Dangerous Connectivities: Why Mid-East War is Imminent

Alphen, Netherlands. 15 July.  Herodotus, the father of history wrote, “Force has no place where there is a need of skill”.  In the Middle East there is a desperate need for ‘skill’.  Like Europe a century ago today or more accurately Europe on the eve of the 1618 Thirty Years War everyone and everything is deeply connected and yet at the same time dangerously divided – the classic cause of what Thomas Hobbes called “a warre of all against all”.  What is at stake and what next?

Israeli forces enter Gaza following the murder of three Israeli teenagers and up to two hundred Palestinians die.  Shia Iran extends its influence over Baghdad as the Sunni Islamic State is proclaimed in parts of what used to Iraq and Syria.  Saudi Arabia mobilises its forces as the Sunni-Shia split deepens across the Middle East whilst states as far apart as Algeria and the Gulf totter in the face of Islamism and liberalism as elites and societies pull apart.

What is at stake? Three fundamental struggles are combining to threaten peace across the region (and beyond); the state versus the anti-state; the battle for regional-strategic dominance by states and the struggle between interpretations of Islam within failing states.  Although ostensibly about religion the Thirty Year wars (for that is what they were) were complicated by shifting ‘state’ power - the Habsburgs versus the Holy Roman Empire and the European core versus the European periphery - England, Sweden and Russia.  They were further complicated by growing populations and divided ideologies.

Critically, the war was triggered in 1618 by a relatively minor but nevertheless explosive event – a constitutional dispute between Protestants in Bohemia and their Catholic rulers and the destruction of a single Protestant church.  What happened next was unimaginable carnage.

Similar dangerous connectivities are apparent across the Middle East today, particularly as notions of pan-Arabism compete.  The Islamic State and the rise of fundamentalism has been fashioned from the failure of Arab nationalism, specifically the collapse of Baathism in Syria and Iraq.  The Islamic State is in fact an anti-state the very existence of which threatens all other states in the region as it seeks the destruction of the entire state system and its replacement with a Caliphate.   

To many Arabs nationalism once seemed the future acting in uneasy tandem with and in the name of pan-Arabism.  It was nationalism fuelled and reinforced by the creation of the State of Israel in 1947.  However, two crushing defeats by Israel in 1967 and 1973 helped to undermine the credibility of both the Arab ‘state’ and nationalism in the minds of many.  Defeat also helped Islamists offer a new form of pan-Arabism - Sunni fundamentalism. 

The Arab state has been further undermined by corrupt elites, a rapidly growing population and an imbalance of wealth across the region.  In states such as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States oil-rich conservative elites have become fabulously rich whilst at the same time reluctant to disseminate wealth too widely.  They are like all such elites fearful that reform would critically undermine their power.  To buy off opposition Riyadh in particular has at times appealed to extreme conservatism to buttress their power in return for funding the exporting of the very fundamentalism that threatens the Kingdom.

And then there is Iran.  Shia-Persian Iran’s regional-strategic ambitions to be the dominant power have also further complicated an already flammable political landscape.  Worse, in its struggle with both Israel and Saudi Arabia and through the use of proxies in Syria and Lebanon a series of bilateral disputes have slowly morphed into one enormous confrontation over the future shape of the Middle East focussed on the relatively small space in and around Jordan.  Good old-fashioned Machtpolitik informs much of Iran’s policy but also what Tehran sees as a Sunni threat to Shia influence Iran believes it controls. 

What next?  The Middle East is in as dangerous a state as at any time since the 1973 Yom Kippur war.  Indeed, it is hard to see how the acute tension in both Arab societies and between Middle Eastern states and with Israel can be resolved peacefully.  The outstanding question is who will be on what side for what reason?  It would be easy to suggest that a future war would be essentially between those states of Shia extraction and those of Sunni extraction.  This would have Iran and Israel on the side-lines but seeking to influence proxies in a general Arab struggle.  However, the Middle East is simply not that easy.  Such a scenario would be complicated by ethnic divisions within many of the states involved rotting from the top down, which is precisely why the Islamic State has appeared.  It would be further complicated by interference from the Great Powers – America, China, European powers and Russia.  In other words a kind of Sykes-Picot revisited.

The war itself could be triggered by what is in systemic terms a relatively minor event.  It would also be a long war with hatred and calculus causing many twists.  The first war is likely to be triggered by an unofficial, unspoken and unlikely ‘coalition’ of states determined to defeat the Islamic State, i.e. to destroy the anti-state.  Such a coalition might include Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Egypt and even by extension Israel, albeit implicitly. 

However, if and when the Islamic State is defeated much would be unresolved, not least between Iran and Israel. To protect its borders and break the link between Iran and Hezbollah Israel would do all it can to establish some form of influence over an Assad successor regime to in Syria.  Any conflict that strengthens the hand of Iran on Israel’s borders would be seen by Tel Aviv as a zero-sum game.  For the sake of its very survival Israel will not and could not tolerate such an outcome.  Iran in turn would also seek to establish influence over Damascus and Baghdad as it attempts to extend its sphere of influence across the Middle East.  Riyadh will act to prevent what it sees as a threat not just to the Kingdom but the wider region over which it too exerts influence.

Of course, the great unknown in all of this is the state of the Middle Eastern state.  So weak are so many Middle Eastern states that ANY conflict in which they are involved could see elites cast away.  Jordan is the most obvious example, but the Arab world’s most populous state Egypt is not far behind.  Logically (for Herodotus ‘skill’), it would actually be in the best interest of all to avoid any such general conflict and try to contain and then weaken the Islamic State.  However, such ‘logic’ would take clear vision and calm judgement neither of which the Middle East is renowned for together with a control over events which today many leaders simply lack.  True to form many leaders will seek what got them into power in the first place and which created the Middle East tragedy – short-term, secret pacts.

War today in the Middle East would not simply be another Middle Eastern conflict.  And, if it breaks out there is no telling to where it would lead...and who would be drawn in.  As Herodotus wrote, “The bitterest of men’s miseries is to have insight into much but power over nothing”.

