US Military Strategy 2015: Over-Stretched, Under-Stated & Over There

“Our frontiers are the coasts of the enemy and we should be there five minutes after war is declared.”

Admiral Lord Fisher, First Sea Lord, 1902

Alphen, Netherlands. 8 July. What is interesting about the new US military strategy is what it implies not what it says. Over the past week I have torn apart, “The National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2015”.  The more I read it the more my historian’s mind cast me back to the early years of the twentieth century, the Anglo-German naval race and the end of the Two Power Standard which established the mighty Royal Navy at at least twice the size and power of the next two most powerful navies combined. 

My assessment of the Strategy is thus; an America on the cusp of precipitate relative military decline and a world on the brink of a new and very dangerous geopolitical competition.  It is relative decline exacerbated critically by Europe’s retreat from strategic engagement, most notably Britain.  Europe’s retreat is contributing to the rapid rise of the illiberal challenge to America’s liberal ‘empire’ of the seas.  

America’s splendid military isolation when allies were nice to have but at best a luxury, at worst a hindrance has now been brought decisively to an end.  America will need really capable allies with powerful capable militaries if America’s leadership of the liberal preponderance is to persist.  But where are those allies?  Tiny Australia (current military flavour of the month in Washington)? Forget it.

This brings me to the essential problem of the Strategy; it only hints at the strategic reality it is in fact describing and forecasting.  At times Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin E. Dempsey sounds as if he is going through the motions with more of an eye on telling the White House and the Hill what they want to hear than properly confronting America’s growing military dilemma.  For example, “Today’s global security environment is the most unpredictable I have seen in 40 years of service….global disorder has significantly increased whilst some of our comparative advantages have begun to erode”.  In fact, a look at relative military investment statistics the world over and it is apparent American military preponderance is eroding fast and has been for some time.

The Strategy focuses on three dynamics of strategic erosion: the rise of “counter-revisionist states”; the emergence of “violent extremist organizations”; and the prospect of decisive technology and/or counter-technology shift in military affairs. 

The Strategy cites revisionist Russia, competitive China, irritating but dangerous Iran, mad North Korea, and of course the insanity of ‘ISIL’, as the five main sources of challenge to the US military.  However, in terms of the required response the Strategy at times sounds hollow echoing Admiral Lord Fisher’s hubristic attempt to reassure early twentieth century Britian and to justify the enormous cost of the Royal Navy: “The supremacy of the British Navy is the best guarantee for peace in the world”.  Contrast Fisher’s dictum with the Strategy. “The United States is the world’s strongest nation, enjoying unique advantages in technology, energy, alliances and partners, and demographics.  However, these advantages are being challenged”.  And?

The central dilemma the Strategy (sort of) addresses concerns the balance to be struck between US capabilities, capacity, military readiness and what the British called back in pre-WW1 days “the burden of armaments”.  It is a balance that Britain is about to finally abandon in its forthcoming Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 (strategic pretence and impecunity review) and which Continental Europe gave up long ago, much to America’s strategic loss.  However, the Strategy offers no real vision as to the future balance the US military will need to strike.

Critically, the Strategy in no way links that balance to any real assessment of what the stated strategic challenges will mean for the geographical range and functional scope of an American military task-list that could expand exponentially over the coming years. This is especially so as the US military finds itself having to prepare for major wars and strategic insurgencies the world over and at one and the same time.

Being an optimistic nation the Americans place great store on the transformative properties of technology as the spear-tip of comparative strategic advantage and its maintenance.  However, technology breakthrough works both ways.  In 1906 the British built the superb HMS Dreadnought in one hundred days.  The first all big-gun battleship equipped with revolutionary Parsons turbines she combined firepower, speed and armoured protection.  At a stroke she rendered every other battleship in the world obsolete, most notably those of the German peer competitor. However, even more notably the massive (and it was truly massive) bulk of the Royal Navy’s battle fleets were also rendered obsolete.

Like Britain in 1906 America is relying on its military-technological defence industrial base to ensure the US military continues to lead the world.  However, when I read the May 2015 Chinese Military Strategy alongside the US military strategy I could not but recall a quote by Admiral von Tirpitz, the architect of Germany’s naval challenge to Britain, “All policy hostile to England must wait until we have a fleet as strong as the English”.  Germany never achieved that and went to war in 1914 with only 24 dreadnoughts and super-dreadnoughts against Britain’s 49…and lost.

