to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market”. In other words, only if the UK fails to come up with a solution to the Irish Question would Northern Ireland remain fully aligned with existing EU obligations. It is hard not to conclude that in her pre-Christmas December desperation to complete so-called Phase One negotiations, and agree the ‘divorce bill’, Theresa May simply gave away too much. The Draft Agreement simply translates that concession into legalese.

However, as with all issues Northern Ireland there is a wider security context against which Brexit must be considered. The security and stability of Northern Ireland, and in particular the April 1998 Belfast or Good Friday Agreement (GFA), has been the cornerstone of the peace process. Whilst the EU was not a signatory to the GFA the political and economic context provided by the Union undoubtedly played a role in reducing the logic of Sinn Fein/IRA’s armed struggle against Britain, even if the critical moment in the peace process was not 1998, but 911. After the attacks by al Qaeda on the US, and Tony Blair’s commitment of immediate British support for the Bush administration in the Global War on Terror, savvy Republican political leaders such as Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness quickly realised they they would lose the support of their American backers if they continued to attack British troops fighting alongside their American counterparts in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden.

The Commission case, and indeed that of the Varadkar government in Dublin, rests upon an assumption that Northern Ireland is not really part of the United Kingdom. It is. The majority of the people of Northern Ireland have not as yet indicated a desire to leave the United Kingdom and become part of the Republic. In other words Northern Ireland is, and will remain for the foreseeable future, part of the United Kingdom, whatever the necessary fudge of the Belfast Agreement. Theresa May was thus correct to say this week in Parliament that no British prime minister could ever accept an agreement that threatens the constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom, just as she is correct to assert that no hard border need be re-imposed on the island of Ireland.

Getting Over the Border

So, what is the answer to the Irish Question? Over many years between 1984 and 2007 I either lived or stayed in Switzerland.  In 2011 Switzerland joined the Schengen Zone and in practice accepted the ‘acquis’ of a borderless European Union. However, for many years prior to 2011 there were many border crossings between France and Switzerland that were rarely ever manned. In other words, the border between Switzerland and France was a ‘fudge’, albeit a successful fudge. It is precisely such a fudge that Britain and the EU could ‘craft’ if there was the political will so to do. It is precisely the lack of such will on the part of Brussels that is preventing such a fudge.

Let me be specific. I have just finished reading a report entitled Smart Border 2.0; avoiding a Hard Border on the Island of Ireland for Customs Control and the Free Movement of Persons. The paper was published in November 2017 and written by Leo Karlsson, the former Director of the World Customs Organisation, having been commissioned by the European Parliament.

Forgive me for quoting this report at length, but it is important. The paper states: “This study, commissioned by the European Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs at the request of the AFCO Committee, provides background on cross-border movement and trade between Northern Ireland and Ireland and identifies international standards and best practices and technologies that can be used to avoid a ‘hard’ border as well as case studies that provide insights into creating a smooth border experience. The technical solution provided is based on innovative approaches with a focus on cooperation, best practices and technology that is independent of any political agreements on the UK’s exit from the EU, and offers a template for future UK-EU border relationships”.

The paper goes on: “There have been significant developments around the world in creating ‘smart borders’ that bring together international standards and best practices and new technologies to create low-friction borders that support that fast and secure movement of persons and goods. Standards and best practices such as domestic and cross-border coordinated border management as well as trusted trader and trusted traveller programs can significantly reduce compliance requirements and make borders almost friction free. Customs and other border control practices that keep the border open, such as release before clearance, deferred duty payments and clearance away from the border, also help keep the border free of traffic and speed up or even remove the need for processing. Technologies such as automatic number plate recognition, enhanced driver's licenses, bar-code scanning and the use of smartphone apps can also have a significant impact by reducing paperwork and allowing pre- or on-arrival release, which can reduce or even eliminate the need to stop or undergo checks. Many of these measures have been introduced at borders across the world.

At both the Norway-Sweden border and the Canada-US border, low friction borders have been created through a focus on sharing of both data and facilities, the creation of an electronic environment for trade and travel and the use of modern technologies. Both Australia and New Zealand have also focused on utilising technology, in particular bio-metrics, to speed-up the movement of citizens between their respective countries. In developing a solution for the Irish border, there is an opportunity to develop a friction free border building on international standards and best practices, technology and insights from other jurisdictions”.

In other words, the only real barriers to solving the inner-Ireland border questions are the willingness to enact a fudge, and the time it would take to install the Karlsson system. And, of course, the political will so to do.

The Aims and Strategy of the Commission

This brings me to the second part of this analysis; why the European Commission, claiming to act on behalf of the whole of the EU, is determined to prevent the ‘pragmatic’ solution Michel Barnier repeatedly refers to? To answer that question one must analyse the Brexit aims and strategy of the Commission. The simple answer to the question is that the Commission is simply not interested in a working solution to Brexit because such a solution could imply that other member-states might make a similar choice if the cost is not too great.