Julian Lindley-French 

President Putin Means What He Says

Alphen, Netherlands. 10 July.  On 1 July President Putin laid out Russia’s foreign and security policy priorities to Russian ambassadors and Heads of Mission at a closed door meeting in Moscow.  Three themes stood out: the primacy of the Russian national interest, a specifically Russian interpretation of international law and a new European security order.  Does President Putin mean what he says? 

President Putin has repeatedly expressed his world view in open fora over many years.  And yet neither American nor European leaders have appeared to have believed him.  Indeed, the only leader who has confronted Putin of late has been Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper.  As for the rest of the West the response to Putin’s clearly stated view of the Russian national interest has always been one of denial.  No wonder the man is frustrated.

As early as 2007 at the Munich Security Conference Putin accused the United States of seeking world domination. “What is a unipolar world? No matter how we beautify this term, it means one single centre of power, one single centre of force and one single master”.  In 2008 speaking in St Peterburg Putin laid out the principles of Russia-centric European security, “Firstly, not ensuring one's own security at the expense of someone else's. Secondly, not undertaking action within military alliances or coalitions that would weaken overall security. And thirdly, not expanding military alliances at the expense of other members of the treaty.”  At the 2008 NATO Bucharest Summit President Putin told a stunned US President George W. Bush that, “…Ukraine is not even a country.  What is Ukraine?  Part of it is in Eastern Europe.  The greater part of it is a gift from us [Russia]”. 

In other words President Putin has been entirely consistent both in his world view and in his determination to pursue the Russian national interest in that context.  Which makes Putin’s 1 July statement all-the-more concerning.  Whilst Putin’s statement by and large re-confirmed then President Medvedev’s 2008 Sochi statement entitled “Five Principles of the New World Order” it was the tone of the language and the up-shift in ambition that was striking.

Putin used strong language to reinforce the lengths Moscow will go to assure its interests and ‘protect’ those who regard themselves as Russian, including the use of “self-defence”.  Putin also blamed the US and the EU for forcing Russia to intervene in Ukraine, although he was careful not to include certain European countries in his condemnation. 

Putin implied that American-led “deterrence policy” was a continuation of the Cold War. He told the assembled Russian ‘dips’ that Moscow would never have “abandoned” Crimea to “nationalist militants” or allowed NATO “to change” the balance of power in the Black Sea.  He also continued with his now well-established theme that the United States seeks global domination.

Critically, President Putin reinforced his commitment to a new European security order by seeking to further divide an already weak and divided Europe.  He blamed President Poroshenko for the breakdown of the ceasefire in Ukraine “in spite of the best diplomatic efforts of Russia, Germany and France”.  He also accused the US of “blackmailing” France with penalties against its banks and linked Washington’s actions to France’s intentions to sell Mistral assault ships to the Russian Navy. 

Putin also revealed a long-standing and apparently genuine frustration over what he sees as US hypocrisy.  Russia, Putin asserted, sought the mandatory application of international law “without double standards”.  In real-speak this means no action without a UN Security Council mandate, over which of course Moscow has a veto. 

President Putin also emphasised the continued expansion of Russia’s armed forces and the reinforcement of Moscow’s efforts to strengthen its sphere of influence as part of a new balance of power. With Moscow now spending 20% of all public funding on defence and with expenditure planned on Russia’s armed forces of some $700 billion by 2020 it is at the very least important that President Putin’s is listened to with care.  

To such a policy end Moscow would also seek to exert influence over states in the former Soviet Union and beyond through the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Eurasian Economic Union and the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation.

So what does President Putin want?  Putin understands power, weakness and opportunity.  The aim of his strategy is twofold.  First, the decoupling of the US (and to a lesser, less important extent the UK) from the security of Continental Europe.  Second, a new European security order built on a Russian-French-German alliance that excludes the US and UK.  Given Germany’s strategic ambivalence towards the US as evidenced by the latest spying scandal and the damage done by Edward Snowden President Putin also believes now is the moment to act.

Does President Putin mean what he says? Oh yes.  He always does - for good and ill.

Julian Lindley-French

NATO: Why the Wales Summit Must be Strategic and Ambitious

Alphen, Netherlands. 8 July.  Machiavelli wrote, “All courses of action are risky.  So prudence is not in avoiding danger (it is impossible) but calculating risk and acting decisively.  Make mistakes of ambition, not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do things, not the strength to suffer”.  NATO leaders will meet in September in Wales in what is the most important Alliance gathering since the 1991 London Summit in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War. 

In 1991 they met to consider the implications of peace in Europe.  In 2014 they will meet to consider the profound and dangerous implications of the rapid shift in the global balance of power away from NATO’s member nations.  This summit will very quickly reveal whether there is sufficient unity of purpose amongst Alliance leaders to generate ambition and if they are big enough to distinguish between long-term strategy and short-term politics.  

The stakes are very high.  London in 1991 set the future orientation of the Alliance right up to 911.  In spite of the grand language of a Europe “whole and free” which set the course for NATO and EU enlargement there was an implicit question in London that has come to define the Alliance over the ensuing years, how little can be spent on defence?  Through the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession in the 1990s, the Kosovo war, 911, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere Europeans have been unwavering in their collective belief that whatever happens they will spend less on defence.  It is political dogma that was strengthened by the 2008 financial crash and the Eurozone crisis that has driven Europe’s retreat from strategic realism.  It has also fostered the appeasement of reality and a “we only recognise as much threat as we can afford” culture amongst leaders.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the creation of the Islamic State on NATO’s strategic doorstep and the steady march of the Islamist anti-state, Iran and its nuclear ambitions, the rapid rise of strategic China, proliferation of destructive technologies across the world and a range of other potential threats it is clear that such self-deluding dogma must be challenged.  Indeed, with NATO leaving Afghanistan the twenty-first century is finally beginning for the Alliance in Wales.  Therefore, the Wales Summit should be the place where NATO properly and finally begins to prepare for the global Cold Peace that is being inexorably fashioned beyond Alliance borders in the battle between a West that is no longer a place but an idea and the new forces of intolerance and expansionism.

