Vassal-Plus-Plus? The Humbling of Britain towards the end of May

“Anyone defending the proposal we have just agreed will find it like trying to polish a turd”.

Boris Johnson, British Foreign Secretary,

6 July 2018

Brexit Mayhem

9 July. Alphen, Netherlands. The Oxford English Dictionary defines vassal “as a holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance”. David Davis’s resignation had the air of inevitability about it. Forced to front up government policy in which he clearly did not believe and to be the fall guy for policy made elsewhere he had to walk. Last Friday’s Cabinet meeting at Chequers the country estate of the British prime minister was the final straw in Davis’s estrangement from May’s civil service-led filleting of Brexit. The Friday meeting also marked the Brexit humbling of Britain and the true beginning of the end of Theresa May’s premiership. And, the moment when I finally lost all respect for the elite who have run my country so disastrously. For two years now I have watched this Brexit farce. Last month I even heard ministers seriously debating whether Britain could adopt the Lichtenstein model for its future relationship with the EU? Britain? A top five world economic and military power? Lichtenstein with nukes… without the money!

Yes, I know, negotiating Brexit with the EU was always going to be difficult and the most that can be said for the May plan, such as it is, is that if the EU accepts it some 20% of the British economy would pretty much return to the original 1973 idea of a Common Market, albeit without the membership. It was the idea of a common market that was then sold to the British people. I say ‘sold’ for even a cursory glance at the 1957 Treaty of Rome and its commitment to “ever closer union” would have revealed the gap between what the British people were told and the real ambition of the European Project. It is an elite lie that has dogged Britain’s membership ever since and led eventually to Brexit.

As for the Brexit negotiations themselves, the May plan is what you get when one side does not believe in its negotiating mission and the other is led by ideological fanatics.  The negotiations, if you can call them that, were bound to be difficult the moment the Commission were put in charge of on the EU side, hell-bent on delivering a punishment beating to Britain “pour encourager les autres” a la Voltaire, and to teach the British people a lesson about power for an egregious act of democracy.  At best, Britain’s position throughout has been, “would you awfully mind if…? No? OK then”. The Commission’s lines was, “resistance is futile”. At worse, there has been collusion between Britain’s negotiators and the Commission to destroy Brexit.

Perhaps the 2016 Brexit referendum will come to be seen as the last meaningful vote in Europe, the last meaningful act of democracy when we the little people were permitted to vote on a big issue. Or perhaps not, given the 2016 referendum now seems to have become simply yet another powerless act of people powerlessness. Revenge really is a dish served cold.

How did this happen?

Theresa May has patently not been up to the job of Brexit.  Some in the Conservative Party had hoped for Maggie Thatcher reborn, they got Maggie Maybe instead. The plan she presented on Friday when she, at last, imposed some leadership over her rabble of a Cabinet, was a much diluted version of the plan she should have presented two years ago at the beginning of the negotiations, together with serious preparations for no deal. Rather, from Lancaster House to Florence to Mansion House her dithering has made matters far worse than they needed to be, compounded by an appallingly ill-judged 2016 general election.

The Whitehall Establishment set out to stymie Brexit and by hook or crook captured a prime minister that shorn of her own advisers had little or no idea what to do herself.  David Cameron used to call her the ‘submarine’ because she rarely ever surfaced. Now we know why. Things were clearly going awry with Brexit when Phillip Hammond, the anointed representative of the City of London on Earth went quiet. Job done! Brexit blocked. No need to say anything. Let the Brexiteers fume and fumble for they had been successfully marginalised.  As for the Brexiteers, blow hards from beginning to end.

As to be expected Oliver Robbins, May's Chief Negotiator, failed to land a single hit on either Merkel-backed Barnier or Selmayr.  He must have enjoyed a certain Mandarin schadenfreude (appropriate word in this context) when he reported to ministers a few days ago that a bad deal was the only possible deal.  Historians I am sure will one day tell the story how Whitehall and Brussels colluded to kill Brexit and inflict on the British voter the same fate that was imposed on past ballot box dissenters in France, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands.  Sadly, and yet again, this disaster reveals a London elite Establishment that does not believe in Britain or the British people. They are so imbued with a culture of managing British decline that they do just that, manage British decline…and not very well.

What will happen now to Britain? 

This is a defining moment in the centuries-long story of Britain as a serious power. Or, rather, it may well be the end of it. Maggie Maybe’s rejection of a desperately-needed increase in defence expenditure was about far more than defence.  It was about an elite that sees Britain as Little Britain, no longer serious about Britain’s place in the world, preferring instead to see foreign and security policy as little more than strategic virtue-signalling. A place in which plane-less aircraft carriers are offered as symbols of ‘might’ but where in reality real policy, power and influence – the stuff with which democracies preserve the legitimate peace – are but chimeras of pretence.

My reasons for campaigning for Remain in spite of my concerns about the EU and democracy have been well-documented in these pages.  It was and is my firm belief that Britain should stay and fight for a Europe of Nations a la de Gaulle, that dangerous geopolitics demands Britain fully commit to the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe to confirm the freedoms they won so painfully during the Cold War, including freedom of movement.  That Europe is simply too close and too important for Britain to lack either a voice or influence over it.  Above all, at the time of the referendum, I wondered if the British elite was up to the task of Brexit. The answer is clearly not. Rather, the Brexit now on offer is a hokey-cokey Brexit leaving Britain neither in nor out of the EU – vassal plus, plus.

