Britain’s Greatest Warship or HMS Hood 2?

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 May. Tough one this. I am a great fan of the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales and have been since they were conceived in 1998.  The two ships provide Britain with a command and power projection capability that will enable London to lead military coalitions of allies and partners for years to come. The two ships will also leverage Britain’s unique maritime-amphibious expertise and are a testament to those who say that Britain can no longer cut it at the cutting edge of military power. All well and good.

Captain Jerry Kyd and his mainly young crew are to be congratulated for their efforts to get HMS Queen Elizabeth commissioned and ready for front-line service. She has undergone a tough programme of sea trials during which she has not just been tested to breaking point she has also had to dodge all-too-predictable headlines about this or that bit of kit not working properly.  The clue is in the name - sea trials.

Britain’s Greatest Warship?

And yet I am also deeply concerned. On Sunday evening I watched the third episode of a BBC documentary about ‘Big Lizzie’ entitled Britain’s Greatest Warship.  Like all BBC documentaries, the ship was only of secondary importance and in the programme fast became a floating metaphor for contemporary multicultural, gender-equality Britain. Still, that is the Britain that the ship will help defend and as I have been a long-time supporter of women naval professionals on Royal Navy ships you will hear no complaints from me on that score. Indeed, I have seen at close quarters that these naval professionals are every bit as good as their male counterparts.  The programme did at times come close to ‘tokenising’ these women and an American friend did ask me if the programme might be better entitled Britain’s Greatest Female Warship. The documentary spent far too much time on the ship’s advanced waste disposal system, which failed. Indeed, it spent more time discussing the waste disposal system  than the F-35B Lightning II fast jets HMS Queen Elizabeth will carry, the first of which she is due to take on board later this year off Florida. 

So, why am I concerned?  HMS Queen Elizabeth is not only a metaphor for contemporary Britain she is also a metaphor for all that is wrong with British defence policy. UK National Security Adviser Sir Mark Sedwill has just told a parliamentary committee something I have been banging on about since I published my 2015 book Little Britain: Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power (which is, of course, brilliant and very reasonably-priced). Sedwill noted that there are weaknesses across the entire British national security system and that Russia poses the greatest direct military threat. I am tempted to say halle-bloody-lula that a senior government official has finally come clean about this dangerous reality, although he failed to warn about that that other great threat to the British armed forces, HM Treasury.  Indeed, I very much doubt if aforesaid HM Treasury will accept the consequences of the logic of Sedwill’s statement – that Britain must spend more, more intelligently and quickly on a strengthened defence.  This is because Britain’s defences are in a mess precisely because of the Government’s own short-termism and the 2010 and 2015 Strategic Security and Defence Reviews which reflected a London that only wanted to recognise as much threat as it thought could afford.

Big Lizzie in a Crisis

HMS Queen Elizabeth is like a marathon runner who having run 35km of a 42km race declares that he has finished.  In terms of the threats HMS Queen Elizabeth could face in the front-line she is by no means finished.  So much so that last year I made a short but very well-informed film in which I sank her simply to demonstrate precisely the danger of failing to fully equip and protect her.  Now, some apologists for government policy suggest that whatever the weaknesses in the Royal Navy’s surface and sub-surface capabilities she will always be surrounded by very capable allies. This is nonsense. Let’s suppose, in 2025 say, the Americans are busy with a major crisis in Asia-Pacific and Russia uses that crisis opportunistically to cause trouble in Europe.  In such circumstances, it could well be that Britain and its European allies would be called upon to act as first responders.

HMS Queen Elizabeth would then need to rely on European allies to form the backbone of a task group of which she would be the command core.  Only the French Navy comes close to the required offensive and defensive capabilities such a deployed task group would need facing a hostile Russian Northern Fleet.  The Royal Netherlands Navy, the Royal Danish Navy, the Royal Norwegian Navy all face critical weaknesses, whilst the Belgian, Italian and the once-mighty Germany Navy are mired in full-blown cost-capability crises.

Russian Roulette

Russia is also deploying a range of new submarines and anti-ship systems. Let me highlight one such system – the 3M22 Zircon. Zircon is a carrier-sinking manoeuvrable hyper-sonic cruise missile capable of a range of 1000 kilometres at a speed of 9800 kilometres per hour. The system was successfully tested in June 2017 and will be deployed to the Russian Navy in 2020 with an export variant being prepared.  The Royal Navy’s supersonic Sea Ceptor missile, which equips some of the Duke-class Type 23s and is scheduled for deployment on the future Type 26 frigates, can only intercept airborne threats up to Mach 3. Zircon is capable of speeds up to Mach 6.

Two things are likely to happen. London is aware that without the Americans present in some strength HMS Queen Elizabeth is extremely vulnerable to an attack from the state just identified as the main military threat. In such circumstances, London would do all it could to avoid deploying her undermining not only Britain faced with a crisis but NATO too.  Consequently, she would become an ‘anything-but-war’ ship.  This raises a fundamental question: given pressures on British defence budgets have always suffered a certain tightness due to the eternal gap between stated British intentions and actual British capabilities why on Earth did Britain build her if she could not be used for the very scenario that justified her expense. Her cost has undoubtedly warped both naval budgets and naval strategy and helped create the very unbalanced and under-hulled Royal Navy of today.

There is a second possible course of action, which really concerns me.  In 1919 Britain launched HMS Hood. She looked fantastic and soon a myth emerged around ‘the mighty Hood’. That did not matter so much in the early 1920s and enabled the then British Government to mask the necessary but swingeing cuts to the enormous Grand Fleet wielded by the Geddes Axe in the immediate aftermath of World War One.  However, the myth of the Hood persisted and even the Navy began to believe it. She underwent a partial modernisation in the 1930s but defence cuts meant they were never completed.  In truth, far from being the fast battleship, some claimed her to be, she was the same old flawed battlecruiser design that had seen three of her forebears explode at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. Ships that sacrificed vital protection in the mistaken belief that increased speed afforded the best protection.  On 24 May, 1941, in company (and not without irony) with the then brand new battleship HMS Prince of Wales, HMS Hood engaged the new German fast battleship, KM Bismarck.  Shortly into the battle, a shell from Bismarck’s fifth salvo penetrated the aft main armament magazine and HMS Hood exploded and sank with the loss of all but three of her complement of 1418 men.

