Four Steps Back to European Military Credibility

“Armed conflict is a human condition, and I do not doubt we will continue to reinvent it from generation to generation.”

General Sir Rupert Smith

Alphen, Netherlands. 13 June. How can Europe restore military credibility? Three events this past week have led me to consider what makes armed forces credible? The first was a brilliant (of course) intervention of mine in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf in which I again pointed out why what the Dutch government claims is a modest increase in the Dutch defence budget is in fact not. The second, and not unrelated event, was a visit by the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to the Netherlands during which he politely pleaded with Dutch Prime Minister Rutte to increase their defence spending. The third, and most glitzy of all the events, was London’s impressive Trooping the Colour this past weekend to mark the official birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and her own ninetieth birthday. British military precision at its best, topped off by a thirty-five aircraft flypast by the Royal Air Force. And yet, it takes ever more effort by the British armed forces to put on a show that is by historic standards relatively modest.  

The problem in Europe is as ever primarily political. At this point some right-on Leftist dude with political leanings towards the likes of Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn would tell me that armed forces are in and of themselves the problem. On the political Right Colonel (Retd.) Aubry Twistleton-Twistleton Smythe-Ffrench would tell me that Britain (for example) needs to spend at least 10% of the public purse to keep Blighty safe from dangerous, bloody Johnny Foreigner-types.

On one hand, the political Left tend to see their small armed forces as the armed wing of liberal internationalism, particularly in Western Europe. Over the past decade European leaders have come close to breaking their respective armed forces by sending them on bottomless pit campaigns in the hope of making the distinctly illiberal, liberal. On the other hand, the political Right tends to see the military as solely devoted to preparing to fight a major war in order to prevent it.

Ironically, the two political camps are both wrong and both right. The world is such that there are of course occasions when armed force needs to act as a kind of super police force, just as there are times when such a force must demonstrably demonstrate its warfighting credentials through fighting power. Can the European state strike a credible balance between the two?

Before that question can be answered a further question must be addressed; against what must armed forces defend? There is a new way of war called hybrid war in which disinformation, destabilisation, and destruction are fast becoming one and the same. To mount a credible defence and preserve the capacity for the offensive today’s armed forces need to operate together with all security elements of a state (and allied states) across eight domains of engagement; air, sea, land, space, cyber, information, knowledge, and resilience.  

The first step back to military credibility is to face facts. According to its own figures the Dutch government spend 1.14% GDP on defence, significantly below the 1.43% NATO Europe average, and far below the 2% GDP on defence NATO calls for. In fact, if one applies the standard measure for measuring defence expenditure the Dutch spend nearer 1% GDP on defence. In May Euroland leaders conceded the principle of debt mutualisation. By so doing Euroland leaders also conceded the need for the relatively few taxpayers of the relatively few Eurozone states who actually pay for the mess that is the single currency (that is me!) to transfer economic growth-annihilating billions of Euros to those that do not. Therefore, the chance that a country like the Netherlands where I pay my taxes would actually increase its defence expenditure over the interim is now highly unlikely, whatever the spin. In the great struggle between European debt and European defence the latter has been, is being, and will be repeatedly and consistently defeated.

The second step is to bring defence back to the heart of the state. The only way a credible twenty-first century European defence can be mounted is to place the armed forces back at the very heart of European state power – civilian and military.  That does not I am proposing the militarization of the state. There are relatively small forces, such as those of the British and the Dutch, which if properly embedded in and backed by all state means, much of it civilian, and further-embedded in demonstrably functioning alliances, could in turn generate the necessary ends, ways and means to be mount a credible integrated defence and on occasions a pre-emptive offence.  

The third step is to either generate or have access to a sufficiency of military firepower that matches the firepower of potential adversaries. Size and strength does indeed matter in the race for a military edge.

The fourth and most crucial step is for politicians to recognise all of the above and to demonstrate an understanding of the utility of force and, if needs be, in the worst of all circumstances; war. This week Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, like so many of his European counterparts, again demonstrated that he either lacks this crucial understanding, or that on balance to him European debt is a more important strategic issue than European defence. Sadly, the politics of contemporary Europe does make the choice between debt and defence mutually exclusive.  

In a follow-on to my 2015 book on Friday I finished a big, shortly to be published, paper on NATO and the July Warsaw Summit (which is of course brilliant) in which I pose twenty hard questions about whether the Alliance can endure in a changing world. The questions I pose are all questions politicians urgently need to answer at Warsaw, but will not. This is precisely because a) Europe’s political leaders are still unwilling to face hard defence facts; b) far from embedding their armed forces at the heart of the state, most Western Europe’s leaders have spent the past decade pushing them to the political margins by using defence budgets as debt alleviation funds; c) the very idea of military firepower is to many in this generation of European political leaders toxic; and d) many leaders simply do not understand either the political or the strategic utility of legitimate force.  

My conclusion? Most of Europe’s armed forces are today far from being credible as armed forces, which tests not only their credibility but their very legitimacy. Indeed, when set against threats Europeans face few if any would be able to mount a credible defence, and that crucially undermines their collective ability to deter.

Julian Lindley-French

India and the New West

“India is already assuming her responsibilities in securing the Indian Ocean region…A strong India-US partnership can anchor peace, prosperity and stability from Asia to Africa and the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, US Congress, 8 June, 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 10 June. While Europeans wallow in the mud-pit of endless self-obsession the world moves on. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made Wednesday one of the most important strategic speeches this century to a joint session of the US Congress. The fifth Indian prime minister to be accorded such an honour as he spoke I sensed I was listening to the future. When I have heard British prime ministers make such speeches of late my sense has been too often of listening to the past. It need not be like that.

In a speech that combined humour and realism in equal measure Modi laid out the terms of what for me is the New West. Now, Indian readers of this blog might with some force suggest an element of cultural imperialism on my part by even placing the emerging US-Indian strategic partnership in those terms. After all, the West, like modern India, emerged from the British Empire, and not always without struggle.

However, for all my British chutzpah there is some strength in the idea. For my part I have long held the West to be an idea, not a place. Indeed, many of my books and articles have been inspired by that very idea. Indeed, when I cast my seasoned eye over the world today I see a new global bipolar order emerging, with liberal power on one side of a struggle with illiberal power the world over – be it states such as China and Russia, and/or groups such as ISIS.

India is certainly a twenty-first century great power by any standards. If one considers economic power the IMF calculates that in terms of nominal GDP in 2015 India had the ninth largest economy, with the US having the world’s largest, and the British the fifth largest world economy. However, the IMF suggests that if one considers purchasing power parity in 2015 India had the world’s third largest economy, after China and the US, with the UK down at eighth. If once considers military power India is also a Great Power.  In 2015 the International Institute for Strategic Studies placed India as fifth biggest defence spender in the world, after the US, China, Saudi Arabia and the UK.

It is liberal-democracy and the rule of just law that is at the heart of the New West. However, if this West is to prevail it must be reinforced by power – economic and military. The United States by dint of its very strategic weight is emerging as the hub of the New West, a world-wide web of democracies that will come to define perhaps the world’s most powerful security grouping in the twenty-first century.

However, for the New West to become fact those of us in the Old West will need to change our thinking, particularly about India. Some years ago I attended a meeting in New Delhi with senior Indian politicians. Sitting next to me was an official from the British High Commission. My thesis was as ever direct; the Raj is over, India is an emerging Great Power and, for all London’s declinism and its propensity to view foreign policy as a perpetual strategic apology, Britain remains a Great Power. Therefore, it is time for Britain and India to celebrate the much that the two powers share, move on and do business.

As I spoke I could feel the discomfort from my Foreign Office colleague. For the ‘FCO’ ‘don‘t mention the Raj’ with India has the same sacred mantra quality as ‘don’t mention the war’ with Germany.  When I had finished said official effectively apologised on my behalf for my remarks by distancing the FCO from them, even though it was not his place to do so. At that point an Indian politician said that I was right. Britain’s endless apology for the past was in fact a form of arrogance; an attempt to frame India eternally in terms of Britain’s past. That must stop.

