The NATO Shadow Plan?

“Give us the tools and we will finish the job” 

Winston Churchill

Shadow Boxing

July 13th. That was interesting. It was not the ‘historic’ summit politicians always suggest when they have avoided declaring war on each other, but the NATO Vilnius Summit was more than a bus-stop on the road from Madrid to Washington. Ukraine was not offered either membership of the Alliance or a road map to it but rather a vague commitment that at some point its future is in NATO. Déjà vu Bucharest all over again? The final Turkish obstacle to Swedish membership was removed. A Defence Investment Pledge 2.0 was agreed under the terms of which 2% GDP on defence so many have so hard to achieve since 2014 has now become a baseline, the minimum Allies should spend on defence. This includes 20% on new equipment annually which will include research and development. Plenty of scope for fiddling the figures there. The much-vaunted Regional Defence Plans and robust in-place combat forces were confirmed but where and when the new 300,000 agile, multi-domain Allied Reaction Force of mainly Europeans will see the light of day remains unclear. There was the usual cyber, space and China guff in the Summit Communiqué leavened by the equally usual NATO political correctness.

However, there was one agreement which most commentators missed but which might for once stand the test of time and which might also in time be the thing the Vilnius Summit is remembered for - Defence Production Action Plan or DPAP. It will have to survive the NATO bureaucracy first and ‘HQs’ almost genetically predisposed to strangle any innovative idea at birth in the name of ‘unity’. Look what is happening to poor old DIANA. That said, the idea that NATO will act as “convener, standard-setter, requirement-setter and aggregator and defence enabler to promote defence industrial capacity” is desperately needed.

It is about time! NATO Europe’s leaders have not so much taken their eye off the ball these past thirty years, they handed it over to potential enemies and invited them to kick us all in the teeth! The fielding times and affordability of European military equipment is so appalling it borders at times on the criminal and is a potential critical weakness in NATO’s defence and deterrence posture. The lessons emerging from the Ukraine war are also clear: modern war is a giant black hole into which people and materiel vanish at an alarming rate far beyond that envisaged by the peacetime NATO establishment. At the very least, NATO European forces will need far more robust logistics, far more forward deployed, with enhanced and far more secure military supply chains particularly important. Far more materiel is also needed, most notably ammunition, not least because of the rate at which Ukraine has been using up the weapons stocks of NATO Allies.

If Defence and Deterrence of the Euro-Atlantic Area, the DDA, is to be anything more than a communiqué writer's wet dream the Allies desperately need to rebuild and build infrastructure to assist military mobility and remove all legal impediments to rapid cross border movements in a pre-war emergency. Deployed NATO forces will also need much improved force protection with the need to reduce the detectability and thus digital footprint of force concentrations (‘bright butterflies’) particularly pressing.

The war in Ukraine has also revealed the vulnerability of armour unsupported by infantry and helicopters in the battlespace, as well as the need for NATO forces to be able to dominate both fires and counter-fires, not least by using large numbers of expendable drones, strike drones and loitering systems allied to extremely expensive precision-guided munitions, such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow. Enhanced land-based, protected battlefield mobility is also needed together with increased force command resilience given how often the Ukrainians have been able to detect and ‘kill’ Russian forward (and less forward) deployed headquarters.

None of the above can be realised without a new partnership with defence industries on both sides of the Atlantic and further partnerships with those in other democracies, which will include commitments to contracts that are both longer and more stable than hitherto.  This is because both military platforms and the systems that sit on them are about to undergo a technological revolution in which speed of data will drive speed of information which in turn will dictate both the speed of command and its relevance on the battlefield.Europe is, as per usual, lagging way behind its competitors and not only going to have to spend more but the European Defence Technological and Industrial Base (EDTIB) far beyond the traditional metal-bashers and their hangers on. ‘Defence’ will have to reach out to new tech communities and learn to operate at their rate of tempo.

The Shadow Scheme

Thankfully, there is a lesson from history from which NATO might draw. In 1935, the “Shadow Scheme” was established by the British Government the aim of was to subsidise manufacturers to construct a system of new ‘shadow factories’, reinforced by additional capabilities at existing aircraft and motor industrial plants that could immediately increase war production on the outbreak of war. It was this scheme that led rapidly to radar, the Hurricane and Spitfire fighters and eventually the Lancaster bomber. It also enabled Britain to surpass Nazi Germany in aircraft production in June 1940, a lead Britain never lost not least because of the entry into the skilled workforce of millions of British women.

Improved efficiency was also as important to Britain in 1940 as it is to the Alliance today. For example, the Ministry of Aircraft Production had an immediate galvanising effect. Upon taking over Royal Air Force storage facilities it was discovered that whilst the RAF had accepted over 1,000 aircraft from industry, only 650 had been despatched to squadrons. Managerial and organisational changes were introduced that also had an immediate effect. Between January and March 1940 2,729 aircraft were produced by British industry, of which 638 were front-line fighters. However, between April to May 1940 aircraft production increased to 4,578 aircraft, some 1,875 of which were fighters. By June 1940 British fighter production reached 250% of German fighter production, whilst the overhauled repair service returned nearly 1,900 aircraft to action many times more than their German counterparts. As a consequence, German fighters available for operations over Britain during the Battle of Britain fell from 725 to 275, whilst fighters available for RAF operations increased from 644 on July 1^st, 1940 to 732 on October 1^st.