A Pain in the Rollocks

I have been accused of late of being a negative pain in the rollocks over HMS Queen Elizabeth.  This is not because I am against either the Navy or HMS Queen Elizabeth. My grandfather served and was sunk (more than once) in the Royal Navy, I believe in the Royal Navy and I believe that Britain should have strategic assets such as start-of-the-art aircraft carriers if it is to play its rightful role in the deterrence afforded by NATO.  No, my concerns are for the young men and women on board that ship if Britain’s leaders do not move quickly to close the gaping hole between identified threat, defence policy and the resourcing thereof. At the very least the crew of HMS Queen Elizabeth should be afforded every capability that would enable the ship to do what it was designed to do at great cost if needed – fight, survive and prevail!

One of the few things I can claim some expertise in is the changing character and future of war. Indeed, my latest book will be on this very issue with two distinguished American generals. Make no mistake, future war, if and when it happens, will be astonishingly fast and devastatingly destructive – even before nuclear weapons are used.  For Britain to play at such power will simply transfer risk from politicians to service personnel. For that reason, I will continue to be a pain in the rollocks however inconvenient my concerns are for the upper echelons of Britain’s armed forces or the bureaucracy of government.

Quelling a Myth Before it Starts 

There is already a myth developing around HMS Queen Elizabeth that was implicit in the title of the BBC documentary. HMS Queen Elizabeth might be Britain’s biggest ever warship but she by no means the greatest, let alone the mightiest. Indeed, in relative terms, given the enemy she was designed to fight, her forebear, 1915 commissioned Super-Dreadnought HMS Queen Elizabeth was mightier yet, as the song goes. 

London must complete the marathon and properly equip HMS Queen Elizabeth and the ships and submarines that will protect her from the dangers she could well face.  Indeed, finishing the job that is HMS Queen Elizabeth will go a long way to preventing the very disaster I describe. It is called deterrence.

Julian Lindley-French

North Korea: My Big Bang Theory

"Women ran into the streets with children in their arms, many only half-dressed in housecoats and slippers, the men running henny-penny with them, certain of them in uniform, giving the scene a weird drama. People ran up the stairs that lead up the slopes of the hills. Someone fell, he was picked up and dragged. Cars jammed the routes out of town. The cars were packed, but despite this, they stopped to pick up children which their mothers literally threw into the arms of strangers. Screams, cries, curses – all drowned out by the thunder and howl from the volcano that was Mount Okol'naya (Soviet Northern Fleet ammunition dump). Black with an orange-purple mushroom top, growing to its full height in an instant, nodding toward the town, but afterwards, it began to slowly settle in the direction of the tundra and the ocean."

Eye-witness account of the Severomorsk disaster, May 1984

A Korean Peace?

Alphen, Netherlands. 30 April. This is a speculative blog so bear with me. On June 25, 1950, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) invaded the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The Korean War had begun. On September 15, 1950, US forces under General Douglas MacArthur landed at Inchon and took up command of United Nations force committed to the defence of South Korea. On October 27, 1950, 270,000 troops of China’s People’s Liberation Army attacked US-led United Nations forces by crossing the Yalu River into North Korea. On July 23, 1953, the Korean Armistice was signed at Panmunjom establishing a truce and a demilitarized zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea at the 38^th Parallel, but no formal peace. By the 1953 agreement of the truce some 2.5 million people had been killed of which 1.13 million were Korean.  The consequences of the war also affected Europe leading to an intensification of the Cold War, German rearmament and a failed attempt to create a European Defence Community (See Lindley-French J. “A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945-2007” Oxford: Oxford University Press). On April 27, 2018 ‘an inter-Korean summit’ saw President Kim Jung-un make history by crossing the 38^th Parallel (a short step for man, a giant leap for Korean kind?). He was the first North Korean leader to do so, even though North and South Korea are still technically at war. South Korean President Moon Jae-in hailed the move and hoped that in time the Korean War could be formally ended and a “permanent and solid peace” established.  For good or ill history is on the move again on the Korean Peninsula. So, what has led Kim Jung-un to a potentially historic change of mind?

President Kim Jung-un is clearly on a political and strategic journey.  In November 2017 he declared in that North Korea was a nuclear power capable of striking the United States.  In January 2018 North Korea indicated its willingness to take part in the Winter Olympics in South Korea and on 9 February Korean athletes marched at the Opening Ceremony under a flag depicting a united Korean Peninsula.  South Korea and the US agreed to postpone joint military exercises during the Games, even though Pyongyang indicated it did not object to such exercises, a first in and of itself.  On 8 March, having threatened the United States with nuclear destruction Kim suddenly announced that he would have face-to-face talks with US President Donald J. Trump.  In late March Kim also paid a surprise four-day visit to Beijing.

Why has Kim Moved Now?

There are several schools of thought. One school is that having established North Korea as a credible nuclear power, at least in his own mind, and having shored up his own position at home following a purge of possible rivals, Kim now feels strong enough to negotiate.  China may also be a factor.   The recent visit by Kim to Beijing had something of the summons about it. This is pure educated speculation but it may well be that President Xi made it perfectly clear to Kim the limits of China’s political, economic and military support for Pyongyang. Specifically, that China would not tolerate Kim starting a war with South Korea and the United States and that Beijing would not continue to sustain the Pyongyang regime if it continued to behave with reckless strategic abandon. It could even be possible that by talking directly to the United States Kim is trying to leverage influence over Beijing.

And then there is sentimentalism.  September 9^th, 2018 will mark the seventieth anniversary National Day since the founding of DPRK and the rise to power by his grandfather Kim Il-sung in 1948.  It could well be that Kim wants a spectacular success to mark the anniversary.

Two Systems, One Peninsula?

