The Strategic Implications of Comrade Corbyn

“In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics’. All issue are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia”

George Orwell

 Alphen, Netherlands. 15 September.  Saturday’s thumping victory by hard left candidate Jeremy Corbyn in the elections to lead Britain’s main opposition party has implications not just for Britain, but for allies and partners the world over.  This long-time pacifist, who wants Britain out of NATO and the EU, is also a committed nuclear unilateralist and long-time ‘friend’ of Hamas and Russia. Corbyn is now on paper at least but one electoral step from becoming the prime minister of a top five world power. What are the strategic implications of Comrade Corbyn?

British politics: It is a mark of the failure of the mainstream political class on both the centre left and centre right of politics that a serial leftist rebel and protester could be elected to one of the great offices. It reflects a mood across much of the country that holds Orwell’s dictum to be true.  Indeed, a huge number of British people have lost all faith in the self-important, self-obsession of a self-satisfied Westminster/Whitehall elite that has compounded strategic error with strategic error. 

Countering ISIS: In the immediate future agreement over a decision to extend RAF strikes against ISIS to Syria has suddenly become far harder for Cameron to achieve.  This is because decisions over the the use of British force are focused more on the so-called Privy Council than Parliament.  The Council brings together the leaders of all the main political parties with senior lawyers and other key figures in the name of Her Majesty the Queen.  It has traditionally reflected a much more consensual approach to strategy and action than the public impression allows for. However, for the Privy Council to work members must accept the responsibilities of official secrecy if they are to have access to key intelligence and planning documents.  Corbyn is not at all sure that he even accepts the principle of the Privy Council.

Defence Policy: All the assumptions underpinning British defence policy are now at risk.  The new Labour leader is particularly keen to scrap the ‘Successor’ programme that will see Britain’s Trident nuclear weapons replaced in the late 2020s at a cost of some £16bn.  Corbyn also wants to set up a so-called Defence Diversification Agency that would seek to re-task those working in Britain’s large defence-industrial sector so that swords may in future become ploughshares.  This ‘policy’ implies that Corbyn wants not only to unilaterally scrap Britain’s deterrent, but much of the conventional force and the industry that supports it.  People around Corbyn are already talking of a root-and-branch review of how Britain engages in the world and Corbyn himself has said he could foresee no circumstances in which as prime minister he would order the deployment of British forces.  There may be one cloud that has a partially-silvered lining; the idea that the defence budget can fund both a submarine-based strategic nuclear deterrent and a global reach conventional force will be revealed for it is – patent nonsense.

British Foreign and Security Policy: The election of an insurgent to lead the Labour Party has the most profound implications for Britain’s foreign, security and defence policy.  Indeed, given that Cameron has only a majority of twelve in the House of Commons it is likely he will need a significant number of Labour MPs to defy their leader if he is to gain the support of the House. 

EU and NATO: Corbyn himself is a long-time Euro-sceptic who has been a long-time on record of wanting Britain to quit the EU, which he believes to be a super-capitalists, super-plot.  By holding such implacable views he has already set himself on a collision course with much of the Parliamentary Labour Party, not least his own new Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn.  Certainly, the election of Corbyn has made a Brexit vote in the forthcoming referendum on EU membership more likely. He is equally and implacably opposed to Britain’s membership of NATO the very existence of which challenge his long-held pacifist views.  Interestingly, the newly-elected deputy leader Tom Watson wants to retain the nuclear deterrent and keep Britain in NATO, which should make for some interesting Shadow Cabinet meetings.

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: The abject failure of European leaders to deal with a cacophony of crises that they themselves have helped generate – from handing too much power to a distant, technocratic Brussels, through the eternal Eurozone crash and on to the seemingly insoluble migrant crisis – has led to another crisis; the crisis of liberal democracy.  The election of Jeremy Corbyn thus says something else about politics, policy and strategy in Europe and indeed the wider West.  Establishments everywhere are under pressure from insurgent politicians and their groupings.  Huge numbers of electors see little or no relationship between what mainstream political leaders say, what they actually do, let alone what they achieve.  This systemic failure by distant mainstream politicians to cope with crises and protect their people from dangerous change has been exacerbated by the 2008 financial crash and the subsequent austerity which has left huge numbers of people at the poorer end of societies feeling victimised.

The Rise of the Insurgents: Sooner or later one of these insurgents is going to get hold of the keys to one of the great states of the West – be it Trump in the US, Corbyn in the UK, or Le Pen in France.  The world will then be in for roller-coaster politics as the insurgents, by definition anti-strategists lurch between disengagement and over-engagement.

The Death of Statecraft: However, to my mind perhaps the most dangerous strategic implication from the election of Corbyn will be the death of statecraft – the reasoned art of conducting state affairs.  One reason why mainstream Western politicians have failed is because it is very hard for the Western state to ‘succeed’ in the twenty-first century in a world in which borders seem archaic and identities endless. It is Putin's Russia that will likely prove the beneficiary of this as Corbyn's starry-eyed nostalgia for a fantasy Russia will make Britain's role in deterring Russia hard to take seriously. 

The Political Irony that is Jeremy Corbyn: Which brings me finally to the political irony that is Jeremy Corbyn. Seventy-five years ago today in the skies above London the decisive engagement took place in the Battle of Britain.  Believing the RAF to have been virtually destroyed the Luftwaffe pressed home a daylight attack on the great city.  The shock of German aircrew was all the greater when far from being faced by a few squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires to which they had become accustomed they were suddenly confronted by large formations and were defeated.  It was a turning point in World War Two and is today rightly commemorated.  To Corbyn and his Corbynistas the Battle of Britain has about as much resonance for a modern Britain in a modern Europe in a modern World as the Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 

The irony is that Jeremy Corbyn believes himself and his supporters to be the future.  In fact, they are the heirs of George Orwell and as such offer all of us little more than a return to the class war, Orwellian world of the 1950s.  As such they are every bit as anachronistic as the forty Hurricanes and Spitfires that will today take to the skies of Britain to commemorate The Few.

Julian Lindley-French      

   

Has Mama Merkel Met Her Maggie Moment?

“The past is another country. They do things differently there”.

L.P. Hartley, “The Go Between”

Alphen, Netherlands. 14 September. They call her ‘Mama Merkel’. The hundreds of thousands of migrants now in Germany and struggling across Europe see German Chancellor Angela Merkel as their saviour.  Without consulting the German people or her EU counterparts she threw open German borders, unilaterally suspended the Dublin Convention, and effectively destroyed the Schengen system of free movement within the EU.  Her actions whilst clearly motivated by the best of intentions remind me of the last days in power of another formidable female leader Margaret ‘Maggie’ Thatcher.  Thatcher fell because she sought to impose an unfair tax on Britain’s poor – the infamous poll tax.  She was advised not to by her colleagues but such was her sense of political superiority after eleven years of untrammelled and unquestioned power she went ahead anyway. Worried about her growing megalomaniac tendencies it was her colleagues in the Conservative Party who in 1990 eventually brought her down.  Has Mama Merkel met her Maggie moment?