Key to the success of the Plan was the Directorate of Aeronautical Production which began work in March 1936 and had two goals: rapid expansion of defence industrial production; and the dispersal of the defence industrial base to protect against air attack. By October 1937, there were five Shadow Factories already in production, whilst in July 1938 one Shadow Factory completed its first complete bomber. The Plan was also extended to industry in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

The most famous of the Shadow Factories was at Castle Bromwich near Birmingham, which today is the home of Jaguar Cars. The plant opened in June 1940 and after some initial problems went on to build 12,000 Spitfires of 22 variants!  The Shadow Plan also standardised development and production. For example, the Rolls Royce Merlin engine became the powerplant for most (but not all) wartime aircraft. The Plan also looked to the future by helping to fund the development of the jet engine and the world’s second operational jet fighter, the Gloster Meteor, which entered service with the RAF three months after the German Me 262.

By 1944 there were 175 dispersed Shadow Factories in operation, many of which were linked to industries not traditionally associated with defence but with relevant supply chain expertise. The most famous aircraft to come from the Plan apart from the Spitfire and Lancaster was the ‘wooden wonder’, the de Havilland Mosquito, a twin-engined fighter bomber that could outstrip most single-engined fighters. The RAF was not the only service to benefit. The new King George V class battleships were built from 1936 on by many workers and technicians recruited under the Shadow Plan, whilst the British Army got new tanks some of which, contrary to popular myth, were not at all bad.

The NATO Shadow Plan

Much of the European Defence, Technological and Industrial Base has been left to rot since the end of the Cold War. Production facilities are few, many are obsolete and orders even fewer and only seem to come when there is a political rather than a strategic imperative. Major systems only survive from cradle to grave because industry has learnt the vital need to tie government into contracts with punitive consequences when broken, whilst much of the ‘kit’ ordered has more to do with industrial policy rather than defence policy.

Consequently, the unit cost of equipment Allied forces desperately need is inflated, much of it obsolete before it is even fielded and/or because innovation and technological advancement have been ‘de-prioritised’. This has led to procurement disasters, Britain’s Ajax armoured infantry fighting vehicle, a platform that has had so many systems put on it looks more like a Christmas tree than an armoured vehicle. 

The Ukraine War has demonstrated the folly of emaciating Europe’s defence industrial base.  The Defence Production Action Plan is not yet a Shadow Plan and is not to be yet another of those ‘wizard wheezes’ announced with much NATO fanfare only to be lost in the vacuum of political irresolution it will need to be pushed through. It will also need to forge new partnerships across the entirety of a radically reconceived European security and defence supply chain that includes the Alliance, EU, governments, prime contractors, defence sub-contractors, systems-developers and providers who have thus far had little or nothing to do with defence.

The Shadow Plan is the great unsung hero of the British war effort between 1935 and 1945. Without the Plan Britain would have been defeated in 1940.  The Alliance may not be AT war but is certainly engaged IN war and, like Britain in 1935, it most certainly is engaged in a systemic struggle, even if many leaders are in denial whatever the rhetoric. Such struggles are not won by fine words, lofty summits and well-written communiqués crafted to meet the political need of the moment.  They are won by the sustained, systemic, and considered application of resources, technologies, equipment and forces over time and space. 

One final thought: if NATO does not learn and apply such lessons from the past the Chinese and Russians will.

Julian Lindley-French

 

NATO Vilnius: Conniving France, Foolish Britain, Cold Turkey

  “To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man”.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

June 22^nd. The focus of NATO’s forthcoming Vilnius Summit will, rightly, be on Forward Defence and whether the Alliance can agree dynamic support for Kyiv and, short of immediate membership of the Alliance, Ukraine’s dynamic alignment with it. However, there will be at least two other implicit struggles at Vilnius that go to the heart of NATO: the future of the European pillar and Turkey’s place within the Alliance.

 Conniving France

With the collapse of the Macro-Gaullist wet dream of an EU that is strategically autonomous of the US, Macron has now turned his sights on NATO.  His aim now is to turn the EU into the European pillar of the Alliance so that France can instrumentalise US, UK and other military assets to exaggerate French influence. The first victim of this latest demarche is Ben Wallace, the current UK Secretary of State for Defence.  He had hoped to be the next NATO Secretary-General, but Macron has effectively torpedoed his bid by insisting the appointee should come from an EU member-state.

If Macron succeeds in establishing the EU as the European pillar of NATO, he will also ensure no Briton can ever again be Secretary-General.  Macron’s vision of an Atlanticist pillar made up of America, Britain, Canada and Norway and a European pillar that incubates ‘l’autonomie strategique’ before one day it breaks of the NATO with France at its head like something out of Predator. 

The problem for France is that dynamism within the Alliance is far more likely to come from the Atlanticist end of NATO, rather than the EU end, which is why Paris is also seeking to lock both the US and UK into the vision.  The US via implicit French support for the US in the Indo-Pacific – AUKUS or no. The British by the vague promise of vague inclusion in Macron’s vaguely intergovernmental European Political Community.   

Foolish Britain

The British have only themselves to blame as once again they have proved incompetent at the game of strategy that is the Alliance.  And, as ever, the British will complain a bit then roll over in the vain hope that appeasing the French will endear them to Paris. It never does. The hard reality is that ever more money London claims to be spending on defence the ever smaller the British armed forces seem to become.  If the British Government increases the British defence budget by any more, the British Army may well cease to exist!

 This is because behind the mask of ‘defence’ expenditure there are a whole host of rent seekers sucking money out of British fighting power. Most notably, the National Cyber Security Centre. Like most things British these days the Potemkin image is far less than the sum of its parts.  

 Cold Turkey

At Vilnius it will become evident whether Turkey’s blocking of Swedish membership of the Alliance is simply Turkish bargaining or something far deeper and far more invidious: an attempt by Ankara to stymie the Alliance in the middle of the most dangerous European war since 1945.