The first casualty of the Cold Peace is the assumption that the Americans will always be able to defend Europe irrespective of Europe’s own defence.   Indeed, a if not the central issue at Wales should be the fashioning of a new twenty-first century transatlantic security contract founded on two principles of political realism.  First, NATO Europe can no longer play at Alliance.  The vital need for the United States to maintain credible influence and deterrence in Asia, Europe and the Middle East means that Europe’s defence can only be assured in the first instance by Europeans able and capable of acting autonomously in and around Europe.  Second, a total security concept will be needed.  All security and defence tools from intelligence to armed force, civil and military must be fashioned to prevent conflicts upstream but also to engage in conflict if needs be when, where and how it happens. 

That means forces and resources shaped to face the world as it is not as leaders would like to be.  Therefore, if London was the defence premium summit Wales must be the defence re-engagement summit built on the principle that “security and defence matters”. 

My latest report for Wilton Park, a conference and research centre close to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office entitled “NATO’s Post 2014 Strategic Narrative” was published last week (https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/conference/wp1319/).   The report argues that NATO is entering a new and unpredictable era as the Alliance shifts from campaigns and operations to strategic contingencies.  The word ‘strategic’ is the key as it means big and that implies ambition, forces, resources and a fundamental change of mind-set on the part of political leaders.

There is no doubt that prior to Russia’s annexation of Crimea the Wales Summit would have been little more than a glorified photo op.  Leaders would have somewhat disingenuously declared “mission accomplished” in Afghanistan.  Some thought would have been given to the preservation of military interoperability between Alliance forces and some declaration made about NATO’s Open Door and future membership and partnerships.

Now the Wales Summit must begin NATO’s search for the answer to five twenty-first century strategic questions which finally operationalise the 2010 NATO Strategic Concept and the three core tasks of collective defence, crisis management and co-operative security. How can NATO provide credible collective defence to its members?  What type of reassurance can NATO provide to both members and partners?   What support can NATO realistically offer to states on its margins?  What relationship should now be sought with an assertive Russia?  What more can NATO allies do to support the US in its global mission and at the same time ensure and assure security and defence in and around Europe?

In other words Wales must answer THE pivotal question; what is NATO for now?  Answers on a postcard please.

Julian Lindley-French

HMS Queen Elizabeth: Power, Unity, Alliance and Partnership

4 July.  Der Tag.  HMS Queen Elizabeth is enormous.  Officially named today by Her Majesty the Queen after her illustrious sixteenth century forebear she is the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy.  She sits in her Rosyth dock against the backdrop of the massive Forth Railway Bridge itself a signature British engineering marvel from a previous age.  Displacing 65,000 tons the ‘QE’ is the first of Britain’s 2 new super aircraft carriers.  Her flight deck is the size of 60 Wimbledon tennis courts or 3 World Cup pitches.  When commissioned in 2017 she will carry up to 50 aircraft in a hangar that is the size of 60 Olympic-size swimming pools.  She is twice the width and some 90 metres longer than her predecessor HMS Illustrious which sits alongside her.  

   

HMS Queen Elizabeth is also far more than a ship.  She is a potent symbol of British power, unity, alliance and partnership that will fly the White Ensign the most famous flag of the most famous navy in the world.  Indeed, a navy that in many ways made the modern world.  In tandem with her sister-ship HMS Prince of Wales she will act as a hub for a new type of agile and mobile global reach military power projection that will assure and ensure maritime and land security across the globe. 

HMS Queen Elizabeth will exert influence and effect across three strategic spaces – the peace-space, the security-space, and the battle-space.  Able to reach 80% of the world’s population she will act in crises as diverse as disaster relief and help prevent and deter full-blown war which cannot be ruled out in the hyper-competitive twenty-first century.  

HMS Queen Elizabeth is a symbol of national unity.  She was built in sections at 6 shipyards across the United Kingdom.  Indeed, she is perhaps the most innovative ship ever built with each section bought to Rosyth to be welded together.  As some in Scotland contemplate secession she is a potent symbol of what this old great gathering of peoples can still achieve in the world together. 

HMS Queen Elizabeth is a symbol of alliance.  She is testament to Britain’s determination to inject real power into both NATO and the EU.  As Americans complain about burden-sharing or the lack of it here is a European ally that in spite of many challenges is willing to invest in the highest-end of high-end military capabilities.  Alongside the new Type 45 destroyers and Astute-class nuclear attack submarines joining or soon to join the Royal Navy this great ship will put Britain at the heart of NATO and EU task groups.  Indeed, her very existence will underpin all the navies across both the Alliance and Union.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is a symbol of partnership.  Britain made an historic mistake in the early 1970s by focusing exclusively on Europe and what became the EU. Whether Britain stays or leaves the EU this ship will help re-invigorate Britain’s traditional partnerships with countries like Australia, India and Japan (see history).  She will also help reinforce key partnerships with close, powerful friends such as France and Germany.  Critically, she will help keep America strong where America needs to be strong as Washington faces a growing gap between what it needs to be able to do and what it can afford to do. To that end HMS Queen Elizabeth will be a vital partner of both the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps.

My belief in HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales has been absolute from the day they were conceived.  This is not simply because of the power projection or fighting power the two ships will afford London or the Carrier-enabled Power Projection in the strategy-documents, or indeed because I favour the Royal Navy over the British Army or Royal Air Force.  I do not.  As I write in my new book Little Britain (www.amazon.com) my belief in these ships is because of what they say about Britain and its future as a major power.  This has nothing to do with Britannia ruling the waves but rather the willingness of a twenty-first European state to confront political realism with imagination and determination built on the recognition that credible military capability still underpins all power and influence.  