The answer is as yet unclear.  Yesterday, Germany for the second time in a month acted unilaterally to “temporarily” reintroduce border controls and in so doing suspend one of the EU’s four fundamental freedoms – free movement.  It is hardly surprising given that last week German Interior Minister Thomas de la Maizière warned that up to one million people could claim asylum in Germany in 2015.  Last week Merkel herself warned that the influx would change Germany for ever, and that Germans could expect 500,000 immigrants each year for years to come.

Now, I have long defended modern Germany which I admire from those who try to equate the actions of this powerful model democracy with its Nazi past.  However, Berlin’s irresponsibility these past weeks clearly smacks of a German Chancellor allowing Germany’s past to pollute policy. In her efforts to assuage that past by offering open door asylum she has massively increased the so-called ‘pull factors’ for migrants and refugees from the Middle East, Africa and beyond and come dangerously close at times to acting as a recruiting agent for people traffickers.

Chancellor Merkel has no need to assuage Germany’s Nazi past or the hard-line intolerance of the Communist East Germany in which she grew up by destabilising contemporary Germany and by extension much of neighbouring Europe.  Yes, her instinct to help is laudable and reflects a quintessential decency at her core that shines through.  However, ‘decency’ is not policy and at the very least she should have consulted the German people about their willingness to accept such imposed change.  Whatever commentators might say about Germany’s failing demographics sudden, imposed hyper-immigration (which is what we are witnessing) has not worked well in Europe and led to profound tensions over identity, culture and worse.

The impression given is one of lofty detachment, Indeed, Merkel’s high-handedness can at best be described as ‘let them eat cake’ politics. Telling fellow Germans and Europeans to get used to such inflows without admitting that the crisis is as much a consequence of elite failure to predict and prepare as the collapse of the Levant smacks of the worst kind of political hubris. And, it appears all too typical of a detached, limousine-riding, champagne-quaffing, palace-residing, security ring-fenced European elite all too ready to lecture the poorest in society who must cope with such an influx about the human rights of others.

Some sense of realism must also be established. In an effort to mask a profound mistake Chancellor Merkel implies that everyone now making their way to and across Europe are the saintly victims of conflict. Many clearly are and are deserving of our help and, indeed, a Europe-wide humanitarian response. However, within the exodus there will be opportunists, criminals and even terrorists which is why due process must be re-applied rigorously if the first duty of any leader is be upheld and seen to be so; to protect her own people. 

Control and some sense of strategy and order must be established and quickly. Even though it is unfashionable these days for continental Europe’s elite to admit David Cameron and the British are right about this crisis the most important first response is to help displaced Syrians in the camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Thereafter, the flow to Europe must be controlled by diplomatic engagement with Turkey, the establishment of reception centres in Greece, Italy, Spain and elsewhere, the quick and proper assessment of asylum claimants, with those who fail to qualify for asylum returned to their country of origin. If migrants refuse to disclose their identities, language and dialect experts must assist with the identification of their likely origins.  Countries that refuse to take migrants back must face EU and national aid sanctions/incentives. Such a rigorous approach would be massively strengthened by evidence of a strategy to go after the major criminal gangs who are driving this exodus and profiting from it. Germany must use its undoubted power and influence to champion such a system to be run jointly by all EU member-states.  Only thereafter will Chancellor Merkel begin to regain the trust of the people who are going to have to live with the massive change she suggests is coming.  Hopefully, today’s ‘crisis’ meeting of national interior ministers will adopt such measures but do not hold your breath!

There is one other aspect of this crisis which suggests it may be time for Chancellor Merkel to step down from power.  Twice in the past fortnight she has unilaterally-suspended cornerstone EU rules.  However, she has repeatedly told David Cameron that the very modest reforms to the EU (more modest by the day) will be impossible.  She not only gives the impression that it is she who decides the fate and status of millions of Europeans who did not and cannot vote for her, she also gives the impression that in the EU whilst it is no rules for Germany, it is too many rules for the rest of us. Worse, at a dinner in Downing Street a couple of years ago she told David Cameron that if a Brexit became likely she would move to isolate Britain.  Britain has done a pretty good job isolating itself but she is clearly far more Machiavellian than the impression she likes to give.

Margaret Thatcher suffered from a dangerous trinity of power; a dominant domestic political position, an innate, unyielding Machiavellianism, and a long period in office during which those willing to stand up to her were replaced by ‘yes men’. From a distance it looks as if Angela Merkel is showing signs of suffering from the same dangerous trinity.  For Germany’s sake, for Europe’s sake and indeed for own sake it is perhaps time for this quintessentially decent woman to go.

The past is indeed a different country and nowhere more so than Germany.  However, if Chancellor Merkel does not restore some element of control to the current mass influx then the future Germany will also be a very different country and they will have to do things very differently there. The German people should have a say but Germany too must tread warily.

Julian Lindley-French               

Jean-Baptiste Juncker: More Europe at Whatever Cost

“There is not enough Europe in this Union. And, there is not enough Union in this Union”.

Jean-Claude Juncker

Alphen, Netherlands. 11 September. What does Wednesday’s speech by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker really say about the State of the Union? Last week I was accused by a senior figure (not unreasonably) of ‘carping’ on about ‘Europe’.  He is right.  As a historian and strategist the implications of what is happening to power in Europe has to my mind the most profound implications for the Rights of Man, for democracy, liberty and political legitimacy.  And it is over that simple issue of political principle where Juncker and I part company.  

Juncker and I come from two very different political traditions that in and of themselves reflect the fundamental split that exists between most Eurozone and non-Eurozone members.  I am very much the political child of the English enlightenment, of John Locke and Thomas Paine, and the need for power to be legitimised and checked by close proximity to the citizen.  Juncker is the child of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s First Minister, who championed the idea of ‘dirigisme’, the top-down imposition of the state on the citizen in his/her name by an elite that knows best.   

Juncker’s political agenda came across most clearly when he addressed the two headline crises of the moment: the migration crisis and the future of the Eurozone. On the face of it many of the proposals Juncker made to ‘manage’ the migration crisis make policy sense. He is right to suggest the crisis is systemic requiring a Europe-wide response built on solidarity, humanity and commitment. I buy that.  However, the crisis also needs stopping and that means strategy, structure and tough action, all three of which were notable by their absence from the speech.  Rather, like Angela Merkel, Juncker seems almost content to envision potentially millions of non-European migrants coming to Europe with all that entails for the future of European societies and the functioning of many EU member-states.