Ankara’s latest demand is that in return for Turkey’s acquiescence to Sweden’s membership of the Alliance Stockholm must prevent anti-Turkish demonstrations by its Kurdish minority. Quashing free speech is simply not what real democracies do. For many years I have been something of a ‘Turkije Versteher’.  One only must only look at a map to see the importance of Ankara to NATO and European security and defence.  Moreover, that same map reveals the imposed complexity of Turkey’s foreign, security and defence policy given the tough geopolitical neighbourhood in which it is situated.  Unfortunately, since the post-September 2015 alignment/accommodation with Putin’s Russia, and the failed 2016 coup, Turkey has become a progressively more difficult Ally with which to deal.

There are several issues in contention between the US and Turkey. The July 2019 delivery to Turkey of the advanced Russian S-400 air defence missile system led swiftly to Turkey’s ouster from the F35 advanced fighter programme by Washington under the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).  Worse, Turkey’s decision to acquire the S-400, which was designed specifically to shoot down US F-16 fighters, also came with a commitment to jointly develop the new S-500 system.

Turkey’s frustration with its European partners is of a different hue. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that in June 2023 there are some 3.7 million refugees in Turkey. Ankara is Europe’s gatekeeper but feels it gets little by way of return, in spite of the 2015 deal struck between Erdogan and Merkel. The sense of alienation from ‘Europe’ Turks feel has been further compounded by the final realisation by Ankara that Turkey would never be offered full membership of the EU. For thirty years France and Germany pretended Turkey would be offered EU membership and the Turks pretended to believe them. No more.

 Fractious Vilnius

It is against this changing grand strategic/geopolitical backdrop that NATO’s Vilnius Summit will take place. Given the location the focus should be on Ukraine. After all, both Lithuania and Ukraine border Russia and Belarus. One would hope that such a crisis would reinforce vital unity of strategic purpose and effort. To avoid a major argument with the French over Jens Stoltenberg’s successor, Biden is seeking a one-year extension, even though Stoltenberg himself has had enough. There was hope of a female successor. However, the most likely candidate, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has ruled herself out.  The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte may be emerging as a compromise candidate. He would do a good job.  However, France will at some point be faced with the contradiction at the core of its cleverness: to succeed Paris needs the support of the Americans and the British even as it alienates them. 

As for Sweden, it must be made clear to Turkey that continued blocking of Stockholm’s membership might be possible under the terms of the Treaty of Washington (all 31 NATO members need to agree before a new country is offered full membership) but in practice Ankara will simply further isolate itself. Worse, if Turkey blocks Swedish membership, it is also likely to block any path to eventual Ukrainian membership. That would raise a further question. Just what value does Turkey really bring to the Alliance? Turkey needs to decide which side it is on in the emerging struggle between autocracies and democracies – it cannot be on both sides. 

 Julian Lindley-French

 

  

Dynamic Support, Dynamic Alignment

“The stakes go beyond Ukraine and its survival as an independent state.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has dealt a serious blow to the European security order that the transatlantic community has sought to build – working with Russia -- since the end of the Cold War.  Defeating Putin in Ukraine is essential if that security order is ever to recover.”

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, June 6^th, 2023

This past Tuesday, in my capacity as Chairman of The Alphen Group (TAG), I had the honour to lead a delegation of members to the European Parliament in Brussels to present the completed Phase 2 of the TAG Ukraine Strategy to parliamentarians. A Comprehensive Strategy for a Secure Ukraine now includes five elaborated proposals and the link is below. 

https://thealphengroup.com/2023/06/07/updated-comprehensive-strategy-for-a-secure-ukraine/ 

The proposals all call for the dynamic support for and dynamic alignment of Ukraine with NATO and the EU. They include:

A Declaration for Ukraine;

Mutual Commitments of Defence, Security and Sovereignty;

A Conference of Democracies on the Future of European Peace and Security;

G7 plus Partners Ukraine Joint Plan of Action for the Russo-Ukraine War;

And an Accelerated NATO Ukraine Membership Action Plan.

Under Chair Ms Anna Fotyga of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Dr Camille Grand (European Council on Foreign Relations), Professor Zaneta Ozolina (University of Riga), Professor Alexander Vershbow (Atlantic Council of the United States), and Professor Rob de Wijk (Hague Centre for Security Strategy) outlined the proposals.

I commend the Strategy to you.

Julian Lindley-French,

Chairman,

The Alphen Group

https://thealphengroup.com/

Ukraine: When to be Offensive?

 “Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let’s see who will pound longest”.

Wellington at Waterloo, June 18th, 1815

Spring is Sprung?

June 1^st. You can almost smell the wishful thinking about Ukraine’s ever-coming “Spring Offensive”.   For Ukraine’s counter-offensive to make the real gains many in the West want it must enjoy five conditions. First, unity of effort and purpose. Never forget the power of the will in warfare. Second, sufficient military capability in sufficient capacity, allied to deployed force protection. Third, the absolute certainty that the NATO Allies and other Partners have Ukraine’s back.  Fourth, that before Ukraine gets NATO membership (no specifics will be extended at Vilnius) Kyiv is at least offered a Defence and Deterrence Partnership (DDP) with NATO.  Fifth, the Allies understand collectively that they are Ukraine’s strategic depth and that depth depends on the Alliance also fully realising the New Force Model.

There are the usual think-tanks suspects going into speculative over-drive about the indeterminate.  The ill-informed in pursuit of the ill-defined. At least they are contributing to Ukraine’s effective use of fake news to keep the Russians guessing.  However, there is also something deeper going on. NATO members hoping that Ukraine will make a definitive breakthrough so that paradoxically the pressure on them to offer Kyiv fast-track membership of the Alliance is eased prior to NATO’s July Vilnius Summit. Let me state for the record: I am firm in my belief Ukraine should be offered NATO membership at the Vilnius Summit.  I am equally clear in my analysis that this will not happen, even if President Macron seems to be shifting his hitherto wobbly position on Russia. Let’s hope his speech to GLOBSEC yesterday translates into a shift in France’s attitude towards Ukraine inside the Alliance.  