HMS Queen Elizabeth is a national strategic asset.  She is an entirely appropriate statement of strategic ambition for one of the world’s leading political, economic and military powers and will serve Britain and its allies and partners out to 2060 and beyond.  As such she will help reinvigorate the British strategic brand critical to keeping the West strong – the West that is today an idea rather than a place.  

HMS Queen Elizabeth is a symbol of my country; a ship and a country of which I am justly proud.  HMS Queen Elizabeth is a big-picture ship of a big-picture country in a big-picture world.

Julian Lindley-French

NATO's Post-2014 Strategic Narrative: New Lindley-French Report

Dear Friend and Colleague, you can download my new report entitled "NATO's Post-2014 Strategic Narrative" at https: //www.wiltonpark.org.uk/conference/wp1319/ or go to the Wilton Park website at  www.wiltonpark.org.uk.  The report was published yesterday by Wilton Park.  All best, Julian

NATO: Why Burden-Sharing is Self-Interest

Alphen, Netherlands. 2 July.  US Secretary for Defense Chuck Hagel said of America’s allies recently “…lopsided burden threatens NATO's integrity, cohesion and capability - and ultimately, both European and transatlantic security…We must see renewed financial commitments from all NATO members.”  Sir Adam Thomson, Britain’s Ambassador to NATO rammed that message home at an event at the Institute of European Studies in Brussels on Monday.  Most NATO Europeans simply do not get just how much the strategic landscape will change over the next decade and the extent to which the American conventional deterrent is facing a profound crisis. 

Indeed, many Europeans seem to think that somehow NATO will continue with business as usual. and that the Americans will go on essentially paying for European defence whilst Europeans go about fixing their Euro-ravaged economies at their political leisure.  It is as though Europe’s defence has somehow become detached from the rapidly-shifting global strategic balance.   One would have thought Russia’s aggression in Ukraine would have been seen as a symptom of this shifting balance.  Instead it is being conveniently finessed away in many chancelleries as a ‘one-off’ that was not really Russia’s fault.

The reality of strategic change should also have been made clear by the decision yesterday by Japan to abandon the principles of self-defence which have driven Tokyo’s defence policy since World War Two.   Japan understands perfectly that it needs to enhance its defence effort to enable the American conventional deterrent to remain credible in East Asia.  By 2020 the US will cut its defence expenditure by more than the entire annual expenditure of Europeans on defence.  Given that both Europeans and Japanese live in rough neighbourhoods soon the Americans could simply be unable to provide credible conventional defence for both Europe and Asia-Pacific without allies that can first respond to crises in their backyards.  

Much is being made of the agreement that all NATO nations should spend a minimum of 2% GDP on defence.  The target is of course nominal and pedants will point out that it is not actually a binding commitment.  Moreover, whilst four NATO Europeans currently spend the magical 2% and some four more are making the effort to get there one of those states is Greece (which is both worrying and uplifting given how broke the Greeks are) and some of the rest of deploying that most devastating of defence weapons – creative accountancy.

In fact the point of the 2% target is to get NATO’s many “one-percenters” to stop killing NATO.  Sadly, not only do most of the “one-percenters” spend too little on defence they also spend badly.  Another key target is that at least 20% of the budget should be spent on defence investment.  Several Europeans spend as low as 5% on the future force which is creating a dangerous so-called interoperability gap within the Alliance.

Ambassador Thomson said the US and UK “are leading the charge” to get allies to spend more and spend better.  However, even the UK which makes much of its spending 2.4% of GDP on defence is guilty of fiddling the figures.  The Financial Times recently ran a report that British defence spending would soon fall to 1.9% GDP. 

Furthermore, this Friday will see the launch the first of two brand new super-carriers the HMS Queen Elizabeth.  She will operate the vertical take-off version of the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35B) rather than the conventional version. This decision was made to save enough money on construction of the ship to allow her sister ship HMS Prince of Wales to also be commissioned into the Royal Navy.  And yet in spite of Britain’s commitment to the 2% target “pour encourager les autres” London seems to have gone soft on the second carrier.  This now leaves open the possibility that the second ship will be sold once complete after the British 2015 General Election.

Let me be blunt; if a British Government were to sell a brand new state of the art super-carrier to a foreign power it would kill Britain’s case for enhanced defence investment across the Alliance.  It would also have a devastating impact on Britain’s influence and reliability in Washington both of which are still in intensive care after the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review.  These two ships are more than ships; they are statements of British and European ambition to support the US world-wide if needs be in future conflicts.  Given these ships will be supporting the Alliance well into the 2060s to abandon HMS Prince of Wales would be mad, short-term accountancy at the expense of sound long-term defence strategy.

Interestingly, an academic from one of the “one-percenters” challenged me over my assertion that if they are not prepared to spend 2% GDP on defence then they will be forced to consider defence integration and the loss of national sovereignty.  He was trying to trip me up and not for the first time.  Surely, he suggested, the bigger states should lead the way towards defence integration.  My response was twofold.  First, many of the “one-percenters” refuse EITHER to increase or enhance their defence spending OR consider common funding let alone defence integration.  As such they are simply not facing strategic reality.  Second, how can they be trusted as allies?  Too many of the “one-percenters” refuse to share the point of contact with danger on operations with the likes of the US and UK claiming “can’t do, won’t do”. 

The 2% target is a political target.  If achieved it would send a message that Europe still believes in the Alliance and is prepared to invest in it and the twenty-first century transatlantic strategic security and defence compact upon which NATO is founded.  If Europeans demur then one day they could awake to find Americans simply cannot defend them even if they wanted to.  It is for that reason that burden-sharing is simply self-interest because the cost of Europeans defending themselves would be very much higher.

And one final thing; if I hear one more bloody diplomat (not Sir Adam) say that talk of NATO’s demise is again premature I will be, er well, undiplomatic!