Indeed, for the Commission the Brexit negotiations are not really about the British. Rather, it is a struggle within the EU over precedent, primacy, pre-eminence and power between the European Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament. The aim of the Commission is to drive Europeans towards some form of European Federation. During my time as Senior Fellow at the EU Institute for Security Studies when I visited the Commission in Brussels I was struck often by the extent to which those who occupy the New Berlaymont see themselves as political Jesuits; committed to not only uphold the True Faith, but enforce it.

As with all such political institutions the primary aim is to render ever more power unto itself and, in so doing, eradicate any danger of dissent. One aspect of that aim is to eradicate democracy from the high politics of the EU in the form of national referenda, and thus drive towards ‘ever closer union’ as defined (and initiated) by the Commission. As such Brexit represents an existential threat to the True Faith of Euro-Federalism. To protect its mission the Commission must either over-turn the Brexit vote (preferred Commission option), or by making the cost of Brexit so high, deter any other Member-State from ever again contemplating withdrawal.

The Commission claims it is accountable to the European Council and the European Parliament. In practice, as ‘the only body paid to think European’ the powers of the Commission go far beyond the apparent limits of its competences. The 2009 Treaty of Lisbon imbued the Commission with the ability to initiate policy, and in so doing enabled it to occupy the powerful legal and political space between an international treaty and a domestic constitution that is the Lisbon Treaty. The Commission has also mastered far more effectively than any Member-State the treaty-constitutional uplands of the Union. This has enabled the Commission to often and effectively manipulate the Council, particularly if it aligns itself with an increasingly dominant Germany, and to use the European Parliament as a rubber-stamping agency for the Commission’s vision of ‘ever closer Union’.

Naturally, ‘ever more Europe’ means ever more Commission, in particular the permanent secretariat now under the leadership of the new German Secretary-General and ultra-hard line Euro-federalist Martin Selmayr, who last week was mysteriously, and somewhat suspiciously, promoted from being Juncker’s chef de cabinet to being the Commissions top permanent civil servant. Even the European Parliament’s transparency ‘czar’ has expressed concerns about the manner of Selmayr’s promotion.

The Commission’s Brexit strategy is thus clear; present an utterly inflexible negotiating position as ‘reasonable’, and block off any ‘escape’ route that the British Government might seek via fudge that might lead to something like an equitable, working future relationship.

Analysis versus Instinct

Even though I have seen Brussels close-up I still decided to campaign for Remain during the Brexit referendum, even though it was against my better instinct. Indeed, it was only after an exhaustive analysis of the EU and Britain’s relationship and place within it that I made my final decision. On balance, I assumed, given the growing geopolitical threats faced by states to the east and south of Europe, and in spite of my deep and abiding concerns about the dangerous retreat from meaningful democracy in the EU, I came out for Remain. I saw myself as a Big Picture Remainer, someone who had carefully considered where best to exercise Britain still-considerable influence and power within the wider strategic context of a Europe under growing threat.  And, in spite of my concerns about the EU I accepted the idea that the EU still had a vital role to play in preserving peace within Europe.

Even with the June 2016 vote to leave I still assumed that the subsequent Brexit negotiations whilst hard would be carried out in a manner respectful of the legitimate democratic choice the British people had made. How wrong I was. The outcome of this disaster is now becoming clear: Britain will be much weakened by Brexit, and the EU, rather than being the free associations of democracies in which I once believed deeply, has been revealed as a vengeful empire run by an elite ‘monastic’ bureaucracy in which the only place for democracy and the people is to vote for the powerless and the meaningless.

Hard Sovereignty versus Soft Sovereignty

To conclude, the Battle of Brexit is not about trade, whatever the Labour Party or the Liberal Democrats like to pretend. Brexit is about where power resides and who governs us. In which case it is a struggle for all Europeans and of which all Europeans need to be aware.

This is because Brexit is not about now, it is about who really has the power to govern Europeans ten, twenty, thirty years hence, and whether the EU really is a free association of sovereign, democratic states, or a federation effectively ruled by an elite cabal. In other words, these are questions that whilst they can be delayed cannot be fudged indefinitely if Britain, and the rest of Europe, are not to slide into some form of soft authoritarianism epitomised by the likes of Barnier and Selmayr. Sadly, Theresa May’s inability to either understand strategy or apply big power means she is incapable of anything but fudge.

That is why with the Draft Agreement the Commission is in effect offering the British people a Hobson’s Choice: hard Brexit and effectively lose Northern Ireland, or a Brexit so soft that Britain does not leave the EU at all. Rather, it becomes to all intents and purposes a colony. Or, to put it at its most romantic (and here is the irony) the first province of the new European Federation.