The moment the Commission signalled they were determined to give Britain and the British a punishment beating the only real options on the table were to fight or capitulate. There was no third way. If led with vigour and accomplishment Britain, a major trading power and security actor could have fought for a far better deal than this. Britain had a lot of cards to play but Maggie Maybe refused to use any of them. Barnier, on the other hand, used every trick in the book to force Britain into servitude, most notably the tail wagging dog gambit of the inner-Irish border.  It is now hard to understand just what May, the Department for [not] Exiting the European Union, David Davis, Liam Fox and Oliver Robbins have being doing at great taxpayer’s expense for the past two years. It would have been far cheaper simply to have surrendered early.

Now, I fear for the future of my once-great country. The humbling of Britain and its submission to Brussels means that rather than ‘taking back control’ the real power in the land will not be in it.  Far from returning sovereignty to Westminster and Whitehall, this Brexit will simply confirm that Brussels is really the boss over which no British voter will have any control. Jacob Rees Mogg is a politician I respect for his courage, but he is not to my taste.  He reeks of a warm beer, nostalgia for a mist-bound lost England which never existed that whilst comforting to some offers little on the way of hope for the New Britain that needs to be built if social and political cohesion is ever to be restored. Still, ‘JRM’ is right about one thing – this Brexit reduces Britain to a vassal state and in so doing again leads one to question the future of the United Kingdom. Why would the Scots stay in a Union ‘governed’ by a Westminster that has proved itself incapable of governing Britain? What is the point of a Union that has to all intents and purposes ceded control of Northern Ireland to the Brussels-Dublin axis?

What does this Brexit mean for Europe?

The implications for Europe are also profound. This week Donald Trump will demand more of his European allies at the NATO Summit in Brussels.  He is likely to get little more than a metaphorical ‘so what’ shrug of the shoulders from Theresa May, in spite of last week’s letter from Secretary of Defense Mattis demanding Britain do more if London wants to remain America’s ‘partner of choice’.  You see, May has not just failed to deliver the Brexit she promised, her lack of strategic vision is breaking Britain’s strategic spirit.  Unless a new leader is found and fast I fear that my country will retreat behind its nuclear shield, into itself, and effectively disengage so as to continue with the destructive navel-gazing that has already done so much damage.  Most of the British people will hate this deal, or rather the final deal which emerges after May is forced by the EU to concede yet more ground.  They will hate May for it, but they will also hate ‘Europe’ too.

The EU? The Brexit behaviour and attitude of Barnier, Selmayr and Juncker have simply confirmed to many that unless the democracies check the Commission Europe is on the road to some form of bureaucratic dictatorship. Encouraged by the humbling of Britain the Commission will no doubt interpret the existing treaties ever more in its favour and play the member-states off against each other as it seeks to grab ever more power in the name of ever more ‘Europe’. The Commission will also use the rubber-stamp European Parliament to legitimise its power grab and condemn as ‘populists’ all and any who dare to dissent.  One senior Commission official once told me that my dissent was in danger of damaging his life work as if I had no right to challenge him even though his life work had enormous implications for my life and my freedom. The new Euro-Aristocracy?

What will happen next?

Discord is next. May’s Brexit deal will satisfy no-one – Brexiteer or Remainer alike. For the next decade, ‘Europe’ will remain THE toxic political issue of British politics. The high, hard Remainers who engineered this situation – high politics, high bureaucracy and big business – will no doubt hope that the deal is so bad the British people will eventually clamour to go back into the EU. The Brexiteers will hope that a real leader emerges that finally has the political courage to follow through on the Referendum vote and deliver Brexit 2.0, at whatever the cost. My bet is on the former. There is, however, two big imponderables: the state of the EU in a decade and for that matter Britain.  One thing is clear, the relationships between Britain and many of its closest European allies have been damaged profoundly and will it take a long-time for trust to be rebuilt on both sides.

Here’s the twist. For all its imperfections a failure to prepare for any alternative means the ‘turd’ on offer is now the only ‘turd’ in town, which is why the Brexiteers, in the end, supported it. The Chequers meeting was timed to take place on the eve of Europe’s long slumber so officials can now stitch up a fait accompli.  The only hope left is that THIS plan is accepted by the EU in its entirety and quickly. The alternative is no deal. The challenge for the other EU member-states is to call off the Commission attack dogs, with Germany to the fore. That Brussels consciously avoids any triumphalism. That Britain does not retreat into an enormous post-Brexit sulk. That both sides make enormous efforts not to humiliate Britain and to make the plan work. You see there is a world beyond Brexit for ALL Europeans and it is getting more dangerous by the day. It was that observation that made me decide in 2016 that on balance I would campaign for Remain. I have not changed my mind.   

Statecraft, for the most part, is the art of making bad deals work. As Guy Verhofstadt has rightly said, “the devil is in the detail”. There is one hell of a devil also in the politics of all this. May’s plan may be the only deal on offer, but there is another game in town. Maybe, just maybe, last week’s letter from German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer questioning the Commission’s hard-line is the start of what should be the real war of which Brexit was but a forlorn battle: the taking back of control by the EU member-states from the European Commission.

Vassal plus, plus - the humbling of Britain at the end of May. What a bloody mess! Let’s hope England win the World Cup. C’mon England!

Julian Lindley-French

Trump, Power and the Value of NATO

“European covenants without a European sword are but words, and of no use to no man (or woman) American or European”.