Julian Lindley-French

Berlin, Brussels and Europe’s Peripheral Fission

Brussels, Belgium. 30 June.  Last week was a big week; Jean-Claude Juncker was imposed by Germany as European Commission President and a landmark free trade deal was signed between the EU and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.  It also marked the true birth of Berlin-Brussels as a power.  This morning Berlin is desperately trying to pour balm on troubled British waters but it is too late.  Taken together the three events crystallise the new power reality of Europe in which there is a consolidating core centred upon Germany and the EUrozone and a periphery comprised of Europe’s strategic losers - Britain, Russia and Turkey.

 

At the core of the core is Berlin-Brussels or B-Squared (B2).  I could call it an ‘Axis’ but modern Germany is not old Germany and I will not fall into the history trap.  As of Friday Europe’s periphery now includes Russia, Turkey and Britain all three of which were once core powers but are now very much on Europe’s/Germany’s periphery.

Let me take Britain first.  No-one should under-estimate the structural fracture that took place Friday between the EUrozone (the real EU) and Britain.  This morning Berlin is desperately trying to pour balm on troubled British waters but it is too late.  In fact, the British now find themselves in the most invidious of positions with the relationship between costs and benefits absurdly perverse.  The British people pay over €6bn per annum for membership of a club over which it has no influence and which does it more harm than good in terms of imposed regulation and lost national sovereignty. 

Then there is Russia.  Moscow reacted with predictable fury at the signing of the partnership agreements in Brussels last week with much talk of dark “consequences” and even “Nazis”.  For the Russians this accord is but the latest sign that the EU is challenging what Moscow believes to be the Russian sphere of influence. Moscow also sees the EU as less institution devoted to preventing extreme state behaviour and ever more a ‘state’ with its own interests and thus a threat to Russia.  To the Russian strategic mind all and any states must seek a sphere of influence and in Europe given history it must be at Russia’s expense.  Indeed, to Moscow many Central and Eastern Europeans have simply swapped the Red Star for the Yellow Star. 

Turkey is another matter entirely.  For almost fifty years the EU and its many precursors have been implying eventual Turkish membership and Ankara has pretended to believe them.  This promise has led Turkey to orient its foreign and security policy towards Europe and to slowly align its constitution and governance with the ‘democratic values’ EU membership demands. The game is now up.  Turkey will never be offered EU membership and now knows it.  Germany and France do not want it and in any case the cost of enlargement to Turkey is too much and Prime Minister Erdogan knows that too.  That is why Ankara is pursuing an increasingly robust domestic policy and an ever more autonomous and assertive foreign policy that looks south and east not just west.

But here’s the rub.  Whereas Moscow, Ankara and to a very much lesser extent London still think in terms of a classical balance of power B2 sees power in much more in terms of the balance of money.  When Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine sign accords with the EU they do so partly to escape Moscow’s influence.  Equally, they do so also in the belief that eventual EU membership is implied and along with with it the bucket-loads of European taxpayer’s cash needed to save their basket-case economies. 

However, it is precisely the issue of money where the B2 strategic calculus falls apart. The sums simply do not add up.  There are only ten countries that actually pay for the EU, three of which are so deeply in debt (France and Italy) they they are or soon will be net recipients and another Britain could well soon leave.  Merkel advisor Michael Fuchs said this morning that a Brexit would be a disaster.  What he means specifically is the loss of British taxpayer’s money.  

Therefore, either an intolerable European ‘tax’ will need to be imposed on the German, Danish, Dutch, Swedish et al taxpayers or B2 will fail .  In other words, it will be impossible for Berlin-Brussels to continue to pay “mountains of gold” to ‘transfer junkies’ such as Poland, save the Euro and EUrozone banks AND pay for membership aspirants such as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.  Europe’s defence has already been sacrificed so maintain the illusion of a Europe that can afford both to widen and deepen. 

Sooner or later the promise of EU membership and the oodles of European cash that goes with it will dry up and disappointment will set in.  At that point Russia’s influence will increase sharply and with it Moscow’s ‘interference’.

Europe’s peripheral fission has profound implications for the transatlantic relationship.  Indeed, such fission will undermine not only the EU but also NATO and in time render the Baltic States in particular indefensible in the face of a Russia that is likely to become more aggressive not less so.  That is what a political settlement between B2 and Britain is so important.

There is a further danger; the eclipsing of German leadership.  If push comes to shove German leadership is vastly preferable to some form of falsely-democratic federal Europe and yet that is precisely the battle to come at the heart of B2.  At some point Juncker will likely defy Berlin.  He will claim that his nomination and confirmation as European Commission President by the European Parliament establishes the ‘political legitimacy’ for the transformation of the European Commission into a European Government.  Indeed, he will claim a solemn duty to represent the ‘will’ of Europe’s peoples vested in him even if they did not actually vote for him.  At some point B2 will collapse and a Europe the sum of which is already less than the sum of its parts on the world stage will fall apart.  Germany will at some point have to make some hard choices.

Britain, Russia and Turkey may not appear to have much in common on the face of it.  However, all three are profoundly unhappy with their respective relationships with B2.  For its own sake Berlin must move to end Europe’s peripheral fission.

Julian Lindley-French

What are you going to do now Berlin?

Bucharest Airport, Romania.  27 June.  It is not my normal practice to devote three blogs in one week to the same subject.  However, when a development takes place that justifies a third missive I will so do from time to time.  Yesterday I had a very constructive conversation with a senior German who clearly understands the gravity and the implications of Jean-Claude Juncker’s disastrous appointment as European Commission President which will be confirmed in Brussels today.

There is much talk of Cameron’s ‘failure’ but this is a political disaster of Germany’s making. Chancellor Merkel is the real author of this mess.  She has demonstrated herself to be unreliable, irresolute and all too willing to impose German domestic politics on the rest of Europe.  Worse, she has been aided and abetted by the appalling lack of backbone by the political invertebrates/amoeba who claim to 'lead' other EU member-states.  Many of them are quietly and equally concerned by the Juncker appointment but switched sides the moment Merkel wobbled in the face of an assault by Bild.