Next week, I will have the honour to lead a delegation to the European Parliament to launch Phase Two of The Alphen Group’s (TAG) major study, “A Comprehensive Strategy for a Secure Ukraine”.  The TAG Strategy is unequivocal,  “ Ukraine [must]… be offered an immediate, accelerated and tailored Membership Action Plan with the aim of fast-track NATO membership and ad interim invited to participate in a deep bespoke Partnership enabling Ukraine to participate in Alliance activities in a 31+1 format (or 32+1 upon Sweden’s accession to the Alliance)”.

What options do the Ukrainians have?

The war has certainly reached A critical point and the Ukrainians face hard choices in the coming weeks: fail and the conflict turns into a long war; succeed and possibly force the Russians to negotiate seriously to bring a legitimate end to the war on terms favouring Ukraine; or succeed and still face a long war because Putin and his cronies are boxed in politically and has nowhere else to go but war.  Even if the Ukrainians somehow drove the Russians out of Ukraine in one move they would still not have decisively defeated Russia.  Therefore, the importance of the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive is to prove to the Russians once and for all they cannot win this war. As such, the attack will be one move in many and reinforces Ukraine’s need for strategic depth to sustain a war that is unlikely to end soon.

.  Ukraine has fought hard, skilfully and cleverly and revealed the very-clunky nature of the Russian military. Their efforts at battlefield-shaping with attacks on the Russian Army’s rear-areas, lines of communication and logistics chains are helping to keep Russian forces and their commanders’ off-balance.  This is precisely why the Russians have resorted to lines of defensive positions not dissimilar to the Hindenburg Line in 1917.  There are also vulnerabilities in the Russian command chain that the Ukrainians have exploited to effect between field commanders, the General Staff in Moscow and the Kremlin.  Above all, there appears to be a significant lack of ‘jointness’ between the Russian Army, the Air Force and the Naval Infantry which have been deployed, as well as between the Western, Central and Southern Military Districts from which the bulk of Russian forces have been drawn.    

However, for all the incompetent caricature of an invasion the Russians have mismanaged to effect there are still competent officers and officials who are fast learning the hard lessons of failure.   The Russians are learning to identify concentrations of Ukrainian forces far earlier than a year ago. They are improving the accuracy of their still extensive artillery using the Strelets battlefield computer system together with reconnaissance drones. The system also enables Russian forces to avoid counter-fires more effectively than hitherto.  They are also targeting Ukrainian military facilities, command centres, supply routes and ammunition and fuel depots, as well as logistical hubs more effectively. Their use of infantry also seems to be changing.  They continue to use ill-trained formations to probe for weaknesses in Ukrainian forward positions, whilst better-trained, more mobile and more agile smaller formations are held back for defensive missions.  Their use of thermal camouflaging is also reducing the effectiveness of Ukrainian anti-tank systems. 

Therefore, the most the Ukrainians can realistically achieve with the counter-offensive is to significantly disrupt Russia’s land bridge to Crimea via the Donbas.  In spite of the twenty or so new brigades the Ukrainians have worked up in advance of the counter-offensive the force does not have the necessary weight to forge a decisive war-winning breakthrough on the battlefield. That begs a further question: what would win this war?  Ukrainians are not going to march into Moscow and even if Russian forces were pushed back over Russia’s borders would that end the war?  Even a scant understanding of Russian history suggests not. What is the game-changer?

What options do Ukraine's Western partners have?

NATO is Ukraine’s game-changer. Military success on the battlefield would be painfully irrelevant if it happens in a political and strategic vacuum caused by dissolute Western partners and a divided Alliance. At the Vilnius Summit NATO leaders need to ask themselves some tough questions. How badly do they want Ukraine to win?  Do they all agree on what ‘winning’ would look like?  Will they collectively commit to the application of effective strategy with Ukraine in support of Ukraine? Will it  make a public statement of such determined intent? Will they give Ukraine the weapons they need? Rather, there is what might best be termed strategic ad hoccery whereby nations compete with each to say how much they are giving to Ukraine whilst quietly disparaging other Allies. The result is a small Ukrainian force (in relative terms) armed with an increasingly diverse range of systems.

At Vilnius, NATO and its Partners need to agree and announce a real strategy that effectively answers all of the above questions, not least so that the whole world fully understands the Alliance sees itself as Ukraine’s strategic depth and does whatever it takes for however long it takes.  In other words, what Ukraine needs now is an unequivocal statement from the Alliance timed to coincide with the counter-offensive that NATO fully understands its vital role in enabling Ukraine achieve its legitimate war aims so that said offensive does not take place in a political and strategic vacuum.     

Strategic depth in his war is not simply about supporting Ukraine. NATO is and will remain the back-stop of European security and defence which means putting the Alliance’s deterrence and defence posture on the new footing that was agreed at Madrid last year.  Specifically, the NATO Allies must collectively meet the challenge of SACEUR General Chris Cavoli’s “family of plans”. This means not only replacing the weapons sent to Ukraine but building the New Force Model agreed at the NATO Madrid Summit in 2022, particularly the force readiness goals and all that implies for Europe’s broken defence and technological industrial base.   

When to be offensive?