What should be hoped for from the negotiations? A formal end to the Korean War whilst an important symbol would only be a first step on the road to a sustained peace. The Korean People’s Army, which recently celebrated its own seventieth anniversary, can call upon over 6 million personnel in a crisis. Moreover, North Korea has some 15,000 artillery pieces and missile launchers less than 35 miles/55 kilometres from the South Korean capital, Seoul.  As I wrote in a previous missive it would be a mistake to focus solely on the nuclear issue and to draw down US conventional forces on the Peninsula as part of a new peace agreement without also addressing the threat posed by Pyongyang’s conventional forces.  The danger in such circumstances would be that the possibility of a Korea unified would become real, albeit on Kim’s terms. After all, Pyongyang regularly threatens to ‘liberate’ South Korea. Therefore, the most that can be hoped for, or indeed aimed at in 2018 is a change in the atmospherics of the key relationships and the establishment of some form of road map to peace. 

What would that mean in practical terms?  The route any road-map follows, and the length of the road itself, should be dictated by compliance and verification. In the first instance, the US and its South Korean ally should commit to a verifiable build-down of the forces of both sides on the Korean Peninsula and the withdrawal of DPRK artillery and short-range missiles beyond the range of the demilitarized zone.  In return for compliance, some sanctions on Pyongyang would be lifted. As a mark of goodwill families divided for generations should also be allowed to meet and a whole host of exchanges take place from the highest levels of government to all levels of society, and across all age groups.

Are there any models from history? There are some commentators drawing parallels with the two Germanys at the end of the Cold War. Such aspirations seem wildly optimistic to me.  The two Germanys had not fought a hot war with each other and whilst the two economies were markedly different German unification was just about affordable for the Federal Republic. The cost of Korean unification would likely be upward of $1 trillion, or the size of the entire South Korean economy.  In other words, Korean unification could only take place with lots of external support. 

My Big Bang Theory

There could another much more straightforward and rational reason for Kim’s sudden move. During the summit, Kim apparently offered to de-nuclearise if the US promised not to invade. Yesterday came news that in May North Korea plans to close its only nuclear test site at Punggye-Ri.  In September 2017 the site was badly damaged in an explosion and subsequent landslide that killed up to 300 people.  It may be that the site is now too unstable to conduct further large-scale nuclear tests, which is perhaps why over the weekend President Kim announced the site is to close. 

In May 1984, in what became known as the Severomorsk disaster, a massive series of blasts destroyed the arsenal of the then Red Banner North Fleet, the strongest of the Soviet Union’s four fleets, and killed up to 300 people. The blast was so great that Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service first mistook the shockwave for an atomic explosion. Shortly after the disaster, the Soviet Union changed its negotiating position markedly in both the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) and Mutually-Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks. This is pure speculation but it could be that North Korea simply can no longer afford to fix the site, which may present the best hope for de-nuclearisation of the Peninsula.

Is Trump Pushing an Open Pyongyang Door?

In any case, I am getting way ahead of myself here. The meeting between Kim and Moon was, in fact, the warm-up bout for the main event on the card – the Kim-Trump fight.  As such last week’s meeting should be seen as very much a first short step on a very long road. Nor is Kim likely to offer his nascent strategic nuclear arsenal as a stake, unless that is he has no alternative.   

If not President Trump is undoubtedly taking an immense diplomatic risk meeting President Kim Jung-un. Commentators are understandably focussed on the possibilities for peace such a meeting throws up and President Trump is to be congratulated for seizing the moment. However, the danger of such high-level gambles is that when they fail there is no other diplomatic route to follow and all diplomatic room for manoeuvre closes. In such circumstances, relations can drop of the edge of a diplomatic cliff and could tip Korea back onto the verge of war. At the very least President Trump would be wise to emphasise that the meeting is but a first step, that it is ultimately the responsibility of the Korean people to decide the future of the Korean Peninsula, the road ahead will be long, and the US is going nowhere until a lasting peace has clearly been established.

Trust in God and Keep Your Powder Dry

Unless that is President Trump knows something the rest of us do not that would change the entire balance of the negotiations – the Ponggye Ri disaster? In which case, Trump’s timing could be deliberate as US intelligence will be all over the September disaster. This could explain why yesterday US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that North Korean de-nuclearisation must be irreversible. He may be pushing at an open Pyongyang door.  If that is so the possibility of such a meeting serving peace has probably never been greater and Trump may have a unique chance to help establish peace on the Korean Peninsula. Equally, in dealing with North Korea President Trump would be wise to remember the words once attributed to Oliver Cromwell, “Trust in God…and keep your powder dry”.

Julian Lindley-French   

Donald et Emmanuel?

Donald et Emmanuel?

"Franco-American relations have been, and always will be, both conflictual and excellent. The US finds France unbearable with its pretensions; we find the US unbearable with its hegenomism. But deep down, we remember that the 'boys' - came to help us two times, just as the Americans remember that the French helped them with their independence. So there will be sparks but no fire, because a real bond exists."

President Jacques Chirac

Alphen, Netherlands. 25 April. This week’s state visit to the United States by President Macron of France is already a success. Still, the body language is fascinating. Macron is clearly doing all he can to charm Trump, whatever his real personal feelings. Trump is clearly glad to have any ‘friend’ amongst the leaders of the European allies especially one who seems willing to take action in his support.  Just how deep does this new Franco-America ‘special relationship’ go?

Now, I suppose as a Brit I should be in full on snipe from the side-lines mode. Forget it! Brexit-obsessed London has of late lost the strategic plot and in doing so failed to remember the golden rule about power and influence in Washington. To hopelessly paraphrase President Kennedy it matters not what an ally did last week for America, but what an ally is planning to do next week.  In fact, I should paraphrase that statement even more in the context of the current Administration: it is not what an ally did last week for Donald J. Trump that matters, but what he is doing now and tomorrow.

You see both Macron and Trump understand power in a way that no other allied leader seems to grasp, albeit from very different angles. There is really something of the de Gaulle about Macron.  His ambitions are far greater than the state he leads and like de Gaulle, he has the Gaul to state his ambitions loud and clear and seize the mantle of leadership from those who should wear it but choose not to.  Trump sees power in very personal terms.  For him, power is maintaining his own position in the face of constant attacks because what is good for Donald J. Trump is good for America.  Both leaders are strong on ego, most leaders naturally are, unless you are Theresa May. However, whereas one applies ego in pursuit of intelligent design, the other has a visceral, predatory, feral, very personal concept of power.