True to form I have just heard the new Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb calling for Britain to “wake up and smell the coffee” and be more ‘pragmatic’. That is Euro-speak for the abandonment of all political principle and the unquestioning acceptance of all and any Brussels diktat.  Stubb, who I know, suggests that the EU is good for Britain.  What are you putting in your coffee, Alexander?  A report out today by respected think-tank Civitas demonstrates that there are few economic benefits for the UK from EU membership and there has not been for a long-time. 

Stubb went on to warn of a complete shut-out from the EU market if Britain left the EU.  Not only would that be illegal it reflects the just how dishonest EU leaders are at such moments.  Take Liberal Democrat and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander. As Cameron left for Ypres this week he cited a Treasury (Finance Ministry) report claiming the loss of three million jobs should Britain leave the EU.  This was an extreme scenario cited in the report.  Sadly, the use of false statistics typifies the method of federalist’s like Alexander who seek to mask their true political ambitions.  In fact Danny Alexander used to be the leader of a group called Young European Federalists something which he now tries to hide from the very people he is seeking to con.  

Over coffee here at Bucharest Airport my German colleague conceded to me that this is a very dangerous moment.  However, he also said rightly that very few Germans want either an EU Government or a German Empire.  Indeed, not one sensible German with whom I have spoken recently wants either.  Most of them would rather England won the World Cup than, although the likelihood of an EU Government is the greater.

One reason that this has happened is that European leaders have not had an honest conversation with each other about the finalité of the EU in Euro-speak.  It is a conversation that is urgently needed.

My proposal will infuriate smaller EU member-states but then again Luxembourgeois Juncker’s pending appointment is but the latest piece of EU small state tyranny.  However, it is vital the leaders of Britain, Germany, France and Italy sit down and discuss both the limits of ‘Europe’ and a programme of real reform rather than the pretend ‘thing’ that will emerge today.  In any case other leaders have simply demonstrated the EU’s “and me too” tendency – whatever Germany wants goes.

The first aim of such a chat would be to establish the nature and extent of the disagreement between the big four member-states.  Talking to my German colleague my sense is that in fact whilst disagreements about the role and size of Brussels do exist they really are not that great. 

Equally, if as a result of this debate there is indeed an enormous gap in both ambition and principle between Britain, France and Germany then at least leaders can begin to start considering sensibly the practical nature of a changed British relationship with the EU. 

The Juncker appointment means the EU and its member-states must finally answer the question that has been long in the making but which can no longer be fudged by ‘pragmatism’; is the EU a tight collective of partner states or a proto-European government?  My sense of my German colleague is that whilst Berlin might disagree with aspects of Britain’s position Germany still wants the former rather than the latter. If so, Berlin must say that loud and clear.  Indeed, unless an honest discussion takes place between the Big Four over the finalité politically devious federalists will continue to exploit the silence between them and we the voters will be ignored again and again.

 

This is a political mess of your making Germany.  If the EU is reduced to a tawdry debate between domestic German politicians and federalists fanatics Britain will indeed leave and rightly so.  In time the EU will fall apart as bureaucracy, false legitimacy and false democracy rot its institutions from within.  Do you want that Berlin?

As for Jean-Claude Juncker; given the more free-trade, less bureaucracy ‘reform’ agenda today being discussed by EU leaders Juncker is completely the wrong man with the wrong beliefs in the wrong job.

What are you going to do now Berlin?

Julian Lindley-French

Euro-Realism: We Simply Cannot Go On Like This

Bucharest, Romania. 25 June.  Europe from the other end.  My reason for coming to Bucharest is to address the 16^th Partnership for Peace Conference.  One gets a different perspective of European security from Romania.,,and a different perspective of the EU.

 

EU leaders will tomorrow gather for a very tetchy meeting in Ypres during which they will appoint Jean Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission. I am not one of those hoping for a Juncker appointment because it will make a bad situation worse.  My instinct is always to try and make things work.  However, it is now clear that Juncker’s appointment will lay the ground for Britain’s historic and pending departure from the EU.  Given that two things are now clear.  First, the EU needs a new political settlement.  Second, Europeans must somehow separate the dispute over the future governance of Europe (for that is what it is) from the security and defence of Europe, hard though that will be. 

The Juncker Affair reflects a structural split between those in the Eurozone who by joining the single currency wittingly or unwittingly signed up for some form of European Government and those who did not.  The seeming principle (as much as it exists) behind those supporting Juncker who are not die-hard Euro-federalists is they accept the loss of national sovereignty necessary to make the Euro work.  What this group seemingly fail to see is that inevitably means some form of European Government.

For the British (and all those not yet in the Euro) this dawning reality is simply recognition that the EU and the Eurozone are one and the same thing. Henceforth it will no longer be possible to be in the EU but outside the Eurozone unless a state is willing to bear a disproportionate cost.  In reality Britain left the EU the moment it rejected membership of the Euro.  Indeed, as Churchill might have said; we have established where we are now all that is left is to decide where next to go. 

Therefore, Britain’s pending ‘defeat’ in Ypres will mark an irreparable breach with the Eurozone countries that will inevitably lead to some form of Brexit.  It might be delayed for a time by a Labour Government but the destiny is set because the British people will never accept a European Government.

 

Which is why EU leaders must find a political settlement before the crisis (for that is what it is) pollutes further Europe’s security and defence.  Without such a settlement Europe could remain trapped in its own eternal, internal debate as the world around the EU (and NATO) becomes steadily more dangerous.  Therefore, it is far better to start thinking now about an equitable relationship between Britain and the German-led EU.  If not the Fourth Battle of Ypres will be re-fought over and over again as it is one about structure and principle, rather than personality. 

