September 15th, 1940!

 “I believe that, if an adequate fighter force is kept in this country, if the fleet remains in being, and if Home Forces are suitably organised to resist invasion, we should be able to carry on the war for some time, if not indefinitely”.

Air Chief Marshal, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Sir Hugh Dowding. May 15^th, 1940

Weather: Heavy overnight cloud and rain clearing. Fine with patchy cloud in the morning giving way to strata-cumulus clouds at 5,000 feet providing 8/10ths cover.

September 15^th, 1940:

0900 hours: Prime Minister Winston Churchill arrives at HQ Royal Air Force 11 Group, Fighter Command at Uxbridge and is greeted by Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park, Air Officer Commanding.

1030 hours: Radar (radio direction finding or RDF) stations of Chain Home at Beachy Head, Dover, Dunkirk (Kent), Pevensey, St Lawrence, Ventnor, and Westcliffe situated along the Kent coast and on the Isle of Wight, the personnel of which were mainly women of the Woman’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF - they became the Women's Royal Air Force or WRAFs after the war), detect two formations of 150 plus Luftwaffe aircraft forming up between Boulogne and Calais. 11 Group RAF fighter squadrons are placed on standby.

1100 hours: 200 plus Heinkel 111 and Dornier Do-17 and Do-215 bombers from 111/Kampfgruppe76 and KG73, escorted by Me-Bf109 and Me-110 fighters, are tracked flying NNW towards the English coast at Dungeness at heights of between 15,000 and 26,000 feet (‘Angels’ 15 and 26 in the parlance of the RAF ground controllers of the day).

1105-1120 hours: 144 RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires of (in sequence) 72, 92, 229, 303, 253, 501, 17, 73, 504, 257, 603 and 609 Squadrons ‘scramble’ and are ‘vectored’ by their Sector Controllers to meet the incoming Luftwaffe attack.

1130-1145 hours:  RAF commanders confirm the target is London. AVM Park calls upon 12 Group (AVM Trafford Leigh Mallory) based to the north of London to cover the capital. These include the so-called ‘Duxford Wing’ of massed Hurricanes and Spitfires.  12 Group scrambles some 100 fighters of (in sequence) 41, 242, 302, 310, 19, 611, 249, 46, 1(RCAF), 605 and 66 Squadrons.

1200 hours: The first massed RAF attack of the day begins.  The slow progress of the Luftwaffe bomber formation enables 12 Group fighters to join 11 Group and intercept the enemy with 11 squadrons above Maidstone and Ashford. The RAF’s strength comes as a shock to Luftwaffe aircrew and, whilst the Spitfire squadrons engage the fighter escort, the Hurricanes attack the bomber formation which begins to break up.  Stragglers are attacked and several are shot down.

1215 hours: The Spitfires succeed in separating the Bf109 fighters from the bombers. The longer-range, twin-engined Me-110s are no match for the British fighters and are effectively forced out of much of the battle, in spite of courageous efforts by many of their crews to protect the bombers.  Under intense RAF pressure the bomber force begins to drop its bombs randomly, whilst many turn prematurely short of London and seek to make their escape. Many of those that have survived are damaged, whilst those German pilots who bravely press on towards London are then confronted by 12 Group’s Spitfires and Hurricanes which ambush the bombers from a height of between 25,000 and 26,000 feet, some 3000 feet above the upper most layer of the bomber force. The weight of the attack is decisive and the Luftwaffe force is quickly broken up. There is no respite for the hard-pressed Luftwaffe crews.  The RAF maintains the pressure on the enemy by continuously and repeatedly attacking the bomber force from all sides as it makes its now disorganised way back towards the English coast. Many of the survivors head first west of London before turning for home over Weybridge, whilst some 80 bombers take a more direct route, first down the Thames Estuary and then over Kent, harassed all the way by the RAF.

1230 hours: The first massed battle of what would eventually prove to be the decisive day of the Battle of Britain is over. The RAF has gained a vital victory. What was meant to be the Luftwaffe’s final destruction of Fighter Command is decisively defeated. However, September 15^th, 1940 is far from over. As RAF squadrons land, re-fuel and re-arm the Luftwaffe prepares to launch the second major attack of the day.

1300 hours: Radar stations along the Kent coast again begin to detect another massed Luftwaffe force forming west of the Boulogne-Calais area, many of the aircraft involved have taken off from airfields in the Antwerp and Brussels region. AVM Park confirms the available strength of 11 Group’s fighters, but orders no action to be taken…yet.

1330 hours: Radar confirms the massing German force is larger than the morning attack and as yet the Luftwaffe’s targets are not clear to the RAF. 11 Group and 12 Group fighters are placed at ‘readiness’, together with squadrons from 10 Group (AVM Quintin Brand) which covers the West of England.