Prime Minister Modi made it perfectly clear that India will define its relationship with the United States and the wider West on Indian terms. It will be a pluralistic relationship built on strength and respect. He is surely right. However, for the huge potential in the Indian-US relationship to be truly realised Western capitals must see India for the power it is. India is still too often viewed through the lens of post-colonialism by the West. Yes, India has a myriad of developmental problems to overcome. However, there can be little doubt that the world’s biggest democracy has the wherewithal to do just that.

The US-India strategic relationship promises to be one of the most important security relationships of the twenty-first century – built on the very mix of power and values needed to shape and not suffer a changing world. If European powers like Britain and their little leaders could only stop being so pathetic and wake up and smell India’s strong coffee, they too could be part of the exciting future Prime Minister Modi’s presence in Congress implied, and part of a New West (or whatever you want to call it) that India will help define.

Julian Lindley-French  

Friendly-Clinch’s Big Ballistic Brexit Blast

Alphen, Netherlands. 7 June. Chaired by the excellent Dr Phillip Lee MP it was British democracy at its best. Last Friday evening I took part in an excellent Brexit debate at Wellington College in the Royal County of Berkshire. Aimed at the Brexit ‘undecideds’ I made the case for ‘in’ alongside an old and much respected colleague Charles Grant, founder of the Centre for European Reform. For the ‘Out’ campaign there were two impressive speakers. Anna Firth, a well-known lawyer and politician made her case for Brexit with forensic precision. Ryan Bourne of the Institute for Economic Affairs, brought a huge weight of serious economic expertise to the debate. Me? As you will see from my remarks below I made the geopolitical case for ‘in’. That, after all, is what I do.

My essential point was this; there is much about the EU I find nauseating, even potentially inimical to democracy. However, the world is too dangerous and Europe too unstable for Britain to flounce out. Over the next decade the world beyond Europe will force enormous change on Europe. That change will be used by those in the EU dangerously gripped by the idea of an individual-crushing, oligarchic federal super-state to advance their case. Rather, I want Britain, a top five world political, economic, and military power in the EU fighting like mad for a super-alliance of nation-states in which power remains close to the people, and accountable to them. Perhaps the biggest challenge Britain faces is to get a failed political and bureaucratic elite in London to use British power and influence to effect and overcome their own pervasive and endemic declinism.

 

If you are really sad and want to see the debate and my speech in glorious technocolor you can do so online either by going to www.philip-lee.com/video-gallery/ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zckz8TbzlgA

Ten Reasons why I Reject Brexit

“Thank you, Philip. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  It is an honour to be here. You know, I have a strange feeling being here tonight. Living in the Netherlands, watching what passes for the Brexit debate over here, I feel like I am intruding on my own private grief.

Three issues I want briefly to address: Who the hell am I? What do I think of both campaigns so far? Why on geopolitical balance I reject Brexit?

The Takeaway:

But let me start with what the Yanks would call the ‘takeaway’. On Wednesday EU Council President Donald Tusk said that EU leaders should concentrate on practical matters and abandon “utopian dreams of ever closer integration to combat rising Euro-scepticism”. Whether you believe him or not reading between the lines it is clear that the next decade will be a big strategic tipping point for the EU and Europe. I want Britain in there fighting for the principle we fought to give Europe, and which Abraham Lincoln so eloquently described in the Gettysburg Address: “That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

Nor will I pull any punches:

Those of you like me who vote to remain are going to be sorely tested after the referendum: The Greek debt and Eurozone crises are on hold until after 23 June and Britain cannot incubate itself from the consequences – in or out. The Italian debt crisis might well soon break. The migration crisis is a systemic challenge that will continue as millions the world-over are on the move. Germany for entirely legitimate reasons will push to turn the Eurozone into a hybrid federation under its leadership – a Real EU.  Forget George Osborne and the woeful Treasury; the EU is an economic basket case that must become more competitive or die.

So, why am I committed to Britain staying in the EU?

It is precisely because Brexit is a symptom of a big strategic crisis in Europe, and it is precisely because Europe is in crisis, that I cannot countenance Britain, Europe’s leading military power and second biggest economy, leaving the EU at this moment.  I just wish the numpties on both sides in London would see that.

So, who the hell am I?

I am an analyst, not a politician. I call it as I see it. I am also a Briton/Yorkshireman living in the Netherlands with my Dutch wife. I would describe myself as a Europhile, EU-sceptic. And, like many in my Dutch village I do not like distant power. Equally, I believe deeply in European co-operation, but completely reject the dangerous idea of a European super-state. Read my writings and you will find me no friend of the Brussels elite (which I know well). That said, I reject the caricature of Brussels as brim-full of power-mad foreigners hell-bent on destroying Britain’s ancient freedoms. Only 90% or so are of that persuasion.

What do I think about the campaigns on both sides?

Rubbish…on both sides! Anyone who tells you that the case for ‘in’ or ‘out’ is black and white is either lying, deluding themselves, or plain stupid. This is one of those moments when we must all exercise strategic judgement.  Sadly, the Brexit campaign is not the British political class at its best (present company of course excepted).  The only facts you need to know are the following. In 2015 the International Monetary Fund cited Britain as the world’s 5^th biggest economy. In 2015 the International Institute for Strategic Studies had Britain as the world’s 4^th biggest defence spender. Britain is not a small island as some would have it; Britain is a top five world power but needs to start acting like one. Indeed, for me the real issue implicit in Brexit is why the Westminster political class and the Whitehall Establishment have become so bad at wielding British power and influence, in Europe or elsewhere. To find out why in 2015 I wrote a book entitled Little Britain. It is brilliant, and very-reasonably priced!

Let me also state for the record that I am in some sympathy with the Brexiteers, and whilst the Cameron plan is not as weak as some would have it, there will be no reform of the EU per se under the Cameron plan. With a few window dressing minor adjustments most of the so-called ‘new’ arrangements actually exist under current treaty provisions. The agreement confirms that Britain will not at any point be part of EU structures of which it is already NOT a part, most notably the Euro, Schengen, and ever closer political union. Der! So, why do I reject Brexit?

Ten reasons why I reject Brexit?

1. The integrity of the United Kingdom: The UK is fragile and I do not want to give the secessionists in Scotland any succour.

2. The balance of power in Europe is shifting in Britain’s favour: Britain is already the EU’s

 strongest military power, some commentators (CEBR) suggest that by 2030 the EU’s 2^nd biggest economy could be the biggest.