As a Remain-backing Briton I cannot, nor will I ever accept such a ‘choice’. Read carefully the speeches this week made by Sir John Major and Tony Blair and my sense is neither do they. Rather, they remain hopeful a) EU Member-States can again re-establish their supremacy in the EU; b) the Member-States can do so without the former Franco-German Axis morphing ever more into German domination; and c) Britain can re-exert more influence over the EU, and indeed the French and Germans within the EU than at any time since Britain joined in 1973. Give me the hope of realising such a vision and I would actively campaign for it.

Ironically, Blair’s speech this week in Brussels actually mirrored what I said in Berlin a couple of weeks ago (naturally, I was first); the only way to stop Brexit is to offer the British an entirely new deal that would enable the British people to vote again on Brexit, albeit on a different question; will you accept British membership of a reformed EU with a special status for Britain?

Sadly, I think it is too late for that. For all the reasons I outline above the denizens of the New Berlaymont would rather die fighting in the trenches of Euro-federalism than accept a compromise that would, to all intents and purposes, end their dream of just such a federated Europe. Moreover, to convince the British people to change their minds would take far more than the kind of dupe used to make the French, Dutch and Irish people ‘change their minds’ over the then EU Constitutional Treaty. The failure of the British Government’s Project Fear prior to the June 2016 Brexit referendum demonstrates all too clearly a people that are not easily fobbed off.

Therefore, given the appalling choice available to me, and with genuine regret, if the worst of all post-Brexit worlds came to the worst I would prefer Britain break cleanly with the EU fully accepting the inevitable cost to Britain’s economy, if not to Britain’s democracy. Resistance is never futile, and the Commission needs to understand that it must accept the legitimacy of Brexit, just as much as London, and the British people, must accept the cost of it.

There is one final thought I wish to impart in this personal analysis. There are those on the Continent who somehow believe they could countenance the attack on the integrity of the United Kingdom that the Commission is mounting and yet seem to believe that such an attack would have no implications for the support of Britain in the defence of their own countries through NATO. Should the Commission succeed in its efforts to weaken the UK over Brexit the British people would have little interest in defending those in whose name such attack was mounted. And, I for one, would be only too happy to help to make that clear.

Maybe it is time for some grown-ups to intervene?

Julian Lindley-French

NATO Review: Adapting NATO to an Unpredictable and Fast-Changing World

Morning All! It is my pleasure to announce the publication of a new article in the excellent NATO Review. Entitled Adapting NATO to an Unpredictable and Fast-Changing World, the piece is (of course) brilliant and unbelievably well-priced (free!). 

Building on the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Report which was published in late November, and for which I was lead writer, the article scrupulously lays out the main findings of the report.  The Steering Committee I served comprised people who really know that their NATO: Generals John Allen and Wolf Langheld (former NATO commanders), Ambassador Sandy Vershbow (former US Ambassador to Moscow and NATO Deputy Secretary-General), Admiral Giampaolo di Paola (former Italian Minister of Defence and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee) and Ambassador Tomas Valacek (former Slovak Ambassador to the North Atlantic Council).  

The link to the NATO Review article is: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/2018/Also-in-2018/adapting-nato-to-an-unpredictable-and-fast-changing-world-defence-alliance-security/EN/index.htm

The link to the GLOBSEC NATO Final Adaptation Report is:  https://www.globsec.org/news/globsec-nato-adaptation-initiative-final-report/

The main message from the report and the article?  “NATO leaders should commission a strategy review, which might be embodied in a new Strategic Concept. NATO needs a forward-looking strategy that sets out how the Alliance will meet the challenges of an unpredictable and fast-changing world”. 

Have a good day!

Julian Lindley-French

Julian’s New Concept of Deterrence Effects?

Mission:

Regular readers of this missive know that it is not my normal practice to post a blog a day. I am too busy for that.  Still, this morning I sent a memo to a very senior friend and colleague who had asked me to expand my thinking on a new concept of deterrence outlined in my blog of 13 February entitled MAD Again? Competing in the New Strategic Arms Race.  Therefore, given I am grappling with a range of ideas on the future of deterrence I thought I might try and provoke a wider debate in the strategy community by sharing the memo with you. 

Headline:

My aim is to arrive at a new concept of deterrence by which new and emerging non-nuclear technologies could be 'bundled' and applied via new strategy and new thinking to generate deterrent effect across the conflict spectrum in conjunction with existing Alliance conventional and nuclear capabilities and postures.

THEREFORE, if deterrence is an effect the question I am posing is thus: could the Alliance generate the same or similar deterrent effect as nuclear escalation across the low to high yield, SRM to ICBM nuclear spectrum by matching new strategy with new non-nuclear technology, rather than return to a form of mutually assured nuclear destruction or MAD-ness?