Napoleon once said that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake and that one should always do what the enemy least wants you to do. The decision when and where to advance should be left to Ukraine’s political and military leadership with the simple aim of generating best results at least cost.  However, Kyiv is all too aware that the counter-offensive will be aimed as much at the Allies and their lack of strategic clarity and shared resolve as Russia’s wavering armed forces. Vilnius?  If nothing else Ukraine must have that clear statement of solidarity from the NATO Allies to support Ukraine in its efforts to return to their 1991 borders whatever it takes and for how long it takes.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The when and how of Ukraine’s NATO membership? That will be the litmus test of Alliance seriousness and Vilnius will have failed if the Ukrainians are not offered at the very least a dynamic Deterrence and Defence Partnership.    Why does it matter?  The Russo-Ukraine War is being fought in Ukraine.  It is also being fought in Europe over the future nature of power in Europe and there must be no illusions about that.  

When to be offensive? The most important one thing Ukraine’s partners can do to shape the battlefield is to relieve Kyiv of the constant need to look over its political shoulders. Then, the Ukrainian military commanders can simply decide when and where to attack at any given time and in any given place based solely on the military situation on the ground.

Ukraine can no longer afford to fight a political zweifrontenskreig.  As Winston Churchill once famously said, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job”.

Julian Lindley-French    

 

Dambusters 80

 

“That night, employing just a few bombers, the British came close to a success which would have been greater than anything they had achieved hitherto with a commitment of thousands of bombers.”

Albert Speer

16 May.  All of we Brits of a certain age remember the film.  Richard Todd  coolly leading his elite squadron of Lancaster bombers into attack the Mohne, Eder and Sorpe dams.  British stiff-upper lip and brilliant “bouncing bomb” technology combining against the backdrop of a stirring and evocative 1950s soundtrack to deal the Nazis a crippling blow.  Eighty years ago today the Dambusters of 617 Squadron undertook the actual “dams raid” and in spite of many politically correct attempts to ‘revise’ history the attack remains one of the most stunning precision air strikes in military history.

The facts alone speak for themselves.  Twenty-four year old Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC, DSO (Bar), DFC (Bar), RAF, a veteran of over 170 missions, led the 19 Lancaster Mark IIIs in his bomber G for George.  His ‘Lancs’ were armed with Professor Barnes Wallace’s amazing Upkeep ‘mine’which was designed to bounce across the lakes behind the German dams before rolling down the dam face and then explode. A ‘mine’ inspired by pebbles skipping across a pond. 

Early in the morning of 17 May the Mohne and Eder dams were breached and water catastrophically-flooding the Ruhr and Eder valleys.  Some 1600 people were killed and many factories were destroyed or damaged together with two hydro-electric plants.  Of the 133 airmen who took part in the raid 53 were killed.  This was World War Two – total war.

Strangely the raid has touched me personally.  A few years ago I had the honour to visit 617 “Dambusters” Squadron at RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland in which I was invited into the cockpit of a Tornado figther-bomber. Ironically, eighty years ago had I been sitting at this seat at around 0030 hours the 9 aircraft of Formation One would have roared over my house in Alphen no more than 25 metres (80 feet) above my head with the whole village awakened by the low-flying cacophony of 36 Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.

Formation Three was comprised of two Lancasters which formed a mobile reserve one of which (S for Sugar) was shot up by German flak over Molenschot some five kilometres from here and then crashed onto what was then a German air defence base at Gilze-Rijen just up the road.  My wife and I visited the graves of Canadian Pilot Officer Lewis Burpee and his crew which are interred in the Bergen-op-Zoom British-Canadian Commowealth War Grave. 

Although not onnected with the dams raid my wife and I also had the very real pleasure of lunch with Group Captain Steve Reeves and his wife Michelle at RAF Leeming.  This was following our discovery of another crash site close to our house where an RCAF Halifax II (JD363) of 429 Squadron RCAF had crashed at Bolk, just over the border in Belgium.  Piloted by Flight Sergeant Graham Howard, the Halifax crashed in October 1943 with the loss of all seven members of its Canadian and British crew.  The site has been lovingly marked and preserved by local people and we had the honour to present my wife’s photograph of the monument to Group Captain Reeves at RAF Leeming.  What moved me to take this photograph back to Leeming was the fact that a year earlier I had had the honour to address senior RAF personnel at Leeming.  Movingly, I ate my meals in the same mess (dining room) as the men of JD363 shortly before they left on their final mission.

So what was the impact of the dams raid.  There have been many attempts to downplay the impact of the raid.  Certainly, the Germans moved quickly to repair the damage and by the following September the lakes were once again filling, although the dams never achieved full capacity until the following year.  However, slave labour had to be diverted from the building of the Atlantic Wall and this meant that by June 1944 and D-Day the defences were weaker than they would otherwise have been.  Moreover, the British had proven they could undertake precision strike missions and armed with new bombs designed by Barnes Wallace ‘617’ went onto destroy critical bridges and tunnels before sinking the German battleship “Tirpitz” in November 1944.

Time of course moves on and I will soon have the honour of leading a NATO-backed meeting at Wilton Park with friends from the Luftwaffe.  That is, course, as it should be, and I am sure the men of 617 Squadron in May 1943 would have heartily approved.

Good show, chaps!

“Apres nous le deluge”.

Julian Lindley-French

 

The Eagle, the Dragon and the Blancmange

 

Blancmange “an EU strategic desert that looks like jelly formed into a shape”.

