Romney’s Not Obama Doctrine

Alphen, the Netherlands, 10 August.  All American presidents like to establish a doctrine; a coherent set of foreign and security policy goals that underpin US leadership in the world.  What does Mitt Romney’s recent foreign tour say about a future President Romney’s foreign and security policy?  Can the beginnings of a Romney Doctrine be discerned?

 

From a European perspective the visit hardly instilled confidence. Indeed, after his much-heralded gaffe in London when he suggested the city was not ready for the Olympics The Sun, one of Britain’s more populist newspapers ran the headline, “Mitt the Twit”.  And yet the three venues for his visit were carefully chosen – Britain, Israel and Poland – and do suggest the stirrings of a world view. 

Romney was to some extent pushing at an open door.  One of the many and oft unfair criticisms of President Obama has been that his treatment of traditionally faithful allies has been high-handed.  Ten years of sacrifice by the British under American leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq was seemingly dismissed in the early days of the Obama administration as they attempted to build new relationships with Germany and France.  Poland was told rather brusquely to accept the Administration’s 'reset' with Russia, and Obama has yet to visit Israel, although one is planned if he is re-elected.

And yet Romney came across to Europeans as another ill-informed, plastic American politician – all mouth and no trousers as we say in Yorkshire.  Moreover, some of Romney’s foreign policy pronouncements seem ill-advised.  His aggressive comments about Russia seemed to reflect a Cold War view of superpower Moscow, rather than a state in rapid decline.  Moreover, whilst the visit to Israel clearly demonstrates that a Romney administration would be rightly concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, it also suggests that attempts to find a new accommodation with political Islam as represented by the new Egyptian government would be a low priority, which would be a mistake.

Equally, the Romney world view matters.  There are those of course who suggest that given America’s huge budget deficit, cuts to US armed forces and the West’s economic turmoil any American president will have far less influence than before.  That is only very partially true.  The Americans can no longer shape the strategic environment as before, if they ever could, but talk of American decline is dangerously premature.  Chinese power is very much over-rated and regional at best with Beijing faced by a host of domestic challenges that will render China’s influence brittle at best.  There are simply no other peer competitors to the Americans and there will not be for at least a decade, probably longer.

In fact, given the need to draw down America’s enormous deficit a Romney presidency may well wish the US had less influence. The flip side of influence is responsibility and as the much-berated Obama ‘pivot’ to Asia suggests an over-stretched post-Afghanistan, post-Iraq America could do with less responsibility, not more.  And yet, the pace and cope of instable change in the world is likely to generate more not less demand for American leadership.  Indeed, whilst the strategic centre of gravity will in time shift to East Asia, many of the flashpoints will be in and around Europe – Iran, Syria, fundamentalism and the search for a new political and economic order in a Middle East for which the West still depends for much of it oil. 

It may be this strategic reality that binds Britain, Israel and Poland in the clearly embryonic Romney strategic mind.  Indeed, implicit in the trip was a reinvestment in allies who have delivered for America.  Therefore, at best the trip represented the early stirrings of a Romney Doctrine and with it a re-orientation of American foreign and security policy towards a new global American worldwide security web – a Republican grand strategy.  This state-centric world-wide web of democratic allies and partners would necessarily need to go beyond traditional institutional alliances, such as NATO, if support for an overstretched America is to be bolstered.   

Indeed, such a doctrine would involve and require real and simultaneous US political investment in two sets of traditional allies.  In the European region that would be Britain, Israel and Poland.  In Asia-Pacific Australia, Japan and South Korea would be vital.  Successful overtures would also be needed to the likes of India and South Africa, and more close to home Brazil.  Where a Romney Doctrine could be different is to link them all together with Washington acting as the hub.  

All of the above would require deft American leadership if lost confidence is to be rebuilt.  In and of itself the trip did nothing to reinforce that.  Indeed, there is no Romney Doctrine as yet, simply a Not Obama Doctrine and that is not enough by far.  Romney will need a big foreign policy idea and soon. 

Julian Lindley-French

Yorkshire Gold

Alphen, The Netherlands. 9 August.  Good news for Australia!  The Aussies have just drawn level with my native Yorkshire in the Olympic's medal table with six whole gold medals.  Team GB by the way have twenty-four golds but who's counting?  Keep trying you Aussies! As we say in Yorkshire, 'na then!  That means pay attention in Australian.    