Here’s the rub of this ‘Strategy’; it only hints at the worst case scenario for which the US military must prepare which goes something like this.  Some year’s hence America faces simultaneous (planned or opportunistic) challenges in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Europe from the likes of China, Iran, Russia (with ISIL still in the mix).  Strong enough to prevail in any one, possibly any two of the three, but not all three Washington finds itself in the worst of all the worlds the Strategy predicts.

Instead, as I read the Strategy I could not also help but recall my Oxford thesis on British policy and the coming of war 1933-1941.  One of the major debates the British had in the 1930s concerned a war in which Britain simultaneously faced Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the militarists in Japan.  The Chiefs of the Imperial General Staff were clear; Britain could just about fight Germany and Italy in an around Europe, but only with the Indian Army could Britain possibly hope to fight Japan at the same time.  In effect, the ‘Chiefs’ said that to prevail in Europe, Britain had to effectively abandon the Pacific Empire.  The rest, as they say, is history!

The bottom but under-stated line of this Strategy is that for it to work America needs capable military allies on both its Asia-Pacific and European strategic flanks allied to an organisation that promotes strategic military coherence and interoperability that would look not unlike NATO. 

Ouch!

Julian Lindley-French 

Time to Rethink Europe

Vienna, Austria. 6 July.  European leaders must confront change or it will engulf them. Two hundred years ago this month Austria-Hungary’s Foreign Minister Prince von Metternich said; “Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when the circumstances are set in extremes”.  Metternich was the dominant figure at the 1815 Congress of Vienna, which took place in the Hofburg Palace here in Vienna, and which had been called to rethink ‘Europe’ in the wake of Napoleon Bonaparte’s failed attempt to impose a form of European elite universalism. It is time again to rethink ‘Europe’.

Now, I fully accept that my citing of the Congress of Vienna as an analogy has more to do with history than politics.  The Congress after all was a triumph of ultra-conservatism and involved Russia, which would not be a good idea today.  However, the Congress was needed precisely because of the structural social and political pressures that had led to the spawning of Bonapartism, the corrupt universalism Napoleon espoused.  Indeed, Bonapartism emerged from the 1789 French Revolution with a universalist message that resonated far beyond the borders of France, rocked Europe’s many ancien regimes, and arguably in time (long time) emerged triumphant.

Contrast that with today.  The Greek crisis (and a possible Grexit) is but one example of the many structural pressures that are beginning to tear the European Union apart.  Many Greeks see themselves in the vanguard of a deepening battle between ordinary Europeans and Europe’s elite, many of whom are neither elected nor legitimate – the ECB’s Mario Draghi for one.  Whilst these same Greeks tend to ignore the fact that Greece signed up to the rules of the Eurozone the Greek crisis has finally torn open the fault-line at the heart of the EU between democracy and technocracy, and between national and parliamentary sovereignty and European supranationalism.  Indeed, I recall my exchange last year with Italy’s former ‘technocrat’ prime minister Mario Monti when he suggested to me that there were other forms of government than democracy.

It is that sense of ‘illegitimate Europe’ which is also implicit in the Brexit debate, the sense of a distant elite ideology being imposed on the individual in the name of ever closer elite integration, and which is doing so much damage to the idea of ‘Europe’ in which I still believe.  It is also political pressure that will continue to grow if the balance between democracy and decision-making is not restored and quickly.  Such an elite sea change seems unlikely as all concern expressed is dismissed routinely as 'populism'. Indeed, a decade ago Europe’s elite simply ignored popular concerns expressed in France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Denmark at the time of the Constitutional Treaty.  Instead of listening the euro-elite simply changed the label and rammed through a new EU ‘constitution’ in the form of the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. 

The concerns of the people were right.  Europe’s nation-states have become emaciated but no other form of legitimate ‘governance’ has emerged to replace it.  Lisbon was a treaty too far for it critically undermined national parliamentary sovereignty without replacing it with any form of legitimate governance in its place. The consequence is that for the past decade ‘Europe’ has been gridlocked by its internal political contradiction; half super-Alliance, half supranational federation.  