There are also very clear limits to the influence President Macron and France can bring to bear on Trump’s Washington, not least because there are considerable areas of tension over policy.  The most obvious tension concerns the Iran nuclear deal.  In a desperate attempt to keep Trump on board French officials have been overnight frantically trying to strengthen the agreement by proposing new curbs on the Iranian nuclear and missile programmes and action against Tehran for its support of Assad in Syria.  It is a real test for this new ‘special relationship’.

A further question comes to mind: why does Macron get on with Trump but May and Merkel apparently less so?  The real bond, I suspect, is that both Macron and Trump are risk takers.  Macron’s France-magnifying speech last week in which he called for more ‘Europe’ not less came just as his own lustre back home is fading and goes against the mood amongst much of his own people and much of the rest of Europe. One might go as far as to say that Brexit has already succeeded in legitimising euro-scepticism and Macron’s efforts to counter it represents as much a political risk as his efforts to take on the embedded economic interests of whole groups of French workers.  Trump is the very embodiment of risk. Someone who seems to operate on the basis that any particular goal at any particular time which is worth pursuing for whatever end must be pursued at all costs and damn the consequences.  His demarche towards North Korea’s Kim Jung-un is a case in point.  Some would see it as a bold move to end the North Korean nuclear programme, others as a naïve step doomed to end in failure.  In fact, it is both of those things and as such is also pure Trump – a grand gamble.

Why not May nor Merkel?  Part of me is tempted to wonder out loud if President Trump’s appalling view of women may have something to do with the less than stellar relationship he ‘enjoys’ with both.  In fact, I think the problems go deeper.  Chemistry matters enormously with Trump and the ‘chemistry’ with both May and Merkel is not great.  In May’s case, Trump smells weakness something he instinctively despises.  Worse, in spite of the forthcoming visit to Britain this summer Trump has been personally offended by the repeated insults he has suffered at the hands of a British political class that has used him as a giant neon-lit virtue-signalling boardwalk sign. Merkel? Chalk and cheese. Add that to the ambivalent view of America held by many Germans and by default political space opens up for France and President Macron.

So, just how far can the Macron-Trump relationship go?  For the sake of the transatlantic relationship one hopes it goes a lot further. Indeed, the real test of Macron’s influence will be the extent to which he can exert both a shaping and restraining power over Trump. And here I begin to wonder about the depth of the relationship precisely because Macron and Trump see power in very different ways. For Macron, power is about strategy and control designed to lead to grand outcomes that showcase both him and France. Power is thus about gloire which is again something Gaullist if not Bonapartist about Macron.  Ultimately, power is about order.  For Trump power is about disorder, about divide and rule, about keeping enemies permanently off-balance. Power is thus about chaos. For Trump America’s enemies are his enemies and for that reason, most are to be found in Washington not elsewhere.

For all the above there is something enduring about the Franco-American relationship which Chirac touched on and which the constant (anti-British?) references this week to France being America’s oldest ally reflect.  Just prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq I was having lunch in Congress where I tasted the infamous ‘freedom fries’. Blair and Britain was on the up and France and President Chirac were the embodiments of perfidy. It was thus deemed on longer suitable for French fries to be on the menu.  To be honest, they were fatty and somewhat over-cooked. A metaphor? Fifteen years on and France is again in the ascendant in Washington.

Will it last? Probably not.  Whilst the relationship is indeed enduring it also swings on a pendulum over time and often between personal chemistry and enduring shared interests at one end, and profound disagreements over policy at the other, most notably NATO (although Trump is the most NATO-sceptical US president in the alliance’s history). And, of course, neither Macron nor Trump will be in power or in office or both for very long.  

Britain? London must learn again how to play the power and influence game. It could start by sending the new British heavy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth together with a task group of Type 45 destroyers and Astute-class nuclear attack submarines to the US Navy’s fleet base at Norfolk, Virginia.  There, invite President Trump to give a speech about burden-sharing aboard a mighty British warship and my bet is he will go all gooily British again. I can envision the speech already (I am willing to write it for a fee): “Here I stand in Norfolk, Virginia, historic home of the mighty United States Navy aboard a mighty warship and she flies not the Stars and Stripes but the historic White Ensign flag of the mighty Royal Navy”. I might have overdone the ‘mighty’ bit but you get the picture.

For the moment the Franco-American relationship is in fine fettle.  It is an advantage for all us who believe in the transatlantic relationship that it is and remains so.  President Macron had the courage to engage President Trump rather than join the European ‘Ode to Whatever’ Chorus of disapproval.  For that alone President Macron and French diplomacy deserve our plaudits for seeing the bigger picture and having the vision to act on it.  Prime Minister May? Bigger Picture? Power? Vision?

Chapeau, M. le president!

Julian Lindley-French

Syria Strike: The Military-Strategic Lessons for Britain

“Put your confidence in us. Give us your faith and your blessing, and under Providence, all will be well. We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job”.

Winston Spencer Churchill, February 1941

Summary: Too much of the risk of British military operations is being transferred to British service personnel by a growing gap between the ends, ways and means of British defence policy. Therefore, given the deteriorating strategic environment the very least the British Government must do is to increase defence expenditure from its current (and questionable) 2% of GDP to 2.5% GDP AND remove the cost of the strategic nuclear deterrent from the defence budget.  Britain will also have to sort out failed defence procurement policy even if that means buying more off-the-shelf from abroad and separating defence policy from employment policy by forcing ‘national champions’ to offer better value for money. Failure to take either measure could well lead to one of those military disasters that pot-mark British history.

Limited Action, Big Implications

Alphen, Netherlands. 16 April. What are the military-strategic lessons for Britain from last week’s Syria strike and what did the action tell us about Britain and its armed forces?  Put aside for the moment the official narrative emerging from London that last week’s action was simply in pursuit of humanitarian protection and to counter the use of chemical weapons.  No, the action was part of a much wider geopolitical struggle with Russia and its new acolytes, such as Iran.  The good news for the Armed Forces was that the action was ‘limited’. The Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, compounded by deep defence cuts since 2010 have left Britain unable to mount anything more than a ‘limited’ action.  The bad news is that coming operations are unlikely to be quite so limited.