1400 hours: The Luftwaffe force approaches the Kent coast ((KG2, KG53, KG76 plus some elements of KG1, KG4 and KG26). This time the Luftwaffe gains a tactical edge by reducing the time it takes to mass the attacking formation. Moreover, the sheer intensity of the morning’s action has disrupted Fighter Command’s battle rhythm. Some RAF squadrons are still refuelling and re-arming whilst many of the pilots who had survived being shot down in the morning are not yet back with their squadrons.

1410 hours: RAF Sector Controllers place all 11 Group squadrons on standby and request ‘maximum assistance’ from 10 and 12 Groups. Five squadrons of the Duxford Wing (49 aircraft) from 16, 242, 302, 310 and 611 squadrons are scrambled. Crucially, AVM Park adjusts his tactics from the morning. He orders the bulk of the squadrons to hold back and patrol east, south and west of London. However, he also orders his forward deployed squadrons at Hawkinge, Lympne, Manston, Tangmere and Manston to engage the Luftwaffe fighter escort early in an attempt to force the Bf-109s to ‘dogfight’ and use up much of their limited reserves of fuel. This renders the bomber fleet exceptionally vulnerable to massed RAF attack.

1415 hours: The first bomber formations cross the Kent coast. Two other formations follow at 1430 and 1445 hours. The bomber fleet is again made up of He111, Do-17 and D-215 aircraft.  The British estimate the strength to be between 150 and 200 bombers plus some 400 Bf109s and Me-110s as escorts. In fact, the strength is 170 bombers and some 300 plus fighters.

1415 hours: The first engagement takes place south of Canterbury. Other formations are attacked south of Maidstone and west of Dartford as RAF squadrons begin to harass the attacking force. The closer the Luftwaffe gets to London the more Spitfires and Hurricanes attack them.  Bereft of an effective fighter escort the bomber force is quickly and badly mauled by 11 Group as (in sequence) 73, 66, 72, 249, 504, 253, 213 and 607 Squadrons repeatedly attack.

1450 hours: AVM Park’s decision to hold squadrons back, most notably the Duxford Wing, now proves decisive, even if many of the RAF fighters had been scrambled too slowly. 150 RAF Hurricanes and Spitfires attack the bomber fleet over the south and south-west of London. As in the morning the Spitfires attack the Bf109s and Me-110 fighters, whilst the Hurricanes attack the bomber force. Critically, the Bf109s are now at the limits of their range.

1500 hours: 303 (Polish) Squadron returns to its base at Northholt. In just over an hour of action they destroy 3 Do-17s, 2 Me-110’s and 1 Bf109 for a cost of 2 Hurricanes lost and 1 pilot killed. By the time Luftwaffe bombers reach London they are out-numbered by defending Hurricanes and Spitfires. They break off the attack and turn for the Channel and escape.

1600 hours: The last of the Luftwaffe bomber force is attacked as it makes its way across the English coast. Another small incoming raid of 10 He-111s is detected heading towards Portland for an attack on the Supermarine Spitfire factory at Woolston. It is engaged by 10 Group’s 152 (Spitfires), 607 (Hurricanes) and 609 (Spitfires) Squadrons. Several aircraft of the attacking force are destroyed and no bombs are dropped on the factory.

September 15^th, 1940, Battle of Britain Day, is over.

Analysis

September 15^th, 1940 was a turning point not just of the Battle of Britain, but of World War Two and the fight against Nazism. The RAF had won a decisive victory over the Luftwaffe and whilst they did not know it at the time, the victory effectively ended any chance Britain could be invaded. Without complete control of the air Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain, was effectively dead in the water. At least it would have been. Any attempt to cross the Channel with two Army Groups comprised of the best Wehrmacht units would have been suicide in the face of constant attacks by the RAF and the Royal Navy, which in 1940 was still the world’s largest.  Britain would fight on and the RAF would begin the long and slow shift from the defensive to the offensive and the regular 1000 heavy bomber attacks on German cities.  These attacks were hugely popular with a British people determined to ‘give it back to em’, but came at an appalling cost to RAF aircrew, German and other civilians.

To some extent ‘The Day’ has become shrouded in myth. The RAF claimed to have shot down some 185 Luftwaffe aircraft on September 15th. In fact, the number was 61, with twenty aircraft badly-damaged, whilst the RAF lost 32 fighters. By the standards of contemporary warfare the casualties were relatively light. The RAF lost 16 pilots killed in action and 14 wounded, whilst the Luftwaffe lost 81 aircrew killed with 31 wounded, although 63 aircrew were also captured by the British.  Many were experienced men. Moreover, by September 1940 Britain was out-producing Germany in the construction of advanced fighters. Therefore, whilst the Luftwaffe was by no means a spent force on the evening of September 15^th, 1940, the defeat came at the end of what had been a gruelling summer for the Luftwaffe.  However, perhaps the greatest impact of the RAF’s decisive victory was psychological.  For the first time in World War Two the Luftwaffe had faced a force equipped with advanced technology, excellent air defence fighters and very capable pilots and had been badly beaten. 

