Typhoon Trump and the Brussels NATO Summit

“Two percent is a joke. Four percent is what we should be spending. We [the US] are being played for fools”

President Donald J. Trump, Brussels NATO Summit, 12 July 2018

The Grim Tweeter cameth…

Alphen, Netherlands. 13 July. The Grim Tweeter cameth. First to NATO, then to Britain and next Putin. Typhoon Trump hit NATO on Tuesday evening and by the time he left Europe’s array of small, neat military gardens – pretty but with few flowers or ornaments – were left weed-strewn and Trump-holed. As a minor member of the European strategic ‘elite’, and being in proximity to the Summit at the parallel and excellent NATO Engages conference, my sense was that President Trump did exactly what he came to do but to no particular end. The gathered heads of state and government were so intent on keeping the Alliance ‘thing’ going that they missed (deliberately in some cases) the essential challenge NATO faces. Quite simply, Europeans refuse to consider what could be coming at them in the near future if they still do not become defence serious. The permanently-electioneering President Trump does not look far enough ahead to realise how important the European allies are to America and indeed how they will become more important in the future given worsening American global over-stretch.

What should Europeans actually take-away from the Summit? Two imperatives: European defence investment and the future organisation of European defence. President Trump is essentially right and wrong about NATO. He is right European allies do not spend enough. As the US Senate sensibly concluded this week he is wrong about the value of the Alliance to the US, even if it is only the Washington elite who get that. However, it is European leaders with Germany’s Chancellor Merkel to the fore who face the real challenge. They STILL do not know why they need armed forces and thus cannot explain the need or the sacrifice needed to their respective publics if sound defence and deterrence is to be re-established.

President Trump also has a point about burden-sharing or the lack of it.  The GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Report states; “The United States provides 75% of Alliance forces and pays some 68% of the cost”. In other words, Europeans provide only 25% of NATO’s contemporary forces.  In 1970 Europeans provided 45% percent of the forces and in 1980 some 76% percent. Some have argued the US contribution to the small NATO budget (22%) should be counted, or those US forces specifically committed to the defence of Europe.  Now, there has been a lot of nonsense uttered this week from people who frankly should know better about this. The reason the bulk of US forces must be counted on the NATO balance sheet is that in an emergency it is the bulk of US forces, if available, that would be committed to the defence of Europe.

Defence outcomes not inputs

Defence outcomes are what matters. That critical little phrase, ‘if available’, should have been the centre-piece of a Summit at which the sharing of burdens was always going to be central.  Unfortunately, Europe’s leaders seem incapable of gripping strategic change and thus fail or refuse to recognise that America’s strategic liabilities are changing.  It is increasingly unlikely that in future the Americans would face one emergency in one theatre at any one time.  Therefore, for a legitimate sharing of twenty-first century Alliance burdens to be realised Europeans would need at the very least policies, forces and resources that could cope with a threat from Russia, a major insurgency and its consequences across the Middle East and North Africa and pressure on NATO’s north. In other words, Europeans need an effective first responder force and this Summit should have committed Europeans to that goal beyond the useful but insufficient ‘let’s make the most of what we are likely to have’ goal of the ‘Four-Thirties’ initiative: thirty battalions, thirty squadrons of aircraft, thirty combat shops ready in thirty days. Even the much-reduced British armed forces could stump up at least half of such a force in an emergency. Russia?

There is simply no point in throwing money at many of Europe’s unreformed armed forces that as yet do not know their place in the wider security-technology architecture that the US is leading.  ‘Four-Thirties’ captures the essential dilemma for the Alliance – the failure by Europeans to meet even limited and quite possibly inadequate ambitions.  Unless the Allies can work patiently and seriously towards a new and shared strategic vision for the Alliance a lot of new money spent now on many European forces would be a complete waste of money.  Such money now would be like pouring money down a black hole of obsolescence and reflect the same input ‘crap’ that destroyed the unity of the Afghanistan campaign. Again, what matters is defence outcomes.

What does America want?

At the Summit President Trump became fixated on the ‘2% by January 2019’ ‘thing’ and even went off into a 4% fantasy. Worse, by being so boorish he actually let the Europeans off the hook upon which they should rightly be hanging because he enabled them to focus on his theatre rather than the substance. By all means e a hard negotiator and warrior for the American taxpayer but first America needs to answer a question itself: what does the US actually want from the European allies?