As ever with Juncker the devil is in the detail of the language.  He calls for the ‘compulsory’, i.e. dirigiste, relocation of an ‘initial’ 160,000 migrants, a ‘common’ EU migration policy, asylum-seekers (he refused to call them ‘migrants’ which is what the majority are once they set foot in the EU) to be given the right to work from the day they arrive in the EU whilst they await a ruling on their right to stay. A ruling that Juncker would prefer was made by the European Commission and not individual member-states.  Juncker also called for the EU’s Frontex force to become a “fully operational border and coastguard system,” to patrol the EU’s borders, i.e. another stepping stone on the road to his beloved European Army.  And, he calls for a “more powerful EU foreign policy”, focused on Brussels and not the member-states. 

However, it is only when one reads the passages in the speech about deeper Eurozone integration does the sheer scale of Juncker’s political ambition become apparent – the effective scrapping of the sovereign nation-state in Europe stone by sovereign stone.  Juncker first calls for the Eurozone to have its own treasury, and a seat for on the IMF and World Bank. He then suggests that salaries across the EU must be harmonised to ensure the same jobs get the same pay, which would effectively end the free market in Europe.  This is super-statism and super-dirigisme at its most implacable.

The speech must also be placed in its wider political context. On July 1, the “Five President’s Report for Strengthening Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union” was slipped out.  In fact, the report should have been entitled, “Enforcing European Political Union” for whilst the focus of the report is on how to enhance the functioning of the Eurozone the objective is decidedly political – the ‘Grexification’ of the Eurozone state. In the report ‘Presidents’ Juncker, Tusk, Dijsselbloem, Draghi and Schulz (the EU elite love making themselves presidents these days) proposed a three-stage plan that by 2025 would see a Eurozone that was fully-integrated by 2025, i.e. a super-state in all but name (and possibly with name).   

Stage one, entitled “Deepening by Doing” would be completed by 30 June, 2017, and would complete the “Financial Union” by centralising more state power in dirigiste European institutions whilst at on and the same time magically enhancing ‘democratic accountability’. Stage Two, “Completing EMU”, would see ever more binding powers imposed on member-states to ensure ‘convergence’ between economies and thus further reduce the ability of any member-state to makes its own policy,.  Stage three, “at the latest by 2025”, would see a “deep and genuine EMU” put in place.  Naturally, the document is replete with references to ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. This is nothing new; whenever EU dirigistes seek to remove power ever further from the people it is done so in the name of the very people who are being politically enfeebled. 

Set against such political ambition David Cameron’s hopeless attempt to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with Juncker, Germany and the Eurozone (for that is what it is) is doomed.  The strange thing about Cameron is that he is meant to have studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics across the road from me in Oxford. And yet he seems unable to comprehend that as a British Conservative he is actually engaged in a battle of the most profound political importance between small government English Lockeism and big, distant government EU Colbertist dirigisme.  I suspect he spent too much time in The Bear pub. Not for the first time Cameron has under-estimated the strategic implications of one of his many narrow political gambit.

Indeed, unless Cameron gets serious about his renegotiation he will place the British people in the worst of all dirigiste EU worlds.  The only way to stop such drift will be to threaten a Brexit and mean it for such a threat is likely the only way to get Germany and other Eurozone member-states to confront the full implications and consequences of Juncker’s dirigiste vision.

Juncker’s speech marks a true parting of the ways; a vision of and for Europe that goes far beyond the super-Alliance of European states in which I believe.  An elitiste, dirigiste ‘Europe’ focused on the European Commission and the European Parliament in which the once supreme European Council would be reduced to little more than a toothless advisory body.

   

Non-Eurozone states will soon have to face the profound choice they have all be ducking; join the new ‘state’ or leave the EU.  Are there alternatives? The federalist Spinelli Group are drafting what they call the ‘final treaty’ (sounds ominous) and have proposed the idea of ‘associate membership’ for states like Britain.  To Juncker’s mind that would be like being a little bit pregnant – simply not possible.  Indeed, for Juncker one will need to be either in the Eurozone or out of the EU. ‘Associate membership’ would for Juncker simply mean putting states like Britain into a form of political sin bin in which they are forced to pay but have no say until they come to their political senses and cave in (which is what Cameron usually does in any case when it comes to matters EU).  Perhaps the most cynical passage of the entire speech was Juncker’s call for a ‘fair deal’ for a Britain he does not like and which he would be quite happy to see go.

How can Juncker get away with such a speech?  After all, in the past European Commission presidents were seen merely as the EU’s top bureaucrat appointed by and subject to the member-states.  However, Juncker claims that when I voted in last year’s elections for the European Parliament I somehow knew I was voting for so-called Spitzenkandidaten.  In other words, he claims a political mandate from an electorate that did not realise it was voting for him and of whom only 41% voted. It was a political coup.  

     

Jean-Baptiste Juncker wants more Europe at whatever cost and that is something I can never accept.  Indeed, Juncker’s claim in the speech that “our European Union is not in a good state” is precisely because it is not in Juncker’s interest for it to be in a good state. For Juncker no crisis is a bad crisis if he can demand ever more ‘Europe’ at whatever cost. That is why in the final analysis the speech was a carefully-crafted exercise in political opportunism by a canny federalist who sees an opportunity to cross a political Rubicon from state to super-state via the white hot political ‘crucible’ of crisis. 

Therefore, for all the above reasons I will continue to ‘carp’ on about Europe precisely because the EU is bloody important, for the moment I still have the right as a ‘citizen’ to exercise my view, and above all this is a bloody important moment in the EU’s political destiny.

There is of course one other vital difference between Juncker and me which may I fear prove critical; he enjoys distant power, whilst I am a mere peasant.

Julian Lindley-French   

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

“If you can keep your head when all about you, Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two imposters just the same”

Rudyard Kipling

Alphen, Netherlands. 9 September.  She is Head of State of Antigua, Australia, Barbados, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Great Britain, Grenada, Grenadines, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.  She is Head of a Commonwealth of 53 states, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, and Supreme Head of the Church of England. A couple of years ago I flew around the world and on only one occasion did her likeness (some more flattering than others – get your act together Canada!) not adorn the local currency. On the one occasion when she was not staring back at me from a banknote I had landed in Singapore which until recently did have her ‘image resplendent’ (I think that is monarchy speak) on the local currency. Today, having reigned for 63 years, 216 days (or 23,226 days if you will) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Northern Ireland passes her ancestor Queen Victoria to become Britain’s longest serving monarch.