The Battle of Britain had effectively begun on June 18^th, 1940 when Churchill said to the House of Commons, “What General Weygand called the Battle of France is now over, I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin”.  The RAF’s total strength at the outset of the Battle of Britain was 1,963 aircraft whilst the Luftwaffe had some 2,550 aircraft. Not all British aircraft, of course, were front-line fighters. However, by the end of the campaign the RAF had lost 1,744 aircraft destroyed to the Luftwaffe’s 1,977 aircraft destroyed. Crucially, the Luftwaffe’s head of intelligence, Oberst Joseph Beppo Schmidt, repeatedly over-estimated Luftwaffe strength whilst chronically under-estimating both the fighting power of the RAF and the remarkable capability of the world’s first advanced air defence system. Indeed, Luftwaffe aircrew, who were repeatedly briefed that the RAF were down to their last few fighters, shared a grim standing joke each time they saw British fighters moving to attack: “Here come those last 50 British fighters…again”. 

On the morning of September 15^th Air Chief Marshal Dowding had 726 fighters at readiness, whilst the Luftwaffe had 620 fighters and 500 light-to-medium bombers, the bomb capacity of which was simply too ‘light’ given the strategic objectives. By comparison, in June 1942 RAF Bomber Command attacked Cologne with 1000 far heavier bombers, such as the Stirling, Halifax, Lancaster and Wellington types. The Germans also had no organised espionage network in Britain so they could not accurately know what damage they were doing, the state of either the RAF or the morale of the British people. They thought they had but most German spies were quickly captured by the British and forced to work for British Intelligence. 

Luftwaffe High Command’s over-confidence also led them to make catastrophic mistakes. On August 15^th, 1940, dubbed “Black Thursday” (Schwarzer Donnerstag) by Luftwaffe aircrew, Luftflotte V based in Norway was ordered to attack the north of England. The assumption was that all the RAF’s reserves had been moved south to cover Kent and London. They had not.  Chain Home picked up a force of some 200 attacking aircraft early in its mission which was then badly-mauled by Spitfires from 13 Group (AVM Richard Maul) which covered the north of England. It was forced to turn and flee over the sea losing 23 aircraft for no downed RAF fighters.  The escorting Me-110s even abandoned the bombers and formed so-called ‘wagon wheels’ for self-protection. The so-called Dowding System had prevailed again.

The Dowding System was critical to Britain’s victory.  It used the ‘eyes’ of radar to rapidly inform a robust command chain of the strength, speed, direction and height of an attacking force. This enabled HQ Fighter Command based at Bentley Priory to quickly assess the size and likely targets of the force before giving each Group the information they needed to deploy its squadrons efficiently and effectively. Group HQ then passed on the information to Sector Controllers who scrambled the various squadrons. Crucially, the entire system was ‘hardened’ when it was built in 1937 to ensure it was both resilient and enjoyed redundancy of communications and was thus very hard to knock-out. That the system existed at all was due to decisions taken in the 1930s by the oft-berated Baldwin and Chamberlain governments. Such was its success that the Dowding System was to form the basis of many of the world’s ground-controlled air defence systems up until, and in some case even beyond, the year 2000.

The Luftwaffe was defeated because it failed to secure either of its primary strategic aims: to force the British to the negotiating table on German terms; or secure uncontested air superiority over the English Channel as a prelude to invasion. It also suffered a massive materiel loss over the three month course of the battle from which it never fully recovered, undermining its future effectiveness in Russia. The fault lay not with the mainly young Luftwaffe aircrews who showed great bravery, but with their commanders, most notably Luftwaffe Chief Reichmarschall Hermann Goering.  He failed to understand the importance of radar to the British and also failed to exploit the RAF’s greatest vulnerability – 11 Group’s vital front-line air bases. They were often attacked but then allowed to recover because the Luftwaffe never fully understood the battle rhythm of the RAF and thus failed to exploit its vulnerabilities.  Luftwaffe high command also failed to understand that the true test for the RAF was not the number of fighters it could shoot down, Britain was replacing them at a faster rate, but the attrition rate of the pilots who flew them. Dowding’s main concern was the rate of loss of his 2,353 British pilots. Thankfully, Britain had a golden reserve in some 574 foreign pilots from Poland (141 pilots), New Zealand (135), Canada (112), Czechoslovakia (88). Australia (36), South Africa (25), Free French (14) US (11), Ireland 10, and some 10 pilots from what is today Zimbabwe, the Caribbean and Israel. 