There could, of course, be an alternative political objective.  If President Trump really is serious about American ‘doing its own thing’ assertive isolationism if Europeans do finally start to get their collective strategic act together he could could then say, “See, you can defend yourselves” and pull American forces out. Given the strategic advantages basing American forces on European soil affords Washington the US would be a big loser from such a move.

To pledge or not to pledge

My final sense of the Summit brings me to my second imperative: the future organisation of Europe’s defence. Irrespective of President Trump Europeans have reached an important juncture.  With the best will in the world the Americans can no longer afford to guarantee European defence unless Europeans commit to far more defence. Therefore, if one looks past the theatrics of Trump the real issue is how much more Europeans are prepared to do collectively for their own defence, how would it be organised and at what cost. 

Germany is central to this dilemma (for that is what it is) because Germany is, well, Germany.  The 2% debate has become snagged on Germany. Now, I am the first to argue that NATO members should fulfil the pledge to spend 2% GDP on defence at the 2014 NATO Wales Summit, for all the clever sophistry employed to pretend the pledge was not a pledge.  To un-snag the Defence Investment Pledge I am prepared to cut Germany (because she is Germany) a special deal. For the sake of European stability, Germany should not spend more on defence than either Britain or France and thus commit to, say, 1.5% GDP per annum. However, for the sake of European defence Germany should also commit to a one-off special budget to enable the desperately needed rehabilitation of the broken Bundeswehr, as well as spending on infrastructure to enable improved military mobility.  Then, and only then, might the enormous gap between German political rhetoric and German defence reality start to be closed and some hope for an autonomous European defence begin to be realised.

and the Grim Tweeter wenteth

President Trump may well have succeeded in bullying some of the more vulnerable allies into moving more quickly towards 2% GDP on defence as agreed in the Defence Investment Pledge. It will not happen by January 2019 as he demanded and America “…will not do its own thing’ when they fail. As for the demand that Europeans spend 4% by 2024, there is little evidence the United States will spend such a sum, let alone a Europe full of ‘social warriors’.

For all the theatre this Summit was never about Donald J. Trump and should always have been about whether Europeans could finally begin the long Tour de France (no historical pun intended) needed to properly consider and respond to their own strategic challenges.  The Grim Tweeter cameth, electrified some in his ‘base’ by giving a bunch of free-riding, pesky, over-dressed, pompous Europeans pieces of his many minds, then the Grim Tweeter wenteth, via Britain to Putin and to who knows where and to what end.

The future NATO?  Two very capable and compatible pillars: North America and Europe.

Julian Lindley-French

Future NATO: Open letter to their Excellencies the gathered heads of state and government of the NATO nations from the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Team

Open letter to their Excellencies the gathered heads of state and government of the NATO nations from the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Team

9 July 2018

Excellencies,

Adapt our Alliance Now and Together!

NATO is at a crucial decision point.  The Alliance has made significant progress since 2014 in strengthening deterrence against a revisionist Russia and countering threats from the south.  But continued questions about unequal sharing of burdens across the Atlantic threaten to erode the unity and common purpose that are the Alliance's centre of gravity.

It is political solidarity, now and in the future, that is the true defence against any and all adversaries. Only then will the Alliance be armed with the necessary strategic ambition needed to succeed in what is clearly going to be a challenging century for all of the Allies.  Such ambition will only be realized if it is embedded in a new, more balanced transatlantic relationship in which the United States continues to afford its European Allies with the defence guarantee and security support vital to Europe’s stability, in return for European Allies plus Canada, conscious of the pressing and changing needs of American and global security, becoming more able and willing to help meet those needs, as they did in the wake of 9/11.

Commission a Strategy Review

The November 2017 GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Report, The Future Tasks of the Adapted Alliance is clear: “To lay the basis for long-term adaptation, NATO leaders should commission a strategy review at the July 2018 Summit that could be completed by the seventieth anniversary summit in 2019, and which might be embodied in a new Strategic Concept. NATO needs a forward-looking strategy that sets out how NATO will meet the challenges of an unpredictable and fast-changing world”.

At this week’s NATO Brussels Summit you will collectively confirm and build upon the decisions taken at the 2014 Wales and 2016 Warsaw Summits, including a more robust command structure, enhanced readiness, mobility and reinforcement capacity, and a new training mission in Iraq as part of a wider counter-terrorism agenda. You will also reaffirm the Alliance’s long-term commitment to a Europe whole and free.

However, much more needs to be done -- and quickly -- if a 360-degree NATO is to be realized. An essential part of this is ensuring that NATO's European members, plus Canada, are equipped to shoulder greater responsibility for transatlantic security as true partners for the United States.