The Euro is the most obvious emblem of Europe’s political deadlock.  For a single currency to work there must be a single treasury and thus a single government.  In the absence of such a ‘government’ too many nation-states have been reduced to the political equivalent of children let loose in a candy store and behaved like it, Greece to the fore. However, it is not just the single currency that has suffered as a consequence of an ill-conceived elite political project. Europe’s political deadlock has also accelerated European strategic decline that has in turn destabilised wider Europe and encouraged the rise of opportunists such as President Putin.

If Europe’s leaders are honest with themselves the real message of the Greek crisis is that the ideology of elite Europeanism has been rejected and with it the idea of distant technocratic power. If Europe’s leaders are honest with themselves they will admit it is time to return to a new balance of intergovernmental powers in Europe; the EU as super-alliance rather than proto-federation.  If Europe’s leaders are honest with themselves they will admit that if the growing structural pressures are to be addressed a new treaty is needed that sees power returned to member-states from Brussels so that the child-like irresponsibility so apparent in the Greek crisis is ended.  Sadly, the truth is that Europe’s opaque, self-interested elite are incapable of being honest with themselves or their peoples.  And so the European Project will stumble on until it collapses in the face of history as plans even if conceived in moderation collapse in the very self-willed extremis a refusal to face political reality will inevitably generate.  All Europeans will lose as a result. The danger as ever in Europe is the danger of extremes. The danger that Europe will lurch again from extreme universalism to extreme nationalism.  

The Hofburg Palace still defines Vienna, the beautiful signature city of a once great empire that died in 1919 because it no longer reflected the political reality that it had tried so long to resist.  Bonaparte’s final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June, 1815 saw not the emergence of a pluralistic, legitimate Europe but a new balance of power between autocracies and partially legitimised aristocracies that itself collapsed into horror in 1914. 

Today as in the past seismic shifts in European politics happen because elites for too long refuse to adapt to change.  As Metternich said, “It is useless to close the gates against ideas; they overlap them”.  The simple truth is that for most Europeans their nation-states still define their identities and their democracies and Europe's elite can no longer simply ride roughshod over either.

Vienna is a warning from history to Europe’s elite Europeanists that they ignore at their and indeed our peril.

Julian Lindley-French

Strategic Islamism must be defeated in the Field

Alphen, Netherlands. 30 June. In responding to the terrible events in Tunisia in which thirty or more Britons were gunned down on Friday Prime Minister David Cameron talked of an existential struggle, a generational struggle.  And yet he seems to completely under-estimate the scale of the challenge posed by Islamic State, the Caliphate which was established a year ago this week and the strategic Islamism they champion.  He also refused to state the blindingly obvious; Islamic State will need to be defeated in the field BEFORE it can be defeated on our streets. That means armed forces that must have the capability and the capacity to go back and fight in the Middle East.   

So, why does strategic Islamism, and in particular IS, pose an existential threat (note the use of Islamism not Islamic, which is a vital distinction)?  First, strategic Islamism threatens to destroy the state system across the Middle East with enormous political and humanitarian implications.  Second, strategic Islamism reaches deep into now complex European societies. Third, there is no doubt that IS would seek to gain and use mass destructive and disruptive weapons and technologies against open societies. Fourth, there is no conceivable political accommodation with IS.

Prime Minister Cameron as ever says all the right things, but as ever does very little to back his words with action.  For example, my well-placed sources tell me that Cameron is sympathetic to the need to rebuild the British armed forces.  However, Chancellor (finance minister) George Osborne has made further cuts to the British armed forces in the forthcoming Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) a leitmotif for his fixation with achieving an arbitrary budget surplus by 2018-2019.

Osborne apparently told Cameron that if he agrees to the NATO target of maintaining Britain’s defence budget at 2% GDP then he can “say goodbye to the budget surplus”. Osborne has even threatened to resign if the coming Review does not confirm further swingeing cuts to Britain’s forces.  Worse, those around Osborne in the Treasury by and large adhere to the end of history nonsense believing there to be no real need to the world’s fifth largest economy and Permanent Member of the UN Security Council to have powerful armed forces.