One of the most important consequences of the RAF’s victory was the damage it did to both the prestige of Goering and the trust Adolf Hitler had in him. The first seeds of doubt that Nazism would prevail were sown in the mind of Hitler and his Nazi cronies by the RAF’s brave pilots. As dawn broke on September 15^th, 1940 Goering and his Luftwaffe commanders had confidently expected they would, indeed, inflict the final, fatal blow on what they really believed to be the RAF’s few remaining Spitfires and Hurricanes.  The sight of massed RAF air power waiting to ambush the attacks rapidly disabused already cynical Luftwaffe aircrews of their commanders’ folly. As Hans Zonderlind, an air gunner on a Luftwaffe Do-17 said of September 15^th, “We saw the Hurricanes coming towards us and it seemed the whole of the RAF was there. We had never seen so many British fighters coming at us at once”.

Much of this complacency was driven by Nazi ideology and the German superiority it espoused. During the Polish campaign of September 1939, and the attacks on the Low Countries and France in May and June 1940, such arrogance was reinforced by success. The RAF punctured this arrogance. Much of it was down to one aircraft, R.J. Mitchell’s superb Mark V Spitfire and its Rolls Royce Merlin engine. There is no question the Spitfire got into the heads of Luftwaffe aircrew. The aerial scourge, and in many ways signature sound of the Wehrmacht’s Blitzkrieg campaigns had been the ‘flying artillery’ that was the Juncker Ju-87 ‘Stuka’ dive bomber. However, between August 15^th (Adler Tag) and August 18^th the Stuka’s suffered such heavy losses to both Spitfires and Hurricanes that they had to be withdrawn from the fight.  As battle fatigue set in Luftwaffe aircrew constantly reported being attacked by ‘Spitfires’, when in fact the RAF had more Hurricanes. 

It is still a matter of conjecture whether or not Luftwaffe ace Adolf Galland asked Goering for a squadron (staffeln) of Spitfires. In some respects, the Me Bf-109 was a superior fighter. It could climb faster and due to its fuel-injected engine also climb higher than a Spitfire. The mix of cannon and machine guns also gave it more devastating firepower than the eight Browning 303 calibre machines guns with which both Hurricanes and Spitfires were equipped. However, the Spitfire enjoyed two critical advantages in air combat both of which were due to its two elliptical wings which could bear far more weight than the Me Bf-109. This enabled the Spitfire to dive and turn faster, as well as turn very tightly at lower speeds.  And, of course, both Hurricanes and Spitfires were operating close to their own bases, whereas the Me Bf-109 was not, which negated many of its advantages as a hunter.  Interestingly, by the time the last Spitfire was built in 1948 some 22,000 had been manufactured in 22 variants, including a navalised version, the Seafire. 12,129 of them were produced at the enormous Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory near Birmingham which began production in May 1940, albeit mired in very British managerial and industrial relations challenges. Critically, preparations had been made to massively increase British military aircraft production in the event of war with the 1936 Shadow Factory Plan.

The lessons for today? First, whilst the building of modern free Europe did not begin that day, it took a great stride forward. Democracy fought back and won. Second, even if distracted by as deep an economic crisis as faced by the Baldwin and Chamberlain governments during the 1930s a democracy must never abandon a sound defence or properly prepare to mount it. Third, that equivalency of military materiel and personnel is vital. Preparedness, readiness and robustness.

In tribute to the RAF pilots of many nations who defended Britain and a free Europe on a fateful day, and the many young women who made that defence work. In respectful memory of ALL the brave young men who lost their lives on September 15^th, 1940, Battle of Britain Day. As Churchill famously said on August 20^th, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.

Requiesce in Pace.  Per Ardua ad Astra!

(With thanks to the Battle of Britain Historical Society)

 Julian Lindley-French, September 15^th, 2020

Integrated Review 2020 and the United Kingdom Future Force

Today's Analysis is necessarily a long one as it serves as my submission to the UK Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (IR 2020). It has been seen and commented upon by very senior people from across the Euro-Atlantic Community and is designed to challenge prevailing assumptions in London, not only about defence policy and the Review, but Britain's place in a fast-changing world. It does not pull its punches. JLF  

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT PAPER

 Integrated Review 2020 and the United Kingdom Future Force

 By

 Julian Lindley-French

 September 3^rd, 2020

 Abstract: IR 2020 and the United Kingdom Future Force 2030 considers the essential issues all strategic reviews should address given the challenges Britain faces today: health security versus national security, British defence strategy today and options for the future, the other Brexit and Britain’s abandonment of a continental strategy, the role of HM Treasury in national defence and the vital need for a threat not cost-led defence strategy.  The ‘strategy’ which IR 2020 crafts will have profound implications for Britain’s role in NATO and for the Alliance itself. To that end, Britain must invest the Alliance with the necessary strategic ambition and military capability needed to maintain all-important Allied defence and deterrence. The piece also considers the growing implications of US military over-stretch for the defence of Britain and wider Europe. Consequently, it calls on Britain to lead a Combined Arms approach to the development of a high-end, first responder European Future Force that exploits new Emerging and Disruptive Technologies. Critically, the piece considers what it would take for Britain to remain a real Tier One military power via a new look defence strategy and concludes by suggesting IR 2020 will be a tipping point not just for British defence but for Britain itself in an uncertain world with an uncertain future.  Are Britain’s political leaders up to the task?