3. Pressure for EU reform will grow: Britain is not alone. Come to my Dutch village, and you will see growing demands for more democracy, more accountability and an EU more alliance than union organised around the nation-state rather than committed to destroying it. Dutch Prime Minister Marc Rutte has already said the idea of a full-on super-state is dead.
4. Immigration: Free movement is as much a consequence of victory in the Cold War as the EU. EU or not we would have something like free movement in Europe. Indeed, it is hard to imagine contemporary Europe without it. The failure is a failure of management.
5. If it’s broke fix it! The EU is a fact of life - stay or go. Even Jean-Claude Juncker has admitted the EU needs a new political settlement for Eurozone and the non-Eurozone to cohabit. I want Britain in there fighting like mad to influence what is a vital British interest. In any case Britain has a constitutional lock under the 2011 European Union Act, which means any more transfers of sovereignty will require (heaven forbid!) yet another (bloody) referendum.
6. Good Geopolitics: No Project Fear but this is a dangerous strategic moment. All of us in the EU to be focused on events in Russia and the Middle East and yet we are not. The Scottish referendum effectively paralysed the British government for two years. Whitehall is again paralysed in the run-up to this referendum. Brexit negotiations will take at least two years, more likely five or more years. Our strategically-illiterate elite need little excuse to again take their collective eye off the big strategic ball.
7. Grand Strategy: In January 2016 I stood in the Lithuanian snow not far from the border with Russia. In November 2015 and March 2016 terrorist attacks took place in Paris and Brussels. Europe is again locked in two big, bad struggles with big, bad forces. Brexit now would send all the wrong signals to all the wrong people. We simply cannot isolate ourselves. We are too powerful to hide. We must stand with our friends and allies both in NATO and the EU.
8. The Weight of History:  The control and direction of Europe is simply too critical a national British interest. Boris Johnson was right…and wrong. Phillip II of Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon, Kaiser Bill and, yes, Adolf Hitler, were all   seen off because first England and then Britain stood firm, built coalitions and counter-vailing liberal power. It was not the US that gave much of Europe parliamentary democracy; it was Britain.
9. The EU is still about Power. Let me be clear; the EU is none of the above and I do not equate Brussels with Hitler’s Berlin. Indeed, what became the EU was created precisely to prevent a Hitler ever again rising to power. However, Project Europe is but still about power; who controls it, and for the benefit of whom. Like it or loathe it the EU prevents extreme behaviour by extreme states. It must now be prevented from slipping into a form of bureaucratic tyranny. Britain must engage, not disengage!
10. Political Irony: The political irony of Brexit is that after all the froth and foment there is every chance Britain will end up in exactly the same place whether it stays of goes. Cameron’s ‘special status’ means Britain will become an associate member of the Real EU – the Eurozone. If Britain goes then Britain will end up as an associate member of the Eurozone. The difference being that if Britain stays in the EU Britain is at least at the table. Do not think for the moment those in Parliament who desire to remain will take a Brexit vote as the last word.  Brexit commits no politician to any particular model and given the Parliamentary majority for Remain withdrawal negotiations will almost certainly lead to a compromise relationship with the EU.

So, my own position is clear. On balance Britain should remain within the EU, lead the reformers, lead the non-Eurozone group, and fight like mad for an EU that is for the people, of the people, and by the people.

Britain does not quit!

Julian Lindley-French

Jutland

“This much is certain, he that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much or as little of the war as he will, whereas those that the strongest by the land are many times nevertheless in great straits”.

Sir Francis Bacon

Der Tag. 31 May, 2016. At 1815 hours on 31 May, 1916 peering through the North Sea mist, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet, on board the battleship HMS Iron Duke, raised the signal, “hoist equal speed pendant south-east by east”.  With the execution of the signal from the flagship the Royal Navy’s twenty-four mighty Super-Dreadnought and Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers began to swing into battle line astern. South south-east of Jellicoe Admiral Reinhard Scheer’s twenty-one battleships and battlecruisers of the German High Seas Fleet were forging northward in pursuit of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty’s battered Battlecruiser Fleet and the four enormous Queen Elizabeth-class Super-Dreadnought battleships of the 5^th Battle Squadron.

At 1628 hours fire had commenced marking the start of the main Battle of the Jutland Bank. Over the ensuing two hours Vice-Admiral Franz von Hipper’s superbly-handled German battlecruisers had the better of their British counterparts. In short order HMS Indefatigable and HMS Queen Mary blew up under accurate German gunfire with the loss of almost three thousand officers and men. Worse, the British were shortly to lose another battlecruiser, Rear-Admiral Horace Hood’s HMS Invincible, to the guns of SMS Derfflinger.

However, the reckoning was at hand and two men could see what was about to happen. First, Commodore Reginald Goodenough, of the Second Light Cruiser Squadron exclaimed, “Now we have them”. Between the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet Goodenough watched the Grand Fleet deploy as it ‘crossed the T’ of an as yet oblivious Scheer.  And then, having chased Beatty’s damaged force northwards for over an hour, Rear-Admiral Paul Behnke on the bridge of the German battleship SMS Konig to the fore of Scheer’s force, became bemused as to why Beatty began to turn his ships to starboard across the path of the High Seas Fleet bent on his destruction. To Behnke it seemed like tactical suicide and for a moment he must have thought victory was at hand. It was not.

As Behnke emerged from a bank of mist he was met with a terrifying sight. Stretched out before him, huge white battle ensigns flying, over one hundred 12.5 inch, 13.5 inch, 14 inch and 15 inch heavy guns training round towards him, Behnke watched as the Grand Fleet began to commence rapid, rippling fire. The High Seas Fleet had sailed into a trap. Scheer did not even know that Jellicoe was at sea.

Heavy gunfire spread rapidly across the horizon to Scheer’s north and east as the Grand Fleet threatened to surround the High Seas Fleet. Not only had Admiral Jellicoe succeeded in gaining a critical tactical advantage, he had also surprised Scheer, had the advantage of admittedly fading light, and whilst Jellicoe could see Scheer, all Scheer could see of Jellicoe was a sea of gunfire to his north and east. Worse, Jellicoe threatened to cut off the retreat of the High Seas Fleet back to its fleet anchorage at Wilhelmshaven. This was the schwerpunkt of Der Tag.

Had it not been for one superbly-executed and well-exercised about-turn under fire (gefechtskerhtwendung), and one rather more hastily-contrived turn, the outstanding build quality of the German ships, the questionable penetrating power of British armour-piercing shells, and an inability of British gunnery officers to identify fall of shot given that so many were raining down on the High Seas Fleet, a second Trafalgar seemed momentarily in the offing. But, Scheer slipped away, although the battle was not over. Probably believing he would pass astern of the Grand Fleet at 1855 hours Scheer turned the High Seas Fleet about and sailed straight back into the waiting British guns which re-opened a ferocious fire on their German counterparts.

In what was seen by Scheer himself as miraculous his battered force eventually escaped with the loss of ‘only’ two capital ships; the battlecruiser SMS Lutzow and the ageing pre-Dreadnought battleship SMS Pommern. The German press of the day in a fit of propaganda claimed ‘Skagerrak’ as a victory. However, Scheer knew otherwise for in his after-action report to Kaiser Wilhelm II he acknowledged that the British had superior intelligence and firepower and that the High Seas Fleet must never again be drawn into a direct confrontation with the Grand Fleet.

   

One contributing factor in Scheer’s escape was that offered the opportunity to turn towards Scheer and finish the rout, but faced with the threat of an all-out torpedo attack from German destroyers and the risk of damage to his fleet, Jellicoe chose caution and turned two points away. Jellicoe was much criticised after the battle for this decision. However, as Winston Churchill remarked after the battle; “Jellicoe was the only man on both sides who could have lost the war in an afternoon”.

As an example of British sea power Jutland was probably as important as Trafalgar for it preserved the blockade which was so crippling Germany, and effectively knocked the High Seas Fleet out of the sea war by establishing once and for all the Royal Navy’s superiority.  It would take months to repair grievously damaged German ships. Jellicoe’s force was ready for renewed action the next day and over the ensuing months became even stronger in relative terms.

Lessons? Jutland was a tactical defeat for Beatty and a strategic success for Jellicoe.  However, if ever the aphorism 'fog of war' proved apposite it was at the Battle of Jutland. The battle revealed many shortcomings in the Royal Navy of the time: the dangers of a split force and a lack of unity of effort between Commander-in-Chief Jellicoe and commander of the battlecruisers Beatty; the adoption of a gunnery range-finding system known to be inferior to its German counterparts; the loss of at least two capital ships due to poor weapons-handling procedures in battle as Beatty compensated for a lack of gunnery practice with rapid rate of fire; at times appalling malpractice in fleet signalling partly due to reliance on flag signals dating back to the Nelsonian era over a battlespace many more times larger than Trafalgar; a refusal to use the then new wireless radio technology; and a refusal to properly exploit good intelligence. In spite of all that Jellicoe’s sudden appearance in the battle proved decisive and the Royal Navy won the Battle of Jutland.

This blog is in honour of all the men on both sides who fought at the Battle of Jutland and the 8645 men who on 1 and 2 June 1916 did not return to port.