Assumptions:

1.   I am concerned that if we simply follow the Russians by matching nuclear system for system - SRMs, MBRMs, IRBMs, ICBMs – that will not re-set a ‘strategic balance’ and make the situation even more unstable by destroying treaty frameworks and with it arms control.

2.   By introducing new nuclear systems into Europe such a response could lead to similar if not more intense 'populism' to that prior to signing of the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty when the Carter administration wanted to introduce enhanced radiation weapons (ERW) in the 1970s, and deployed Cruise and Pershing 2s in the 1980s, to match Soviet SS20s.

3.   Such a popular 'revolt' would cause significant political strains within the polis of already fragile political systems in many European countries, tense after many years of austerity etc., and would probably split NATO.

4.   By introducing Iskandrs, SS-29, RS 28, enhanced A2/AD, advanced nuclear-armed submarines etc. that is precisely the political calculation Moscow has made. Indeed, such deployments are part of Moscow’s strategy to offset its relative weakness by exploiting the 'strengths' of what the Putin regimes sees as a far more powerful, but divided adversary. Given that an adversarial relationship with much of the West is central to the Kremlin's domestic justification of power it is unlikely that such a strategy is going to change soon.

New Concept of Deterrence Effects?

My assertion on deterrence effects can be thus summarised: deterrence is an effect not a technology or even a capability, even if it is dependent on both. Indeed, technology is merely a means to a deterrence end. Since the 1950s deterrence has been dominated by nuclear experts because for decades what might be called 'strategic deterrence' has essentially been about balancing nuclear systems of mass destruction. Therefore, every nuclear 'hammer' has, by and large, been matched by a matching nuclear 'hammer'. The recent US Nuclear Posture Review was a continuation of that tradition.

However, our November 2017 report (GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Report https://www.globsec.org/news/globsec-nato-adaptation-initiative-gnai/) rightly identified new forms of warfare, and new technologies and new strategies IN future war, precisely to reduce the threat of such warfare - from hybrid to hyper via cyber war as we deemed it. In that context, si vis pacem para bellum (‘if you want peace prepare for war’) requires entirely new thinking (si vis pacem bellum cogita, or If you want peace think about war) about strategy, technology, capability and effects.  This is not least because such new thinking would play to ‘our’ strengths and thus enable the Alliance to set the deterrence agenda, not simply respond to agendas set elsewhere.

Hypothesis

Given my assumptions my central hypothesis is thus:

1. The primary weakness of the Alliance deterrence posture is the lack of a heavy 'conventional' reserve force able to support front-line states in strength, quickly, and across a broad conflict spectrum in a crisis and during an emergency, if the threat comes from several directions at once.

2. Such threats would see an attack from Russia to the east, chaos and terrorism to the south of the Alliance, and attacks within Alliance states, allied to sophisticated and co-ordinated efforts to generate popular discord via disinformation and attacks on critical infrstructures, and thus undermine an effective and coherent response.  

3. Such a threat would be dangerously exacerbated if the US was also engaged simultaneously in a major crisis elsewhere, such as in Asia-Pacific.

4. Even if the Americans, Canadians, and possibly the British, could despatch a heavy reserve force simultaneously to the East, North and South of NATO's European theatre the infrastructures to transfer such forces across the Atlantic/Channel quickly, receive them effectively and efficiently, and then transport them rapidly into the Area of Operations (AOO) simply do not exist.

5. Much of the ‘Main Force’ assigned to the NATO Command Structure either exists only on paper, or is incapable of acting (see “German Army Problems ‘dramatically bad’” www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43134896)

6. To offset what I call the 'deterrence gap or deficit' the reflex tends to be to resort to nuclear weapons. Indeed, first and early use of such weapons was the central assumption of Alliance deterrence during the Cold War on NATO's Central Front when our forces were a) not as extended as far to the east as they are now; and b) the south was relatively more stable, thus enabling a vaguely credible conventional Main Effort.

7. Resorting early to nuclear escalation in Alliance defence strategy would be a political trap for all the reasons I explain above. The political consequences for strategy could thus be the weakening of political solidarity upon which credible deterrence and defence stands at the Schwerpunkt or decisive climax of a pre-war crisis, dangerously weakening, not strengthening, Alliance deterrence.

Desired Deterrence Outcomes?

1.   My desired deterrence outcome is a natural follow on to our NATO Adaptation Report. The strategic 'bandwidth' that could be applied to generating credible deterrence seems to be expanding exponentially due to emerging technologies.

2.   These emerging technologies act across the AI, quantum computing, big data, etc, etc spectrum, and could be coupled with new forms of 'conventional' capabilities involving enhanced range, precision, and destructive weapons.

3.   Such technologies should be allied to new thinking on the possible application of critically disruptive strategies and technologies able to exploit systematically the seams that exist with an adversary - societal, political, economic, as well as critical infrastructure destruction and disruption.