Her Majesty now sits at the pinnacle of a list of good, not-so-good and downright potty monarchs stretching back to before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Queen Victoria (1837-1901) was the arch-‘Victorian’ who ruled the waves and reigned for 63 years and 215 days; George III (1760-1820) who was by and large insane and German in equal measure, but did at least expel Johnny Yank from the Empire for persistent bad behaviour and reigned for 59 years, 96 days; James VI of Scotland (1576-1215) of whom I have no idea whatsoever reigned for 57 years, 245 days; Henry III (1216-1272) who oversaw the first modern parliament reigned for 56 years, 29 days; Edward III (1327-1377) gave the French repeated thrashings (always good) and reigned for 50 years, 147 days; whilst William I of Scotland (1165-1214), another of those distinctly dodgy and utterly forgettable Scottish monarchs reigned for 48 years, 360 days. Finally, there was 'Gloriana', Her Majesty’s namesake Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) beloved of Marlowe, Spencer and Shakespeare, who put Philip II’s Spanish Empire in its place by generally sinking it, and confirmed England as a Protestant land and proto world power, she reigned for 44 years and 127 days.

Her Majesty also makes me somewhat different.  Indeed, I am an unusual citizen (no longer subject) of an unusual democracy for although I was born in the late-1950s she is the only head of state I have ever known.  And, it is precisely her longevity that is her achievement, allied to her iron self-discipline.  Indeed, it is precisely because in many ways Her Majesty is a woman of the 1950s that she has succeeded as a monarch.  She belongs to a generation which believed in duty, honour, patriotism and discipline. As such the Queen has been a rock of stability in a sea of change (ouch), not least in the country of her birth Britain, which has undergone profound some would say massive change during her long reign. Nor has change been confined to Britain. The world of her coronation on 2 June, 1953 was very different from the world we know today and still she and the monarchy endures.

She has survived because she understands the ‘constitutional’ bit in constitutional monarchy.  In spite of the image of enduring and endurance she conveys she has had the political savvy to move with the times when she has been required to and knows full well the boudary between her role and that of the many prime ministers who have served her.  That is why she still ‘reigns’ over 16 states that have also undergone massive change since she was crowned.

There are aspects of the 'Firm' with which I am not so enamoured.  The Royal Household too often to my mind surrounds itself with an aristocratic circus and assorted hangers-on that anchors a class system that still blocks aspiration and assumes its own ill-deserved elitism. It is my firm belief that a country such as Britain and indeed all her realms must be champions of aspiration if they are to prosper in a hyper-competitive twenty-first century.  Democracies need to be states in which all the talents can assume a reasonable chance of success in life irrespective of class, gender, race or orientation. That is patently not the case today.

Nor would I suggest for a moment that constitutional monarchies of the sort Her Majesty heads are suitable for every state.  Indeed, there is an inherent and eternal tension between democracy and monarchy that can only ever be massaged over with fantasy, the spectacle of majesty.  However, for all that I would not change my system of government.  She is ‘my’ Queen and whilst much of the chattering elite routinely exaggerate what has become Britain's 'fashionable' decline and seem in an unseemly haste to replace it with a European something else that is at best unproven and at worst sinister Her Majesty is THE reminder of my country and why I still believe in it and its bizarre unwritten constitution for all its many faults.  Yes, I am an unashamed British constitutional patriot and I make no apologies for that.

Perhaps I hang on to my out-dated patriotism because I had the honour of meeting Her Majesty.  It was at Smith Lawn in Windsor Great Park during a polo match.  For some reason I had decided I was going to test the bite strength of a line of polo ponies.  Suddenly, this very nice lady suggested that putting my hand in a horse’s mouth was not such a terribly good idea.  My parents stood bolt upright, I was five years old and the lady was Her Majesty.

However, the strongest argument I have ever heard for the Queen and the constitutional monarchy was not in carping Britain but in Australia.  A couple of years back I was attending a ‘high-level’ dinner in Canberra which was brim-full of Aussie politicians.  It happened that I was sitting next to one of Australia’s most well-known politicians and a staunch monarchist.  Being my contrary Yorkshire-self I ventured to suggest that in this day and age it would surely make sense for Australia to become a republic.  “No mate”, said politico fired back. “If you want any proof you needed that a republic would not work for Australia look around this room. Would you elect any of these bastards to be head of state?”  Fair point.

Thank you, Your Majesty, for 63 years and 216 days of exemplary public services. Long indeed may you reign over me.

Julian Lindley-French 

NATO: THE ENDURING ALLIANCE 2015

NEW LINDLEY-FRENCH BOOK - NATO: THE ENDURING ALLIANCE 2015

Dear Friend and Colleague,

It is with pleasure I announce the publication by Routledge of my latest book NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2015.  The book is a complete re-write and update of my successful 2007 edition.  The focus of the book is NATO's place in the twenty-first century world. However, the backbone of the book is a fast-paced telling of NATO's story since its founding in 1949 against the backdrop of contemporary change.  

Commencing with the dramatic and tragic downing of MH17 the book confronts squarely the strategic implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  The book also considers in depth the impact of the financial crisis on Western strategy, the evolution of the Alliance, enlargement and the Open Door policy, Afghanistan, partnerships, nuclear policy, the collapse of much of Europe’s neighbourhood, hybrid warfare, and the evolving relationship between NATO and the EU. 

The book considers in depth the future or NATO forces, their purpose and indeed their readiness for the challenges that undoubtedly lie ahead.  The book also looks to NATO’s strategic future in a dangerous world faced not just by Moscow's challenge but American over-stretch and the murderous Islamists of ISIS.  

The central message of the book is unequivocal; the transatlantic relationship with NATO at its core is a if not the cornerstone of stability and security, not just for Europeans and North Americans, but for much of the world beyond.  It is vital that all members of the extended Euro-Atlantic community have the vision and shared purpose to ensure NATO can do its job.

To be honest, I am proud of this book as I put a lot into re-writing and updating it.  Indeed, with a Foreword by former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe Admiral (Retd.) James G. Stavridis NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2015 is in effect a brand new book on NATO which I have the honour to offer to you.

The book is available via Amazon and/or Routledge web-sites and I would be honoured if you read it.

All best, 

Julian

How many of the World’s Poor & Displaced can Western Europe Take?