Vor You Tommy Ze Var Ist Ofer?

Alphen, The Netherlands. 7 August.  Those of you of a certain vintage will remember those flinty, somewhat silly British war movies of the 1950s.  The story line was always roughly the same; a plucky British soldier, invariably called Tommy, armed only with a broken toothbrush, elastic band and a piece of chewing gum would, after suffering much adversity, defeat an entire Wehrmacht division.  At some point in the storyline Tommy would invariably and temporarily be captured by some cartoon-cutout German who would invariably utter the immortal line, “Vor you Tommy ze var ist Ofer”.  As we descend into the Euro abyss reading the German Kommentariat I am tempted to say some are at it again.  Britain, the line goes, has no alternative but to accept the German view of Europe, so why can the silly British not see it? 

Part of it is understandable frustration that in the midst of the Eurozone crisis the age-old issue of Britain and Europe has again come to the fore.  Equally, in spite of my huge respect for modern Germany the Kommentariat also reflect a German tendency to believe that what is good for Germany is good for Europe.  Thus, to the Kommentariat pursuit of the German national interest is known as ‘European integration’, pursuit of the British national interest ‘blackmail’. 

Poor little Britain, the line goes, is lost in a long-dead past, and wallowing in misplaced schadenfraude at the travails of the Eurozone.  However, soon broke Britain will break up and have no alternative but to accept the German idea of ‘Europe’.   The more sophisticated members of the Kommentariat recognise that such views are rather silly but worry that moves towards political union could see Britain step inexorably towards an EU exit.  This could do immeasurable damage, not least to Germany’s leadership of Europe. The less sophisticated simply try to shame the British into acquiescence suggesting the country with the world’s fifth or sixth largest real economy and one of the most capable armed forces has no alternative but to abandon national sovereignty in the name of ‘Europe’.  Some even suggest that Britain is responsible for the Eurozone crisis for not having joined the Euro!
 

The Kommentariat reflect a basic political division between the two countries. The German view of ‘Europe’ is a potent mix of romanticism and realism, whilst the British view (as much as there is one) is entirely pragmatic.  Moreover, whilst the rest of Europe by and large accept the German model of Europe, mainly to get their hands on German taxpayer’s money, the British steadfastly refuse. 

For the British ‘Europe’ simply costs too much and could soon cost a lot more.  Britain ‘enjoys’ a huge trade deficit with the rest of the EU, and transfers £4 ($6) to the rest of Europe for every £1 ($1.5) it gets back.  Indeed, the only year Britain enjoyed a net benefit was 1977, at the time of the last in-out British referendum – now there’s a surprise.

The British, or to be more precise the City of London, also provide a convenient scapegoat for the Kommentariat to avoid a simple truth; the problem is the Euro itself.  By extension London must not only be tamed but the British made to pay for a crisis not of their making if the German taxpayer is to be protected.    

However, the ultimate silliness of the Kommentariat is to pretend Britain has no alternative.  It is simply madness to think that a country the size, capability and creativity of Britain could not make its own way in the world.  If the Kommentariat wants proof of that look no further than the London Olympics.  The Games demonstrate again something the Kommentariat really should have learnt by now; that the British when galvanised can be world-beaters.  If only Britain’s defeatist elite could see what the British people instinctively see.  Indeed, if there is a dangerous British malaise it is the void between Britain’s vacuous leaders and its people.

However, the Kommentariat is right about one thing; Europeans must work together at this most dangerous of moments. Certainly, Britain must do nothing to make this crisis worse than it already is.  It is a shame then that silly talk of political union so blights effective, pragmatic crisis management.  Over time London and Berlin need a new start but the perpetual belittling of Britain by the Kommentariat makes that hard.    

There is nothing that irritates the Kommentariat more than British commentators using World War Two as a political metaphor – so here goes.  During the September 1944 Battle of Arnhem surrounded and vastly out-numbered British paratroopers were offered surrender terms by the Germans.  “I am awfully sorry, old chap”, came the reply. “We simply haven’t the room to take you all.  Is there anything else?” 

Julian Lindley-French

Australia Who?