Julian Lindley-French 

Is the EU Building an Army?

Alphen, Netherlands. 28 May. Last Thursday The Times ran a headline that implied that the EU was about to embark on the construction of a European Defence Union (EDU). As France and Germany together commemorate the centennial of 800,000 lost souls at the Battle of Verdun is the EU about to build an army?

On 28 June, a week or so before the big NATO Warsaw Summit (and conveniently a week after the Brexit vote) an EU Summit will take place at which EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini will unveil the Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy. The document states that, “… [EU] security and defence is where a step change is most urgent”, and suggests that, “…in turbulent times, we need a compass to navigate the waters of a faster-changing world”. The Strategy goes on, “The EU can step up its contribution to Europe’s security and defence”, and that, “Our external action must become more joined-up across policy areas, institutions and member-states. Greater unity of purpose is needed across the policy areas making up our external action”.

At the heart of the proposals are a new EU military headquarters, a new civil-military headquarters, equipment, intelligence and force pooling, as well as the creation of a formal European Council of Defence Ministers (ECDM). A European army? Critically, the creation of the ECDM would be a body comprised of national ministers and not the kind of supranational command that was envisaged for the failed European Defence Community, Europe’s first attempt at creating a European army which failed back in the 1950s.

    

Furthermore, the language of the Strategy is decidedly inter-governmental rather than federalist. It refers to the need to become more “joined-up” rather than more ‘integrated’. Moreover, Mogherini herself is believed to be far more lukewarm about the idea of a European army than, say, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The proposal is also perfectly in line with the 2009 Lisbon Treaty and the agreed on development of a Common Security and Defence Policy or CSDP.

But there is a grand ‘but’. At the heart of the security and defence components in the Global Strategy is a form of federalism, albeit a distinctly hybrid form of federalism driven first and foremost by Berlin’s concerns that the EU might fail. The ‘success’ of the EU is central to contemporary Germany’s legitimate concept of security. Therefore, post-Brexit Berlin will move quickly to extend its influence via Brussels over its continental neighbours by using the EU to integrate Europe’s smaller powers around Germany.

The three core elements in the German strategy are the Eurozone, Schengen, and the forthcoming European Defence Union. That is why nine EU member-states are about to be led by Germany towards a form of EDU by using so-called permanent structured co-operation, which was also agreed in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. That is also why Germany will likely call for a European Defence Union in Berlin’s forthcoming July Defence “Weissbuch” (White Book).

        

This is important. If an EU hybrid-federation does indeed emerge built around Germany it is likely over time NATO would also be re-ordered into an Anglosphere comprised of America, Britain and Canada, and a Eurosphere organised by and around Berlin, possibly with a few floaters in the middle.

Britain? If there is one area of EU ‘competence’ where real and actual power matters it is matters military. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies the top five global military spenders in 2015 were the US at $597 billion (bn); China at $146 bn; Saudi Arabia at $82 bn; Britain at 56 bn, and Russia at $52 bn. This compares with France at $47 bn, and Germany at $37 bn, and the rest nowhere. Therefore, given the facts of power and Germany’s coming demarche, even if Britain votes to stay in the EU London’s relationship with the Real EU (the Eurozone) will remain at best semi-detached as the UK will not join either the Euro or Schengen, and will certainly not be part of Germany’s hybrid-federation.

This summer is thus a really big strategic moment for Europe. Come July and the need for a new EU political settlement will become ever more apparent as the ‘one-size fits all’ Lisbon Treaty is fast overtaken by events. Critically, there will be a clear need to ensure that the relationship between those within the hybrid-federation and those without is workable and just. Should the British vote to remain, and if those in London with a strategically-illiterate balance-sheet view of power can for once be side-lined, Britain would almost certainly emerge as the leader of those inside the EU but outside the hybrid-federation. My essential reason for rejecting Brexit is in the hope that London would for once apply power via influence over an EU that is at a critical juncture.

Therefore, it might also be a good moment for Berlin to wake up from its ‘we know best about everything’ culture and realise its own ambitions are to a significant extent dependent on a new grand strategic European bargain between Britain and Germany. Indeed, as Britain increasingly eclipses France as the EU’s second economic power and leading military power then such a bargain would clearly be in the interest of both states.

As for Euro-idealism forget it! It is finance rather than dream of a European army that is driving EDU. The 28 May decision of Eurozone finance ministers to offer Greece a further €8bn in loans but then two years hence offer Athens debt relief (crucially and cynically after the 2017 French presidential and German federal elections) is a big step down the road to debt mutualisation. Indeed, an important precedent was set at the May meeting. Given that 18 EU member-states are carrying public debt far beyond the 3% debt to GDP ratio enshrined in EU law the result of that meeting will not only likely mean more austerity for the debtor members, but more large transfers of taxpayer’s money from the ten EU member-states that actually pay for the EU.

The EU is now on (another) collision course with NATO. The US is demanding that NATO Europeans spend at least 2% GDP on defence, albeit “within a decade”. In 2017 come a President Clinton or quite possibly a President Trump those demands are likely to grow with Washington demanding 2% immediately. The problem is that debt mutualisation, allied to EU ‘law’ over public debt, will almost certainly mean many Alliance members will simply be unable to meet the NATO target.

Trapped between EU and US demands for more defence expenditure many EU member-states will doubtless look for a solution. Euro-federalists, such as Juncker, will use this tension to insist that a ‘common’ defence is the only way to balance defence effectiveness with defence efficiency, and thus the only way to meet the ‘obligations’ of membership of both NATO and the Real EU.  In reality the debt-ceiling would ensure a common defence realises less not more European defence.

There can be no question that by calling for an EDU at such a time suggests that one-day a European army might be created. However, for the EU to have an army the Union would need to be state in its own right and such a ‘state’ remains a long way off.  Current proposals are more likely to lead to a grouping of relatively weak military powers around a Germany that is still reluctant to play a full defence role. Therefore, for the moment a ‘European army’ would exist in name only, with EDU yet another paper exercise built on more empty defence acronyms, leading to yet another European force that is at best able to undertake some crisis management operations, but little more.

Is the EU building an army? No, not yet. In future? Who knows? After all, the historic eloquence of Verdun remains a powerful symbol for France and Germany. 

Julian Lindley-French  

HMS Hood & KM Bismarck

0659 hours CET. 24 May, 2016. Seventy-five years ago to this moment a fifteen inch (38cm) shell from the German fast battleship KM Bismarck entered above the aft main magazine of the British battlecruiser HMS Hood. At some 47,000 tons and also armed with a main armament of eight fifteen inch guns ‘The Mighty Hood’ was the symbol of British naval might during the interbellum. Moments later Hood was a broken, sinking, flaming wreck.

HMS Hood was joined in the action by the brand new and effectively incomplete battleship HMS Prince of Wales under the command of Captain J.C. Leach. Having been hit seven times by Bismarck. HMS Prince of Wales was also damaged in the action and Captain Leach had to take evasive manoeuvres to avoid the rearing wreck of the Hood as she broke up and sank. The damaged Prince of Wales subsequently made smoke to mask her range and correctly broke off the action affording the Germans a major naval victory.

Recently film was unearthed taken from the German heavy-cruiser KM Prinz Eugen which shows the moment HMS Hood blew up. The flash suggests an explosion with the force of a low yield atomic weapon which broke the Hood apart. Within a minute 1418 men were lost, including the fleet commander Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland, as the Hood sank into the icy wastes of the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. Three of Hood’s sailors survived; Able Seamen Ted Briggs, Bill Dundas and Bob Tillmann.

In July 2001 the wreck of HMS Hood was discovered lying in some 1500 fathoms or 3000 metres. She rests in three sections with the bow on its port side some distance ahead of an upside down amidships section, whilst what remains of the stern rests a further distance away astern. Astonishingly, some 300 feet (or 100 metres) of the hull appears to have simply disintegrated, testament to the force of what actually may have been two blasts, with the explosion of the aft main magazine followed shortly thereafter by the forward main magazine as she sank.