Alphen, Netherlands. 4 September.  Seventy-six years ago today Polish refugees were desperately seeking to escape the Blitzkrieg as Nazi forces savaged Poland. On Wednesday the horrific image of three year old Aylan Kurdi’s drowned body washed up on a Turkish beach crystallised in one image the appalling humanitarian tragedy that is Europe’s refugee and migrant crisis. Today, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees has called upon the EU to accept a ‘mandatory’ 200,000 refugees. Not surprisingly, the broadcast airwaves are replete with calls for ‘something more to be done’. Germany is right; this is a European problem precisely because it is a systemic crisis, although Chancellor Merkel’s poor handling of both the crisis and her fellow Europeans has exacerbated both the crisis and Europe’s divisions. Equally, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban is also right; the problem is a particular problem for Germany, and by extension Western Europe. So, how many of the world’s poor & displaced can Western Europe Take?

European leaders must avoid doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Indeed, how ‘Europe’ deals with this crisis will set a precedent for the many future potential crises that are brewing on Europe’s borders and not far beyond (more of those later). European ‘policy’ – both national and EU – has clearly failed. This is primarily because of the political impact of recent mass immigration on Western European societies, and the refusal of some Central and Eastern European countries to become immigration countries.  However, the crisis has also been exacerbated by the politically-correct refusal of leaders to accept that any policy will mean significant numbers of refugees and migrants eventually being repatriated. Leaders have also refused to recognise that long-cherished but wholly unrealistic EU shibboleths must change in the face of the systemic and strategic challenge to the existing order the current crisis represents. In other words, European leaders are caught in a web of their own contradictions.

Talking of contradictions even the so-called ‘solutions’ being proposed by the EU seem to bear little relationship to the situation on the ground. Yesterday, EU Council President Donal Tusk called for the mandatory distribution of 100,000 refugees and migrants across EU member-states. However, for that to work the migrants would need to stay where they are sent. That would mean the re-introduction of internal controls within the EU and thus the end of free movement central to Schengen.  Indeed, even if the Brussels Eurocrats succeed in sending many of the migrants and refugees to relatively poorer Central and Eastern European countries by fiat soon thereafter many of them will simply up sticks again and head back to relatively richer Western Europe.

Worse, the crisis has already flattened EU border controls and revealed the Schengen ‘system’ to be the borderless, toothless, on-paper only tiger it always was. This is because the strong, continuous external EU border upon which Schengen depends can only be enforced at the expense of humanitarianism which would mean many more thousands of migrants being permitted to die at sea.  That is politically unacceptable (and rightly so) so long as European states are not prepared to seek out and destroy the trafficking pipelines facilitating the mass exodus from Africa and the Middle East. Consequently, Schengen facilitates the undocumented movement of migrants and refugees.

Furthermore, the European Commission’s proposal for a common policy on asylum is based on a nonsensical distinction between asylum seekers and economic migrants. Most ‘refugees’ no longer regard the asylum they seek as temporary refuge (as it should be) but rather a form of permanent resettlement, an aspiration they share with economic migrants. For example, if they were merely seeking asylum Syrian refugees would stay in Turkey where they are free from the threat of death.  Instead they are heading to Europe, or more precisely they are heading to Germany and Western Europe, because the moment they step into the EU they also become economic migrants.  

So, let me put Western Europe’s refugee/economic migrant crisis in its systemic perspective.  The circa one million migrants and refugees now transiting or about to transit Europe AND the million or so believed to be heading to Europe from the east and the south of the Continent as I write will continue to head to Western Europe. i.e. Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and non-EU Norway. You will note I have left Italy off the list because like many Southern and Eastern European states evidence suggests the traffickers see it as a reception rather than a settlement country. For the moment I have also left Britain, Denmark and Ireland off the ‘target list’ because as non-Schengen countries they can still impose nominal border controls, although David Cameron is this morning shifting his position on Syrian refugees and rightly so. 

Now, if I take various UN indices for conflict, extremism, persecution, political instability, poverty and pressures caused by recent mass immigration as a measure of vulnerability to develop a list of 'at risk' countries relatively close to Europe and then further include the nationals of those countries who have already made their way illegally to Europe the list is thus: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Burkina-Faso, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Georgia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Mali, Mauretania, Moldova, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Togo, The Gambia, Tunisia, Ukraine, Western Sahara and Yemen. Add to that conservative list (I have deliberately left a few unstable countries off) Kurds and Palestinians according to the CIA World Factbook the total (rounded down) is some 1.3bn people.

Now, let’s assume for the sake of argument that over the next decade 1% of that population will attempt to enter the EU either as a refugee or economic migrant. That would mean 130m people over a decade or 13m irregular migrants and asylum seekers each year seeking to enter the EU. Let’s also say for the sake of argument they all seek to make their way to the seven countries I have highlighted. This would mean Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and non-EU Norway absorbing some 1.85m people each year from very different social, cultural and economic backgrounds.

Given those figures a country like the Netherlands would need to take in a minimum of 264,000 refugees and migrants each year above and beyond regular migration or 2.6m irregular migrants over ten years.  Given the population of the Netherlands is some 16m such an influx of people over one decade would have very significant implications for the social, cultural and economic cohesion of the Netherlands.  That is why the current crisis is a systemic crisis that potentially at least threatens to destabilise European societies, something Europe’s elite seem unwilling to admit.

Of course, I am assuming that such a flow of people would be steady and constant rather than the kind of crisis and criminal driven surge we are witnessing in Europe today.  And, the ability of a country to receive migrants and refugees would need to be based on population size given that Western European countries all share similar GDP per capita.  However, there is another complicating and exacerbating factor that must also be considered. Under European human rights legislation if indefinite leave to stay is granted many countries then permit families to join refugees and migrants. That would boost overall irregular immigration figures significantly, possibly as much as three or fourfold.       

Now, some will no doubt accuse me of lacking humanity for not joining those implying that all of the poor and displaced be given shelter in Europe. They are wrong. The sight of little Aylan’s body affected me just as it did other decent Europeans. And, I also believe more must be done to help the victims of Syria and Iraq’s nightmare both in Europe and more particularly in the region itself. However, I refuse to retreat into the hysteria generated by one ghastly image. Tragically, little Aylans have been drowning in the seas around Europe for a couple of years now.

Furthermore, Europeans must also resist efforts by well-coached refugees and migrants to use television to shame Europe into foregoing humane due process and sensible controls or accepting the lawless thuggery that is being tolerated in places, most notably Calais. Indeed, given the threat ISIS terrorism poses to Europe the re-gripping of such process is vital because implicit in the refugee and migrant crisis is a clear and present danger to Europeans. 

Effective ‘humanitarianism’ requires policy, strategy, structure and balance. Above all, ‘humanitarianism’ will only work and indeed be seen as legitimate by host populations if the scale of the challenge is properly understood, the consequences thought through for all concerned, credible and relevant policy (short, medium and long-term) crafted, structures established and measures taken and seen to be taken, including deportation and repatriation of those who fail residency tests, and an ‘asylum’ system that means asylum not mass permanent relocation. 