Alphen, The Netherlands. 6 August.  This is getting too easy.  Whatever happened to the Dame Ednas of world sport?  Each Olympics the Australian and British Sports Ministers have a bet as to which of the two countries will gain the most medals.  This is traditionally preceded by a lot of empty Aussie talk of sporting supremacy. Don't worry, we British are tolerant of little countries with big egos.  The loser, Senator Kate Lundy of Australia, will have to don a Team GB shirt and row the Olympic course, for lost she has...again!  Last year England stuffed Australia at cricket in Australia, and now Team GB is giving the Aussies another hiding.

So, just for the record as of today Great Britain sits 3rd in the Olympic table with 37 medals of which 16 are gold, 11 bronze and 10 bronze.  Australia sits (forgive the titter) 24th in the table with 1 gold, 12 silver and 7 bronze.  A few too many tinnies, eh mate? 

Australia who?

Julian Lindley-French    

Euro-Realism 3: Defending Europe

Alphen, the Netherlands. 3 August.  In one of those deliciously Anglo-French moments this week President Hollande took a swipe at the London Olympics and David Cameron.  Stung by Bradley Wiggin’s Tour de France Champs Elysee victory Hollande said, “The British have rolled out a red carpet for French athletes to win medals. I thank them very much for that”.  It was also a calculated riposte to Cameron’s suggestion that the “red carpet” would be rolled out for French economic refugees seeking to escape Hollande’s tax hikes.  It would be easy to leave the Franco-British relationship at that – a tragi-comic little battle over whose declining influence is the greater.  In fact the London-Paris axis is Europe’s only true strategic defence relationship and thus critical to the future defence of Europe.  As Europe heads inexorably towards the coming Euro mega-crisis cross-channel defence relations will become more not less important and must be preserved at all costs. The political realism inherent to the relationship acts as strategic insurance against the woolly ideology of ‘Europe’ that has fathered the current disaster.

Therefore, the French-inspired decision to open up the 2010 Franco-British Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty to others appears all the more strange and could well mark the beginning of the end of this vital pact. Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France was not prepared to have a defence relationship with Britain that was separate from other European allies.  Strangely, Philip Hammond his British counterpart, went along with this.  The defence relationship is now at the mercy of Eurozone chaos.  The timing could not have been worse. 

Up to now London and Paris had shown both sense and restraint by keeping the two distinct.  At this most sensitive of moments the move will certainly reinforce suspicions on the British right that the pact was a French plot to weaken NATO and sucker the British into what they see as the French-inspired EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).  Indeed, Hammond’s acquiescence looks to all intents and purposes as a political sleight of hand – give the French what they think they want knowing full well that in time it will destroy it. 

The only possible practical argument for this decision is that most big, complex defence procurement projects are multi-national rather than bi-national, and that Germany and Italy have been pressing to be included.  However, not only is that wrong; Britain and France share several major projects, it also wilfully misses the point of the 2010 pact.  In any case, multilateral structures already exist and they are failing.  Consequently, the pact will now become EU defence-lite…and fail.

This is exactly what happened to the 1998 St Malo Declaration which was meant to herald a new dawn in Europe-centric defence co-operation between Britain and France.  However, St Malo was never given enough time to mature into a trusting strategic partnership.  Rather, the Germans and others sought the early transformation of St Malo into the failed European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) because inclusivity was judged more important than credible capability.  Subsequently, not only did the Franco-British strategic defence relationship falter (and then crash with the 2003 Iraq War) but European defence became mired in the EU’s political and bureaucratic morasse in which it has been stuck ever since.   

The simple fact is that Britain and France are different and neither can afford any more of the strategic political correctness that has done so much to denude Europe of a sound defence.  Britain and France together represent almost 50% of European defence expenditure.  They are Europe’s only two nuclear powers (excluding Russia).  They have by far Europe’s most experienced and capable militaries and best strategic thinkers. 

The British will now move further towards an American-led defence Anglosphere, whilst the Eurozone and European defence will slowly become one and the same pulling each other into the abyss.  The British will never join the Euro and for that reason the defence of Europe must be kept separate from it.  Indeed, the timing of this move makes it even less likely that London will focus real political energy on CSDP. 