Rather, they believe that a mix of strong intelligence services, an intrusive state and extended policing can contain the Islamist threat within Britain, allied to the constant downplaying of the threat posed by strategic Islamism.  For example, a very well-informed contact of mine tells me that far from there being 700 British ‘fighters’ in Syria and Iraq there are some 2000 and that some 1000 have recently returned to Britain. This is strategic illiteracy at its dangerous worst, especially when one considers such retreat against the backdrop of a rapidly rearming, aggressive Russia.

Consequently, the armed forces are forced to perform political fig-leaf operations.  Cameron likes to say that Britain is the second most active member of the anti-IS coalition.  In fact, the US carries out some 94% of all operations.  Given the caution of the Obama administration and the extremely lukewarm commitment of America’s allies (both within and without the region) the entire strategy upon which the coalition is founded has become fundamentally flawed with no real link between the strategic objective of defeating IS and the forces and resources committed.  Local fighters are incapable of defeating IS in the field which now has at its command resources that increasingly give it the appearance of a state.   

The result is that IS continues to cultivate the myth of military invincibility which makes it so attractive to the aggrieved, the marginalised and the fanatical across both the region, Europe and the wider world.  Therefore, until IS is defeated in the field and if needs be by a ground force with Western troops to the fore then the allure of IS well beyond Syria and Iraq will only grow.

Critically, Cameron has to ask himself a profound question and for once honestly answer it; which is the most important struggle – reducing national debt or fighting strategic Islamism.  If he is to honestly answer that question Cameron will also for once have to take a strategic position rather than a political position and with other European leaders stop running scared from the memory of Afghanistan and Iraq. That means recommitting Britain to fight the very existential struggle he proclaims with an existential mind-set whatever the near-term political costs.  It is as though Winston Churchill had said in 1940 that Britain was determined to fight Nazism, but only if it did not exacerbate the national debt. 

First, Cameron must commit more of Britain’s forces to the struggle and end the ridiculous constraint by which IS can only be attacked in Iraq not Syria.  Second, he must stop playing political games with Britain’s defences, particularly the capacity of Britain’s armed forces to undertake sustained operations.  Given the current threats ‘maintaining’ the NATO target of 2% GDP on defence simply by cooking the books is a dereliction of duty.  Folding the aid budget, intelligence and the nuclear deterrent into the defence budget simply to give the appearance of 2% in fact represents a massive cut to the operational forces and their ability to act.

Finally, if an increasingly obsessive George Osborne refuses to realise the world has moved on since 2010 and that his fixation with his arbitrary budget surplus is in fact yesterday’s struggle then he must be removed from office.  If not Britain and indeed the wider coalition will go on fighting strategic Islamism with one hand tied behind its back and the only winner will be IS. 

Prime Minister Cameron made a solemn promise to avenge Friday’s victims by dealing with the threat at source.  To do so he must help defeat IS in the field.  Anything less and yet again words will be seen as hollow as the promises he made yesterday to the victims.

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 and consideration of the impact of the Afghanistan campaign on the Alliance.  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.  

The book consdiers in depth the impact of the financial crisis on the Alliance and explores the evolving relationship between NATO and the EU.  Critically, the book confronts squarely the strategic implications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  The book also looks to the strategic future of NATO in a dangerous world faced not just by Moscow's challenge but American over-stretch and the murderous Islamists of ISIS.  The book concludes by confirming the continuing importance of the Alliance not just to European security and defence but the security and well-being of the wider world. 

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 SACEUR Admiral (Retd.) James T. Stavridis NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2015 is a new book on the Alliance which I have the honour to offer to you. The book is available via Amazon and/or Routledge web-sites.

All best, 

Julian

EU Summit Sitrep: Crisis Mismanagement

Alphen, Netherlands. 26 June. Yesterday’s EU Summit meetings (Day One) finished today at 0300 hours.  The three main issues for debate were Grexit, Brexit and the migration invasion.  In other words, one state that could be thrown out, another that might walk out, and the up to one million people from outside the EU trying, and by and large succeeding, to get in.  Let me take each crisis in order of importance to EU leaders (save that is David Cameron).