Merriam Webster corrupted by Julian Lindley-French

The EU blancmange

May 1st. If ever there was a 1990s solution to a 2023 problem the European Union Rapid Deployment Capacity is it. Due to be operational by 2025 it will be the same old forces organised under yet another acronym – EURDC.   Even with the planned “special forces commando” it will be a small force with too many bosses that can only ever be used if they all agree for collective security missions about which they rarely do and which can already be done by existing forces. At 5000 strong it will be too cumbersome for Sudan-type evacuations and not large enough to play any meaningful role in Ukraine-type scenarios because it cannot be expanded.  Above all, the stated missions of the ‘capability’ “ranging from initial entry, to reinforcement or as a reserve force to secure an exit” require above all significant strategic airlift. As the French discovered in Mali only the British amongst the Europeans have any level of strategic and heavy tactical airlift and that is limited.  And, given Britain is no longer a member of the EU the implication is that the British will be expected to provide critical ‘enablers’ in support of the EURDC whilst under Third Country rules be allowed little more than the right to shape decisions made elsewhere.  No deal, Chaps!  

When I wrote my doctorate on this stuff many years ago I believed such a force could have both utility and effect but that was against the backdrop of the immediate post-Cold War and the meltdown in the Western Balkans.  Since then the EU has become a blancmange of acronyms which are never met with the requisite forces and resources: ESDP, the ERRF, EU BGs, CSDP, Pesco, and now EURDC. I won’t bore you by spelling them out as none of them actually worked and unless there is some fundamental improvement in the ability of Europeans to fund and field increased numbers of robust rapid reaction units then EURDC will not work either.

Take NATO’s New Force Model. The plan is for the enhanced NATO Response Force of some 40,000 troops to be transformed into a future force of some 300,000 troops maintained at high alert, with 44,000 kept at high readiness. For the first time all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a deterrence and defence role and all such forces will be consolidated within one command framework.  A force of that size and with the necessary level of fighting power would normally mean that with rotation there would always be a force of some 100,000 kept at high readiness, which will be extremely expensive for NATO European allies grappling with high inflation and post-COVID economies. A NATO standard brigade is normally between 3200 and 5500 strong. Given that both air and naval forces will also need to be included, a land force of 200,000 would need at least 50 to 60 European rapid reaction brigades together with all their supporting elements. At best, there are only 20 to 30 today. There are already concerns being expressed by some Allies. EURDC?

The insoluble dilemma

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for Europeans finally getting their military act together but it must be to address the threats posed by this world not what in strategic terms is ancient history. Worse, the EURDC simply reaffirms the insoluble dilemma at the heart of EU military ambitions – the only such force that would be relevant given the likely nature of the adversaries and in the absence of the Americans would need a huge boost in European military spending to be sufficiently capable and a European Government to be credibly ‘commandable’.  As for conducting evacuation missions like those undertaken in Afghanistan or Sudan, Europe’s major powers already have the capability and given those forces are under national command the necessary political agility.

Implicit in the EURDC are two entirely contending visions which also go to the very core of EU political dystopia. Macron wants to use the EU to instrumentalise the rest of Europe to realise a declining France’s strategic ambitions by using the Commission to place Paris at the centre of a spider’s web of European power. Macron has no intention of transferring French defence sovereignty to Brussels now or ever. The European 'theologians' in the European Commission really do believe that one day their vision will be realised of a European Army replete with a European Government.   The EURDC is yet another product of this political dystopia and the profound tension that exists between the Commission and European states that helped drive Britain out of the EU. It is also a significant reason why Europe today simply carries so little weight in the world given that for forty years Europe’s internal inner struggle over power and regulation and who controls Europe has pretty much ensured Europeans do not.

The EURDC is thus the latest example of EU defence pretence in which politics comes before capability and the regulatory stranglehold of Brussels on member-states will guarantee more lawyers than warriors. Rather, what the EU should be focusing on is making Europe more competitive in those areas of tech that will shape and are shaping the future security and battlespace. The Special Competitive Studies Project is a non-partisan US-based group that looks at relative strategic competitiveness. Whilst America and China are forging ahead in internet platforms, fusion energy, quantum computing, synthetic biology, biopharmaceuticals, commercial drones, next generation networks, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and, above all, Artificial Intelligence. The only sector where the EU leads is in the amount of regulation it imposes.

EU defence pretence, aka strategic autonomy, is also sadly affecting NATO. Take the race underway to be the next Secretary-General.  It is likely that the incumbent Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg will be extended for another year. All well and good. He has done a good job in the midst of a crisis.  Those seeking to replace him include UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, former Lithuanian President and European Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite and former Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.  All three would make excellent ‘Sec-Gens’.  And yet, the word on the street is that the favourite is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.  Why?

The answer is both complex and simple.  First, the Biden administration, who should be backing Wallace, have instead decided to back ‘VDL’.  Having lost its window into the EU with Brexit Washington increasingly sees NATO as an Atlantic-sphere and an EU-sphere with the EU the future European pillar of the Alliance.  Secondly, Washington also divides NATO into the useful bit – those Europeans who could do a little bit even if not very much, and those who talk a lot but are pretty much incapable – the Franco-German-led EU. Third, the Five Eyes intelligence community (plus Japan) is growing in importance to the Americans given the rise of a bellicose China and the increasingly global context of Washington’s security commitments. Fourth, with coalitions rather than alliances ever more the stuff of American strategic influence the Americans increasingly simply do not care. Washington would prefer to work with trusted allies bilaterally than through action-stifling bureaucracies.  

Coming clean about China

The EU is not alone in this continuing European penchant for strategic and defence pretence.  Last week UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly gave his annual foreign policy speech at the glitzy Mansion House banquet.  The speech was clearly written by HM Treasury economists and the civil service declinists who simply do not understand foreign, security and defence policy and see everything through the mercantilist lens of trade. Still, Cleverly called for China to “come clean” about what he called the largest peacetime military build-up in history”, but that was only so he could also say it would be an historic mistake to close the door on China. Translation?  Rather than re-shoring (ally-shoring in contemporary rhetoric) critical supply chains to democratic allies and partners Britain it seems is willing to continue relying on China.   Appealing to Xi’s better nature, as Cleverly was not so cleverly trying to do, smacked all too readily of Baldwin and Chamberlain in the 1930s.