Therefore, London and Paris need to pause and for once think together and think strategically.  With the French about to draft a new White Book on defence (Livre Blanc) and the British moving towards the 2015 Strategic Security and Defence Review the Franco-British defence relationship must be seen by both for what it is; the most strategically-dynamic of its kind in Europe that given time can emerge as the central pillar of Europe’s future defence.  Then and only then should the relationship be opened up to others. 

The Franco-British strategic defence relationship must be seen as a long-term partnership above and beyond local and short-term vicissitudes, however severe.  Only then will European security and defence be re-connected to world security and defence, whatever the downstream institutional arrangements that turn power into structure.

Perhaps President Hollande’s concluding Olympic remark may have spoken truth.  “The competition is not over,” he said.  I suspect it never will be.

It is time for Euro-realism.

Julian Lindley-French

Syria’s Olympian Tragedy and the New Middle East

Alphen, the Netherlands.  30 July.  The struggle for Syria is forging a new Middle East.  Summer Olympics are often used by desperate, repressive, time-expired regimes to act repressively.  The Russians invaded Georgia in the midst of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  Now, the Assad regime is attacking Syria’s largest city Aleppo.  Some estimates suggest up to 200,000 people have already been killed in the war with the UN estimating another 200,000 internally displaced and some 250,000 having fled abroad.  Certainly, the loss of Syria’s biggest city to the diverse anti-regime coalition could mark the beginning of the end for President Assad and his Alawite-dominated minority government.  Such is the level of outside interference that the simple truth is that none of us know when and how this will end.  The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that the Baathist Syrian state is already dead.  How the corpse is disposed of could well decide the future shape and ‘balance’ of the new Middle East. 

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Al-Muallem flew to Tehran Sunday to seek more Iranian support.  For Tehran Syria is critical in their efforts to construct an anti-Israeli coalition that they hope will surround Israel.  Republican US Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday, as part of a strangely amateurish foreign policy venture, called for the strong US defence of Israel and said that preventing Iran obtaining nuclear bombs would be his “highest national security priority”.

   

The Free Syrian Army is being supported by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and to some extent Turkey.  This not only reflects the split within Islam between Shia and Sunni, it also reflects the uneasy balancing act between Arab, Persian, Kurd and Turk that plays out across the region and the struggle for influence and supremacy over what it now the new Middle East.

The new Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo will be a key actor.  Indeed, the true litmus test for Egypt’s future foreign policy orientation will be the fate of Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.  Any linkage Egypt makes between the struggle of the Palestinians and the struggle in Syria could well decide Cairo’s relationship with Israel.

All of this means that Israel faces layers of uncertainty on its borders unparalleled since 1967 and much of it beyond Tel Aviv’s control.  Lebanon is being daily more destabilised by the Syrian struggle by allegiances for which local borders are meaningless.  With some 1000 Syrian refugees a day now crossing from Syria into Jordan the Hashemite Kingdom is again being destabilised. 

Israel’s nightmare is to be surrounded to the north and east by Iranian-backed proxies with Hezbollah to the fore and to the south by a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and a hostile regime in Cairo.

In such an event Iran’s nuclear bomb would not be used to directly threaten Israel but rather to guarantee a free hand for Iran to build its anti-Israeli coalition.  As ever the Palestinians are again being used again for the wider designs of others.  It is a role into which they seem forever to have been cast.

And then there is the grand strategic struggle.  Syria is on the new front-line of the new geo-politics.  Yesterday’s decision by Moscow to refuse to permit a search of any ship flying Russia’s flag en route to Syria simply demonstrated the same old-fashioned thinking in Moscow that led to the 2008 invasion of Georgia.  However, the West’s reluctance to intervene on humanitarian grounds is not simply due to Russian and/or Chinese intransigence.  There are profound concerns about the impact and cost of such an intervention and how it would influence a post-Assad government, the wider region and the dangers associated with injecting Western forces into the Middle East cauldron, particularly after such a bruising experience in neighbouring Iraq and over-the-hill Afghanistan.

The simple truth is that the only option available to the world’s real democracies (the conceptual West) is concerted and systematic diplomatic and humanitarian pressure.  Given that the West must focus policy on Syria and Syrians.  Now that the Annan peace plan is dead the concerted aim must be to decouple as much as possible the conflict from the regional and global issues that are so clouding it and put all efforts into finding an early and durable solution for Syrian people.  Only then and only in time might a successor regime emerge in Damascus that is neither a threat to itself or others, but there is no guarantee.    