Grexit: Implicit in the Grexit crisis is a battle for primacy between EU obligations and national democracy. The theatre of crisis that has developed over a possible Grexit would make a fascinating thesis for Greece’s game theoretician finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.  The simple truth is that one way or another Greece will remain in the Euro and one way or another Greece’s debts will be forgiven. This is because the Euro is an ideology not a currency and thus at the very heart of ‘Project Europe’ and Greece simply cannot be squeezed anymore.  Thus, the game now is one of political chicken.  Specifically, can ‘Brussels’ force the fall of the current Greek government over the crisis and thus install a more amenable coalition or if needs be a new Athens government.  

Migration invasion: Implicit in the migration invasion is a core debate about ‘competence’ and who gets to decide a key area of Home Affairs - immigration policy. Is it the member-states or the European Commission? The inability of Europe to tackle the current migration invasion and the unwillingness of any EU member-state to properly comply with the Dublin Convention demonstrates how easily EU ‘solidarity’ collapses in the face of a crisis.  The Commission had wanted to impose a binding directive that would have instructed all member-states that do not ‘enjoy’ an opt-out to take quotas of migrants.  The idea was that up to 60,000 migrants would be spread proportionately across the Union.  Instead, last night the member-states agreed a ‘voluntary’ mechanism, which in EU-speak means no-one need or will comply. 

Consequently, Italy and Greece will go on refusing to document new arrivals on their territory, the convention by which asylum must be claimed by a migrant in the first EU member-state of arrival will be ignored, and the beggar my neighbour tactic of passing the problem onto the next member-state will continue. Why?  With 500,000 migrants believed to be in Libya and another 500,000 on the way a migration invasion on this scale would have enormous social implications and the very real prospect that parts of Europe could be turned into Africa or the Middle East.  As for dealing with problem at source there is neither the will nor the means.

Brexit: Implicit in Brexit is a vital debate over the future balance of powers within the EU between a deeper and more politically integrated Eurozone (the real EU) and those EU member-states outside the Eurozone (associate members).  However, British Prime Minister David Cameron (ever the tactician, never the strategist) chose instead to focus his efforts over dinner on how best to extricate himself from the promise of an EU referendum he made to the British people prior the May general election.  Indeed, listening to allies such as Italy’s Matteo Renzi this morning one gets the distinct impression of friends trying to extricate Cameron from a hole of his own digging.  One can only imagine Cameron’s pitch last night over dinner.  “Look friends, I have to go through this process because I said I would so please bear with me and pretend you are taking my calls for reform seriously. Sorry”.

The simple and sad truth is that any reforms worth having to Britain’s relationship with the the EU will require treaty change.  Last night Downing Street admitted that Cameron is not going to get treaty change and certainly not before the end of 2017 by which time the referendum will have taken place.  So Cameron is now in the ridiculous position of holding an in-out referendum with nothing decided or achieved and on at best a promise of reform.  In practice that means any vote to remain in the EU will negate the need for the very reforms Cameron claims he is fighting for.  Or, the British people vote to leave and the other EU leaders are finally forced to offer Cameron a reform package by which time it will be too late.  As a negotiating strategy it reminds me of the time I was sent off in a football match for head-butting an opponent’s fist! Cameron’s referendum will thus offer no change of substance, decide even less and fail completely to resolve Britain’s troubled relationship with the EU. Therefore, why he is putting himself, Britain and the EU through what will be a very difficult process with no obvious strategic or political gain?

Julian Lindley-French

Germany: Community Champion?

Alphen, Netherlands. 25 June.  Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and I have had a lot in common this week; we both spent a lot of time either in Germany or discussing Germany.  The Queen is in the midst of a state visit to Germany and I have just completed a 1200 plus kilometre round car trip to take part in the Kiel Conference part organised by the German Navy and the University of Kiel.  The previous week I was in Warsaw with the Weimar Forum.  Both events were outstanding in their very different ways and both revealed to me how Germany sees power and indeed its own power role in twenty-first century Europe.  Too powerful to be simply another EU member-state and yet not powerful enough to dominate Germany is casting itself as Europe’s community champion.  It is and will be a difficult role to play.