4.   The legitimate counter-argument would be to question the applicability of such technologies and the time it would take to develop and deploy them, not least because NATO Europe is so bad at fielding times for new systems.

More thinking and work needs to be done on a new concept of deterrence effects, which I will do. However, to my mind what is urgently needed is that such new thinking takes place, and not only by me.

Julian Lindley-French

Munich: Talking About Bigness

“The wise man does at once what the fool does finally”

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Munich Security Conference

Munich, Germany. 19 February. I suppose it was French Defence Minister Parly’s call for “strategic autonomy” that gave this blog its mission. There is nothing like a stuck French record to get an Englishman going. My brief foray into the fray of the great, the good, and the not so good that is the Munich Security Conference was interesting. My takeaway? Europeans have a problem with bigness. Yes, we are very good at talking about bigness, and collectively we can come up with no end of plans, papers and prescriptions to pretend we are dealing with bigness. And, for many years we Europeans got away with pretend bigness because in historical and strategic terms whilst there was a lot of relatively smallness to be getting on with, there was little real bigness. No more! Take all the issues discussed at the conference, and cast them together into a cauldron of causality and what you walk away with is the need for Europeans to deal together with real bigness. 

Big Elephant #1

There were three large elephants in the room at Munich, bigger even than some of the egos on show. Big elephant 1 was Europe’s very tentative relationship with bigness. Almost every issue on the agenda was big, global and European demanding of a European grand strategy; the application of immense means in pursuit of very great but complicated and vital ends, requiring the consistent application of considered policy, via sustained strategy over both time and distance. And yet, grand strategy is precisely what Europeans are rubbish at. Yes, like third string footballers at an English Premier League soccer club they practice endlessly, get paid very well, but do not really expect to play. PESCO is proof of that – a lot of political practice for the defence third team.

And, Europe’s bigness is getting bigger by the day. Any cursory analysis of Europe’s place in a rapidly-changing world would suggest that most of said change, which hitherto has happened beyond Europe, is now about to crash upon Europe’s shore like those Atlantic rollers I used to surf as a kid.

 

The conference also reflected Europe’s unhappy tryst with bigness in the gap between rhetoric and reality. There was German Foreign Minister Gabriel saying the US should not try and divide Europe…Europeans are very good at doing that themselves, thank you very much. He also talked about the foreign policy of a German coalition that does not as yet exist, which was interesting.  There was British Prime Minister May talking about how vital Britain’s security and defence assets were to Europe, whilst she sets about cutting further those self-same assets beyond the point of serious utility, particularly at the pointy, deterrence-guaranteeing, high-end of destructive bigness.  Then there was US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster trying not to say anything that might offend the White House.  If McMaster has not got a clue what US policy is, what hope have the rest of us?  Now, I am against capital punishment, but I am willing to make an exception if anyone, anymore says Americans and Europeans are “bound together by shared values”.  The more we talk about ‘values’ the more we reveal a lack of any shared idea about policy the application of power.

However, what really worried me was General Mattis praising the European allies for very modest increases to defence spending from a very low base. It is a sure fire sign the Yanks no longer care when they begin praising mediocrity.#

Big Elephant #2

Big Elephant #2 was just how uncomfortable European leaders are with bigness.  What struck me about the European leaders on show is how small they stand on the world stage. How wedded they are to the endless comforting discussion on the parochial process of institutionalism, such as Jean-Claude Juncker and his Euro-building. And, how so many of them see such process as a deliberate distraction from bigness, let alone the complex, interactive bigness that is fast emerging as the reality signature of the twenty-first century.

Take, cyber – threat flavour of the month.  Europeans dealing effectively with cyber-attacks from Moscow (and others) is not just about dealing with a spotty bunch of Russian nationalist geeks in St Petersburg. It is also about having a big idea about the new big warfare that is already exerting a range of disturbing, destabilising, disruptive and destructive pressures across the social, political and conflict spectrum. It is also about working out what defence and deterrence actually means in the twenty-first century, with what and with whom, and at what cost. Not a jot about that, although NATO Supreme Commander General Scaparrotti went just about as far as he could go in hinting at the war to come, that collectively we need to stop coming.  

Helping to stabilise the Middle East and North Africa is also a generational challenge almost as vital to Europeans as to the people of the region.  Again, a lot of analysis but few ideas. As I wrote in my 2017 book Demons and Dragons: The New Geopolitics of Terror (which is brilliant and very reasonably-priced at Amazon) Syria is merely the epicentre of a conflict of faith, power and über-power that, whilst focused on the Middle East, is really about the new big New World Order.