The words Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and author of Leviathan would have written in his latest blog on NATO were he still with us.

Trump of Athens?

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 July. Is President Trump an Athenian or a Spartan? He is certainly not a Melian.  More of that later.  “Illiterate” is defined by the Oxford Concise as “uneducated, esp. unable to read”. Over the past week in Europe, there have been several sorry cases of strategic illiteracy, i.e., an inability to understand power, threat and the successful application of the former against the latter.  The most egregious was British Prime Minister Theresa May’s questioning of whether Britain should seek to remain a Tier One military power, implying any such ambition was now beyond Britain’s meagre means.  Sadly, May does not seem to realise she is prime minister of a top five world power facing emerging dangers and not merely Chair of the Maidenhead Women’s Institute. Her strategic illiteracy? Even by posing that question she puts at risk the $3bn per annum the British taxpayer saves from access to American enablers. The British are granted such access precisely because of the military capabilities that London has traditionally been able to offer the Americans.  Why would the Americans continue to grant privileged access if the British further cut their armed forces and choose not, in the words of Secretary of Defence James Mattis, to be America’s “partner of choice”?

May’s timing could also have been better.  President Trump is about to descend on Europe and demand Europeans do an awful lot more for their defence and in support of America.  This brings me to the other case of strategic illiteracy; Europe’s response to Trump.  Much of the commentary in Europe seems to be of the, “if Trump pushes us too far we Europeans will refuse to allow the American taxpayer to defend us” variety. The film Blazing Saddles come to mind. Now, President Trump may have the political-social skills of a Sheffield Wednesday supporter, and in the eyes of this Sheffield United fan, the only greater condemnation than being dubbed a strategic illiterate is to be called a strategic Wendy, but he is right.  So, rather than the inevitable self-righteous indignation, we Europeans are likely to witness from our leaders next week some humble consideration about what it is they need to do to keep America on-side might be better.

Strategic Predators and Strategic Prey

Thucydides in The Melian Dialogue recites the tale of weak Melia trying desperately to appeal to shared values of liberty and thus convince mighty Athens that in spite of its weakness the Athenians should treat them as equals and friends, rather than a soon-to-be conquered colony of Sparta. The Athenians argue that any such largesse would be seen as weakness by its own people and its enemies, most notably the warlike Sparta. As the Athenians tell the Melians: "We hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians [Spartans] although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

President Trump is fascinated by power and regards all institutions, be it NATO, the EU or the UN merely as constraints on America the Exceptional and havens for the weak.  It is why he seeks common ground on occasions with Spartans like Putin – they understand each other. The only way for Europeans to convince President Trump of the utility of NATO is for themselves to become Athenians or at least Melians with Attitude.  This is because the only way a rules-based order can be maintained is if those rules carry sanction – covenants without the sword and all that.

Therefore, the specific challenge at next week’s NATO Brussels Summit for Europe’s leaders will be to convince President Trump and John Bolton-type Americans of the value of institutions in international relations, i.e. NATO.  If they are to meet that challenge Europeans will need to reverse a culture that has become deep-rooted since World War Two and the founding of the European Union, namely that institutions exist to constrain power, rather than mechanisms for the aggregation of power.

St Malo Re-visited?

Carpe Diem? Some in Europe are calling for Europeans to defy Trump and strike out for strategic autonomy. Nick Witney in a new article trots out that old strategic chestnut that the combined defence budgets of Europeans and their combined defence, technological and industrial base is second only to mighty Athens, sorry America. Good try (again), Nick! The problem is precisely that Europeans are NOT ‘combined’ and in the absence of a Europe in which all Europeans share the same level of strategic ambition, are willing to share the same risks and bear the same costs, nor are they likely to be. In other words, Europeans NEED America.

The simple, hard truth that President Trump is forcing Europeans to face is that the transatlantic relationship of old is dead, America can no longer afford it.  If a new transatlantic relationship is to be forged that is credible as both sword and shield then Europeans need to stop endlessly banging on about shared values and start putting real meat on the bone of Europe’s defence effort.  President Trump may grate in the refined chancelleries of Europe and he might metaphorically slurp his coffee from his saucer at diplomatic dinners, but he is also the first American president to tell Europeans such blunt truths in such a blunt way.  He will not be the last.

The Hard American Lessons of Strategic Literacy

A good place to start Europe’s re-learning process would be at the forthcoming NATO Summit.  No, not more smoke and mirrors with statistics.  That would be like trying to stitch Trump up with a lousy European real estate deal, which he would see straight through. It is becoming very irritating listening to my fellow Europeans trotting out bogus figures to suggest they are spending more on defence whilst defence outcomes continue to decline. Now, that is real strategic illiteracy.

Take Germany.  Berlin takes great pride in how it is going to ‘lead’ more in NATO. With what? As the new Chief of Staff of the German Air Force said last week, “The Luftwaffe is at a low point. Aircraft are grounded due to a lack of spares, or they aren’t even on site since they’re off for maintenance by the industry”.  Given that ‘enhanced readiness’ is to be the centre-piece of the Summit the Declaration could well be yet another great work of European fiction if such nonsense is not actually dealt with.  Readiness will be the true litmus test of European seriousness.

Which brings me back to my own dear prime minister and why Britain must remain a Tier One military power.  It is because only then will the Americans (there is no-one else) continue to invest in Britain’s security. In other words, modestly increasing the defence budget whilst preparing reformed British forces for a tough future will actually SAVE Britain money, enhance Britain’s defences and restore some of the influence this Government has so pitifully frittered away.   