 Anchor Quote

“We seriously doubt the MoD’s ability to generate the efficiencies required to deliver the equipment plan. In the past, the MoD has proven incapable of doing so—for example, in 2015, when only 65% of planned ‘efficiency savings’ were achieved. Even if all the efficiencies are realised, there will be little room for manoeuvre, in the absence of sufficient financial ‘headroom’ and contingency funding. This is not an adequate basis for delivering major projects at the heart of the UK’s defence capability.”

 House of Commons Defence Select Committee, 2017 (before the COVID-19 crisis)

 Bat power

Today is the anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two so consider this! Somewhere in China, sometime in 2019, deep in a dark Wuhan ‘wet market’ someone allegedly contracts a virus from a bat. A year or so later British defence policy, funding and investment plans, as well as many of its defence planning assumptions (DPA), lie in tatters. Meanwhile, Beijing forges ahead with a massive military modernisation programme that is exerting growing pressure on Britain’s critical ally, the United States. Just to reinforce the point last week China ‘tested’ DF21D and DF-26 anti-ship missiles in a move the Pentagon called “destabilising”. That is the unpromising back-drop to Britain’s delayed but finally forthcoming Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy (IR 2020). The Times suggests “…several billion pounds could be wiped off the MoD’s annual budget, which is £41.5bn this year”. The fact that the Review is being undertaken at the worst moment in the midst of the COVID-19 economic crisis as part of a wider comprehensive spending review (CSR) says everything one needs to know about the politics behind it. More ‘efficiencies’, more cuts.

The political purpose of the Review is thus clear: to find ways to raid the defence, aid and foreign policy budgets to pay for a COVID-19 crisis which has taken the national debt to over £2 trillion, whilst avoid giving any such impression. By weakening Britain’s defences further simply to pay for COVID-19 London risks swapping one pandemic crisis for another just as dangerous geopolitical crisis. Equally, if imbued with the necessary strategic ambition this era-defining Review could afford both London and the British defence establishment an opportunity. What are the defence policy options available to Britain’s beleaguered government?

Conceit, deceit and the magic military

Health security versus national security: Like many of my colleagues in academic and think-tankery I have been invited to submit my views as part of the usual feeding frenzy that accompanies such reviews.  Is it worth it? First, HM Treasury and Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s Chief Advisor for Everything, seem to have already decided Britain’s defence course of action – more decline management. Second, should I legitimise (the real purpose of such submissions) a review that will almost certainly see health security funded at the expense of national security? Third, is IR 2020 really a strategic defence review worthy of the name? Since the 1998 Strategic Defence Review British defence strategy has had four essential strands all of which mask a growing gulf between ends, ways and means.  Cloaked in political hyperbole such reviews have driven an inexorable decline in the fighting power of Britain’s armed forces and the ‘hollowing out’ of its ever-smaller front-line force.

British defence strategy today: The result is what passes for defence strategy today. The use of nuclear weapons as an absolute guarantee against any existential threat to the British Isles with just enough intelligence capacity and expeditionary/high-end military intervention capability to convince Washington that London still remains an important ally, whilst maintaining the pretence that Britain remains a Tier One military power through commitments to the NATO Defence Planning Process (NDPP) that London cannot possibly meet while stonewalling NATO concerns about declining British fighting power, particularly in the Land Domain. Fourth, placing the Alliance at the centre of British defence strategy whilst withdrawing from the continent.  

Strategic defence and security reviews 1998-2020: SDR 1998 began this process of wishful defence policy projection when Tony Blair established his doctrine of liberal humanitarian interventionism and the use of the British armed forces as ‘force for good’.  Unfortunately, the defence planning assumptions underpinning the Blair Doctrine were blown away by 911, the Afghanistan War and the concomitant Iraq War. Consequently, the distance between the ends, ways and means of Britain’s defence policy became ever wider.

By the time of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) Britain’s armed forces were effectively broken. Worse, the banking crisis in which Britain found itself deeply mired forced the then British government to impose swingeing cuts of up to 20% on an already worn-out force. SDSR 2010 also established a ‘method’ that has, in effect, become a mantra for the ‘management’ of Britain’s military decline by claiming that central to its purpose was the need to “avoid the twin mistakes of retaining too much legacy equipment for which there is no requirement, or tying ourselves into unnecessarily ambitious future capabilities”.