The mission of this blog is to peer through the fog of awe that so often accompanies such crises and consider strategic and policy implications in the cold, hard light of facts. My evidence is pretty compelling in terms of the policy planning drivers leaders must consider, even if only a fraction of my worst case exodus comes to pass. Above all, such planning presupposes the answer to my seminal question; how many of the worlds’ poor and displaced can Western Europe take? There is of course another question leaders need to answer; what will need to be done when Western Europe can take no more?

Over to you leaders. Stop prevaricating, get your act together and quickly!

Julian Lindley-French

The European Union and the Rule of Law

“The tyrant desires that his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no-one attempts what is impossible, and they will not attempt to overthrow a tyranny, if they are powerless”

Aristotle on Tyranny. 

Alphen, Netherlands. 2 September. Frans Timmermans, Vice-President of the European Commission and former Dutch Foreign Minister, is a decent man and certainly not the tyrant against which his beloved Aristotle rails. Indeed, I had the honour of meeting him at a big conference I chaired in Amsterdam a couple of years ago.  However, a Monday speech he gave at the University of Tilburg that my wife helped organise worries me. Entitled, “The European Union and the Rule of Law” it was in certain respects an excellent speech that sought to reacquaint the European Commission with the core principles of Europe’s Founding Fathers as arbiter for and between the states it is meant to serve.  However, read between its many lines and the speech does something else – by placing the rule of law ABOVE democracy and law as an ALTERNATIVE to power it seeks to justify the transfer of ever more state power (sovereignty) to the Commission in the name of toothless efficiency masquerading as law. In so doing Timmermans attempts to justify the idea that Higher Authority always knows best and with it power ever more distant from the ever more ignored citizen. Above all the speech demonstrates to me an EU heading inexorably towards a reckoning between state and super-state.

With much of the speech I could agree. The rise of xenophobia, intolerance, hatred and the populism it engenders on both the political Left and Right must be resisted. His assertion that democracy and the rule of law are intrinsically and inevitably intertwined is clearly correct. His reassertion of the need for a system of migration and asylum that is founded in both law and effective management is sound. Equally, Timmermans fails to point out that the current migration crisis has been exacerbated by the elite’s focus on the former but refusal to realise the latter.

However, my concerns about the speech are manifold. Timmermans particularly irritated me when he cited Mark Leonard’s trite, ‘tell the EU elite what they want to hear’ comment that ‘Europe’ had somehow “led the way toward a future run by committees and statesman, not soldiers and strongmen”. First, it was not the EU or its forebears that invented the idea of international institutions as constraints on extreme state action. Second, by emphasising law at the expense of power the EU has contributed to Europe’s wilful self-decline and retreat from the world and in so doing made both its region and the wider world a very much more dangerous place than it need be. Third, a Europe run by committee is a weakness not a strength.

However, it is over the relationship between law, democracy and power that Timmermans gets into a real tangle.  At one point in the speech he warns against “illiberal democracy” and that the rule of law must at times be used to justify the denial of the majority will, i.e. law not in partnership with democracy but superior to it. Yes, there are indeed occasions when mob rule must be countered and that is why the rule of law evolved.  As Plato said,   “Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil”.  However, in a democracy it is the will of the people which is sovereign, or at least used to be.

Worse, Timmermans then links the rule of law to an idea of sovereignty that seems to defy contemporary reality. First, he states that, “European nations pooled sovereignty in order to secure the basic aims of sovereignty”.  He then defines sovereignty “as not just the right to act, but the ability to act”. Whether such a statement is viewed through the lens of legitimacy or efficiency it is patent nonsense.  Indeed, be it the Eurozone crisis or the migration crisis the EU’s institutions far from aggregating sovereignty have instead become a sovereignty black hole – denying member-states the ability to act, the right to act and ignoring the will of the people at one and the same time.

It is at this point the essential failing and indeed contradiction in Timmerman’s argument becomes apparent. For example, he states that: “For Europe, the rule of law is not just an inspiration, it is also an aspiration: a principle that guides both our internal and external actions”. However, having implied the rule of law is more important than democracy he also implies that law is an alternative to power.  This is also nonsense. Law is power. Whosoever makes laws must also have the power so to do.  Timmermans is in fact making an implicit argument for the supremacy of technocracy as decided by an elite oligarchy.

Again, I am not suggesting for a moment that either the European Commission or Frans Timmermans are tyrants. However, the speech certainly advocates more power for the Commission which is what all institutions and their leaders always seek. Here is the but and it is a big one. The speech comes perilously close at times to advocating the European Commission as Leviathan, a Europe in which stability is ‘guaranteed’ only at the expense of liberty. Timmermans might have been better advised to have reminded his audience of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and government of the people, for the people and by the people. Instead, for all the sophisticated prose this clever speech ends up being simply yet another of those EU elite plaidoyers which in the name of 'Europe' calls for the concentration of ever more power in a few elite hands – their hands. But then what do I know? After all, I am merely a citizen. Or should that be peasant?

So, for those of you unwilling to wade through all eleven of the labyrinthine pages of bad philosophising and Commission speak (the speech was clearly written by a Cambridge man) Timmerman’s speech can be satirically summarised thus (wait for it!): The world is so big and bad and getting more so that no single EU member-state can deal with it to effect any longer. Therefore if the European individual is to be protected against bad things ‘sovereignty’, i.e. power, must be ‘pooled’ which is a metaphor for giving ever more of said power to we the European Commission who in turn because we are bloody good chaps and chapesses (and paid accordingly) will render nasty state power ‘legitimate’ and because we are ‘legitimate’ courtesy of our pooled power we the Commission will generate, arbitrate and execute everything and call it the rule of law precisely because we are good chaps and chapesses and therefore legitimate.  AND as only we at the European Commission are really able to make any difference in this big, bad world because the states and their leaders are so pathetic and useless because we have ensured they must be then we the Commission must thus in time (hopefully not too long now) become THE sovereign power in Europe but only in the name of Europe and, oh yes, the people, of course. AND if the individual citizen does not a) understand; b) appreciate; or c) acquiesce in our efforts on his or her behalf it is because he or she is an idiot, insufficiently ‘European’, unendowed or imbued with ‘Europe’s spirit and values, and therefore cannot be trusted to understand complex things. AND whilst we at the Commission might still allow the people to vote from time to time any such polls will in effect be meaningless like the ones we run every four years for the European Parliament (good one, eh?) AND in any case if said people vote the wrong way which they do from time to time that is dissent and must be disregarded because it will be necessarily misguided and thus infringe the rule of law which by definition only we the European Commission can define because we decide the needs of the many which are ultimately far more important than the rights of the individual except when said individual is a member of a minority and must therefore be protected from the nasty majority whatever they think which is why we have the rule of law. 