If Prime Minister May still does not get this (and apparently she does not) then she should read yesterday’s letter from Secretary of Defence Mattis to his British counterpart, Gavin Williamson. The letter warns of that Britain’s armed forces and its wider influence were “at risk of erosion”. Mattis said he wanted the UK to remain a “partner of choice”.  He went on, “A global nation like the UK, with interests and commitments around the world, will require a level of defence spending beyond what we would expect from allies with only regional interests. Absent a vibrant military arm, world peace and stability would be further at risk”. And, “…it is in the best interest of both our nations for the UK to remain the partner of choice. In that spirit, the UK will need to invest and maintain robust military capability”.

The NATO Summit Life of Brian Question

At the NATO Summit, President Trump will ask Europeans the Monty Python Life of Brian question: what has NATO ever done for us? Or, rather, the even more important question: what WILL NATO do for us?  Answer? Ease pressure on the US world-wide by Europeans taking more responsibility for Europe with America’s backing.  In other words, the only way for Europeans to convince President Trump and much of the rest of America is to invest institutions with real European power, most notably and most pressingly NATO. If that means European strategic autonomy, Nick, then count me in.

Julian Lindley-French

The Berlin Airlift

“For most of Germany, this act [the March 1948 Soviet walk-out from the Allied Control Council] merely formalized what had been an obvious fact for some time, namely that the four-power control machinery had become unworkable. For the city of Berlin, however, this was an indication for a major crisis”.

President Harry S. Truman

The First Berlin Crisis

Alphen, Netherlands. 28 June. Seventy years ago this week the Soviet Union began the Berlin blockade by closing the road and rail corridor that linked the American, British and French occupation zones within the city with their respective occupation zones in the west of Germany.  The same week the blockade began a massive Western airlift started that between 24 June 1948 and 12 May 1949 saw 441 American and 248 British aircraft fly 277,804 sorties delivering 394,509 tons of essential supplies to the people of Berlin. 

As my KLM flight from Berlin to Amsterdam taxied onto Tegel Airport’s long runway last Thursday I suspect I was the only one on the flight who realised the historical significance of that stretch of tarmac at that moment.  What is now (and still so given the sorry tale of Berlin’s new non-airport) the city’s main airport was opened on 5 November 1948 having been constructed in some 69 days.  Tegel was constructed when it was realised that Berlin Tempelhof could not handle the enormous number of Allied flights needed to keep Berliners alive in the face of Stalin’s brutal and clumsy attempt to starve the Western Allies out of the City.

A Crisis and a Republic

The cause of the First Berlin Crisis was ostensibly the introduction of the new Deutsche Mark in the city by the Western Allies.  For Stalin, the introduction of the currency was a step on the road to the eventual re-emergence of a strong Germany that could again eclipse three of the four occupying powers – Britain, France and the Soviet Union. To some extent he was right.  However, for Stalin, the emergence of a democratic Germany was as great a threat if not more so than the re-emergence of a functioning and in time independent German state.

Throughout 1946 the Americans and the British completed work on the so-called Bizone which unified the economies of their respective occupation zones. On 1 June 1948, the French occupation zone also joined forming the Trizone and thus establishing the sovereign space for the Federal Republic of West Germany to emerge on 23 May 1949 (a month or so after the Washington Treaty and the founding of NATO).  To ensure the Federal Republic would be viable on 7 March 1948 Stalin’s ire was further provoked when it was agreed that the Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program would be offered to the whole of Germany, something Moscow rapidly rejected for its area of occupation.

In the first half of 1948, the Soviets increased the pressure on Berlin.  On 5 April 1948 a Soviet Yak-3 fighter collided with a British European Airways Vickers Viking as it attempted to land in Berlin at then RAF Gatlow.  In what had been a blatant act of harassment by the Soviets all 14 people on the civilian airliner were killed together with the pilot of the Soviet fighter.

What was particularly impressive about the Berlin airlift was that many of the American, British and crews from other countries taking part had also been engaged in the great Allied bomber offensives that had sought to destroy Berlin only some three years prior. In total 39 Britons, 31 Americans and 13 Germans were killed during an airlift so intensive that normal rules of air safety had to be relaxed. Given that much of the effort took place throughout a cold and foggy Berlin winter it is frankly surprising there were not more fatalities.

By May 1949 it was clear to Stalin the blockade was not working. On 16 April 1949, the air-bridge delivered more supplies than the combined road and rail link prior to the blockade with one Allied aircraft landing every minute. And, given he was unwilling to provoke an open conflict with the Americans who at the time were still the only atomic power (the Soviets did not test their first atomic bomb until 29 August 1949) Stalin lifted the blockade on 12 May 1949.

Would Germany do the Same?

There is a twist to this story.  I have been at the forefront of those defending Germany and its actions in contemporary Europe. Yes, Germany can be ruthless when it comes to protecting German interests – one has only to look at the car emissions scandal to see that.  And yet I have always believed Germany’s assertiveness to be more angst than any concerted plan to dominate Europe. And yet as I sat on the plane considering history I was still niggled by the contempt just shown to Britain and me by my German colleagues over Brexit.  It led me to wonder if Britons faced a similar crisis would Germans act with the same largesse and urgency.  Indeed, I would like to think so but I really do wonder. As for me, if Berlin faced the same or any other life-threatening challenge there would be no question of my offering British support. Ho hum!