A couple of weeks ago a senior British officer said to me that Germany had in fact won World War Two and that Britain had lost.  On the face of it one can understand his upbeat view of Germany and his downcast view of Britain.  Germany has indeed succeeded in achieving Kaiser Wilhelm’s dream of a Europe organised around Germany.  Indeed, it was rather bizarre (and indeed a great pleasure) for me to be sailing across the great sound of Kiel in a German naval vessel with HMS Ocean, a huge British helicopter carrier, dominating the skyline (and the generators of which kept me awake – note to Royal Navy).  Kiel was once the base for the High Seas Fleet which tried and failed to defeat the Royal Navy during the First World War. It is also the port from which the massive super-battleship KM Bismarck left in 1941 en route to destroying HMS Hood and her own destruction under the guns of the Royal Navy some three days later.

In response to my British colleague I said World War Two was never fought to destroy Germany but rather to ensure that the nature of Germany was rendered forever constructive and peaceful.  Britain played a massive role in achieving that objective and Britain can be proud that today Germany is a model parliamentary democracy.

Yes, Germany can be bombastic.  Tell me what great power isn’t.  Apart of course from Britain which is and never has been bombastic about anything, ever.  Yes, Germany has interests which it on occasions pursues with real rigour.  Yes, quite a few Germans have a nauseating tendency to believe they are right about everything all of the time.  And, not a few Germans seem to enjoy an exaggerated sense of Schadenfraude at Britain’s seemingly endless un-Germaness firm in their belief that because Britain is not Germany the British are doomed to failure, irrelevance, misery etc. etc.  Taken together these ‘endearing’ German traits can lead Berlin on occasions to step over the boundary between community champion and Imperium.

However, my time with German leaders this past year and indeed this past week have reinforced my sense that modern Germany is a power that is deeply embedded indeed enmeshed is a sense of European community.  Contemporary German history, which blots out the rest of German history like a dark cloud blots out the sun, is powerfully eloquent in the minds of most modern Germans, with the holocaust rightly to the fore.

Consequently, German power is ring-fenced with self-restraint and the desperate need to act with the approval of other Europeans.  That sense of self-awareness, self-restraint was clearly apparent at the Weimar Forum meeting in Warsaw, particularly in the relationship with Poland which in many ways acts a Germany’s power conscience.  It is also apparent in Chancellor Merkel’s clear desire to keep Greece in the Eurozone and Britain in the EU.  Indeed, unlike most great powers Germany wants to be constrained by institutions, precisely because Germans understand that a Europe in which power becomes unbalanced is inevitably a very dangerous place.  This is a state of affairs to which Her Majesty alluded in last night’s speech in Berlin and why the unbalancing of European power is precisely why President Putin’s attitude and actions are so dangerous.

Behind the immediate issues raised by Prime Minister David Cameron’s renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the German-led EU lurks a much deeper question of power.  Whatever happens with the Brexit referendum most indicators have Britain emerging as Europe’s second strongest economy by a mile (or should that be a kilometre) and most powerful military actor.  Therefore, how Germany deals with the likes of Britain and indeed France will help determine whether German leadership of Europe succeeds or fails.

Berlin clearly understands that.  Indeed, the very real pomp and circumstance afforded Her Majesty in Berlin and the fact the Luftwaffe accompanied her plane over German air space signifies the importance Germany places in its strategic partnership with Britain.  For that reason far from fearing Germany’s role as community champion Britain must support it.

Europeans can never replace power by and with institutions.  Russia is dangerous because it is a weak state with too much force and it insufficiently embedded in international institutions.  Germany is a powerful state with too little force that has an exaggerated sense of the role of institutions as an alternative to power. Therefore, Germany can only and will only ever succeed in partnership with powerful allies for too much German armed force would negate Germany’s role as community champion.  That is why the ungainly but powerful presence of HMS Ocean signified to me the new strategic partnership Britain and Germany must forge. 

Julian Lindley-French

How Waterloo Shaped Europe

Alphen, Netherlands. 18 June. The Duke of Wellington once said, “The history of a battle is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance”. Two hundred years ago today just down the road from here the Battle of Waterloo took place.  Seventy-three thousand French troops under Napoleon faced some 68,000 troops of the “Seventh Coalition” under the command of Arthur, Duke of Wellington. 