SDSR 2015 was a partial attempt to begin the long-term recovery of Britain’s armed forces. It re-confirmed a commitment Britain had made at the 2014 NATO Wales Summit to make defence spending 2% of GDP of which 20% would be spent on new equipment.  SDSR 2015 also saw the adoption of two other British defence political ‘stratagems’: creative defence accounting and the use of magic military solutions.  In the 2015 SDSR the magic military ‘solution’ was ‘beefed up’ Special Forces that were to be the go to cure all for all and any pressures Britain’s markedly smaller Future Force might face.

Falling GDP due to COVID-19 means by definition a falling defence budget. Cue IR 2020. The political inference thus far is that IR 2020 is yet another metaphor for multi-dimensional cuts to the foreign, security, development and foreign policy budgets just at the moment when Britain no longer has access to the EU and its institutions.  It also takes place at precisely the moment when US forces are beginning to feel the heat of China’s military rise and the growing pressures that places on Washington’s ability to guarantee the defence of Europe, despite a predatory Russia.

The magic military: The magic military bit of IR 2020 (or 2021, or whenever it will be published) is cyberspace and black hole space. Cyber and space are important theatres of contest as I discuss in my forthcoming new Oxford book, Future War and the Defence of Europe.  The role of Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (E&DT) in future defence will also be vital. The real question, given there is already a £20 plus billion funding gap in the defence equipment budget, is where exactly should Britain invest in such technologies.  My fear is cyberspace and space are both perfect for defence ‘cutateers’ because they are unfathomable black holes the depth of which can never be measured. As the pioneer of the concept of 5D warfare in which complex strategic coercion is exerted across disinformation, deception, destabilisation, disruption and implied or actual destruction I am fully aware of the important role cyber could play in modernising deterrence and defence. The same goes for artificial intelligence (AI). What AI?

 Critically, cyber cannot and will not replace fighting power and the platforms, systems and people that will be needed in sufficient quantity and at a level of quality needed to win the hard yards of twenty-first century peace. The advocates of ‘winning to the left of combat’ with cyber et al find it impossible to explain how.   

Tank politics, cost-neutrality and the other Brexit

Cutting, investing and influencing: Sir Max Hastings has suggested that one should not be emotional about the scrapping of outmoded defence kit. He is absolutely right! He was responding to leaks from within Whitehall that Britain might scrap all of its ageing fleet of two hundred and twenty-two Challenger 2 main battle tanks and assorted other armoured vehicles. There is also talk of Britain’s frigate fleet being reduced from the already miniscule thirteen to the hardly noticeable eight, and slashing orders for F-35 Lightning 2s.  Britain used to have a little bit of everything, but not much of anything, soon it will not have very much of anything at all. This is important because if a small force cannot be in two places at once, a minute force cannot really be credible as a force anywhere at all.  A lack of mass means a lack of that most vital of commodities, influence. This, in turn, is critical for the most important function of any force – the power not to fight at all. Worse, the danger is not only that tanks, aircraft or ships might be cut, but that just a few of each are kept for political reasons to assuage lobbies of tankers, airmen and sailors thus further destabilising an already unbalanced force.    

If such cuts were made due to sound military-strategic reasons then so be it. Just because Britain invented the tank does not mean it needs them a century later if they serve no practical defence purpose, although I know of no one in the infantry who does not feel safer (and is safer) for the presence of friendly armour. In reality the floating of such cuts by those inside the Review is simply because once again IR 2020 is being cost not threat-led. HM Treasury is insisting Britain’s smaller defence books be balanced at a lower level of funding and whatever cost to a force that to the budgeteers is all cost and no value. The obsession with ‘cost neutral’ defence reviews assumes that an ‘all things being equal’ strategic environment in which threats never increase or change.  Look at the world in 2020 even compared with 2020!

Fixing the defence-procurement shambles: Britain’s defence procurement is also a farce constantly subject to the shifting sands of political will with equipment programmes both cut and stretched in equal measure. One thing IR 2020 could do is to grip the defence industrial implications of the changing character of warfare and the technologies ‘defence’ will need. The very concept of the defence industrial base will need to change as AI and in time quantum computing enter the fray and massively accelerate the speed of both war and command.  Indeed, only a new form of a strategic public private partnership could master the change that is fast coming, allied to a new kind of Defence Growth Partnership (DGP). 

 Threat-led or cost-led?