Build a Twenty-First Century NATO

As NATO nears its seventieth birthday, the Alliance risks falling behind the pace of political change and technological developments across the great drivers of mega-change, including new technologies like cyber and artificial intelligence, disinformation and other "hybrid" threats, as well as failing states, violent extremism and uncontrolled migration.  All allies need to take action to meet the pressing need for further organizational and internal reform to enable a properly agile and modernized Alliance and to better prepare NATO not only to meet the many technology and affordability challenges but to master them -- from hybrid warfare to hyperwar.

Strengthen NATO Defence

Fifty years ago (December 1967) former Belgian Prime Minister Pierre Harmel delivered his seminal report to the North Atlantic Council on the Future Tasks of the Alliance. The report called for a new politico-military foundation to be established based on the equitable sharing of risk and cost, and the pursuit of a two-track strategy based on preservation of defence and deterrence on the one hand, and dialogue with Moscow on the other.

Harmel affirmed that NATO is and will always remain a defensive alliance. However, Alliance defence must be sound, credible, well-resourced and proportionate to the threats the Alliance faces. At the military-strategic level, collective security and collective defence are merging and growing in both scale and intensity. To meet that core challenge, NATO must be prepared, fit and able to act across the seven domains of grand conflict: air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge.

The Harmel Report was of its time but its guiding principles made the peace we enjoy today. That peace, however, can only be ensured and assured over the longer term if we confront the threats, both internal and external, that the transatlantic community faces today.  If NATO were to fail because of short-term political frictions, the loss would not only be felt by the Allies but by freedom-loving peoples the world over, as they could no longer rely on this anchor of legitimate security.

Forge a New Transatlantic Relationship

Therefore, what is needed and what our people are expecting from you, our leaders is the will to pursue and achieve a renewed high political consensus and a strengthened transatlantic covenant. Such a covenant must be based on shared values, solidarity and a clear purpose for our Alliance in this new and fast-evolving security environment.  As part of such a noble effort, the European Allies must properly commit to making a greater leap forward than hitherto for the sake of their own security and that of all the Allies on both sides of the Atlantic. Such ambition must be central to and inform the overarching goal of the new strategy review that we recommend be launched at the Summit.

Given the changing strategic context, the primary challenge and responsibility facing you all at the Summit will be to impart a renewed political purpose and momentum to the Alliance, in which all twenty-nine Allies commit to do their part.  Credible military capability and capacity is, of course, vital to meeting such challenges. That can only come if all Allies fulfil their commitments and share a common vision for the future of the world’s most important alliance.

Therefore, the undersigned urge the Heads of State and Government to commission at the Summit a Strategy Review that will guide Allies and NATO in the reforming spirit of Harmel, to adapt our Alliance to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century with confidence and purpose.

At the Brussels meeting, you will together have the opportunity to afford NATO’s citizens the strategic reassurance they need and crave from San Francisco to Vancouver, from Riga to Rome, from Amsterdam to Ankara. Seize that opportunity!

In wishing you every success at the Summit, we remain

Yours respectfully,

John R. Allen, General, USMC (Ret.), Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 2011-2013

Knud Bartels, General (Ret.), Danish Chief of Defence Staff 2009-2011, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 2011-2015

Philip M. Breedlove, General (Ret.) Supreme Allied Commander, Europe 2013-2016

Ian Brzezinski, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 2001-2005, Resident Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

Giampaolo di Paola, Admiral (ret.), Chairman of the NATO Military Committee 2008-2011, Minister of Defence of Italy 2011-2013

Alena Kudzko, Deputy Research Director, GLOBSEC, Bratislava

Wolf Langheld, General (Ret.), Commander Allied Joint Forces Headquarters, Brunssum 2010-2012

Julian Lindley-French, Professor, Senior Fellow, Institute for Statecraft London, Fellow Canadian Global Affairs Institute and Vice-President, Atlantic Treaty Association 2014-2016

James G. Stavridis, Admiral (Ret.), Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Supreme Allied Commander, Europe 2009-2013

Stefano Stefanini, Ambassador (Ret.), Permanent Representative of Italy to NATO and Diplomatic Advisor to the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano 2007-2010. Non-resident Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council

James J. Townsend, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 2009-2016, Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security

Tomas Valasek, Ambassador (Ret.), Permanent Representative of Slovakia to NATO 2013-2017, Director of Carnegie Europe, Brussels

Robert Vass, President, GLOBSEC, Bratislava

Alexander Vershbow, Ambassador (Ret.), NATO Deputy Secretary General 2012-2016, US Assistant Secretary of Defense 2009-2012, Ambassador to NATO, Russia and South Korea 1997-2008, Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council

Vassal-Plus-Plus? The Humbling of Britain towards the end of May

“Anyone defending the proposal we have just agreed will find it like trying to polish a turd”.