In memory of those who gave their lives so that the people of Berlin could survive the blockade which in time helped enable that great city to re-emerge and thrive at the heart of a great country.

Julian Lindley-French   

Averting Britain’s Pending Defence Crisis

“We know that in tough times, cynicism is just another way to give up, and in the military we consider cynicism or giving up as another form of cowardice”

James Mattis

Britain’s Defence Crisis

Alphen, Netherlands. 26 June.  Britain’s ends, ways and means do not add up, which means the ends, ways and means of Britain’s armed forces do not add up either.  Consequently, the defence of the realm is in crisis. Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss hinted as much when she warned last night that London would continue to only recognise as much threat as the Treasury would permit and that Britain’s Potemkin defence ‘effort’ would continue.  Defence now joins a whole raft of crises NOT being dealt with by Government.  With knife crime soaring justice is in crisis. With the population swelling, Britain faces an enormous housing crisis. With double-decker buses now being swallowed up by pot-holes, the size of Slough Britain’s infrastructure is crumbling. Well, that is a bit of an exaggeration but the trains really are in crisis but arrive too late for anyone to notice.  Then there is Brexit; there is always bloody Brexit! 

And yet, top of the flops one finds the health crisis. As the Holy National Health Service (NHS) approaches its seventieth birthday there are real concerns that the United Kingdom will be unable to survive this black hole at the heart of the British state.  Prime Minister May has managed to buy some time on health, as she does, by again sacrificing the strategical for the political by depriving the long-awaited Defence Modernisation Programme of the up to £2bn per annum or £20bn in total that would be needed to put the words ‘defence’ and ‘modernisation’ in the same phrase and mean it.  It is amazing what damage an ideological commitment to low taxes, low spending and high demand can do to help those in charge ignore danger.

The consequences? At least the Germans are honest about free-riding on the Americans, even if they over-play the eloquence of history stuff. Years ago, I got into trouble (a much-visited place for me) by writing in the International Herald Tribune that for decades the Americans, French and British had told Germans not to spend too much on defence because of World War Two, whilst for the past decade Germans have told Americans and Britons they cannot spend too much on defence because of World War Two. Plus ça change?  For years British ministers have banged on about the UK Armed Forces (UKAF) being the finest in the world, just as they were about to plunge a knife into what is left.

Arise Sir Max

Arise Sir Max Hasting.  Now, Sir Max is something of a hero of mine whom I have followed for many years. My Mattis quote at the top of this piece is not aimed at him, although his ‘depressive realism’ about contemporary Britain is so hard at times that it to borders on cynicism. Rather, it is the culture of ‘managing decline’ that pervades the elite Establishment and which so undermines Britain’s strategic ambition.  Writing in The Times Sir Max revealed put his finger on an essential reality of contemporary Britain: neither the country’s national strategy (in as much as there is one) nor its defence strategy are coherent and because they are not coherent nor are they sustainable. And yet I profoundly disagree with the conclusions Sir Max reaches. Reading the piece it is hard to escape the conclusion that Sir Max thinks Britain should abandon, Dante-esque, all hope of remaining a substantial power in the world and that its armed forces have ‘had it’. Sir Max believes that Little Britain is now so diminished and its people so decadent that London should simply concentrate on counter-terrorism because that is all a snowflake population understand.  And, that if a real shooting war were to break out, say, with Russia Britain would simply not want to fight it.  Sorry, Baltics! In fact, I do not think Britain would have much choice but to fight.

The article is less convincing when it discusses the now regular ‘not one of us’ Establishment sneer about the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. At least, Williamson, a fellow Yorkshireman, is trying to stand up for defence and embed Britain’s defence effort in some form of considered strategic logic, even if at times I too wonder if his manner may be self-defeating for himself and for the department he leads. ‘Crass’ is ‘la parole du jour’ to use against Williamson these days as he fights Prime Minister May and Chancellor of the Exchequer Phillip Hammond. However, for all Williamson’s supposed rough edges the real political problem with defence is caused by May, who has yet to demonstrate any understanding of or empathy for security and defence policy, and Hammond who views the nation’s finances as little more than an exercise in cash flow management rather than the directing of vital public resources in essential public services, of which defence is one.  Worse, it is hard to escape the conclusion that for May and Hammond (Clarkson?) the defence budget is little more than a secret contingency reserve for the NHS.

Still Managing Decline

There are now some seventy Conservative MPs threatening to vote down the forthcoming budget if the UKAF are not ‘properly’ funded but they also seem muddle-headed.  The real question should not simply concern how much, but rather to what end?  It is the three issues of purpose, structure and capability where the ends, ways and means crisis faced by UKAF really strike home.  There is a profound and growing gap between the defence roles and missions assigned to UKAF, the military task-list such roles generate and the capability and the capacity to meet such demand.  This crisis is not just strategically challenging it is also politically disastrous. For years Britain’s shrinking but highly-competent armed forces have been used to mask a culture of ‘managing decline’ which courses through the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster (Post-Traumatic Suez Disorder?).  Central to Britain’s strategic brand, UKAF have tended to mask such declinism even as they declines and have thus been an essential generator of influence in key capitals such as Washington, Paris and Berlin.