The huge ramifications of permitting the European Parliament to dictate to the elected political leaders of the EU’s member-states are becoming clearer by the hour.  Social-democrats in the European Parliament are already using the precedent the Juncker appointment will set to demand the right in November to replace the European Council President Herman van Rompuy and High Representative Cathy Ashton with their own appointees.  Hitherto these appointments have been the strict preserve of national leaders.

Which brings me to Partnership for Peace or PfP.  PfP was a 1990s NATO initiative designed to help stabilise Europe in the post-Cold War period.  As evident from the tragedy in Ukraine Europe is still not “whole and free” in the then words of President George H.W. Bush.  Many today equate “whole and free” with the EU and “ever closer union”.  However, it is now clear a new way must be found and fast.  Indeed, with Islamism marching across the Levant and the entire Sykes-Picot system of Middle Eastern states tottering between autocracy and fundamentalism on Europe’s doorstep a new big picture strategy is urgently needed.  That will mean nothing less than a Strategic Partnership for Regional and Global Peace.

However, that will only happen when and if a new EU political settlement is reached.  Therefore, it is time for a pan-EU conference to enable leaders to establish a new European political order that offers an alternative to “ever closer union”.  Yes, that will mean a new treaty and yes that will mean several ‘Europes’.  However, a new treaty be needed in any case for the Eurozone to move towards the deeper political integration necessary to save the benighted currency. 

The cost to individual liberty will be high and the gap between the citizen and power will increase which is precisely why deeper political integration is unacceptable to the British. However, only with a new political settlement will current pressures be eased and order restored to an EU political system that is under intense, growing and paralyzing pressure.  And only then will proper consideration begin of Europe’s place in the world and its future security.

We simply cannot go on like this.

Julian Lindley-French

Europe Juncked: The Fourth Battle of Ypres

Alphen, Netherlands. 23 June.  They called it “Wipers”.  Tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth troops died in the three battles of Ypres in the fight against tyranny.  54, 389 of them have their names inscribed on the famous Menin Gate, one of four such memorials across the Ypres Salient.  Each evening the local fire brigade dutifully and honourably play Britain’s homage to its fallen “The Last Post”.  On Thursday and Friday this week EU Heads of State and Government will meet to rubber-stamp a German-imposed anti-British federalist fanatic Jean Claude Juncker as President of the ever-more-powerful European Commission.  It could well be the Fourth Battle of Ypres… and it will be short.

British Prime Minister David “less Europe, more member-state” Cameron understands the huge political significance of this watershed moment and has fought an honourable battle to stop “more Europe at any cost” Juncker.  Cameron also understands that failure means he is political toast.  For once rather than listen to supine advisers who always say Britain must accept the unacceptable “to avoid isolation” Cameron is taking a stand.  And. for the first time Cameron will try to force a vote on Juncker (it is normally decided by consensus) to make his fellow European leaders justify their decision.  Unusually, Cameron is also backed by all the main British political parties, and he is right.  Too often national European leaders concede long-term strategic principle for the sake of a short-term political fix.  Sadly, in time they will all pay (or rather their respective peoples will pay) for this appalling decision.

Sadly, Cameron will be out-voted in Ypres by weak-willed, sycophantic national leaders who do not see the bigger federalist picture.  Naturally, they will do all they can to avoid a vote because none of them want their fingerprints on this absurd appointment.  However, they are voting for Juncker because Queen Angela wants it and she in turn is concerned more by the German Press and its obsession with imposing Spitzenkandidaten than the future of Europe (see this week’s edition of The Economist on an ever-more unprincipled German Press, “An Unwelcome Nexus”). 

The tragedy for the European people is that many leaders privately share Cameron’s concerns about Juncker, even Merkel.  Instead of standing on principle they are instead tying to cover their sorry political backsides by claiming Juncker is precisely what the European voter asked for knowing full well they are hijacking my vote and that of millions of other Europeans.  It is the EU at its very undemocratic worst.

The most spectacular piece of political dissembling came from the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski.  Now, I rate Sikorski but he can stretch credulity to its limits at times.  In an attempt to tell BBC listeners that Juncker’s appointment is democratic he suggested the Polish voter knew a vote for his party in the 22 May European Parliamentary elections was a vote for Juncker.  With a straight face he said there had been “billboards”, implying the smiling face of Juncker was plastered all over Poland in the run-up to the elections.  If any of my Polish friends can confirm the existence of such billboards I stand to be corrected.  However, a recent opinion poll suggested 90% of Europeans had never even heard of Juncker prior to this piece of EU political shenanigans. 

This is a power struggle between true democratic legitimacy which is at the national level and the pretend legitimacy of the almost-elected European Parliament. It is yet another case of successful federalist 'interpretation' (manipulation) of the disastrous Lisbon Treaty. The very first time I voted was in the inaugural elections to the 1979 European Parliament.  At the time one sage commentator warned there would come a day when this new Parliament would challenge the sovereignty of the Mother of Parliaments.  “Not in my lifetime”, I thought. And yet that day has come.  A day when a faction in a barely elected parliament claims the political legitimacy from my vote to demand more power than elected national heads of state and government most of whom were elected by their peoples on far stronger mandates.  As political precedents go this is just about as dangerous as it gets and federalist fanatics like Juncker know it.  Indeed, such events are precisely how and why the EU is slipping towards federalism.

True to form this past week Juncker has been making secret, backroom deals to consolidate his hold on the Commission presidency.  These are the anti-transparency deals for which he is infamous and which will mark his Presidency.  For Juncker the people are the enemy.  We are too ignorant to see his ‘vision’ and must therefore be forced to accept deeper European integration.  Suddenly we the citizens will wake up one day to find we ‘agreed’ to a more Europe something about which we were never informed or to which we never gave our consent.

Juncker like all fanatics is a believer in totalitarianism-lite masked in the empty rhetoric of empty liberty.  Totalitarianism is a political system where a state holds total, distant authority, believes it is always right irrespective of the views of the people, sees all disagreement as dissent and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life.  It hides its real political objectives behind mantras such as ‘efficiency’ and ‘solidarity’ whilst talking endlessly of ‘the people’ it despises.  For Juncker and his like the only way to create the European Government in which they believe is to defeat the member-states by whatever means possible.  It is a long-term project and Britain must and should have no part of it.