Boris Johnson, British Foreign Secretary,

6 July 2018

Brexit Mayhem

9 July. Alphen, Netherlands. The Oxford English Dictionary defines vassal “as a holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance”. David Davis’s resignation had the air of inevitability about it. Forced to front up government policy in which he clearly did not believe and to be the fall guy for policy made elsewhere he had to walk. Last Friday’s Cabinet meeting at Chequers the country estate of the British prime minister was the final straw in Davis’s estrangement from May’s civil service-led filleting of Brexit. The Friday meeting also marked the Brexit humbling of Britain and the true beginning of the end of Theresa May’s premiership. And, the moment when I finally lost all respect for the elite who have run my country so disastrously. For two years now I have watched this Brexit farce. Last month I even heard ministers seriously debating whether Britain could adopt the Lichtenstein model for its future relationship with the EU? Britain? A top five world economic and military power? Lichtenstein with nukes… without the money!

Yes, I know, negotiating Brexit with the EU was always going to be difficult and the most that can be said for the May plan, such as it is, is that if the EU accepts it some 20% of the British economy would pretty much return to the original 1973 idea of a Common Market, albeit without the membership. It was the idea of a common market that was then sold to the British people. I say ‘sold’ for even a cursory glance at the 1957 Treaty of Rome and its commitment to “ever closer union” would have revealed the gap between what the British people were told and the real ambition of the European Project. It is an elite lie that has dogged Britain’s membership ever since and led eventually to Brexit.

As for the Brexit negotiations themselves, the May plan is what you get when one side does not believe in its negotiating mission and the other is led by ideological fanatics.  The negotiations, if you can call them that, were bound to be difficult the moment the Commission were put in charge of on the EU side, hell-bent on delivering a punishment beating to Britain “pour encourager les autres” a la Voltaire, and to teach the British people a lesson about power for an egregious act of democracy.  At best, Britain’s position throughout has been, “would you awfully mind if…? No? OK then”. The Commission’s lines was, “resistance is futile”. At worse, there has been collusion between Britain’s negotiators and the Commission to destroy Brexit.

Perhaps the 2016 Brexit referendum will come to be seen as the last meaningful vote in Europe, the last meaningful act of democracy when we the little people were permitted to vote on a big issue. Or perhaps not, given the 2016 referendum now seems to have become simply yet another powerless act of people powerlessness. Revenge really is a dish served cold.

How did this happen?

Theresa May has patently not been up to the job of Brexit.  Some in the Conservative Party had hoped for Maggie Thatcher reborn, they got Maggie Maybe instead. The plan she presented on Friday when she, at last, imposed some leadership over her rabble of a Cabinet, was a much diluted version of the plan she should have presented two years ago at the beginning of the negotiations, together with serious preparations for no deal. Rather, from Lancaster House to Florence to Mansion House her dithering has made matters far worse than they needed to be, compounded by an appallingly ill-judged 2016 general election.

The Whitehall Establishment set out to stymie Brexit and by hook or crook captured a prime minister that shorn of her own advisers had little or no idea what to do herself.  David Cameron used to call her the ‘submarine’ because she rarely ever surfaced. Now we know why. Things were clearly going awry with Brexit when Phillip Hammond, the anointed representative of the City of London on Earth went quiet. Job done! Brexit blocked. No need to say anything. Let the Brexiteers fume and fumble for they had been successfully marginalised.  As for the Brexiteers, blow hards from beginning to end.

As to be expected Oliver Robbins, May's Chief Negotiator, failed to land a single hit on either Merkel-backed Barnier or Selmayr.  He must have enjoyed a certain Mandarin schadenfreude (appropriate word in this context) when he reported to ministers a few days ago that a bad deal was the only possible deal.  Historians I am sure will one day tell the story how Whitehall and Brussels colluded to kill Brexit and inflict on the British voter the same fate that was imposed on past ballot box dissenters in France, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands.  Sadly, and yet again, this disaster reveals a London elite Establishment that does not believe in Britain or the British people. They are so imbued with a culture of managing British decline that they do just that, manage British decline…and not very well.