Not anymore. UKAF may just about still be a ‘Tier One’ (to use the armchair analysts slogan of the week) force if such a force is defined as one that possesses nuclear weapons, some high-end strike and forced entry capability and a little bit of strategic lift.  Indeed, a little bit of everything but not much of anything just about sums up UKAF these days. Ask any American in the know and even if they are being polite UKAF are now seen as little more than a Bonzai force – very pretty, still quite sharp, but very small.

Why has this happened?  Leaving aside London’s lamentable conduct of Brexit negotiations (Brussels AND Whitehall on the ‘let’s limit the damage to the EU’ side and David Davis on the ‘let’s get the best for Britain but no clue how’ side) the state of UKAF reeks of the smelly culture of decline management that pervades the Whitehall elite. It also demonstrates once again that the Westminster political elite completely fail to understand the twin and linked concepts of influence and leverage in international relations. Worse, it also suggests that London does not think UKAF are actually meant to fight a major war if, in the worst-case, one should break out.  Therefore, if UKAF no longer have a role, and if even limited military capability might lead to the Americans actually asking their British counterparts to again fight alongside them, would it not be best to reduce the force to the point of incapacity?  No force, no Washington demand, no problem.  One certainly cannot explain the state, size or nature of contemporary UKAF by trying to link the force to the threat. 

New Thinking about ‘New’ Thinking

What is urgently needed is new thinking about ‘new’ thinking at the top in London. Brexit is having the same effect on Britain’s elite Establishment as the 1956 Suez Crisis did on their well-heeled forebears: a wonderful excuse to slide deeper into cynicism, exaggerated decline and, yes, policy cowardice.  There is no reason if led with ambition grounded in realism, why a state with the power of post-Brexit Britain (a top 5 or 6 world economic power and a top 5 or 6 defence investor) could not far better align its national strategic effort with threat, power and ambition.  Even though I remain a Big Picture Remainer I reject this nonsense that Britain’s departure from the ‘glorious’ EU will inevitably mark Britain’s demise. Put simply, no one knows.  The EU is dysfunctional, as this week’s migration non-summit attests, and still far too obsessed with curtailing the power of bigger states in Europe than magnifying the collective or common influence of Europeans beyond Europe.

Where I really part company with Sir Max is over his elite Establishment defeatism.  The other night in Rome I had a delightful dinner with a senior British officer and, yes, we probably drank a tad too much Brunello, or whatever it was.  We both agreed that if one can look beyond the mess that is London an opportunity exists for Britain and its armed forces IF Britain’s leaders have the courage to seize the moment.  Carpe diem, and all that!

The Americans are stretched thin the world over.  The Germans have no intention of spending the c$70bn on defence that meeting the NATO Defence Investment Pledge of 2% GDP on defence would require for fear that defending Europe will lead to accusations of dominating Europe.  Put simply, a hole in the market exists for Britain to provide a modest but powerful command hub for a host of allies increasingly aware that the conduct of medium-to-high end operations will be via coalitions rather than either the Alliance or the Union. Twenty years on from the St Malo Declaration the French clearly understand that which is why President Macron convinced London to sign-up yesterday to the distinctly non-EU European Intervention Initiative.

Balancing Ends, Ways and Means

Which brings me to where Britain’s ends, ways and means should meet UKAF ends, ways and means. To ‘modernise’ defence, ‘defence’ itself must be re-considered in the round if London is to engineer a new defence that strikes a credible balance between resiliency, protection and force projection.  Yes, Britain lacks the heavy industrial base of old. However, the country still retains a whole raft of advanced science and engineering capabilities across the supply chain together with cutting-edge expertise in areas such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, cyber and intelligence where much future war will be fought and future deterrence centred.  The Defence Modernisation Plan is good as far as it goes but goes nothing like far enough.  What this again reveals is a critical lack of imagination at the heights and heart of Government about twenty-first century threat and Britain’s role in dealing with it. At the very least, if Britain is to fix the broken supply, re-supply and procurement shambles UKAF need a twenty-first century version of the pre-war Weir Plan which helped ensure the country’s industrial base was better prepared in 1939 for a long war than Nazi Germany. Indeed, the source of the threat posed by Russia is essentially its re-focusing of much of its state, intellectual and industrial capacity on coercing others.

UKAF also need a new balance to be found and afforded between mass and manoeuvre and between human and technological capital. Years ago I had dinner with General Sir Mike Jackson at Ditchley Park in which he emphasised the value of a force having mass and that the UK had sacrificed it. He is right.  And yet, with twenty-first century warfare now likely to stretch across a broad and new spectrum of coercion from hybrid war to hyper war via cyber war (see the GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Report John Allen, Sandy Vershbow, Giampaolo di Paola, Wolf Langheld, Tom Valacek and I completed late last year) ‘mass’ need not simply be generated by boots or metal. The emergence of new fighting technologies such as swarm and AI suggest virtual mass is now a very real option.

What about the here and now? Is the existing and near-future force really that hopeless?  Yes, UKAF have been hollowed out to the point at which combat support services no longer meaningfully exist. However, take the Royal Navy as an example.  Yes, the Naval Service has too few hulls but IF the two new heavy aircraft carriers (Sir Max calls them ‘behemoths’) are properly-resourced, reasonably-equipped and appropriately-protected (big ‘ifs’ I know) the UK will create a new strike force with platforms available to US Marine Corps that will also act as a command hub for Allied power projection and protection of deployed land forces. At the very least such a force will ease the increasing world-wide pressure on the United States Navy in a very meaningful way, which will afford Britain some influence in Washington and over American military choices.