Big Elephant #3

Big Elephant #3 was the urgent need for Europeans to start dealing with bigness. The McMaster cliché revealed the extent of a very real challenge faced by that cornerstone of the global security edifice, the transatlantic relationship. Unless Europeans far more actively work to keep America strong, America will soon not be strong enough to adequately defend Europeans, given its increasingly onerous responsibilities world-wide and its increasingly uncertain politics state-side. In other words, Madame Parly, no strategic autonomy without real capability.

 

Resolving that conundrum must be central to that most essential of transatlantic relationships between the US and Germany.  Now, I have the very distinct honour to be part of the Loisach Group, which is co-hosted by the George C. Marshall Center and the Munich Security Conference, and which seeks to foster just such a relationship.  As a Briton I have no problem at all with a strong US-German relationship. Not only do I welcome it, but I just wish the strategic illiterates in London would realise they can help foster it by reinvesting in, not cutting, Britain’s own strategic brand. However, to ensure ends, ways and means even begin to align in the US-German (and wider) Berlin and Washington also need a special relationship, and as yet ‘special’ it ain’t.

  

If Berlin and Washington are to enjoy a ‘special relationship’ Berlin needs first to deal with its own schizophrenia over foreign, security, but above all defence policy. Indeed, there is an urgent need for Germany to pose its own German Question. Let me explain. At a formal lunch at the conference a leading German commentator tried to dismiss me with indignant bluster at for asking if the German people realised and accepted what NATO’s core mission of collective defence actually means and entails in the twenty-first century.  People like me were far too pessimistic he said. The ‘glass was half full’ (another bloody cliché) for both Germany and NATO he said. The next day, Hans-Peter Bartels, Berlin’s parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, published a report which bluntly stated that when it comes to defence Germany’s glass has a dirty great crack right through the middle.  The report was clear; the Bundeswehr is stated “is not equipped to meet the tasks before it”. And yet German Defence Minister von der Leyen is seeking to load even more tasks onto a hopelessly under-funded force that is already stretched to breaking point. It will not end well. As an aside I will deal with these and many other issues in my forthcoming book The Defence of Europe (which will, of course, be brilliant and very reasonably-priced).

The Elephant NOT in the Room

Which brings me back to the Munich Security Conference. Many of the bases were covered at the conference, precisely because many of those bases were loaded.  However, whilst there was much talk of European leadership it was the one big elephant that was NOT in the room. The problem is there is no such elephant in Europe, and millions of European citizens know it. Worse, they no longer believe their leaders have any more idea how to ensure their security and defence than they do. It is as if the Emperor has stepped out in public in his resplendent ‘new clothes’ to face some oick in the crowd shouting, ‘Oi, mate, you’re stark-staring, bollock naked!’ If this is not quite yet the age of European defence, it is most certainly no longer the age of European deference. 

Until there is evidence of such leadership Europe will continue to be the mouse that roars. Establishing such leadership will not be easy, not least because Europe’s citizens also seem to be profoundly split themselves these days between the ‘they are all a bunch of crooks lock ‘em up’ school of political thoughtlessness, or the ‘peace in our time, don’t bother me with reality’ school of political thoughtlessness. Trust in each other, and in leaders is, to say the least, at a premium.

 

At base there are two big European problems with bigness. First, Europeans only like their bigness in small pieces, not the big pieces bigness could well soon drop on them. Until Europeans start to put all their many small bits and pieces together into one big bit and piece effectively dealing with bigness will elude them, however long they bang on about PESCO. Second, European leaders refuse to see the world as it is, not as they would like it to be. Instead, they crave for a world of values and institutions, when it is fast becoming clear that Europe resides in a big world of big power, big states with big interests, and even bigger strategic egos. The bigness paradox for Europeans is that they will not realise the Euro-world, until they properly invest in the real world…and do it together.

Eighty years ago another small, parochial leader came here and talked about bigness…but that was another Munich...or was it? 

Julian Lindley-French     

Brexit and the War of Little Britain versus Little England

“Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves gone…In the name of God, go!”

Oliver Cromwell, the dissolution of the Long Parliament, April 1653

Toxic Brexit

Alphen, Netherlands. 15 February. This is blast and I make no apology for it. Britain is broken and at war with itself. The utterly toxic Brexit debate seems now to be wholly dominated by extremists; Little Britons on one side, Remoaners who do not believe in Britain as a power or even a country, and Little Englanders on the other, who want foreigners out and long for an England that exists only in their nostalgia. The division is so deep, the country so divided that were this another age I fear Britain could be on the brink of a civil war.  This week, lead Brexiteer Boris Johnson tried, in his way, to seek common ground, but probably only further entrenched the hatreds (yes, hatreds) that now exist on both sides of Britain’s polarised air waves. Why has Brexit come to this, what are the consequences, and what, if any, is the way out of this God awful mess?