Two events served to highlight the dangerously weak condition of Britain’s armed forces. Firstly, for several days last week in the Eastern Mediterranean an Astute-class Royal Navy nuclear-powered attack submarine was hunted by possibly two super-quiet Russian submarines (known to NATO officers as ‘the Black Hole’) supported by surface forces as it tried to manoeuvre into position to launch Tomahawk Cruise missiles.  The Russians only backed off when an American P8 Poseidon anti-submarine aircraft entered the fray. In the end, four missiles were Britain’s very limited contribution to a strike that saw the US launch 89 missiles and the French 12.  Secondly, even though HMS Duncan, a modern Type 45 destroyer was in the region it was unable to contribute to the strike because the cruise missile launcher that was due to be installed was cancelled due to defence cuts.

Bad Policy, Worse Procurement

Part of the problem is Britain’s broken defence procurement system. The procurement of complex defence systems is not easy, as the Russians are also discovering. However, Britain’s ‘system’ of procurement (‘mess’ would be a better word) minimise the defence investment value of the relatively (it is all relative) few pounds London commits to the defence of Britain and its allies.   

Take the Astute-class submarines and the Type-45 destroyers. The planned for seven Astutes have taken too long to build and according to the House of Commons Defence Committee cost 53% above budget.  Contrast that with the Russian Varshavyanka (NATO codename ‘improved Kilo’) class of the Black Seas Fleet that stalked the Astute-class sub.  The first was first launched in 2011 and all 6 had been delivered to the Russian Navy by 2016. The first of seven planned Astutes was launched in 2007 (HMS Astute) and the last (HMS Ajax) will not be commissioned until 2024 at the earliest.  The Type 45s proved so expensive that the original 12 were first reduced to 8 and then 6, with most of the class in harbour undergoing expensive repairs. In other words, the Royal Navy has the destroyers London says it can afford, not the destroyers it needs. Consequently, the British are having to keep clapped-out Type 23 frigates of the Duke class in service until at least the mid-2020s at the earliest when the planned Type 26 Global Combat Ship is due to replace them. Again, 13 of the new Type 26 ships were envisioned and that is now down to 8.  Some senior Royal Navy commanders are also concerned that these ‘cut-price’ anti-submarine ships will not even be up to the task for which they are being procured.

However, it is HMS Queen Elizabeth that shows a critical weakness at the heart of British defence policy – a lack of policy consistency.  The carrier and her sister HMS Prince of Wales were originally conceived back in 1998 as part of the then Strategic Defence Review.  In the twenty years that have passed from conception to completion ‘Big Lizzie’ was first meant to have catapults and arrester wire systems (cats and traps), then not, then in 2010 the new Government decided she should indeed have them, and then not. The result: time, money and military capability wasted, and in great abundance.

Which brings me to the P8 Poseidon that ‘saved’ the British submarine last week. Back in 2010, Britain was about to deploy the MRA4 anti-submarine aircraft. Five had been built at great cost to the taxpayer (the project was as per norm hopelessly over-time and over-budget) and I had even ‘flown’ the simulator at RAF Kinloss…and crashed! On the eve of their deployment, the Government scrapped both the project and the brand new aircraft. Indeed, I can remember standing in Hangar 4 of RAF Kinloss listening to a senior RAF commander who had flown up from London to tell his colleagues of the decision. As he spoke, a US Navy P-3 Orion aircraft that happened to be at Kinloss for repairs took off to search for two Russian hunter-killer submarines that had entered British waters. Now, Britain is to procure 9 P8 Poseidon aircraft, at even greater cost. It is enough to make any taxpayer weep.  

 ‘Can Do’ Will Not Always be Enough

Which brings me back to the military-strategic lessons of the Syria strike. A few years ago I paid a visit to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, the base of the 1979-commissioned Tornado GR4s that delivered the 4 Storm Shadow missiles that struck Syrian chemical weapons facilities.  These are very good people trying to do the utmost for their country with what they have been given.  They ooze that ‘can-do’ spirit of British armed forces personnel who time and again manage to close the all-too-wide gap that exists between British defence policy, Britain’s military capability, and the desire of Britain’s politicians to give an impression of strength when all-too-often it does not exist.

The lessons of what happened last week off the coast of Syria, and what is happening too often these days in the North Atlantic and elsewhere, concern strategic pretence and its deadly consequences. It has also revealed the dangerous and growing gap between the capabilities Britain’s armed forces have and those they desperately need if they are to successfully deter and defend Britain and reinforce all-important NATO deterrence.  Above all, the Syria strike also revealed the growing level of risk and threat the forces must face if they are to successfully carry out government policy.  All too often in Britain’s past, this dangerous equation has led to disaster.

Balance Sheet or Balance of Power

Since the 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review, London has been trying to row back fast from what was already a limited set of defence commitments set against the wider strategic scheme of things. Whitehall, and HM Treasury in particular, has engaged in a whole raft of political face-saving exercises to pretend further defence cuts are not in fact cuts. The latest political coup de main is National Security Advisor Sir Mark Sedwill’s review of national security capabilities. If there is no other lesson from Syria surely it must be that successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of the public and allies, whilst satisfying to those charged with the weekly political management of Government business, it is potentially disastrous for the country.  

At root, the problem with British defence policy is both political and cultural. Chancellor Phillip Hammond is so fixated on deficit and debt reduction he is impervious to the growing threats Britain and its allies face.  Now, I understand the extent of the damage done to Britain’s economy by the 2008 banking crisis. Indeed, one only has to read the excellent studies by the Institute for Fiscal Studies to grasp the scale of the damage. However, there is an ideological aspect to Hammond’s thinking as he tries to engineer a public finance surplus. Unfortunately, Hammond also forces London to make a choice between a healthier balance sheet and a more secure Britain.  What happened last week off Syria last week suggests strongly that the balance has to shift sensibly (but not totally) back to the latter. Theresa May needs to drive that shift and fast.

Britain is not alone amongst European powers in believing it can cut its armed forces at little strategic cost.  For too long Europeans have mired themselves in the theory of defence policy rather than the hard reality.  Yes, defence expenditure has begun to creep up in Europe but only from such a ridiculously low level that it has contributed actively to make Europe and the world much more dangerous than it need be. Europe does not need more acronyms, it needs more forces!