Britain desperately needs IR 2020 to be a genuinely threat-led review, the first since the Cold War. However, given that any such review will need to be paid for the economic and financial context is not at all promising. The crisis in British public finances is, indeed, very real with the national deficit now over £300 billion. However, the public finance crisis is also fast becoming a defence, NATO, transatlantic relations crisis because British governments continue to see defence as a peacetime luxury, even if they routinely speak as if the fight against COVID-19 is a form of ‘war’.  One cannot win wars with either a peacetime mind-set or a peacetime view of investment and London urgently needs to see both COVID 19 AND the deteriorating strategic environment as part of the same set of challenges. The choices are stark. London can either accept that the national debt is already so high that adding more defence costs to it will make little difference. Alternatively, they will have to look for other sources of funding, such as the £15.8 billion devoted the aid budget.  Either way, any meaningful attempt to close Britain’s threat-rhetoric-defence gap would necessarily see the British defence budget rise to at least 2.5% GDP and see all the costs associated with the nuclear deterrent removed from the defence budget.

HM Treasury and national defence: The worse nightmare of HM Treasury is a no deal Brexit and COVID-19 combining to drastically reduce the tax base and thus bankrupt Britain. Fair enough. However, simply making IR 2020 a slave of HM Treasury is self-defeating. To serve any purpose any such review must address the big picture of British security, defence and influence. The role of government is to strike a balance. It is not to recognise only as much threat as HM Treasury says it can afford.  If Britain is at ‘war’, as the Government suggests, then the spending guidelines need to reflect that imperative, as they did during World War One and World War Two. Any such expenditures must thus be seen as a form of war debt to be paid off at historically low fixed interest rates over many years and in combination with higher taxation.  That is the only possible way that Britain’s national ends, ways and means can be afforded in the wake of this crisis, let alone its military ends, ways and means.  

Rational defence policy-making: It is vital IR 2020 establishes a rational for policy choices based on a real strategic assessment (not the political PR that are the UK National Security Strategies and the National Risk Register). However, there is little or no evidence the current regime has the political will or the vision or, indeed, a strategic culture that would enable it to undertake an exercise that would inevitably throw up some nasty and expensive surprises. Worse, so long as Government policy is driven primarily by ‘all things being equal’ HM Treasury economists secure money will always come before a secure Britain. 

IR 2020, NATO and the military Brexit

The vital role of NATO defence and deterrence: NATO is the lodestar for modern defence and deterrence and it is vital the Concept for the Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA) is implemented in full. At the core of the effort is the modernising enhanced NATO Response Force (eNRF) and Britain needs to be front and centre of that effort. It is not. Indeed, the greater the stated commitment London makes to the Alliance in IR 2020 the greater the likely cuts to Britain’s forces.  For London NATO has become a metaphor for “we can no longer really afford to do this or that, so you our allies will have to do it”.  The problem is that every other European ally is doing the same thing, apart from the Americans and, yes, the Turks. The result is a NATO that is fast beginning to look like one of those Soviet propaganda movies of old which were all façade and no substance and in which ‘cohesion’ is everything.  There could come a day when NATO is forced out of the Baltic States due to American military over-stretch and European military weakness, but the ensuing communique would no doubt state that in spite of the ‘set back’ the Alliance maintained its ‘cohesion’.

The other Brexit: In August 2019, Britain conducted a military Brexit abandoning the land defence of the European continent by withdrawing the massive bulk of its remaining forces back to the UK. The remnant is a forward-deployed battlegroup in Estonia, a few units in Germany and some Special Forces stuff. How can such a posture possibly reinforce the two centres of gravity of NATO defence, deterrence and security? How could cyber possibly help NATO maintain high-end deterrence against Russia to NATO’s east and engaged support for front-line states facing the Mediterranean to NATO’s south?  Britain’s military contribution to both is already minimal which is demonstrated by Britain’s effective absence from any or all diplomatic efforts of any weight anywhere these days. Indeed, there is a very great danger that Prime Minister Johnson’s Global Britain will simply no longer matter even in its own strategic backyard - Europe. Given the still vital link between power and influence could IR 2020 make Britain matter even less?

Combined Arms and the UK Future Force 2030?

UK Future Force 2030? For IR 2020 to succeed it must look purposively out towards 2030 and mirror US efforts to modernise its forces by moving away from a focus on counter-insurgency operations in the Middle East and back to high-end power projection. However, the USMC is an intrinsically joint force. For such a vision to succeed Britain’s defence chiefs would not only have to stop fighting each other (and stop engaging in competitive leaking) they would also have to speak hard truth to political power and do so, for once, with one voice. If the National Security Council had any weight it could assist that, but it is a pale shadow of its US counterpart.

A new look defence strategy: If the nuclear deterrent is taken as a given (although all current and future programme costs should be removed from the defence budget), and assuming cyber defence (and offence) would be as much a civilian as a military cost, the centre of gravity of IR 2020 will necessarily concern the future of Britain’s high-end expeditionary/intervention forces.  Given the fact that any such British future force will need for the most part to rely on US enablers it is therefore logical to look to the US for a possible vision. 