Let me state something at the beginning of this missive which might surprise Little Britons who seem to think Britain is Lichtenstein-on-Sea without the money. According to the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and United Nations Britain still possesses either the 5^th or 6^th largest economy of any state on the planet.  The International Institute for International Studies also has Britain as the 6^th biggest defence spender on Earth. If power is essentially a combination of economic, diplomatic and military tools then Britain should not be able to govern itself but also to exert real power and influence.  Add Britain’s soft power, language and a tradition of power that stretches back centuries and Britain could continue to be a major force in the world if it wanted to. And yet, all that London exudes these days is weakness, retreat and decline. 

Little Britons v Little Englanders

Why is Britain so divided?  The contrasting profiles of the extremist Little Britons and Little Englanders who dominate the debate is illuminating.  Little Britons tend to be younger and have been taught to despise patriotism, that Britain is on the wrong side of history, and seem only too happy to buy into the federalist propaganda of Promised Land, a new Utopia called ‘Europe’.  They claim themselves to be ‘patriotic’, but in a very different way to Little Englanders and in support of another ‘state’. Nor is it their fault.  For over forty years much of the elite Establishment (Westminster politicians and Whitehall bureaucrats combined), which also no longer believes in Britain (see my 2015 book Little Britain) has quietly engineered a retreat from British patriotism. This re-engineering of patriotism has also helped spawn a kind of illiberal liberalism that hates anyone or anything that challenges its utterly unworldly shibboleths, of which there are many.

Little Englanders are no better. They tend to be older and long for the days when Britain was either a superpower, or at least a ‘pocket superpower’ (a phrase I coined many years ago in a piece for the then International Herald Tribune). They reject the forces of globalism which are re-shaping the world. Impossibly, many of them want Britain isolated from globalism which Britain helped create, possibly more than any other state. Some Little Englanders are also quite often poorer than middle class Little Britons. For this group Brexit is a desperate cry from a group of people who believe themselves ignored and despised by a liberal elite Establishment which has for many years put the well-being and interests of the ‘other’ before them. 

Another Munich?

This weekend I will travel to the Munich Security Conference to take part in a high-level US-German event.  The Berlin-Washington relationship is difficult, but essential. Indeed, given Britain’s spectacular demise it is today the only transatlantic ‘special relationship’ that exists in anything like substance. Yes, the Anglo-American intelligence and mil-mil relationship remains close, but strong?  In the absence of a Britain willing and able to assert its interests or invest properly in the tools of statecraft across the diplomatic and military spectrum, or craft the policies of influence Britain will need as it leaves the EU, that relationship will become even more one of master-supplicant. Indeed, one reason the US-German relationship is so complex is precisely because it is one between relative equals. If the US remains a European power its equal within Europe is Germany. On Saturday, Prime Minister Theresa May will also be in Munich seeking to re-assure the audience that Britain is, and will remain, committed to the defence of Europe, as it should be. However, toxic Brexit begs yet another question: how can the defence of Europe be strengthened if Britain is broken? 

Brexit has also revealed an elite Establishment that has also lost the will to power that has traditionally underpinned Britain’s security and defence effort.  President Macron’s recent visit to Britain hinted at the strategic consequences of broken Britain.  Whilst Paris drives a hard Brexit bargain behind the scenes President Macron is calling for the strengthening of France’s vital strategic partnership with Britain.  The problem, Monsieur le President, is that if you and your Euro-mates succeed in humiliating broken Britain the will to power that is an essential pillar of European defence will, I fear, be completely destroyed.  Yes, Britain will go through the NATO motions by cooking the books to pretend London spends 2% on defence, when it does not.  However, this increasingly self-obsessed, self-loathing nation will have little interest or desire to defend those who many Little Englanders see as having helped to humiliate Britain ‘pour encourager les autres’.  In other words, Little England could well become Little Britain.

Re-learning the Art of Power

Seventy years of managing decline, forty plus years of handing power to Brussels, and almost eighty years of trying to hang on to America’s oft capricious coat-tails, has emaciated Britain’s ability to exercise power, Or, to put it another way, Britain is incapable of thinking strategically for itself.  Yes, Britain can build all the large aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines it likes, but if London lacks the capacity for leadership such ‘toys’ are neither tokens of power nor greatness. At the very least, post-Brexit London will need to re-learn the art of power. It is clear from the split in Cabinet and Parliament that some of the elite want to try, others simply do not believe it possible. This is dangerous. ‘Power’, or rather its absence reveals itself in extremis. As an Oxford historian and a strategic analyst of some modest note let me ‘un-reassure’ you; there will be a lot of extremis this century.

You see Extremis is where the rubber of leadership hits the hard road of reality. It was that capacity to lead in extremis which made Churchill a great leader in crisis. It is the lack of such capacity which reveals Theresa May’s inability to lead and which will condemn her to be one of Britain’s worst-ever prime ministers.