It is to the future that Britain should look. Future UKAF will need to be competent war fighters across seven domains – air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge.  Indeed, as a ‘Command Force,’ it is not beyond reasonable ambition for Britain to be at the forefront of such defence and deterrence efforts aimed at reinforcing comparative advantage over adversaries.  Therefore, what is really needed is a considered analysis of where best to invest British defence resources that will always be constrained, whether Britain spends 2%, 2.5% or 3% GDP on defence, as a report last week by House of Commons Defence Committee report called for. 

For that to happen the obsession must end with judging comparative defence capability simply on comparative headline defence spending. Defence purchasing power parity is what matters together with the outcomes it generates.  Therefore, before a British government suddenly and miraculously discovers that reasonably-strong UKAF is an investment in real influence and splurges out money on some ill-defined end, the Defence Modernisation Programme should be expanded to consider what mix of forces, capabilities and people and what level of capacity will really be needed to meet considered defence ends. Then, and only then, will sound defence be seen as an investment rather than a cost, and defence and influence finally seen as a public good, not a public burden. 

Si Vis Pacem…?

In his piece in The Times Sir Max referred to a dinner at which, ‘there were the brightest and best brains in the war studies universe’. They were probably also the most accommodating as according to Lord Heseltine, who also attended, the collected ‘stars’ offered little by way of new thinking.  Now, there’s a surprise. My limited experience of such events has been one of carefully-controlled get-togethers put together by defensive senior defence civil servants ostensibly to ‘inform’ a minister or two, but in reality to ‘protect’ him or her from dangerous new ideas.  Thus, such events are normally where the elite Establishment meet their ‘chums’ in the academic aristocracy in some nice, inevitably genteel setting where no-one speaks truth unto power for fear of not being invited back. No doubt these days there is also obligatory ‘diversity’. Disruptive thinkers? Not a chance. And guess what?  Such groups, group-think, which inevitably leads to yet another ‘successful’ exercise in decline management…and so on and so forth.

 

The British elite Establishment are trapped in a virtual Ten Year Rule, all too happy to delude themselves that a major war involving Britain will not break out in the next decade.  All they need so is look around!  In the early Thirties, Britain at least had the sense to scrap the original Ten Year Rule which had been established in 1919 in the immediate aftermath of World War One.  Vegetius once wrote, “Si vis pacem para bellum”, or if you want peace prepare for war.  It is not warlike but prudent for Britain to again think about war because only by so doing can an innovative defence be mounted and deterrence re-established.  If Sir Max is right and Britain is about to go into strategic retirement and that the main concern of Government really is to maintain a childlike public in its childlike state then Britain, Europe, America and the wider world will be a far more dangerous place for it. 

Now, it is customary in conclusions of such pieces for writers to say that none of the above can be resolved until Britain has decided what kind of country and what level of power it aspires to be. This is nonsense. The world imposes roles on countries. The more powerful a country the more its own relative power imposes responsibilities upon it. The only choice Britain has is to face those responsibilities, and thus help the cause of peace, or shirk them and make the world a more dangerous place.  Making even that limited choice will require leadership. Sadly, there are precious few leaders in London these days and on that Sir Max and I are in violent agreement.

Julian Lindley-French

The Transatlantic Bond: Promises, Trust and Choices

“An Alliance that has kept us safe and secure for almost seven decades. And has helped to provide the foundation of our growth and our prosperity.  Our bond is strong. But today, some are doubting the strength of that bond. And yet we see differences between the United States and other Allies. Over issues such as trade, climate and the Iran nuclear deal. And there are disagreements within Europe too. Over the future direction of the European Union. Over values and populism. These disagreements are real. It is not written in stone that the transatlantic bond will survive forever. But I believe we will preserve it”.

NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, London, 21 June 2018

The Transatlantic Bond

Berlin, Germany.  22 June 2018. The transatlantic bond: choices, promises and trust. As Secretary-General Stoltenberg was making his speech in London I was here in Berlin at a meeting of the excellent Munich Security Conference-George C. Marshall Center organised Loisach Group. As the meeting progressed President Trump announced plans to meet President Putin in Europe either before or after the Brussels NATO Summit and Prime Minister May announced plans to hike funding in the National Health Service at the expense of Britain’s ‘Tier One’ military status. So, where does all of that leave the Alliance? 

Promises

As I leave Berlin I am re-confirmed in my belief that the twenty-first century transatlantic relationship will be very different to its twentieth century forebear. It will also be very much more conditional. At the meeting, German colleagues danced on the head of a Defence Investment Pledge pin.  Back in 2014, Germany had signed up to 2% GDP on defence by 2024, of which 20% per annum would be spent on new equipment.  Yes, the specific language of the NATO Wales Summit Declaration states members would only “aim at” 2% by 2024.  Political semantics to spare German and other Allied blushes. The simple but hard strategic reality is that if a state like modern Germany, a model democracy, and a very rich one at that cannot devote a historically low 2% GDP to defence then NATO is in real trouble and so is Stoltenberg’s transatlantic bond.  Berlin’s argument is that German domestic public opinion would not accept an investment that would take Berlin’s defence budget above some $70 bn.  It would not worry me.  In any case, we all have domesticated publics. Sadly, like all ‘imperial’ powers German domestic opinion does matter more than that of other allies, precisely because Germany has the power to impose it on others…for a bit and to an extent. 