What will happen now to Britain? 

This is a defining moment in the centuries-long story of Britain as a serious power. Or, rather, it may well be the end of it. Maggie Maybe’s rejection of a desperately-needed increase in defence expenditure was about far more than defence.  It was about an elite that sees Britain as Little Britain, no longer serious about Britain’s place in the world, preferring instead to see foreign and security policy as little more than strategic virtue-signalling. A place in which plane-less aircraft carriers are offered as symbols of ‘might’ but where in reality real policy, power and influence – the stuff with which democracies preserve the legitimate peace – are but chimeras of pretence.

My reasons for campaigning for Remain in spite of my concerns about the EU and democracy have been well-documented in these pages.  It was and is my firm belief that Britain should stay and fight for a Europe of Nations a la de Gaulle, that dangerous geopolitics demands Britain fully commit to the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe to confirm the freedoms they won so painfully during the Cold War, including freedom of movement.  That Europe is simply too close and too important for Britain to lack either a voice or influence over it.  Above all, at the time of the referendum, I wondered if the British elite was up to the task of Brexit. The answer is clearly not. Rather, the Brexit now on offer is a hokey-cokey Brexit leaving Britain neither in nor out of the EU – vassal plus, plus.

The moment the Commission signalled they were determined to give Britain and the British a punishment beating the only real options on the table were to fight or capitulate. There was no third way. If led with vigour and accomplishment Britain, a major trading power and security actor could have fought for a far better deal than this. Britain had a lot of cards to play but Maggie Maybe refused to use any of them. Barnier, on the other hand, used every trick in the book to force Britain into servitude, most notably the tail wagging dog gambit of the inner-Irish border.  It is now hard to understand just what May, the Department for [not] Exiting the European Union, David Davis, Liam Fox and Oliver Robbins have being doing at great taxpayer’s expense for the past two years. It would have been far cheaper simply to have surrendered early.

Now, I fear for the future of my once-great country. The humbling of Britain and its submission to Brussels means that rather than ‘taking back control’ the real power in the land will not be in it.  Far from returning sovereignty to Westminster and Whitehall, this Brexit will simply confirm that Brussels is really the boss over which no British voter will have any control. Jacob Rees Mogg is a politician I respect for his courage, but he is not to my taste.  He reeks of a warm beer, nostalgia for a mist-bound lost England which never existed that whilst comforting to some offers little on the way of hope for the New Britain that needs to be built if social and political cohesion is ever to be restored. Still, ‘JRM’ is right about one thing – this Brexit reduces Britain to a vassal state and in so doing again leads one to question the future of the United Kingdom. Why would the Scots stay in a Union ‘governed’ by a Westminster that has proved itself incapable of governing Britain? What is the point of a Union that has to all intents and purposes ceded control of Northern Ireland to the Brussels-Dublin axis?

What does this Brexit mean for Europe?

The implications for Europe are also profound. This week Donald Trump will demand more of his European allies at the NATO Summit in Brussels.  He is likely to get little more than a metaphorical ‘so what’ shrug of the shoulders from Theresa May, in spite of last week’s letter from Secretary of Defense Mattis demanding Britain do more if London wants to remain America’s ‘partner of choice’.  You see, May has not just failed to deliver the Brexit she promised, her lack of strategic vision is breaking Britain’s strategic spirit.  Unless a new leader is found and fast I fear that my country will retreat behind its nuclear shield, into itself, and effectively disengage so as to continue with the destructive navel-gazing that has already done so much damage.  Most of the British people will hate this deal, or rather the final deal which emerges after May is forced by the EU to concede yet more ground.  They will hate May for it, but they will also hate ‘Europe’ too.

The EU? The Brexit behaviour and attitude of Barnier, Selmayr and Juncker have simply confirmed to many that unless the democracies check the Commission Europe is on the road to some form of bureaucratic dictatorship. Encouraged by the humbling of Britain the Commission will no doubt interpret the existing treaties ever more in its favour and play the member-states off against each other as it seeks to grab ever more power in the name of ever more ‘Europe’. The Commission will also use the rubber-stamp European Parliament to legitimise its power grab and condemn as ‘populists’ all and any who dare to dissent.  One senior Commission official once told me that my dissent was in danger of damaging his life work as if I had no right to challenge him even though his life work had enormous implications for my life and my freedom. The new Euro-Aristocracy?