HMS Hood was soon avenged. Crucially, during the action HMS Prince of Wales scored at least three hits on Bismarck one in the forward oil bunker which flooded the German ship with 2000 tons of sea water and forced her to abandon her commerce-raiding mission. Three days later at 0800 hours on 27 May the Hood’s assailant capsized and sank taking with her 1995 of her 2200 strong crew. In an exercise in sea power the Bismarck was hunted down by the Royal Navy, crippled by British carrier-based aircraft, and in what rapidly became a massacre Bismarck was effectively destroyed by the battleships HMS King George V and HMS Rodney under the command of Commander-in-Chief Home Fleet, Admiral J.C. Tovey. She was then sunk by three torpedoes from the heavy-cruiser HMS Dorsetshire (although German accounts claim Bismarck was scuttled). The shattered wreck of the Bismarck now lies at a depth of 4790 metres, 470 nautical miles west of Brest.

Lessons?  Some questions must be asked about Admiral Holland’s tactics. The intercept course plotted by Holland enabled the two German ships to engage both the Hood and Prince of Wales with their full armament, whilst the British ships could only engage with their forward main armament during the early stages of the action. In a ghostly memory of events seventy-five years ago the rudders on Hood’s wreck are locked forever hard to port demonstrating clearly that as she blew up Admiral Holland was attempting to ‘open the arc’ of the Hood’s main aft turrets so they too could fire on Bismarck. 

There also seems to have been mistakes made on board Hood in ship identification as the flagship first engaged the Prinz Eugen leaving Bismarck to open fire unmolested. A review of the Prinz Eugen film on YouTube also shows British shells falling far from their target with little or no grouping of the shells as they splash harmlessly into the sea.   

HMS Hood was a part-modernised British battlecruiser-cum-fast battleship of 1919 vintage that was in reality no match for the Bismarck. Her destruction was sorry testament to what happens when technology is over-reached by strategy. The Bismarck was an ultra-modern 1941 battleship which combined speed, armour and firepower. However, the Bismarck’s own fate was sealed because technology alone cannot atone for bad strategy.

As the forward section of HMS Hood slipped beneath the waves her two forward turrets barked out one last defiant salvo. It may well have been that all the guns were loaded and the firing circuits closed as the ship sank. Quite possibly it was a last salute from a brave but doomed sailor or Royal Marine on board a dying ship.

Seventy years ago this week and within three days some 3400 Europeans were killed at sea. At this time of European foment it is perhaps appropriate to remember the sacrifice of all those who gave their lives - British and German alike.

Requiescat in Pace. Rest in peace. Rühe in Frieden.

Julian Lindley-French 

Europe’s Leaders are Europe’s Greatest Weakness

Alphen, Netherlands. 23 May. Europe’s leaders are Europe’s greatest weakness. Stockholm is a beautiful city, both solid and enticing in equal measure as it cavorts between land, sea, and sky. And yet behind the façade of Swedish steadiness worry lurks. So much so that Sweden is quietly resurrecting its old Total Defence Concept as it becomes ever clearer that Russia regards Swedes as part of their self-declared special zone of influence.

My reason for being in Sweden was to attend a NATO-backed Advanced Research Workshop organised by my own Atlantic Treaty Association. The subject; hybrid warfare and the need for societal resilience. The meeting addressed the particular threats posed by cyber, and other Janus-faced technologies, to the very connectivities that make modern Western society function. As the meeting unfolded news spread that the main radar at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport had gone down, and that two important Swedish radio masts had been sabotaged. The prevailing view was that both installations had been attacked, and that Russia could well have been responsible.

Now, if it was the Russians then it would be nice (for me at least) to think that the attack took place to mark my arrival in Stockholm to talk about the threat posed by Russia through hybrid warfare at a NATO-backed meeting. However, peering through the fog of my own ego the attack just may have had more to do with the parallel launch of the new Saab Grippen E fighter, and/or Montenegro becoming the latest member of NATO. 

The ARW meeting was excellent. Lots of intelligence, academic, and business specialists got up to frighten the life out of me about what could be done to my life by some spotty-nosed oick in the back of beyond armed with a lap-top and zit-fuelled attitude. It was especially frightening if, aforesaid specialists said, aforesaid oick was backed by an adversary state (no names, no pack drill). In such circumstances there was every chance apparently I could be remotely switched off, and millions like me,and transformed into a can of sardines. I would prefer tuna.

Now, as is often the case with such meetings, I was held back for its finale for which I had prepared a worthy presentation entitled: “Hybrid Threats? What Should NATO Stand Ready For (not my title)? Instead, I tore the thing up in front of my audience. Why? Because I am getting tired of making ‘should’ presentations. Indeed, I wasted ten years of my life with ‘should’ presentations on the so-called Comprehensive Approach, whereby everyone was meant to do everything, all together, at exactly the same time, to make Afghanistan and other places safer. Why am I so tired of making such presentations? Politicians. Or, to be exact, the inability of a European political leadership in denial to properly consider worst-case scenarios. 

Given that the Stockholm ‘ARW’ was meant to be part of the preparations for July’s NATO Warsaw Summit one would have hoped that it was part of a Great Awakening on the part of Europe’s leaders as to the threats Europe really faces. However, be it the threat posed by Russia and/or ISIS there seems little appetite to break out of the ‘let’s be friends with Russia at all costs’, or the ‘all hyper-immigration is wonderful’ political psychosis into which much of Europe’s political caste has retreated bereft as they are of solutions.

   

By coincidence, as I was speaking in Stockholm my old friend General Sir Richard Shirreff was addressing another question head on; ‘what if’ Russia attacked the Baltic States. In his new novel entitled 2017: War with Russia Richard describes an attack by Moscow that in effect removes the Baltic States from the EU and NATO by military means. Fantasy? You would think so listening to the usual coterie of bleeding heart luvvies who stepped out of the woodwork of uninformity to criticise Richard. Wake up and smell the real world!

Some time ago I was Head of the Commander’s Initiative Group of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps. The commander? Richard Shirreff. Richard then went on to become NATO’s No.2 military man as deputy supreme allied commander, Europe (DSACEUR). As DSACEUR Richard witnessed daily what the Russians and indeed ISIS are trying to do to Europe.

               

The book has all the hallmarks of another great work of faction back in the 1980s, General Sir John Hackett's The Third World War. Yes, at some level such works need to be treated with a pinch cum dose of political salt. They also need to be taken deadly seriously. Reading between the lines Shirreff’s book is pretty much making the same point as Hackett’s book; the threat is not simply that posed by an adversary like Russia or ISIS. It is the threat posed by Western European political leaders in denial and the consequent obsession of such ‘leaders-lite’ with political news management rather than, and at the expense of, crisis resolution. 

The hard truth is that until and unless ‘leaders’ like David Cameron, Francois Hollande, and Angela Merkel, and the careerist yes men and women with whom they surround themselves, really start to listen to the intelligence briefings they get, Europe will go on becoming steadily less defended and less defensible. Sadly, such briefings are still too often filed in the ‘what is politically possible’ dodgy dossier, rather than the ‘what is strategically necessary’ action dossier.

   

The true test of that switch will be when meetings like Stockholm cease to be interesting, but by and large irrelevant, exercises with little or no planning traction, and instead start to inform real defence planning. For, as I said in my remarks, if our societies remain as vulnerable as they do today to disrupting and destabilising attacks at the many seams that today exist within them, politicians will be unwilling to project the influence and force needed to keep Europeans safe.

Sadly, Europe’s leaders are not as yet willing to face the hard realities of hard Realism the twenty-first century is incubating. One would hope the coming NATO Warsaw Summit would be the Great Awakening. Don’t hold your breath. My fear is that only the coming mega-shock will awake Europe’s weak leaders from their strategic slumber. Until they do awake Europe’s politicians, their lack of strategic imagination, and their collective weakness, will continue to pose the greatest threat to Europe.