As for China ‘coming clean’, it is perfectly clear what China is seeking to achieve because Xi has said so. First, China’s grand strategy is to achieve global military dominance by creating a Realpolitik of power that favours China. Second, because Western concepts of a rules-based order stand in the way of such ambition it must thus be destroyed by demonstrating the West’s lack of resolve, power and strategic patience. That is why China is eschewing all efforts to re-establish arms control and is determined to increase the number of nuclear warheads in its arsenal from the current 400 (up from 200 in 2021) to 1500 by 2035. Third, by 2027 China must have sufficient relative military power projection to take back Taiwan by force if need be.   That is why, for example, between 2014 and 2018 the Chinese launched more warships than the combined naval tonnage of both the entire French and German navies as part of a ship-building programme that continues apace.  Today, the official (and extremely conservative) estimate of Chinese defence expenditure in 2023 is 300% that of the UK, the world’s fifth or sixth largest defence spender. Add to that the grand asymmetric warfare that China already uses against the West through hybrid and cyber warfare, as well as systematic and systemic espionage, and only an economist could possibly fail to see China’s strategic direction of travel.  

The Eagle, the Dragon and the Blancmange

Europeans should look beyond Macron’s lame duck posturing on the European stage to distract from his domestic trials and tribulations. Strategic autonomy is precisely what Europeans should collectively (not commonly) be aspiring to irrespective of institutional allegiance. However, such autonomy must be US-friendly, NATO friendly, and utility-friendly.  Above all, it must be built on power not empty words.  In other words, Macron is right in principle, but wrong in fact and the EURDC is simply the wrong ‘capability’ (it is not even a ‘force’)  for the wrong mission at the wrong time – another case of Europeans putting short-term politics over longer-term strategy.

First, the EU-NATO Strategic Partnership needs to be expanded to create a pool of such forces with appropriate dual-hatted command structures and enablers so that it can operate under an EU or NATO flag and thus as the EURDC. NATO is already pooling its various rapid reaction forces and can act as a ‘brokerage’ for such forces.

Second, the EU should reform both Pesco and its Third Country rules to allow the likes of Britain and Turkey to have a role in both decision-making and decision-shaping. The hard facts of any coalition are thus: the greater the contribution the greater the say.

Third, with Finland and Sweden’s (eventual) accession to the Alliance the memberships of the two institutions are aligning and there is a case for the EU over time to become a pillar of a bi-pillar NATO; the other being the Atlanticist powers plus Turkey.  NATO, in turn, could become the junior partner in EU-led efforts to enhance European resilience. The appointment of ‘VDL’ as NATO Sec-Gen would then make strategic sense not simply political expediency. The EU does have a vital role to play in Europe’s future security and defence but only by focusing on structural aspects such as improving Europe’s resilience across the civilian space and constructing enhanced civilian and military mobility in an emergency. 

Fourth, Europe’s major powers, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and increasingly Poland must collectively drive forward Europe’s strategic rehabilitation. The real cause of European strategic and defence pretence lies in Western European, not a Central or Eastern European problem.  Britain, France and Germany alone represent over 65% of all defence investment in Europe and over 80% of defence research and development.

Fifth, given the Russo-Ukraine war Europeans need to collectively answer two fundamental questions. What role should European military forces have in Europe’s future security? What force levels and capabilities should Europeans aspire to given the broader framework of geopolitics?  In fact, a plan already exists: the NATO Military Strategy.  The Strategy is built on a rather old-fashioned principle that threat-relevant capabilities should come before missions. 

Charles Baudelaire wrote that the, “smartest ruse of the devil is to persuade you he doesn’t exist”.  It is a ruse made far easier when many Europeans need little persuading given they care about little that takes place outside the EU blancmange which at one and the same time is dependent on the eagle for its defence and the dragon for much of its income, both of which are in the process of facing off for a fight.  At some point, Europeans will need to take sides.  

Julian Lindley-French

 

    

New JLF Book: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

 

Can a Mouse Roar?

 

“There has been a leap forward on strategic autonomy compared to several years ago.”European Council President, Charles Michel, April 2023

The Great Leap Forward?

April 17^th, 2023.  There was something deliciously absurd hearing a former Belgian Prime Minister talking about Europe’s strategic autonomy during an interview on French television last week.  It reminds me of that wonderful 1959 Peter Sellers film, “The Mouse That Roared”.  Sellers told the story of the mythical Duchy of Grand Fenwick, an overlooked Central European state-let that had been founded by a group of drunken thirteenth century English knights who whilst on Crusade got lost. Sellers, as Chief Minister, declares war on the United States because he concludes that everyone who had declared war on the Americans had in the end made money. The European Union?

What was interesting about Michel’s interview was not only that it echoed President “His Master’s Voice” Macron’s call for European strategic autonomy but that said autonomy so sought seemed to be from fellow democracy and long-time liberator and defender of Europe the United States.  Macron made his strategic autonomy comment in China which in 2019 the EU had described as an “economic competitor in the pursuit of technological leadership” and also a “systemic rival promoting alternative models of governance”.  Location, location, location.  Macron was kow-towing to his Chinese host by hinting that Europeans would not get dragged into some future American war, i.e. Taiwan. 

The current buzz-word in EU-Chinese relations is ‘de-risking’ which translated into Mandarin means “nothing to do with us, Guv”.  And yet, not only is the inference that Europe is seeking more strategic autonomy from the Americans, it implies a Europe that is seeking less strategic autonomy from that great defender of freedom, China. Worse, it implies an equivalency in the European elite mind between the Americans and Chinese.  Remind me how many Chinese soldiers are buried above Omaha Beach? No wonder Xi smiled inscrutably when Macron asked China to join ‘Europe’ to persuade Russia to end its war on Ukraine.