What will happen next?

Discord is next. May’s Brexit deal will satisfy no-one – Brexiteer or Remainer alike. For the next decade, ‘Europe’ will remain THE toxic political issue of British politics. The high, hard Remainers who engineered this situation – high politics, high bureaucracy and big business – will no doubt hope that the deal is so bad the British people will eventually clamour to go back into the EU. The Brexiteers will hope that a real leader emerges that finally has the political courage to follow through on the Referendum vote and deliver Brexit 2.0, at whatever the cost. My bet is on the former. There is, however, two big imponderables: the state of the EU in a decade and for that matter Britain.  One thing is clear, the relationships between Britain and many of its closest European allies have been damaged profoundly and will it take a long-time for trust to be rebuilt on both sides.

Here’s the twist. For all its imperfections a failure to prepare for any alternative means the ‘turd’ on offer is now the only ‘turd’ in town, which is why the Brexiteers, in the end, supported it. The Chequers meeting was timed to take place on the eve of Europe’s long slumber so officials can now stitch up a fait accompli.  The only hope left is that THIS plan is accepted by the EU in its entirety and quickly. The alternative is no deal. The challenge for the other EU member-states is to call off the Commission attack dogs, with Germany to the fore. That Brussels consciously avoids any triumphalism. That Britain does not retreat into an enormous post-Brexit sulk. That both sides make enormous efforts not to humiliate Britain and to make the plan work. You see there is a world beyond Brexit for ALL Europeans and it is getting more dangerous by the day. It was that observation that made me decide in 2016 that on balance I would campaign for Remain. I have not changed my mind.   

Statecraft, for the most part, is the art of making bad deals work. As Guy Verhofstadt has rightly said, “the devil is in the detail”. There is one hell of a devil also in the politics of all this. May’s plan may be the only deal on offer, but there is another game in town. Maybe, just maybe, last week’s letter from German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer questioning the Commission’s hard-line is the start of what should be the real war of which Brexit was but a forlorn battle: the taking back of control by the EU member-states from the European Commission.

Vassal plus, plus - the humbling of Britain at the end of May. What a bloody mess! Let’s hope England win the World Cup. C’mon England!

Julian Lindley-French

Trump, Power and the Value of NATO

“European covenants without a European sword are but words, and of no use to no man (or woman) American or European”.

The words Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and author of Leviathan would have written in his latest blog on NATO were he still with us.

Trump of Athens?

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 July. Is President Trump an Athenian or a Spartan? He is certainly not a Melian.  More of that later.  “Illiterate” is defined by the Oxford Concise as “uneducated, esp. unable to read”. Over the past week in Europe, there have been several sorry cases of strategic illiteracy, i.e., an inability to understand power, threat and the successful application of the former against the latter.  The most egregious was British Prime Minister Theresa May’s questioning of whether Britain should seek to remain a Tier One military power, implying any such ambition was now beyond Britain’s meagre means.  Sadly, May does not seem to realise she is prime minister of a top five world power facing emerging dangers and not merely Chair of the Maidenhead Women’s Institute. Her strategic illiteracy? Even by posing that question she puts at risk the $3bn per annum the British taxpayer saves from access to American enablers. The British are granted such access precisely because of the military capabilities that London has traditionally been able to offer the Americans.  Why would the Americans continue to grant privileged access if the British further cut their armed forces and choose not, in the words of Secretary of Defence James Mattis, to be America’s “partner of choice”?

May’s timing could also have been better.  President Trump is about to descend on Europe and demand Europeans do an awful lot more for their defence and in support of America.  This brings me to the other case of strategic illiteracy; Europe’s response to Trump.  Much of the commentary in Europe seems to be of the, “if Trump pushes us too far we Europeans will refuse to allow the American taxpayer to defend us” variety. The film Blazing Saddles come to mind. Now, President Trump may have the political-social skills of a Sheffield Wednesday supporter, and in the eyes of this Sheffield United fan, the only greater condemnation than being dubbed a strategic illiterate is to be called a strategic Wendy, but he is right.  So, rather than the inevitable self-righteous indignation, we Europeans are likely to witness from our leaders next week some humble consideration about what it is they need to do to keep America on-side might be better.