Give Them the Tools…

If British defence policy continues on its current trajectory and tasks expand across the conflict spectrum at a far faster rate than any marginal increase in real defence expenditure the risk associated with even limited operations will also grow exponentially.  The consequence could well be another of those military disasters that pot-mark British history. The options are clear: either Britain abandons its ambition to remain a serious defence actor or it increases defence investment in line with ambition. Not to do so will only court an ever-growing risk of disaster and in so doing transmute the political risk of failed defence policy for political leaders into an exaggerated life and death risk for serving military personnel.  Failure to align the ends, ways and means of British defence policy will also critically undermine both NATO and the transatlantic relationship as the Americans are already unimpressed by Britain’s pretence at burden-sharing.

Therefore, if Britain’s armed forces are to be given the tools to do the jobs that could well be asked of them Britain needs a real security and defence review that properly sets the roles and missions of the force in the wider context of British security policy and a dangerous world. Such a review would take into account the changing role of force across the new security and defence equation given the emergence of new technologies in pursuit of people protection and power projection.  And, having conducted such a review British politicians would for once then need to stick to the commitments they make. 

From my assessment of the deteriorating strategic environment, the very least Britain will need to do is to increase defence expenditure from its current (and very questionable) 2% of GDP to 2.5% AND remove the cost of the strategic nuclear deterrent from the defence budget.  Britain will also have to once and for all sort out failed defence procurement policy even if that means buying more off-the-shelf from abroad and separating defence policy from employment policy by forcing ‘national champions’ to offer better value for money.

Britain’s Biggest Warship

On Sunday night I watched an excellent new BBC documentary entitled Britain’s Biggest Warship about the Royal Navy’s new heavy aircraft carrier (she is not a ‘super-carrier’ as the BBC would have it) HMS Queen Elizabeth.  Captain Jerry Kyd and his impressive and mainly young crew are an outstanding team. Last year I sank her.  Yes, I made a short film entitled The Second Battle of North Cape in which an impressive but under-equipped NATO Task Group led by ‘Big Lizzie’ was sunk in a 2025 confrontation with Russian submarines off northern Norway. The film is, of course, a worst-case scenario but every senior officer who has seen it has said it is realistic.

So, why did I make the film? My mission is to analyse strategic and military developments and assess consequences – particularly worst-case consequences. One former very senior British officer told me I had a reputation for hitting London over the head with a very long-handled hammer. He is correct. Naturally, London does not thank me for it, nor do parts of the military command chain, even though privately they often tell me I am right. Rather, they prefer academics and analysts who tell them what they want to hear because for London politics is still more important than strategy.

There was one scene in the BBC documentary when a compartment began to flood on HMS Queen Elizabeth.  The crew fixed it with the professionalism that one would expect of the Royal Navy. Imagine that same situation in a war. The clue is in the name – warship. My fear is this – somewhere, sometime, those young, brave people who serve me and my nation so admirably will find themselves plugging the hole between Britain’s failed defence policy and the new, dangerous, potentially explosive reality they will face.  They do not deserve that which is why I will keep pushing for a return of strategic sense to Britain’s leaders, and a British security and defence policy that is based on a reasoned assessment of the threats country and its allies face, not how much threat Britain’s politicians think Britain can afford.

The reason I push and will continue to push is that I am a Briton, a European, a historian and a strategist.  My job is to study war: its past, its present and for me most worryingly its future.  Uncomfortable though people like me may be for those charged with protecting ministers from bad headlines my job is also to call it as I professionally see it.  The hard truth is that Britain’s armed forces are dangerously weak given the strategic environment in which they exist and Britain’s relative weight in the world. What will it take for Britain’s leaders to face up to that?  As the film states at the end, “if only…”

Prime Minister May showed real leadership this past week.  She now needs to prove her mettle on defence.

Julian Lindley-French

A Long Telegram: Syria, Russia and Comprehensive Containment

“…the Kremlin’s neurotic world-view is the traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity”

George F. Kennan, the Long Telegram, 22 February 1946

13 April 2018

Headline:

There are two issues really at stake as the US, Britain and France consider further military action against the Assad regime in Syria: the contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Syria and Russia; and the need to counter aggressive Russian expansionism.  Specifically, an explicit attack on Syrian forces in support of international norms on the use of chemical weapons will also be an implicit attack on Russia. The window between effective punishment and dangerous escalation is narrow.  Therefore, the coalition (other Allies are notable by their military absence) need to be clear about the relationship between the purpose of such an attack and the desired outcomes they seek. The only effective strategy for the West over the medium-to-longer term will be to reinvest with power the international conventions and structures it pioneered. That, in turn, means rebuilding the institutions that underpin such structure, most notably NATO.  NATO needs a new Strategic Concept, a new containment strategy that combines both collective defence and collective security and credible mechanisms for the considered application of escalating pressure on adversaries. Such a Concept should be prepared for the seventieth anniversary of the founding of the Alliance in April 2019. 

Sitrep:

The blood work of victims appears to confirm the use of chlorine in the erstwhile rebel-held Syrian town of Douma. The US, Britain and France have confirmed a joint determination to use military action in support of the Chemical Weapons Convention and to punish the Assad regime for crossing ‘red lines’ by again using chemical weapons. This week the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) also confirmed that the nerve agent used in the Salisbury attack was high-grade Novichok.  This finding reinforces the circumstantial evidence that Russia undertook a nerve agent attack in Britain and could also be in contravention of the Convention.

There are supposedly eight targets in Syria under consideration. They include air bases, chemical weapons storage and research facilities.  This week President Trump who ‘Tweet-o-graphed’ US intentions warned both the regime and the Russians of the nature of any strikes, and implied their extent. Consequently, Damascus has moved to disperse its air and other forces, sending essential units and assets to the Russian air base of Latakia, thus complicating targeting options of coalition planners.

The US, Britain and France already have significant air and sea assets in theatre to launch a military strike. The US has also dispatched a carrier strike group centred on the 104,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.  The arrival of that force in the Mediterranean next week would significantly increase the capability of coalition forces and thus, in principle at least, afford coalition leaders the option of more robust intent.  