The first indicator of bureaucratic totalitarianism-lite is when elites begin to manipulate the vote.  On 22 May millions of voters across Europe voted for reform whether they voted for radical or moderate parties.  That was certainly my intention when I cast my moderate vote.  And yet a “business as usual” man who is the very essence of EU uber-elite insider-ism, anti-reform and anti-transparency is to be imposed on me as President of the European Commission.

Sadly, my last hope that balance could be restored between the insatiable appetite of Brussels for power, the nation-state and the will of the people will be smashed come the end of this week.   That hope was that David Cameron’s sensible reform proposals could have provided a basis for an EU reform agenda that all could rally round – both those in the German empire, sorry Eurozone, and those without. 

Power to flow away from Brussels not towards it, national parliaments to be given the power to work together to block unwanted legislation, businesses to be liberated from federalist red tape designed not to enhance efficiency but integration for integration’s sake, managed mass movements of peoples, and an end to the presumption of ever closer union.  Had I seen such an agenda overseen by a reformer I would have campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU.  With Juncker’s appointment I will instead campaign for Britain to leave.  Juncker represents a threat to both my country and democracy. 

There will of course be a ‘reform agenda’ agreed at Ypres if only to offer Cameron a political straw to clutch.  However, it will be as usual a lie, a pretend ‘reform’ agenda.  And, of course, Juncker will work in the political darkness using the considerable power of the Commission to initiate legislation together the false political legitimacy he will claim from the European Parliament to block any reform that prevents “more Europe”.  They very man who will be responsible for implementing “Ypres” will be the very man determined to destroy it; Jean Claude Juncker,

The EU is not the Soviet Union and I would not betray the people who had to live under that awful regime by suggesting it is.  However, if not checked by national legislatures the EU will continue down a path that eventually leads to the enforcement of conformism.  The fanatics will of course laugh this off.  That is how they dismiss all and any dissent but they know I am right.  And, as per usual the federalists will talk much about ‘the people’ whilst completely ignoring their views every time they disagree with ‘The Project’.  Yes, elections will go on but they will become ever more like Soviet ‘elections’ – pre-ordained and irrelevant.   In time people will not bother voting anymore because it simply will not be worth it.

I was witness to the fanaticism of the federalists at a recent dinner party at which I was the guest speaker.  I will not say whom or where because the senior EU official was speaking in a personal capacity and I would not wish to embarrass my hosts.  However, as I made my reasoned concerns about the EU clear I was suddenly met with a torrent of federalist rhetoric that lightly-masked real anger that I could possibly voice such concerns.  She even had the gall to suggest she represents me.  As I patiently de-constructed her arguments on European political and monetary union and, of course, that old federalist favourite a European Army she was left to simply repeat the federalist mantra; “more Europe is better Europe”.  She was so extreme French and German officials in the room sided with me.

One of my favourite philosophers is the seventeenth century English writer John Locke.  Locke challenged the then idea of patriarchy.  To Locke power did not come from God but from the people.  With the appointment of Juncker we are witnessing a new form of patriarchy, a new Leviathan whereby distant power claims power not in the name of God but the manipulated name of the very people who did not vote for them.

So what will happen?  By appointing Juncker power will shift markedly from the member-states to the Commission and the Parliament.  The federalists will use this political precedent to push for ever greater control over all appointments at the expense of the member-states.  In so doing they will not only dilute further national sovereignty but seek to shift the centre of ‘democratic’ gravity from the national parliaments they do not control to the European Parliament that they do. 

Worse, the voice of the citizen will be lost.  In most national parliamentary elections 50,000 citizens vote on average for one deputy or MP (and in the case of Britain someone who acts directly on behalf of each citizen), in the almost-elected European Parliament the European voter ‘elects’ one Member of European Parliament for every 450,000 to 500,000 of us.  A clearer dilution of democracy one will never find as the link between power and the people is steadily broken in the EU.  Henceforth the federalists will be free to use an unaccountable and undemocratic executive overseen by an almost-elected rubber-stamping Parliament to drive untrammelled over democracy and liberty confident that national leaders will be unable to stop them.  And all of this because Chancellor Merkel has a little local difficulty with her local Press. 

UKIP and their like? They are so much froth and foment who will make a lot of noise, spend too much time disagreeing with each other about how bad the EU is whilst they sit on the side-lines of real power.  Indeed, they will afford Juncker and his allies a strange form of legitimacy as they will give the impression of checks and balances that simply do not exist.

Germans should also be careful what they wish for. Queen Angela thinks Juncker will be her man in Brussels and that he will help consolidate the Eurozone as a German Zollverein.  If Juncker gets his way Germany end up like the rest of us; reduced in time to a ‘lande’ or province in the United States of Europe of which he dreams.  Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas! 

For Cameron and Britain the Fourth Battle of Ypres will mark the end of any pretence that Britain or the British people have any influence over the EU.  Wipers will thus mark the place and the time when Britain faced a choice; free state or EU province? 

The Ypres European Council meeting was meant to mark reconciliation between Britain and Germany one hundred years after the outbreak of World War One.  The three battles of Ypres a century or so ago were part of a huge violent struggle about who runs Europe.  Make no mistake, although thankfully far more peaceful and civilised the Fourth Battle of Ypres this coming Thursday and Friday will also be about who runs Europe. Or, to be more exact, who runs European countries; the people we know we elect or those distant people like Jean Claude Juncker who pretend we elect them but only tell us afterwards.

As the firemen gather to play “The Last Post” on Friday night they could well be lamenting not only Britain’s fallen but the slide of Europe away from democracy towards a new form of bureaucratic totalitarianism and the EU super-state which Jean-Claude Juncker is determined will prevail.

Democracy? Wipers indeed!

Julian Lindley-French