Strategic Predators and Strategic Prey

Thucydides in The Melian Dialogue recites the tale of weak Melia trying desperately to appeal to shared values of liberty and thus convince mighty Athens that in spite of its weakness the Athenians should treat them as equals and friends, rather than a soon-to-be conquered colony of Sparta. The Athenians argue that any such largesse would be seen as weakness by its own people and its enemies, most notably the warlike Sparta. As the Athenians tell the Melians: "We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians [Spartans] although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

President Trump is fascinated by power and regards all institutions, be it NATO, the EU or the UN merely as constraints on America the Exceptional and havens for the weak.  It is why he seeks common ground on occasions with Spartans like Putin – they understand each other. The only way for Europeans to convince President Trump of the utility of NATO is for themselves to become Athenians or at least Melians with Attitude.  This is because the only way a rules-based order can be maintained is if those rules carry sanction – covenants without the sword and all that.

Therefore, the specific challenge at next week’s NATO Brussels Summit for Europe’s leaders will be to convince President Trump and John Bolton-type Americans of the value of institutions in international relations, i.e. NATO.  If they are to meet that challenge Europeans will need to reverse a culture that has become deep-rooted since World War Two and the founding of the European Union, namely that institutions exist to constrain power, rather than mechanisms for the aggregation of power.

St Malo Re-visited?

Carpe Diem? Some in Europe are calling for Europeans to defy Trump and strike out for strategic autonomy. Nick Witney in a new article trots out that old strategic chestnut that the combined defence budgets of Europeans and their combined defence, technological and industrial base is second only to mighty Athens, sorry America. Good try (again), Nick! The problem is precisely that Europeans are NOT ‘combined’ and in the absence of a Europe in which all Europeans share the same level of strategic ambition, are willing to share the same risks and bear the same costs, nor are they likely to be. In other words, Europeans NEED America.

The simple, hard truth that President Trump is forcing Europeans to face is that the transatlantic relationship of old is dead, America can no longer afford it.  If a new transatlantic relationship is to be forged that is credible as both sword and shield then Europeans need to stop endlessly banging on about shared values and start putting real meat on the bone of Europe’s defence effort.  President Trump may grate in the refined chancelleries of Europe and he might metaphorically slurp his coffee from his saucer at diplomatic dinners, but he is also the first American president to tell Europeans such blunt truths in such a blunt way.  He will not be the last.

The Hard American Lessons of Strategic Literacy

A good place to start Europe’s re-learning process would be at the forthcoming NATO Summit.  No, not more smoke and mirrors with statistics.  That would be like trying to stitch Trump up with a lousy European real estate deal, which he would see straight through. It is becoming very irritating listening to my fellow Europeans trotting out bogus figures to suggest they are spending more on defence whilst defence outcomes continue to decline. Now, that is real strategic illiteracy.

Take Germany.  Berlin takes great pride in how it is going to ‘lead’ more in NATO. With what? As the new Chief of Staff of the German Air Force said last week, “The Luftwaffe is at a low point. Aircraft are grounded due to a lack of spares, or they aren’t even on site since they’re off for maintenance by the industry”.  Given that ‘enhanced readiness’ is to be the centre-piece of the Summit the Declaration could well be yet another great work of European fiction if such nonsense is not actually dealt with.  Readiness will be the true litmus test of European seriousness.

Which brings me back to my own dear prime minister and why Britain must remain a Tier One military power.  It is because only then will the Americans (there is no-one else) continue to invest in Britain’s security. In other words, modestly increasing the defence budget whilst preparing reformed British forces for a tough future will actually SAVE Britain money, enhance Britain’s defences and restore some of the influence this Government has so pitifully frittered away.   

If Prime Minister May still does not get this (and apparently she does not) then she should read yesterday’s letter from Secretary of Defence Mattis to his British counterpart, Gavin Williamson. The letter warns of that Britain’s armed forces and its wider influence were “at risk of erosion”. Mattis said he wanted the UK to remain a “partner of choice”.  He went on, “A global nation like the UK, with interests and commitments around the world, will require a level of defence spending beyond what we would expect from allies with only regional interests. Absent a vibrant military arm, world peace and stability would be further at risk”. And, “…it is in the best interest of both our nations for the UK to remain the partner of choice. In that spirit, the UK will need to invest and maintain robust military capability”.

The NATO Summit Life of Brian Question

At the NATO Summit, President Trump will ask Europeans the Monty Python Life of Brian question: what has NATO ever done for us? Or, rather, the even more important question: what WILL NATO do for us?  Answer? Ease pressure on the US world-wide by Europeans taking more responsibility for Europe with America’s backing.  In other words, the only way for Europeans to convince President Trump and much of the rest of America is to invest institutions with real European power, most notably and most pressingly NATO. If that means European strategic autonomy, Nick, then count me in.