Got it?

Julian Lindley-French

The Unbearable Lightness of Being David Cameron

Alphen, Netherlands. 31 August. In his new book on David Cameron Cameron at 10 Sir Antony Seldon quotes my friend Lord Richards of Hurstmonceux. Asked about the 2013 Syria crisis Richards said Cameron was more interested in “a Notting Hill liberal agenda than statecraft”. Lord Richards should know. Then Sir David Richards was Chief of the British Defence Staff until 2013 during which time I served him as a member of his Strategic Advisory Panel. The attack by Richards has been jumped upon (predictably) by Cameron’s political allies as the jumped up remarks of some jumped up former general who needs a good jumping on. They are wrong. David Richards is one of the most politically and strategically savvy military men I have ever known. Critically, he is also a man with a clear understanding of the relationship between power, effect, influence and outcomes in strategic affairs as is clear in his foreword to my 2015 book Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power (www.amazon.co.uk). Indeed, I recall sitting in the Kabul office of his American successor trying to convince said American general that the scrapping of the Political Action Groups Richards had set up was a big mistake precisely because it removed a key component in the relationship between strategic ends, ways and means. Richards was right then and he is right now and here is why.

Since he came to power in 2010 David Cameron has ducked, mishandled or ill-judged almost every major international issue he has had to deal with.  This was not and is not entirely his fault. The economy Cameron inherited from Gordon Brown’s Labour Party was in tatters. He lacked a clear parliamentary majority to push ahead with his own political agenda forced as he was by the 2010 elections into a difficult coalition with the Liberal Democrats. He was at also the political apex of a government machine that has lost the ability to think and act strategically, had been torn apart by Blair's wars, and in effect no longer believes in Britain as an independent, influential power.

However, as time went on it became clear to me that the ‘Lib Dems’ also provided a convenient alibi for inaction or ill-judged action that was all Cameron’s own. The botched August 2013 vote in Parliament about planned Syrian air strikes reflected a light touch politician who simply did not understand international relations and failed to think the consequence of action/inaction through.

Now, I must fess up. I also opposed the planned action in Syria not because I believed inaction was the best option but because the Obama plan would simply have made the rubble bounce. As such the 'plan' bore little or no relationship to the stated desired outcome of removing Assad and thus ending Syria’s nightmare. It was a clear failure of strategy, ambition and will (on both sides of the Pond) which revealed a prime minister clearly uncomfortable with his role in a dangerous big picture world. He also had little idea about Britain’s place and role in aforesaid world; and/or the role force and its use plays in the broad ambit of strategy of one of the world’s top five economic and military powers. Rather, Cameron seemed to be saying, ‘let me get off the world for a bit while I fix Britain’s economy and then I might get back to you’.

Critically, Cameron seemed unable to understand how his ‘Long-Term Economic Plan’ and the foreign affairs and defence austerity at its core would impact Britain’s ability to shape its environment. The most notable example of this failing was the disastrous cuts to the British armed forces in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review and the wider (and deeper) impact such cuts had on Britain’s wider influence, most notably in Washington.  The corrosive effect of one strategy on another revealed itself at the September 2014 NATO Wales Summit during which Cameron lectured other Alliance leaders about the need to maintain defence spending at 2% GDP even as his own Treasury (finance ministry) were planning more cuts to the armed forces.  The jury is still out as to whether the July 2015 ‘reversal’ of planned cuts is real or the kind of political sleight of hand for which David Cameron has both a penchant and a peculiar talent.

With his May 2015 victory in the British general election I had hoped that a ‘real’ Big David Cameron would emerge. That Cameron would finally reveal himself to be a prime minster moulded in the image of Britain’s great strategic leaders. There were early signs my hopes would be fulfilled, not least the announcement that Britain would indeed maintain defence spending at 2% GDP. Sadly, my hopes are once again flagging.

Two issues have again revealed Little David Cameron (Little Lord Fauntleroy?) for the essentially short-termist politician he is: immigration and the EU. Indeed, both issues reveal a politician focused almost exclusively on the ‘political moment’ and how he can manipulate it, rather than the substantive change rightly demanded by the British people. 

His position on Britain’s membership of the EU is frankly risible. To suggest one is going to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU and yet admit that if such renegotiations fail he will insist Britain remains in the bloc is nonsense.  This is particularly the case given the EU will look very different in a decade’s time. Whatever happens the political space Britain currently occupies in the EU is untenable. Worse, Chancellor Merkel now knows she has only to snap her fingers and Cameron will immediately jump into line behind Germany’s national interest. That is what is euphemistically meant by the apparently 'close and warm relationship' the two leaders enjoy. Such political subservience may be appropriate for some of the smaller EU member-states but surely not for Europe’s leading military power (still) and second biggest economy. Put simply, a real negotiator would be making Merkel work far harder for Britain’s continued membership of the EU because Britain really does matter to the EU.

However, it is on immigration that the gap between Cameronian rhetoric and reality is revealed. Ever since he came to power Cameron has been promising to get immigration under control. Last week’s figures from the Office of National Statistics revealed it is not. In the year to June 2015 gross immigration to Britain was an eye-watering 636,000 people with net immigration at 330,000. That means a city the size of Birmingham is being imported every three years.

Cameron’s response is all-too revealing and revealed again his political instincts upon receipt of bad news: a) make sure he is away on one of his several holidays and say nothing; b) let some ministerial underling take the rap; c) eventually make some meaningless ‘no ifs no buts’ promises to get immigration under control (which no-one believes any longer); and d) talk about something else.   

Something else happened last week that also revealed the unbearable lightness of being David Cameron; Chancellor Merkel acted unilaterally and thus set a precedent which clearly establishes the German national interest above that of ‘Europe’.  Having said that the Dublin Convention concerning the registration of irregular migrants in the EU was not working Merkel simply decided to ignore it and seek instead to impose Germany’s policy on the rest of the EU. What is OK for Germany should also be OK for Britain. 

Now, I have long believed in managed free movement as a fruit of winning the Cold War. However, I do not accept that free movement should also mean chaos and tbat it what it is fast becoming. If David Cameron was a great prime minister he would be saying to his EU counterparts clearly and simply that given the current crisis refusal to reintroduce proper border checks and sensible constraints on free movement will see Britain follow Germany’s lead and act unilaterally. Now that would be renegotiating.