A New Britain?

There is no doubt in my mind that Boris Johnson is genuine in his desire to re-create a political consensus that would better enable sound governance.  He said so in a speech he made this week on Brexit, albeit in that ever so BoJo way – part Churchill, part Groucho Marx.  Unfortunately, he is simply the wrong man to mend my country. He is simply a representative of a failed political elite, a failed political generation that has led Britain into this sad place. It is a sign of the times that the choice I will soon have at the ballot box will be between divided incompetents and closet (and not-so-closet) Marxists. 

The British people deserve better. As the opinion polls continue to suggest most British people – the unheard of and unheard from majority – simply want May to get on with Brexit. Maybe, just maybe, over the next fortnight May will finally take a firm position on Brexit and present how she sees Britain’s future relationship with the EU beyond the slippery clichés of the Lancaster Gate speech orthe begging platitudes of the Florence speech, which to my mind read more like May ‘running something past’ Brussels. If not, then I fear an uncertain May and her quarrelling ‘team’ will ‘lead’ Britain to the worst-of-all Brexit worlds: a half-Brexit, a Conga Brexit – half-in, half-out with little room for Britain to shake anything much about.  On this I am with BoJo.

What to do?

Whatever happens post-Brexit (and hard though it is to believe there will be a post-Brexit) Britain will need to start again as a power. To that end, a new generation of politicians must be bought forward and quickly who are untainted by the disaster of Brexit. New leaders who can hopefully breathe some life back into the very ‘idea’ of Britain, before the waiting predatory nationalists and secessionists move again to tear the country apart.  It is a re-start that cannot come soon enough.  This future Britain does not need to be my Britain, but it does need to be need to be a Britain that properly understands the dangers of remaining glued to political decadence.  It is political decadence which has driven London’s fantastical retreat from political realism and made Britain, Europe and the wider world very much more insecure places than need be. 

At the very least Boris Johnson and Phillip Hammond, with his visionless ‘we only recognise as much threat as we can afford’ nonsense, must be cast into the footnote of history where they belong. PM May? For once, just for once, she must demonstrate she understands what ‘leadership’ really means by showing she has some idea of how to get Britain out of this bloody mess. Indeed, if she sits on the Euro-fence much longer she will not only develop rust, she will become permanently skewered, and my country with it. Her chronic indecision has exacerbated the division within the country and encouraged hard-liners in Brussels to believe that not only can they humiliate Britain, but as former British Euro-crat Lord Kerr suggested recently, bring Britain to heel, like some misbehaving dog.  

Get Out of the Gutter, Britain!

Anyone of any political sense knows that Brexit is hard.  It is made harder by a Civil Service that really believes the ‘sovereign will’ of the people to be wrong on Brexit.  However, the real tragedy of Brexit is that had the Cabinet been even vaguely well-led, and ever-so-slightly more unified Brexit need not be anything like as hard as Britain’s ‘leaders’ have made it.  In the political vacuum created by this lack of leadership extremist Little Britons and Little Englanders between them have come close to wrecking Britain as a power, possibly as a state, and even potentially as a society.  The rest of us just look on aghast. 

Britain today is a hollowed-out husk of a once Great Power that punches well below its weight in the world, led by a political elite obsessed with input-led, virtue-signalling, rather than properly upholding the responsibilities that power imposes.  For those of us who, somehow, still believe in Britain Brexit has become a sadly all-too-predicted disaster. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why, in spite of my profound concerns about the drift of the EU towards soft authoritarianism, and having undertaken a detailed SWOT analysis prior to the June 2016 referendum, I decided that on balance Britain should remain in the EU.  Still, I despair of those ‘we know best’ elite Little Britons doing all they can to destroy Brexit.  What on Earth do they think they are doing seeking to over-turn a legitimate vote?  If they succeed, just what kind of country do they think they will ‘inherit’?  Whatever happened to that sound pragmatic application of Britain that once underpinned the ‘greatness’ of Britain?  Not to mention those head in the sand Little Englanders who seem to want a return to the 1950s, and want it now!

Britain IS still a Great Power and, on paper at least, will remain so for the foreseeable future.  However, a state can possess all the nominal economic and military power in the world, but if the elite Establishment is split asunder and unable to craft coherent policy and strategy then influence drains away like summer rain down a storm gutter.  And, in my long-life, I have never seen Britain so firmly mired in the gutter as now.  Sadly, that is what happens when people who do not believe in either an idea or the country they lead take power. For them everything is impossible, nothing possible.

One final thought, if Brexit means more of the utter irresponsibility on show from Honourable Members of the so-called Mother of Parliaments then perhaps Oliver Cromwell had a point! After all, Britain’s ‘sovereign’ Parliament, far from governing in the name of the people is simply the cock-pit where this new civil war is being fought.

Julian Lindley-French