Julian Lindley-French

The Berlin Airlift

“For most of Germany, this act [the March 1948 Soviet walk-out from the Allied Control Council] merely formalized what had been an obvious fact for some time, namely that the four-power control machinery had become unworkable. For the city of Berlin, however, this was an indication for a major crisis”.

President Harry S. Truman

The First Berlin Crisis

Alphen, Netherlands. 28 June. Seventy years ago this week the Soviet Union began the Berlin blockade by closing the road and rail corridor that linked the American, British and French occupation zones within the city with their respective occupation zones in the west of Germany.  The same week the blockade began a massive Western airlift started that between 24 June 1948 and 12 May 1949 saw 441 American and 248 British aircraft fly 277,804 sorties delivering 394,509 tons of essential supplies to the people of Berlin. 

As my KLM flight from Berlin to Amsterdam taxied onto Tegel Airport’s long runway last Thursday I suspect I was the only one on the flight who realised the historical significance of that stretch of tarmac at that moment.  What is now (and still so given the sorry tale of Berlin’s new non-airport) the city’s main airport was opened on 5 November 1948 having been constructed in some 69 days.  Tegel was constructed when it was realised that Berlin Tempelhof could not handle the enormous number of Allied flights needed to keep Berliners alive in the face of Stalin’s brutal and clumsy attempt to starve the Western Allies out of the City.

A Crisis and a Republic

The cause of the First Berlin Crisis was ostensibly the introduction of the new Deutsche Mark in the city by the Western Allies.  For Stalin, the introduction of the currency was a step on the road to the eventual re-emergence of a strong Germany that could again eclipse three of the four occupying powers – Britain, France and the Soviet Union. To some extent he was right.  However, for Stalin, the emergence of a democratic Germany was as great a threat if not more so than the re-emergence of a functioning and in time independent German state.

Throughout 1946 the Americans and the British completed work on the so-called Bizone which unified the economies of their respective occupation zones. On 1 June 1948, the French occupation zone also joined forming the Trizone and thus establishing the sovereign space for the Federal Republic of West Germany to emerge on 23 May 1949 (a month or so after the Washington Treaty and the founding of NATO).  To ensure the Federal Republic would be viable on 7 March 1948 Stalin’s ire was further provoked when it was agreed that the Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program would be offered to the whole of Germany, something Moscow rapidly rejected for its area of occupation.

In the first half of 1948, the Soviets increased the pressure on Berlin.  On 5 April 1948 a Soviet Yak-3 fighter collided with a British European Airways Vickers Viking as it attempted to land in Berlin at then RAF Gatlow.  In what had been a blatant act of harassment by the Soviets all 14 people on the civilian airliner were killed together with the pilot of the Soviet fighter.

What was particularly impressive about the Berlin airlift was that many of the American, British and crews from other countries taking part had also been engaged in the great Allied bomber offensives that had sought to destroy Berlin only some three years prior. In total 39 Britons, 31 Americans and 13 Germans were killed during an airlift so intensive that normal rules of air safety had to be relaxed. Given that much of the effort took place throughout a cold and foggy Berlin winter it is frankly surprising there were not more fatalities.

By May 1949 it was clear to Stalin the blockade was not working. On 16 April 1949, the air-bridge delivered more supplies than the combined road and rail link prior to the blockade with one Allied aircraft landing every minute. And, given he was unwilling to provoke an open conflict with the Americans who at the time were still the only atomic power (the Soviets did not test their first atomic bomb until 29 August 1949) Stalin lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949.

Would Germany do the Same?

There is a twist to this story.  I have been at the forefront of those defending Germany and its actions in contemporary Europe. Yes, Germany can be ruthless when it comes to protecting German interests – one has only to look at the car emissions scandal to see that.  And yet I have always believed Germany’s assertiveness to be more angst than any concerted plan to dominate Europe. And yet as I sat on the plane considering history I was still niggled by the contempt just shown to Britain and me by my German colleagues over Brexit.  It led me to wonder if Britons faced a similar crisis would Germans act with the same largesse and urgency.  Indeed, I would like to think so but I really do wonder. As for me, if Berlin faced the same or any other life-threatening challenge there would be no question of my offering British support. Ho hum!

In memory of those who gave their lives so that the people of Berlin could survive the blockade which in time helped enable that great city to re-emerge and thrive at the heart of a great country.

Julian Lindley-French