David Cameron is a lucky politician but by no means a great one. His greatest piece of fortune is to have faced a Labour Party soon to complete its long retreat into a kind of Socialist Disneyland. However, before Cameron gloats too much he may like to contemplate his own political legacy.  As Richards suggests if Cameron wants a legacy that will last more than the time it takes to consume an over-priced cappuccino in the Ritz the prime minister must show he has “balls”. Don't hold yer breath!  

The unbearable lightness of being David Cameron.

Julian Lindley-French 

Butterflies and Tornadoes: Catastrophic Interdependence and Bad Globalisation

“Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?”

Edward Lorenz

Alphen, Netherlands. 27 August. The stock market crashes in China. Saudi crude drops to $50 per barrel. A migrant dies aboard an over-crowded wreck lost in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. A young girl in East London logs onto an Islamist web-site run by a British jihadi out of Raqqa in northern Syria. A Californian student joins an online petition to protest against global warming. A Moroccan Islamist attacks Europeans on a train between Amsterdam and Paris. Three Russian Tu-160M bombers fly down the coast of northern Norway deliberately violating Norwegian airspace. Welcome to the world of catastrophic interdependence and bad globalisation and the policy and strategy vacuum that is today’s West. What if anything can the ‘West’ do?  

Catastrophic interdependence goes something like this. Since the 2008 financial crash China has been the saviour of the world economy enabling much of the anaemic economic growth that helped prevent global economic meltdown.  However, China is about to pay the price for not building a sustainable economy as China’s debt-fuelled economy crashes, depriving the world of economic drive.  The Chinese Communist Party faced with the prospect of an ouster resorts to armed nationalism to shore up its power base as the contradiction of free market capitalism competing with a command economy breaks the Chinese state.

The US economy is too debt-ridden and American economic growth too fragile to replace China as the driver of global growth. The Eurozone again faces economic collapse as the exports of its beating heart – Germany – falter and then collapse. Unemployment in Europe again soars opening the door to political populists and extremists offering simple, and to some people romantic solutions to incredibly complex problems.

In the developing world the consequences are more profound.  Many countries across the world are one-shot economies that rely heavily on the export of commodities such as oil, wood and precious metals to meet the basic needs of their growing populations. In the absence of Chinese demand commodity prices collapse placing Nigeria. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States under extreme duress.  No longer can Riyadh buy off Islamists as Saudi Arabia joins the now long list of failing states across the region.  Iran is strengthened but so too is ISIS as the prospect of a Caliphate offered the false hope of ‘stability’.  

A final reckoning between Shia and Sunni extremists explodes, leading to a general Middle Eastern war that also threatens to engulf Israel. The migration flows into Europe in 2015 that caused such concern suddenly seem like a trickle as many millions head north and west seeking safety and security in Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries. Free movement across Europe is suspended but it is too late as EU member-states simply force the migrants to keep on moving north and west.

Terrorist attacks break out across the European Continent as networks of Islamist radicals become established feeding on disillusioned youth.  Growing immigrant populations begin to exert and impose identity politics paralysing the political action of Western European states that whilst powerful on paper have become virtually ungovernable as ‘communities’ retreat into mutually-loathing ghettos and European cities begin to look more like broken parts of Africa and the Middle East than Europe.

And then there is Russia.  The Putin regime facing the collapse of the Russian economy that threatens the survival of the regime seizes the opportunity of Europe’s distraction to divert attention by completing the occupation of much of Ukraine. Moscow also seizes the Baltic States. Faced with challenges on many fronts NATO, the EU and its member-states issue a welter of condemnation…but do nothing.  However, even in the hour of Putin’s ‘triumph’ Russia itself begins to collapse as beyond the Ural Mountains Moscow’s writ fails. Much of Russia becomes yet another ungoverned space decisively reinforcing the power and wealth of the Russian mafia and the global criminal network of which it is a part.  The trafficking of drugs, arms and people accelerates unchallenged.

The blame game begins. The West must bear its responsibility for catastrophic interdependence and bad globalisation. The West has gone strategically-AWOL these seven years past. With the failures in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. Powerful Western leaders have retreated into sound-bite, gesture, and gimmick politics. Instead of confronting dangers European leaders have wasted political capital and energy on a fantasy ‘union’ that will never work and which actually prevents power, influence and action rather than aggregates it. In the margins even the President of mighty America sounds ever more like a junior policy-wonk in a think-tank offering pious hope rather than decisive action.   

    

So, what to do?  Even if I am deliberately painting a very dark picture all of the threats I outline above are plausible and interaction between them probable. Therefore, it is time for Western governments to return to the first principles of power, policy and strategy-making and turn analysis into action. Critically, it means the ‘West’ together reinvesting in the tools of influence and effect – diplomacy, intelligence and armed forces. It also means the creation of policy, strategy and structure than can effectively prevent and manage the consequences of catastrophic interdependence and bad globalisation. Above all, it demands of our leaders the political courage to see my big, dark picture – my Edvard Monck of a strategic picture – tell people the hard truth, and then act.

It will be tough. Bad globalisation is a world defined by a growing battle between interconnectedness and interaction, between power and ideology, between hatred and hope, between values and consequences, between extreme faith and no faith, and between old structure and new anarchy in which state power however powerful simply does not have the same currency or value as it had in the past.  However, the alternative would be disastrous.  A continued penchant for political bullshit (sorry!) by leaders would be unforgivable for it would mean ceding the realm of dangerous change that is the world today to the forces of evil, to effectively leave the world at the mercy of predators and predation simply because leaders are no longer capable of effective policy-making or the crafting or sound strategy.  

A senior Canadian friend of mine said to me this week how nothing is possible anymore, until suddenly it is possible. He is right. It is time for our leaders to get a grip. It is time for Europeans, North Americans and their fellow-travellers in Asia-Pacific such as Australia, India and Japan to begin properly preparing for and thus preventing the picture I paint. It is time for our leaders to cast aside the old, tired mantra that public opinion would not understand.  It is time for them to stand up and lead. It is time for a new West that is more idea than place to confront the forces of catastrophic interdependence and bad globalisation.

If not bad globalisation and catastrophic interdependence mixed with political vacillation, weakness and incompetence will surely permit all these separate evils to merge into one - the worst of all worlds. A world that is ever more prone to shock, but ever less capable of coping with shock. Yes, the world is complex; but managing complexity is precisely what government is meant to be for. Yes, effective policy means tough decisions; but that is why we pay our leaders and why they enjoy the fruits and the perks of taxpayer-funded power.

Pericles, the great leader of Ancient Greece and defender of the Greek demos once said; “freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it”.  It is time to get real before it is too late. Big West, little West or no West – it is up to our leaders.

Julian Lindley-French