Julian Lindley-French  

Heat not light: The Tyranny of the Input Culture

Stockholm, Sweden. 18 May. Suddenly there is a glut of money. The British government is desperately trying to find projects to spend billions of unspent aid and development money. Meanwhile, the Treasury (finance ministry) has ordered that all of this money must be spent by the end of calendar year 2016. The result? A lot of ill-thought through projects subject to little due diligence that will consume huge amounts of British taxpayer’s money to no particular effect so that David ‘no ifs, no buts’ Cameron can say London has met its target of spending 0.7% of Britain’s economic worth on worthiness. Waste would be a better word than spend. Why?

It is the tyranny of the input culture that generates such waste. The simple truth is that the political cycle and the outcomes cycle do not match. Short-termist, tactician politicians, of whom David Cameron is the doyen, simply do not have the political shelf-life to await the beneficial outcomes they claim to be generating. Therefore, political leaders much prefer to focus on inputs so that they can claim credit for the money spent, rather than await outcomes which will benefit some other political leader, possibly from another political party.  

The effect of this tyranny can be devastating because it kills strategy; the considered application of means in pursuit of considered and relevant ends. Indeed, it is the tyranny of the input culture that renders politics the enemy of strategy. This was all too apparent to me on a visit to Afghanistan and in my subsequent report. Too many European states in particular focused on how much money they were investing, how many projects they had undertaken, and how many more children were being educated than hitherto. There was little real regard to the actual needs of Afghanistan as a country or the outcomes that were vitally-needed if the country was ever to be stabilised. The result was strategic failure, an egregious waste of taxpayer’s money, and years of political cover-up and obfuscation.

The tyranny of the input culture also warps the activities of civil society, most notably non-governmental organisations (NGOs). When governments suddenly become desperate to spend money in order to generate a political illusion NGOs go into a feeding frenzy. This encourages small, non-viable charities to offer a myriad of even smaller, non-viable projects. This is exactly what is happening now to Britain’s overseas aid and development budget.

Nor is the tyranny confined to aid and development. It also drives ‘summititis’, a particularly painful and useless infection that takes place shortly before gatherings of EU and NATO heads of state and government. Desperate for something to announce officials cast around for new projects upon which to heap money so that political leaders can give the impression of progress where none exists. The result is a culture in which ‘success’ is too often measured by the smooth running of a summit and/or the agreed ‘language’ that emerges than any outcome on the ground that actually changes things for the better.

Sadly, my own country Britain has become a leading exponent of this tyranny. Indeed, so fixated has the Westminster/Whitehall Establishment become with the need to see short-term politics and inputs as long-term strategy and outcomes that I fear London is no longer capable of conducting a proper audit into the outcomes it desires or the effect of its ‘investments’. There are many dangers from both remaining within a changing EU and leaving it. However, one of the greatest dangers Britain faces comes from London’s input-obsessed political and bureaucratic elite which might suddenly be called upon to think about the real relationship between strategic inputs and outcomes in pursuit of the British national interest. Whatever happens after June 23^rd, and whosoever is in Downing Street, expect a flurry of big spending inputs presented as strategy designed to give the impression of post-referendum political momentum, where in fact little or none exists.  

Sadly, such nonsense is not confined to London. One reason the Court of Auditors refuses to sign off on the EU budget year-after-year is that Brussels also suffers from the tyranny of the input culture. Not only is it very hard to understand why many EU projects are funded, it is even harder to see how the money was spent, let alone the ‘beneficial’ outcome that was generated.

However, perhaps the greatest victims of this tyranny are Europeans themselves. So corrosive is this culture become in the body politic that long-term strategic planning is being killed off. Yes, leaders talk a good talk about such planning because the appearance thereof is part of the tyranny. However, because the relationship between the often massive means invested and outcomes generated has become so tenuous the influence of Europeans on world events is far less than the sum of its many parts.

In other words, the tyranny of the input culture is probably the single greatest factor in Europe’s rapid relative decline. And, that decline like the tyranny that spawns it is nowhere more apparent than in Europe’s security and defence.

Ho hum!

Julian Lindley-French                        

    

CDSP: More ‘E’ less ‘C’?

Alphen, Netherlands. 16 May. CSDP: what’s in a letter? Last Thursday I spoke at the 2016 EU in International Affairs bash in Brussels. The subject of the meeting was the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy and to what extent ‘CSDP’ had imposed costs on the UK. My point was that hitherto CSDP had imposed very little cost on the UK because it is not actually CSDP. Instead, CSDP remains little changed from its forebear the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), i.e. an inter-governmental (to use wonk-speak) mechanism and decidedly not a ‘common’ mechanism. So what, many of you out there are no doubt asking?

Well, in theory at least CSDP could not be more different than ESDP. ‘C’, i.e. ‘common’ implies a supranational force over which political decision-making would be taken away from the EU member-state and given to what would need to be a form of European Government, especially as it would involve decisions over the life and death of service personnel. Still with me?

Since ESDP became CSDP with the 2007 Lisbon Treaty the ‘C’ has by and large remained silent. Rather, CSDP has become ESDP-plus (or is that ESDP-minus?). Indeed, CSDP remains much closer to the Franco-British view of EU security and defence as set out in the 1998 St Malo Declaration, than the vision for defence union in the ill-fated 1952-1954 European Defence Community of which in 1953 Churchill famously said: “We are with them, but not of them”. Consequently, CSDP has continued to be quite useful to the British, and indeed the French, the two European powers that matter in such matters. This is because the flag one puts atop a military campaign is almost as important as the force one deploys into a complex security environment.

Take Libya. There is much talk about an Italian-led EU operation to stabilise the Libyan coast around Sirte and thus help disrupt the hyper-people-smuggling that is destabilising Europe and taking so many lives. One could not imagine such a force operating in that environment under a NATO, UK, French, let alone an American flag. Therefore, having the option of operating under an EU flag communicates a very distinctive political message about the identity, and indeed the nature and purpose of a deployed force. For that reason CSDP is useful to the British and French precisely because it affords London and Paris political options in a crisis.

 

The countries that actually want CSDP are those that have neither a strategic culture nor many forces. For them a truly common CSDP would absolve their political leaders of responsibility for sending national forces on unpopular foreign adventures. For them the ‘c’ in  is a small ‘c’ because it stands for weakness.

And now the must-ask question these days. Where does Germany fit into all of this? After all, once the Brexit brouhaha has calmed down the real fight for the future of Europe will begin which is the real relevance of CSDP. Indeed, implicit in the entire Brexit debacle is a debate about the future balance of power in the EU.

In the coming fight there will be three sides. On one of the three sides there will be the ‘plucky’ Brits desperately trying to keep the whole CSDP thing intergovernmental, probably with the quiet but incomplete support of the French. On one of the other sides there will be the Euro-federalists led by the supra-elite, as represented by the recent Five Presidents Report, which will seek to expand ever closer political and economic union into a defence union. And on a third side will be the Germans trying to use CSDP-plus, i.e. a European Defence Union, to push towards the creation of a hybrid EU super-state which it controls, possibly with the support of Berlin’s new best friend Washington.

CSDP would be central to the German creation of a hybrid EU precisely because it would combine elements of both EU supranationalism and contemporary German liberal hegemony. That is why Berlin is considering including the concept of a European Defence Union (EDU) in its July defence white paper. Under EDU ‘ever closer defence union’ would be imposed on all EU member-states except Germany. Berlin would claim a form of American-style exceptionalism on the basis that it would be the paymaster. Berlin would also no doubt claim that if there is to be a European Defence Union then at least one power would need to remain free to play Leviathan to ensure compliance. However, EDU will fail.