Coalition forces included 25,000 British troops, 17,000 Dutch, 11,000 Hanoverians, 6000 Brunswickians, 6000 members of the King’s German Legion and eventually (and famously) 50,000 Prussians under Blucher. By day’s end over 40,000 Frenchmen were killed or missing with some 10,000 of the Coalition suffering a similar fate.

Waterloo was not any old European battle. It was the battle that shaped modern Europe and began the long and very tortuous road to an institutionalised Europe.  A new age of politics and warfare dawned at Waterloo as the battle marked the true end of the aristocratic age as the modern industrial nation-state came of power age. 

And, although the Iron Duke would contest my thesis European democracy also marched at Waterloo. The Napoleonic Wars which Waterloo brought to a decisive end marked the first real struggle between vested power and radicalism and thus helped established the European world order that is only today coming to an end.  The battle also paved for way for the creation of modern Germany some fifty years later and the three wars of European supremacy (1870-71, 1914-18, 1939-1945) which followed and which culminated in today’s European Union. 

Critically, Waterloo created the political space for the second British Empire which emerged in the wake of Napoleon’s defeat the loss of the American colonies.  Indeed, without rival on the Continent and unchallenged on the world stage for another seventy to eighty years the British constructed the largest empire the world has ever seen in the wake of Waterloo..and one of shortest lived.

Not without irony, for Waterloo was a victory of conservatism over radicalism, the Congress of Vienna which followed established the principle of an institutionalised European order, even though the Congress was dominated by the arch-conservatives Metternich of Austria and Castlereagh of Britain.  And, although Britain claimed to then retreat into “splendid isolation” Waterloo confirmed the principle of British engagement on the Continent. Moreover, the battle reinforced the fundamental principle that Britain would not permit a single power or group of powers to dominate Europe.  It is a principle that the Cameron government is in the process of abandoning or simply fails to understand.

Waterloo also exacerbated conflicts, not least the inherent conflict that existed between France and the Netherlands and between French and Dutch speakers.  At the Congress of Vienna almost the entire region of what eventually became Belgium was granted to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  Subsequently, a new struggle for independence began that only culminated with the recognition of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1830 by the Dutch.  Belgium’s recognition was reinforced by the 1839 Treaty of London and the Belgian Neutrality Act by which Britain agreed to guarantee Belgium.  It was this Act, or rather the Kaiser’s 1914 breach of it that led to the formal declaration of war by Britain against Imperial Germany.

Some years ago I stood atop the enormous man-made hill which is crowned by the great Lion of Brabant which looks out over the great battlefield.  Alongside me were some twenty of so American students.  Those of you who know the site will recall that the modern Brussels ring-road runs close by.  Indeed, it was Napoleon’s belief that if he took Brussels he could force the Alliance to treat with him on favourable terms. Nice kids but a little naïve I explained to them that Napoleon faced two major problems on the day.  First, he could not get Wellington to weaken his centre and thus turn him. The Duke simply remained nailed to a ridge.  Second, I explained, Napoleon had terrible difficulties getting his army across the narrow footbridge which now crosses the highway. It took some minutes before the American penny dropped on a very European joke.

Waterloo was one of those tipping points in European history.  Indeed, far from being a British ‘victory’, which is how the British at least normally portray ‘Waterloo’, it was a very European event. In certain very important respects the struggle between Bonapartism and British-led conservatism spawned the birth of modern Europe.  Ironically, the ghosts of that struggle are present today in both the idea of ‘Europe’ which Napoleon certainly espoused and British concerns at the over-concentration of European elite power in a few elite hands.

Nor was the result of the battle a forgone conclusion.  As Wellington himself remarked the battle was, “the nearest run thing you did ever see in your life”.  As for Napoleon he escaped the battlefield following his defeat and tried to escape to North America.  Ironically, in a sign of the century to come, Napoleon was eventually captured by Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon.  Far from surrendering to Wellington’s Army the Emperor surrendered to what was still very much Nelson’s Royal Navy.

Julian Lindley-French