Another inference in both the M&M interventions was that Europe can still roar on the world stage even if it is only a soft roar. Selling Volkswagens to the Chinese would seem to trump the values espoused in now countless EU treaties and declarations.  This could also help to explain the mixture of irritation and boredom on Xi’s face when Macron was banging on (as he does) about European power. Less Peter Sellers more Jacques Tati.  

The new ion curtain

What is most galling about this nonsense is the fantasy of some European leaders that Europe can have real influence without real power that the likes of Xi define.  Global Britain is also prone to this fantasy. It is particularly dangerous because an Ion Curtain is descending across Europe. Behind its digital and not-so-digital lines lies Beijing and Moscow with all those under the yoke of a China-propped Russian sphere subject, in one form or another to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from both Beijing and Moscow.

It is all part of Putin’s new drive to increase fear in certain western European NATO members in which the threat of mass destruction and mass disruption combined is reinforced by cyber-attacks and desinformatsiya.  Putin is being re-galvanised by increasing talk in the West about Ukraine possibly losing the Russo-Ukraine War, or rather if the West allows Ukraine to lose the war?

For the record, the answer is clear.  If the West allows Ukraine to lose Russia’s war on Ukraine the West will lose the world. It would be the latest calamity in Western foreign and security policy since 2003 in which a mix of poor American leadership (!!!), European weakness and transatlantic divisions have ‘enabled’ the West to lose Iraq, to lose Libya, to lose Syria and to lose Afghanistan. Another failure in Ukraine would simply confirm to the increasingly influential non-aligned states that only China has both the paying power and the staying power.  

The Duchy of Grand Brussels-wick

What was perhaps most galling was the public division evident in China between Macron and ‘President’ of the European Commission, Grand Duchess Ursula von der Leyen.  What she attempted in China was little more than a foreign policy coup as she endeavoured to put the European Commission in the driving seat of ‘European’ policy. Macron firmly slapped her down by reminding that it was the European Council, i.e. EU member-states that decide European foreign policy, not the European Commission. That begs two big questions? What policy? What power? 

European strategic autonomy as currently envisaged is an alibi for wilful European strategic weakness.  An instrument to enable incompetent European leaders to again blame the Americans for their own strategic pretence and indolence and thus enable them retreat for another few years into the fantasy of a super Grand Brussels-wick in which soft power is real power and ever more acronyms count for ever less military power.  Until that is the day hard power comes out of the blue to once again bash down Europe’s rotten door.

Until Europeans finally wake up and realise that soft power is only every credible if backed up by credible hard power then Europe will continue to destabilise the world with its weakness, President-for-Life Xi will continue to yawn when Europeans speak, Americans will continue to bear the burden of defending the ungrateful and smaller countries no-so-far away about which we care to know little will see their people murdered.   

Autonomy and responsibility

Strategic autonomy’ is a function of relative power not relative words.  Take Michel's country, Belgium. In spite of a 10% hike to the defence budget in 2021 Belgian defence expenditure is still some 5% below the NATO minimum threshold of 2% GDP on defence by 2024 of which 20% per annum should be spent on new equipment.  The Brussels Times even suggests it will be 2035 before Belgium spends 2% GDP on defence, let alone spends it well. Contrast that with China.  The Financial Times states that, “Although China’s military spending is only a third of the US level, it has grown fivefold over the past two decades, according to the US think-tank CSIS, and now exceeds that of the 13 next-largest military spenders in the Indo-Pacific combined”. Moreover, Chinese defence expenditure now outstrips all other forms of Chinese public investment. Where is the Great Leap Forward in that?

REAL European strategic autonomy will require strategic judgement built on strategic unity of purpose and effort.  Judgement and unity are as important as strategic capability and there was little of either apparent in the Macron and von der Leyen visit to China or Michel’s nonsense on French television. In other words, European strategic autonomy must mean European strategic responsibility and what happened last week in Beijing was European strategic irresponsibility. Empty words from empty leaders who count on their emptiness to absolve them of responsibility. Yes, President Macron really does speak for Europe albeit only the French bit of it.

The Mouse that Roared

In The Mouse that Roared Tully Buscombe, commander of Grand Fenwick’s 15 strong invasion force of the United States, eventually meets the US Secretary of State. Faced with the prospect of declaring war on a tiny European state-let the Americans decide instead to sue for peace for fear of being accused by the Soviets of bullying ‘peace-loving peoples”. The following conversation than ensues which might also throw some light on Macron’s strategy in Beijing:

President Macron (sorry, Tully Buscombe): “We want a million dollars”.

President Xi (sorry, US Secretary of State): “You mean a billion dollars”.

Tully: “No, sir, just a million”.

US Secretary of State: “You can’t expect us to give you a measly million? That’s less than we spent in Germany on one city alone”.

Tully: “Yes, but you see, sir, they lost”.

US Secretary of State: “Oh, I can’t promise to get that though Congress. You will have to take a billion.

Tully: “Well, if you could try, sir”.

If Europeans invest more in their own defence they will become more autonomous from the Americans, the Chinese at al. However, European strategic autonomy will only be possible if the ambition is to share burdens and risks with Europe's American ally and for Europeans to act responsibly together on the world stage.  To imply in any way that any such autonomy would be driven by a desire to decouple Europe from the US will not only doom such ambition to fail, it will also cripple NATO.  

There is an alternative. France can declare war on the US, just like Grand Fenwick!

Julian Lindley-French