Why? Three reasons. First, one very important design purpose of CSDP is to weaken the fundamental purpose of the state, to ensure the security and defence of its citizens, by transferring state sovereignty over time to the Brussels institutions. Not even David Cameron would agree to that. Second, defence more than any other area of state competence is about power. In 2015 IISS placed Britain as the world’s fourth biggest defence spender. With a defence budget of $56bn Britain spends some $9bn per annum more than France, and some $20bn more than Germany. Third, if a state spends 2% of its GDP on defence and yet decisions are being taken on the use of that force by people coming from states that spend far less either said state would not join such a common mechanism, or said state would reduce its expenditure to the lowest common denominator of shared CSDP investment.  In time CSDP and the defence of Europe would fail. In other words, as currently envisaged a ‘common’ CSDP is a defence nonsense.   

   

So what to do? Neither the British nor in reality the French want much more ‘C’ in CSDP. Yes, the French pretend they want more CSDP for political reasons. However, there is no more chance of France subsuming its forces under supranational control than my beloved Sheffield United winning the Champion’s League. Moreover, for all the political ambitions implicit in CSDP there is not going to be a European super-state, and Germany is not going to be Europe’s leading military power.  However, Europeans will need to work together more closely for their own defence and an American-centric NATO will remain central to that defence, albeit underpinned by an increasingly over-stretched US. Given the balance of realities there could be no EU security and defence policy worthy of the name without Britain.

Therefore, if CSDP is to be credible it must stop being used as a back-door to supranationalism and take its proper place in the gamut of mutually-reinforcing security and defence tools available to Europeans in the twenty-first century. In other words, take implied EU supranationalism out of the mix and CSDP might actually begin to work.      

Critically, the world’s fifth biggest economy and fourth biggest defence spender will not be subsumed within a genuine Common Security and Defence Policy.  Indeed, for all the German talk about including a European Defence Union in their forthcoming defence white paper unless it is underpinned by hard defence investment then Bismarck would suggest CSDP will remain not unworthy of the bones of a single healthy Pomeranian grenadier.

For all the EU obsession with rules, as President Putin has so rudely reminded Europeans the true ‘common’ denominators of security and defence remain power…and weakness.

CSDP; more ‘E’ less ‘C’. Still awake?

Julian Lindley-French                    

Russia Parades its Weakness

Alphen, Netherlands. May 11^th. Victory Day in Moscow takes place on May 9^th each year and commemorates the day Moscow cites as the end of World War Two. This is because whilst the Western allies signed the instruments of surrender with the Nazi regime on May 8^th 1945, Marshal Stalin insisted upon a separate signing ceremony for the the Soviet Union. This is hardly surprising given the enormous sacrifice the Russian people made during the Great Patriotic War between 1941 and 1945, and their unrivalled contribution to the defeat of Nazism. Equally unsurprising is the 1945 commemorating annual military parade in Moscow’s Red Square. However, far from demonstrating Russia’s might when set against the fundamentals of Russia’s broken economy the parade revealed dangerous weakness.

   

This year as ever the parade that rumbled, roared and marched its way across Red Square was impressive and one cannot blame the average Russian for a sense of pride. In addition to 10,000 troops, 135 military vehicles, and some 355 military aircraft there was also new military equipment on show. These included next generation Su-35s fighters, Mi-28 and Ka-52 helicopters, as well as new S-400 Triumf air defence units, and a new IL-76 transport aircraft. Interestingly, there was no sign of the treaty-busting Iskander Kalibr intermediate-range cruise missile.

     

However, the reality is that whilst President Putin may have created a strong security state, Russia is far from being a powerful country. Indeed, if Russia continues spending the amount it currently spends on security AND defence unless the oil price rises sharply above the $47 per barrel needed to fund Russian public expenditure the Russian economy will eventually collapse.

Or, to put it another way, in 2015 Russia’s economy was worth some $1.2 trillion, the German economy some $3.3tr, Britain’s economy some $2.8tr, and the French economy some $2.4tr. And yet with 2015 Russian military expenditure at 5% of GDP Moscow is spending just about the same on defence as a percentage of its economy as Britain and Germany combined.

Even the military front is something of a Potemkin village. The weakened Russian economy and the consequent collapse in the value of the rouble is having a profoundly negative impact on the modernisation of the Russian military which began back in 2010. Although the original aim back in 2010 was to spend some $700bn over ten years on new armed forces the collapse of the rouble means that Russia can only spend ‘some’ $300bn. Yes, Russia gets far more out of each rouble defence-invested than, say. Britain does for each pound defence-invested. Equally, the British defence equipment investment programme of $250bn over ten years is now almost as big as the entire Russian military modernisation programme, and according to IISS the British spent $5bn more on defence in 2015 than the Russians.

Given the economic facts of Russian life it is thus bizarre that Moscow has locked itself into a campaign of what it calls non-linear warfare (what the West calls hybrid warfare) against the very European countries that provide for most of its foreign direct investment and some 70% of its trade. Worse, that campaign shows no signs of abating.  Indeed, Russia’s use of disinformation, deception, and destabilisation against its western neighbours is becoming more aggressive, and the means for its exploitation more advanced, and more expensive.

   

Russia’s hybrid war against the West was fully deployed this past week. Russian TV ran several stories depicting the Baltic States as closet Nazis. Stories were run depicting ‘heroic’ resistance by local Russian-speakers implied systematic oppression by the Baltic States. Rossiya 24 even aired a story about a major Victory Day parade in the Russian-speaking Estonian town of Sillamäe that never took place. The implication of all this seeded disinformation is clear; any Russian aggression against the Baltic States would be in support of oppressed ‘liberators’ and thus justified. What are the rest of us meant to think?

Parts of the disinformation campaign also has an eerie resemblance to the old ‘dual-track’ era back in the late 1970s when the Soviets funded protest movements across Western Europe in a failed attempt to prevent NATO from deploying missiles designed to counter their own Europe-busting SS20 nuclear systems. On Victory Day this year marches took place in support of the “Immortals Regiment”, to honour those Russians who gave their lives fighting the Nazis. However, for the first time some of those marches took place in American and European cities. The groups who organised them seem for the most part to be youth movements with close links to Russian money. The paradox is that the more Moscow uses such tactics to give the impression of power the more it reveals instead the fundamental structural weakness with which Russia must contend.

   

Now, I do not want to rain on Russia’s grand parade, not least out of respect for Russia, the Russian people, and Russia’s valiant war dead whom I hold in the highest respect. However, President Putin is leading Russia down a blind alley to danger with his current policy of turning Russia into the Soviet Union-lite.

Russia’s bottom-line is this; whilst Britain spends about 7% of its GDP on security of which defence is a part, Russia is now spending some 20% of its GDP on the security state. It was precisely over-investment in the security state that eventually killed the Soviet Union, which at times consumed upwards of 40% of the entire Soviet economy. Therefore, as a policy consequence President Putin might wish to add two more ‘ds’ to his triad of disinformation, deception, and destabilisation; Western disinvestment and disengagement.

   

And that was the irony of this year’s Victory Day parade. It is precisely the heavy Russian metal that was marched through Red Square that is helping to kill the Russian economy. Consequently, it was not Russia’s power that was on parade on Victory Day, but Russia’s weakness. Indeed, it is Russian weakness not Russian strength which is most dangerous.

Julian Lindley-French

    

       

Hopes and Fears: Do not forget the Western Balkans

Budva, Montenegro. 8 May. A cliché rolls out before me. An assuredly azure Adriatic Sea as still as a millpond murmurs peacefully in its Sunday slumber cupped in a palm of firs on fingers of aged rock. Budva is like much of the rest of Montenegro, a small, beautiful place as breath-taking as it is peaceful. And yet that is not the whole story or even part of it. Yesterday, I saw the best and perhaps the not-so-best of Montenegro. Privileged to enjoy the luxuries of the splendidly-appropriate Splendid Hotel at someone else’s expense, last night I was ripped off royally by a Budva taxi driver. Perhaps it was only fair and I saw it as such. However, my experience brought home to me the reality of this beautiful country and the Western Balkan region in which it resides; so much progress made, so much more to be done.