Trust

Secretary-General Stoltenberg suggests that differences between the United States and other Allies are real. They are. One German colleague suggested that President Trump and the United States is now a threat to the rules-based order that the Americans (not Germans) guarantee.  One can understand the angst. President Trump certainly gives the impression at times of being (perhaps) the first-ever illiberal leader of a real and very powerful liberal democracy. He also seems far more comfortable in the company of President Putin and President Xi with a world-view that seems to divide the world into power-predators and power-prey with his European allies now the latter. 

Still, the logic of the German critique of Trump would also suggest that Berlin believes Washington can no longer be trusted with the defence of Europe and that Europeans should do far more and spend far more.  And yet, Berlin rarely moves beyond the blah, blah rhetorical, and the EU rhetorical at that – PESCO, European Security and Defence Union.  Germans are seemingly happy to claim the right to criticise America to the point of giving offence even while it still expects the American taxpayer to defend them.  The able British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson hinted at the same in an excellent piece in The Times this morning.

Stoltenberg also said there were disagreements in Europe over Europe.  There are. The self-satisfied and frankly conceited German view of Britain and Brexit can be thus described: “Those poor, dumb Brits. They have brought on their own calamity by voting legitimately to leave the fantastic European Union, that by the way, we lead, and we are going to give them one hell of a kicking for it. And, we also expect Britain and its citizens to spend more on the defence of Germany and the rest of Europe than we do”. Frankly, it is becoming ever harder by the day for me to defend my position as a Big Picture, geopolitical Remainer. Germany and the Commission are systematically seeking to damage my country for Brexit and force Britain into a corner seemingly in the hope London will capitulate and Brexit will be reversed on German terms. Britain’s incompetent elite might be happy with that, but it is hard for me to believe the majority of the British people will put up with it. The implications for NATO? They were apparent this week.  May’s questioning of Britain’s status as a Tier One power is code for a Britain that is already retreating behind its nuclear shield. Just look at how tiny the British Army has become. As for the European Union, I thought it was a free association of free peoples for which leaving would incur a cost but not some form of cold war. Silly me.

Choices

Europe is in a dangerous place that is getting more dangerous by the day.  Threats to Europeans now range from fake news and war at the seams of our societies to possible invasion of countries at the margins of our Alliance and the Union.  Disinformation, disruption, destabilisation and destruction are merging to such an extent that credible defence and deterrence will demand entirely new thinking. First, far better collective understanding of the nature and scope of the threats Europeans face and who is behind them. Second, acceptance that if Americans are to maintain the credible defence of Europe, Europeans with Germans to the fore are going to have to break their addiction to free-riding. Third, Germans need to treat Americans with far more respect than they do at present if, as one German participant at the Loisach Group meeting suggested, the credible defence of Europe is to continue to rely primarily on the willingness of Americans to die for it.

The reason I bother to invest time and energy in the Loisach Group is because it is important and because its members are good people willing to face hard realities. We ALL need that right now. For all that there is still a big power picture that Germany as Europe’s big power simply refuses to think big about which limits the ambition of the US-German strategic partnership.  Indeed, if I was to paraphrase the American view of the Loisach Group it is as a mechanism to get the Germans to think big about big threats so that whilst they might not agree with Americans about every danger to be faced Berlin and Washington can at least think big about the partnership and their disagreements.  What I see is an over-stretched global America locked in a debate with a parochial, very European Germany which at times sounds to me – a now irrelevant Brit – as two countries separated by two completely different ‘strategic’ languages.

Promises, Trust and Choices

If Stoltenberg’s NATO is to do its job as defined by Secretary-General Stoltenberg it will not be achieved by command structure reform or new cyber operations centres et al important though these ‘adaptations’ are to the working effectiveness and efficiency of the contemporary Alliance. No, trust in each other is the essential strategic ingredient in alliance. And, if trust is to be re-discovered, for it is a rare commodity these days in this Alliance, it will first and foremost be achieved by the re-building of strategic partnerships founded on and in political and strategic realism.  Without that realism, Trump’s America with its new penchant for conditions will drift away from Europe, and a Britain that Stoltenberg seems to suggest still matters to the defence of Europe will withdraw into itself. This is in spite of what the strategically incapable Prime Minister May says, as she moves to further deplete the fast emptying toolbox that still affords both Britain influence and Europe defence.

The Loisach Group is an important initiative that considers the vital US-German essential relationship. If Secretary-General Stoltenberg’s faith in the enduring nature of the transatlantic bond is to be realised it is the US-German relationship that will be the core of Alliance strategic credibility. This is particularly so as Britain’s elite establishment condemns Britain and its people to an exaggerated and accelerated decline. Lions led by donkeys?  Therefore, I will continue to offer my blunt Yorkshire analysis and advice if Germans and Americans want me to.  Why? Call me old-fashioned but I actually believe in the United States and in modern Germany, and I still believe there is a place for Britain in a reformed EU built on the Gaullist principle of a Europe of nations.  As for NATO it is the most important defence alliance then, now and in the future.  And, strange though some Germans seem to find it, I actually believe in my country and will defend it when attacked, even if those charged with leading Britain clearly neither believe in it nor are they willing to defend it or its interests.

It will take years for the relationships damaged by transatlantic tensions and Brexit to recover. However, if the defence that NATO affords its members is to be credible those same relationships must form the hard core of political solidarity that is the true foundation of deterrence. THAT is why the transatlantic bond matters.

Julian Lindley-French