In 2016 Russia established an advanced integrated air defence system in Syria, centred on long-range S-300 and S-400 surface to air missiles with protection particularly strong of Moscow’s air base at Latakia and its naval facility at Tartus. If the coalition deems it necessary to undertake a broader campaign in Syria using manned aircraft, as well as missiles, the suppression of such defences will be vital. The Truman group has the capacity, particularly if used in conjunction with offensive cyber capabilities, such as those the British could bring to bear from its bases in Cyprus, and GCHQ in the UK.

Assessment:

The US, Britain and France believe they must act because by again using chemical weapons against its own people the Assad regime is placing at risk not only the Chemical Weapons Convention, but the entire non-proliferation and counter-proliferation regime that has for a century helped to curb the use of weapons of mass destruction.  Given that Russia has (in effect) also been found guilty of such use by the OPCW this week the relationship between action and effect the coalition seeks is complicated, to say the least.

Consequently, the coalition is emphasising the limited nature of any possible strikes. There is no ambition to seek regime-change in Damascus and every ambition to avoid any Russian casualties. So much so that behind the scenes the coalition has admitted to the Russians that Moscow has, in effect, ‘won’ in Syria and removed any meaningful Western influence.  Therefore, it is not without some irony that the attack is only likely to go ahead if there is some degree of Russian acceptance, if not collusion in it, particularly when it comes to targeting and warning.

The tension between ‘something must be done’ and ‘what can be done’ also raises a profound set of questions about the political and strategic utility of such a strike and whether it will demonstrate Western resolve or impotence.  The US has the military capacity arriving in theatre to escalate by engaging Russian air defences.  However, with the US mid-term elections taking place in November and President Trump having indicated a fortnight ago that he wants US forces out of Syria quickly such escalation is unlikely.  This is in spite of the White House need to distract from the damage the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller has already done and is doing to the Trump presidency. 

There is, of course, a wild card in this crisis that will be concentrating the minds of those Kremlin driving the war in Syria: the capricious nature of President Trump himself.  For that reason, Moscow will also be linking its assessment of the coalition’s intent to the military capability the Trump administration is building in theatre and taking appropriate counter-measures.    

Analysis of Strategic Implications

There are two issues really at stake in coalition considerations (the suffering of the Syrian people is sadly now taken as a given): the contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention by Syria and Russia; and the need to counter aggressive Russian expansionism.  As of today (13 April) the coalition has little option but to use military force because not to act would be a further blow to the West’s fast-diminishing influence in the Middle East and beyond. 

The essential paradox of any such action against Assad is that given the two issues at stake such action only makes sense if it is seen as a part of a wider set of policies and strategies designed not simply to punish a destroyed Syria, or even prevent a wider war across the Middle East, but also contain Russia. A Russia that is not only seeking to forge new anti-Western spheres of influence but is willing to use the most cynical of methods to realise such an end.  

Twenty-First Century Containment?

History offers some lessons for Western leaders as they consider their strategic options. The past containment of the Soviet Union, for all its clunkiness, was a considered strategy that established the framework for legitimate collective and effective deterrence and defence. Today, Western powers seem confused or just plain disagree about the ends, ways and means of military action in support of such a defence. As the world gets more dangerous that needs to end. At NATO’s forthcoming July Brussels summit the Allies must consider crafting a new policy of Comprehensive Containment and to that end a new Strategic Concept. 

This is because given current trajectories Russia and the West are inexorably heading towards another showdown, be it over Syria or somewhere else.  In 1946 George Kennan warned that Stalin was merely using ideology as “…a justification for the Soviet Union’s instinctive fear of the outside world, for the dictatorship without which they did not know how to rule, for cruelties they did not dare not to inflict, for the sacrifice they felt bound to demand…Today they cannot dispense with it. It is the fig-leaf of their moral and intellectual respectability”.  Thankfully, Kennan’s famous 1946 dispatch from the US Embassy in Moscow marked the moment that post-war Washington finally began to wipe away the cob-webs of self-delusion and recognise that Churchill was right: Stalin’s Soviet Union was no partner of the West and posed a direct threat to European democracies.

Kennan’s message was essentially simple: Soviet aggression must be contained by strengthened Western institutions and forces until Russia’s inner contradictions brought the USSR to collapse. Thankfully, Kennan’s dispatch was from the right man, writing the right thing at the right time from the right place.  The ‘Mr X’ (Kennan) article in Foreign Affairs, the Truman Doctrine, NSC 68 and, of course, NATO all followed as a direct consequence of Kennan’s insight.

For Stalin, today read Putin. Putin’s Russian nationalism is only marginally less dangerous than Stalin’s and if only because of contemporary Russia’s far weaker strategic and economic position in 2018 compared with 1946. Equally, it is that very economic weakness which makes Putin’s Russia dangerous and prone to extreme action.  Moscow’s development of advanced military capabilities is also doing a lot to offset such weakness, at least temporarily, even as it exacerbates it. That is why as Washington, London and Paris consider missile strikes against Syria they must also consider who is the real target for such action, by what means, and to what end.  

NATO Strategic Concept: Then and Now

If Russia is again to be contained how should it be done? The NATO Strategic Concept is the what, the why, the when, the where, and the how of Alliance action.  Last year, in my capacity as Lead Writer for the High-Level Steering Committee preparing the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Initiative (www.globsec.org) my senior colleagues and I spent a lot of time discussing an essentially simple question: to what end or ends NATO adaptation?  The last NATO Strategic Concept was agreed back in 2010 at the Lisbon Summit. It was, like all such efforts, a political compromise between those who placed collective defence at the top of the Alliance agenda, and those who wanted collective security to the fore. In other words, there was a split between those who wanted politico-military NATO to be primarily a military alliance and those who wanted it to be more a political alliance.

Such a division was hardly surprising given that the Lisbon Summit took place against the backdrop of the continuing counter-terrorism and stabilisation and reconstruction campaigns in Afghanistan.  There were also growing concerns amongst NATO Allies in southern Europe about the growing instability in Libya and elsewhere across the Middle East and North Africa.  At the same time, and in spite of the 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, the hope still existed for a constructive dialogue with Putin’s Russia that might once and for all bat the Cold War into the long grass of history.