First, the good news. My reason for enjoying the warm hospitality of Montenegro was to attend the outstanding 2BS (to be secure) conference. 2BS is the vision of my friend Dr Savo Kentera, the brilliant president of the Atlantic Council of Montenegro. Ten years after little Montenegro’s independence 2BS is a jewel in the crown of conferences precisely because it takes place where security really matters. Indeed, viewed from this cradle of Alexander the twin integrations of the Euro-Atlantic and of Europe make absolute and compelling sense.

Three conversations stood out for me on this visit. The first conversation was with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, President of Croatia. The second conversation was with Professor Milica Pejanovic-Durisic, the Minister of Defence of Montenegro, and the third was with a senior Serb involved in EU accession negotiations. All three conversations conveyed both hope and fear.     

    

President Grabar-Kitarovic was blunt: the Western Balkans, a term she actually dislikes, affords Europe and the wider West two great potentials; the potential for great progress and the potential for dangerous instability. Indeed, President Grabar-Kitarovic was firm in her conviction that regional co-operation within the framework of Europe’s institutions was vital if peace and stability are to be affirmed.    Minister Pejanovic-Durisic was rightly proud of the fact that Montenegro is soon to become NATO’s twenty-ninth member. However, she was also firm in her belief that Montenegro must maintain progress towards EU membership. However, my Serb friend was frustrated that there seems little appetite in Brussels or other national capitals for the political effort needed to bring Serbia fully into the European family.

So, why the underlying concerns? It is something I picked-up on in one of my ‘can we please face reality’ questions at the conference. For some time now I have noticed the Western Balkans slipping from the agendas of security policy meetings where such meetings matter. Rather, there seems to be a tick-box view of the region with the Western Balkans now filed either under yesterday’s problem, or problem solved. This retreat from political engagement has been compounded by the threat posed by IS/Daesh and the twin fatigues; with further consolidation and with further reform. My Serbian friend said quite clearly that the key to regional stability was the establishment of rule of law across the region and the rooting out of the corruption that prevents it. Sadly, support for such a vital effort beyond the region is at best soft.

There has also been a profound loss of strategic vision about the need to integrate the Western Balkans and quickly if unfinished business is not to turn into tragic missed opportunity. To my mind this is most apparent in the ridiculous stalling of Macedonia’s (and I use that name deliberately) relationship with NATO, and the urgent need to implement to the full its Membership Action Plan.  

So, on one hand I leave this beautiful place firm in my concern that we in the rest of the West can take nothing for granted about the Western Balkans, not least because President Putin’s Russia is again trying to make it yet another contested space. Moreover, two critical futures must be resolved; Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. On the other hand, each time I have the honour of attending 2BS I see the progress and the massive change for good that has taken place in this region since it was shattered by war in the 1990s.

They will not thank me for writing this because rightly they both want to be seen first and foremost as effective leaders. However, for me the greatest proof of progress is the fact that both President Grabar-Kitarovic and Minister Pejanovic-Durisic are women. This is because the greatest comparative advantage Europe and the wider West has over illiberal challengers is that society and indeed power is and must be open to all the talents.

Thank you, Montenegro. Thank you, Savo. To be secure!

Julian Lindley-French      

Balancing Germany: The Need for a St Malo 2.0

Vienna, Austria. 5 May. Back in 1998 at St Malo in France Britain and France came together to create a leadership framework for the future of a NATO-friendly EU security and defence. They need to do so again and urgently. A senior French official warned the other day that if Britain left the EU France would be surrounded by herbivores, i.e. countries with no strategic tradition or culture, and no willingness to resort to the hard stuff. Equally, something has to give; Europe’s ‘non-defence’ of Europe cannot go on like this. Forget all the drivel you may have heard about European defence budgets being stabilised. This is what academics call counter-intuitive and what I call a complete load of bollocks. Given the adverse change in the global balance of power if Europeans are to play an appropriate role in their own defence a complex mix of three things must now happen: Europeans must spend more on defence, Europeans must do more defence together, and Europeans must find a better balance between the two. There are two distinct schools of thought emerging about how to achieve such a balance; one German and the other (sort of) British and French.

Let me deal with German ambitions first. Last year German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leye gave a speech calling for the creation of a European Army. In July (conveniently after the Brexit vote) Germany will reveal its plans in a new defence White Paper in which it will call for a European Defence Union (EDU) organised around (and by) Germany. Berlin is already in the process of acquiring the Dutch armed forces, which are well on the way to becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bundeswehr. There is certainly some logic to this as the Netherlands is fast becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Germany.

However, Germany’s ambitions are not simply about defence.  Indeed, they are part of a wider political stratagem to bolster the EU and impose some form of leadership and discipline at a critical moment in the political evolution of the EU. Look around the EU institutions and one will find Germans carefully inserted into almost all the key posts, often just below the political radar. It is not a conspiracy. Rather, the stratagem reflects Berlin’s legitimate concerns about the EU’s loss of political momentum and the need to hold things together.  

And, at one level of European defence Germany is right. Too many Europeans have become serial free-riders. As the world becomes more tense and dangerous the refusal of Europeans to face up to the hard defence choices they need to make is not only undermining NATO but warping the defence policy of an over-stretched America. Germany is certainly genuine in its desire for a more effective and efficient European defence effort, albeit within the EU framework. 

The problem with Germany’s big defence plan is that Berlin’s ambitions are not reinforced by Germany’s defence reality. Last year the British spent some $58bn on defence, and the French $48bn, but Germany only $36bn. Future defence spending plans show Britain re-emerging as Europe’s leading military power (Russia excluded).  

Moreover, for all the firm rhetoric that will be written into the German White Paper about how modern Germany is willing to use force if needs be, Germany remains essentially and instinctively a defence herbivore rather than a carnivore. In other words, German leadership of European defence would ensure Europeans remain a herd of cows, rather than a pack of fast-hunting wolves.

The Dutch are proof of that; once carnivores, now herbivores. Indeed, at one time one of the most robust and Atlanticist of the smaller European powers, the Dutch were willing and able to deploy forces at the sharp-end of military operations.  Today the Dutch armed forces have been reduced to what in effect is a small but expert group of peacekeepers, with a few Commandos and Special Forces thrown in to keep the Americans sort of happy.   

    

The cruncher is this; if Germany becomes THE framework nation for driving forward European defence there may well be in time more Europeans under arms than exists today, but they will not be able to do very much. Indeed, the very idea of a European Defence Union is to a large extent counter-bollocks. For such a ‘Union’ to work one would need either a European Government or a German Empire, neither of which is desirable nor practicable. Certainly, an EDU would do little to assuage American concerns about a lack of burden-sharing and thus do little to reinforce NATO.  

And here’s the ultimate paradox; much of the rationale for an EDU in the German White Paper will be for enhanced European crisis management that may in time lead to the formation of a European Army. However, in the absence of a ‘Government’ i.e. a unitary decision-maker who can decide quickly how and when to use such a force, it would probably never be used for crisis management, and only used during an existential crisis for which it was not designed.

Implicit in EDU is a recognition that Britain and France have lost control of European defence and its development. Brexit has not helped. But here’s the thing; it is power that drives defence planning not rhetoric, but Britain and France need to get their strategic act together.  Indeed, not only is there a need for a St Malo 2.0 to ensure Britain and France re-exert their influence over European defence, should Britain leave the EU the need for a St Malo 2.0 will be even greater. And, should Britain remain in the EU a St Malo 2.0 would also be vital in saving Germany from itself by helping to re-establish the political power balance on which Europe is still founded and which German plans for a German-centric EDU threaten to render unstable.  

It is therefore time for a St Malo 2.0.  Now that is real counter-bollocks! Anyone for more grass?

Julian Lindley-French