The simple truth is that this struggle has so many players that anyone offering a clear view can only do so from the perspective of ignorance or bias. 

As the world loses itself in an Olympian dream a nightmare is awakening.  It is time to wake up!

Julian Lindley-French

OIympic London

Alphen, The Netherlands.  27 July.  Nineteenth century British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once described London as the modern Babylon.  Today, the Games of the XXX Olympiad begin in London.  Over five weeks both the Olympic Games and the Paralympics will, to employ one of the many Olympic cliches now in the starting blocks, shine the light of the world on Britain’s capital city.  What London will it reveal?

In a sense it was entirely appropriate that London was awarded the Olympics and not Britain.  For a long-time now a settlement founded by the Romans between AD 43 and 50 has been a city-state within a state.  This old, great city now has a population of over 9 million people, which according to the 2011 national census released last week grew by some 800,000 over the past decade and probably many more.  Today, London contains over 20% of the UK’s total population.

London’s economic and corporate stats are simply stunning.  London contributes some 17% of Britain’s total GDP, with an economy roughly the size of Sweden, Belgium and Russia.  It is home to the European headquarters of 35% of the world’s largest companies, many of them Olympic sponsors.  65% of Fortune’s Global 500 companies base their operation centres in London with more foreign banks represented than any other world city.  London is thus the very symbol of globalisation – for good and ill. 

Like many Britons my feelings for London are profoundly ambiguous.  Naturally, I am proud of what this city has come to represent as a beacon of freedom during war and a world power in its own right.  And yet much of its wealth was founded on oppression and its under-regulated banks have done much to tarnish the reputation of London and done much damage to the wider British economy.

And yet this is the paradox of London.  The British Government might pretend it will act to tighten regulation over Mammon, but in reality it is Mammon which runs the British Government.  London’s financial clout is far too important for a government desperate for tax revenues in a depression.  This week it was announced that year-on-year the British economy had shrunk by 0.7% by the end of Q2 2012.  Thus, the benighted banks will receive no more than a slapped wrist for their many manipulations, the LIBOR scandal being but the latest and probably by no means the last.

However, it is London’s over-bearing political influence that is perhaps most profound.  London long ago subjugated England and turned a green and pleasant land into a sometimes quaint, sometimes fractured hinterland.  The little countries on London's periphery have retreated into the fantasies of faux self-government replete with myth and legend.  Indeed, the Scots pretence that they can gain pretend independence if they press the Braveheart button will only reveal further the true power in the land - London.  Scotland the Brave will forever be Scotland the Broke without London.

Having vanquished the rest of Britain a new battle is being fought by London and over London.  On one side of the front-line stand those who see London as the champion of free-market globalisation.  Capitals flows are their weapons of choice, their aim to make London as attractive as possible to as much foreign capital as possible wheresoever its provenance and however ill-gotten a gain.  Leading the assault on the City walls is the European Commission at the head of a medieval assembly of European regulation barons.  At heart this struggle for London is one between Anglo-Saxon-led free-marketeers and continental statists. It is a struggle that has already seen many continental free market refugees arrive in London like latter-day Huguenots.

The struggle even takes a physical form.  The new high-speed rail link through the Channel Tunnel to Paris, Brussels and shortly beyond is a physical manifestation of attempts by continental Europeans to forever tie London’s destiny and that of Britain to their own, which is unlikely to be a happy one.  And yet, even though that great old River Thames which has for two millenia defined London flows to the East it rises in the West.  In this age of electronic capital it is ultimately the West, South and far East where London sees it destiny.  Globalisation will prevail.  Yes, European markets matter but the greater the effort by Brussels to tether London the more likely it will break free.  At this defining point in ‘Europe’s’ destiny one thing is clear, London is with them but not of them, to paraphrase Churchill’s great dictum about Britain and Europe.

So, in a sense, the Olympics and London are made for each other.  For, if the Olympics these days represents the place where global capital meets global sport, the London Olympics represents the global capital that pays for Olympic sport.

Citius, Altius, Fortius!

Julian Lindley-French