Since 2010 there have been Russian or Russian-inspired assassination attempts on the President of Ukraine and the Prime Minister of Montenegro, the military annexation of Crimea, the shooting down of a Malaysian airliner with the loss of almost three hundred civilian lives, the destabilization of eastern Ukraine, snap military exercises that threaten NATO allies and EU members alike, cyber-attacks, social media attacks, attempts to interfere in both the US and European elections, and a nerve agent attack in a sleepy English city.  If Stalin justified strategic 'overlay' with ideology, Putin makes no attempt to justify such actions at all, other than by offering reality-defying denials of any Russian involvement or issuing dark warnings about US hegemony and NATO proximity.

Containing ‘Future’ War

Russia has designed new strategies designed to exploit the many gaps in Western societies and defences by employing disinformation, destabilisation and destruction as part of a disabling concept of aggression that forms a hybrid war, cyberwar, hyper war continuum.  In Russia, such thinking is at the heart of the Gerasimov Doctrine, as crafted by the Chief of the Russian General Staff General Valery Gerasimov.  In essence, the Gerasimov Doctrine is to use the threat of war with the means of war to force compliance short of war. The Doctrine places a particular emphasis on exploiting NATO’s deterrence gap between relatively weak conventional forces and its last-resort strategic nuclear deterrent. 

There is even some evidence Gerasimov foresaw the coming Western missile strikes. A month ago he said that Moscow had “reliable information” that Syrian rebels were planning to use chemical weapons, and that Washington would respond by accusing Damascus of committing an atrocity and launch missile strikes. Russia, Gerasimov said, “…would retaliate against missile and launch systems”.  If Gerasimov foresaw today’s unfolding scenario Moscow clearly has contingencies. How should the West counter them?

Strategic Concept 2019 & Comprehensive Containment?

There are no quick fixes. To counter Russia and its proxies the new NATO Strategic Concept must demonstrate the means and the will to defend the Alliance – both in area and out. However, to do so the Alliance must forge a new concept of deterrence across a range of integrated civilian and military options and tools: Comprehensive Containment. The 2010 NATO Strategic Concept is now hopelessly out-of-date and the only reason a new one is not being actively drafted right now is that the Allies cannot (as ever) agree on NATO’s twenty-first century role.  This is in spite of the Alliance having one of the most clear-sighted leaders in Secretary-General Stoltenberg it has had for many a year.

Such a Concept would require the merging of the collective defence and collective security means implicit in the current Strategic Concept into a much deeper joint operating model that would also form a new concept of conflict escalation that can exert pressure across policy, diplomacy and economy and in the military domain across land, sea, air, space, cyber, nuclear, information and knowledge.  That would mean a much more considered and joined-up Alliance, the strategic use of economic sanctions, strategic communications, support for partner states, offensive cyber capabilities alongside strengthened and more mobile conventional forces, streamlined command structures and other forms of ‘traditional’ but updated deterrence and defence postures, more devolved command authority, as well as preparing for the coming sentient machine warfare.  

A US-German Special Relationship?

If Comprehensive Containment is to be realised a new transatlantic special relationship will be vitally needed to provide the political backbone for Comprehensive Containment.   In 1946 the United States simply wanted ‘to bring the boys home’ after World War Two.  Kennan not only made clear that such a policy was naïve, in dealing with Stalin it was downright dangerous. Kennan also demonstrated that only the United States could lead such a defence of Europe and the West.  Today, the Americans are stretched thin the world-over, and facing a policy and strategy dilemma which Moscow is only too keen to exacerbate.

Back in 1946, some in the State Department harboured the illusion that the British could be maintained in strength to lead the defence of Europe.  However, Britain in 1946 was broken militarily after six years fighting for national survival. Britain today is not unlike Britain in 1946, a shadow of its former self. Today, London is broken politically and led by people with little sense of either history or strategy whose idea of balance is not about power, but balance sheets.  

Therefore, if a new NATO Strategic Concept is to pave the way to Comprehensive Containment it will need to be found on a new ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Germany.  However, such a relationship will not be easy to forge. Today, it is not Washington that this time needs a new Kennan, even if it needs an awful lot less of other things (Twitter?), it is Germany. NATO cannot be ‘adapted’ without a Berlin that is far clearer in its thinking about its role in Europe and beyond, willing to be far more assertive in its dealings with Russia, able to separate short-term economic from longer-term strategic interests, and accepts that coercion has a legitimate role to play in the security and defence of its own people and others.  The current Groko is unlikely to agree on such ambition for itself or the Alliance, even if it needs to, which is precisely why it is Washington, London and Paris preparing to strike Syria. Where is the German Kennan?

Syria and the NATO Question

To conclude, what is happening in Syria is about far more than Syria, even if some will say the coming Syria strikes will have nothing to do with NATO.  In fact, it will have everything to do with NATO. NATO will not survive if it distances itself or offers only tacit support to the actions of some of its key members, and most particularly the actions of its most important member at a moment of strategic crisis.  Indeed, one of the biggest threats to NATO is the kind of coalition that is preparing to strike Syria. Worse, without an agreed strategic concept that is more than the lowest common denominator of Allied agreement NATO action will be more the exception than the rule. And, without something like Comprehensive Containment, such action will also tend to be exclusively military and quite possibly futile. 

A new NATO Strategic Concept with Comprehensive Containment at its heart would not only help unify the Alliance but demonstrate an Alliance adapting to meet the risks, threats and challenges of the twenty-first century. It would also demonstrate that the Allies really do want to confront such threats seriously, and seriously together, and that the idea of a ‘360 Degree Alliance’ is more than mere summit speak. That, in itself, would be deterrence-in-action.

Kennan once said, “The United States should not jump around like an elephant frightened by a mouse”. However awful the acts of Assad and his cronies in the absence of wider policy and strategy missile strikes on a Syria led by a desperate puppet regime controlled from and by the Kremlin could look an awful lot like three elephants with little idea of what they are aiming to achieve in pursuit of not only a small mouse, but quite possibly the wrong one.

Julian Lindley-French