USMC and UKAF: The future of Britain’s expeditionary capability must be a deep joint force supported by Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (E&DT). In that sense, the US Marine Corps (USMC) is the most obvious parallel to the UK Armed Forces. Whilst the USMC has some 182,000 active personnel supported by some 38,000 reserves, the UK Armed Forces have some 149,000 active personnel supported by 44,900 reserves. Both the US Marine Corps and UK military are power projection forces, with both increasingly focussed on admittedly vulnerable carrier-enabled power projection (CAPP).  Not only is the USMC a possible source of vision it is also the natural partner of the British force and will operate F-35s from Britain’s two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

Combined Arms? Both the USMC and UKAF share other ‘virtue out of necessity’ attributes relevant to IR 2020. London’s abandonment of a continental strategy and the centrality of the nuclear deterrent in Britain’s defence strategy leads inexorably to a kind of rough military logic about the future of intervention. First, any such posture precludes the kind of mass force that would be needed to fight a high-end war with the likes of China and Russia. Second, the focus then becomes the creation of a small, but high quality, deep joint ‘strategic raider’ force focussed on one Strategic Command. Third, given the small size of such a British force and its ‘lightness’, like the USMC it would need to maintain a high degree of interoperability with the US Army and access US enablers. Indeed, it would be little more than an adjunct of US forces. For even this vision to be realised ‘UKAF’ would need to properly grip the concept of Combined Arms in much the same way the US Marine Corps sees it as central to its DNA.

Size and force structure:  The role of a small high-end force would be to undertake relatively long-reach but short duration 'kick down the door' Littoral plus operations in conjunction with allies, most notably the Americans. Given Britain’s existing defence investments any such scenario would necessarily see the Army providing a follow-on force for small spearhead formations of beefed up Special Air Service/Special Boat Squadron, Royal Marines, and whatever name is given to the Parachute Regiment given that drifting down into the twenty-first century battlespace a la Arnhem is no longer particularly safe (more on the role of the British Army later). The future of ‘airborne’ is assured, but it will be a very different form of airborne, possibly one in which even helicopters are replaced and the future airborne soldier is borne aloft by jetpacks operating with artificially intelligent drones acting as ‘friendly wingmen’. In other words, a smaller force package version of how F-35s might operate.  

The Royal Air Force would have four primary roles: to support the Royal Navy by providing carrier strike; to ensure an assured level of sophisticated anti-access/ areas denial (A2AD) over British airspace and, with the P8 Maritime Patrol Aircraft, under British waters; to afford limited strategic lift for supply and re-supply of deployed forces; and, of course, to protect the nuclear deterrent as the submarines enter and exit Faslane (both the Vanguard-class and in time the new Dreadnought class nuclear-powered ballistic missile boats).

Level of ambition, area of operations: The good news is that whilst the military reach of the USMC is across the maritime-amphibious global battlespace of the Indo-Pacific where, of course, the USMC gained its stellar reputation, Britain is a European power and can focus its main effort far closer to home.  Interestingly for Britain the choices the Americans are making the implications for the future force structure of the ‘Corps’ include a much tighter joint ‘culture’ with the US Navy, even if the USMC is unlikely ever again to mount large scale forced entry amphibious operations. For the Americans the emphasis will thus be on high-speed, short-term, maximum shock, high technology raids (strategic raiders) against vulnerable parts of a high end peer adversary’s force posture. Britain?

Tier One and the cost of readiness? Like all recent defence reviews (and the fluff they are cloaked in) IR 2020 will no doubt claim that Britain will remain a ‘Tier One’ military power. The true test of such a claim will be the role of the British Army.  Here ‘UKAF’ would part company with USMC. The difference with the US Marine Corps would be the transformation of the British Army into a twenty-first century ‘heavy’ force that whilst relatively small would still be able to operate to high-end effect across the battlespace.  The political benefits of such a plan would be clear. First, Britain would still be able to exert leadership within the Alliance to which it claims to aspire. Second, such a ‘command hub force’ would also enable non-US allies to ‘plug’ into UK-led coalitions if the US was busy elsewhere. Third, it would enable the French and the Germans to ‘buy into’ a new British commitment to European defence.  However, the British would also need to keep a significant part of what would be a significant high readiness force at high readiness for significant periods. Not cheap!

Little force, little Britain: If IR 2020 really is to be another, “we cannot afford everything we really should” review it is hard to see the Army ‘winning’ given the changing character of warfare and Britain’s diminishing role within it.  If that were to be the case, and given how much money Britain has already ‘sunk’ (excuse the deliberate pun) into big ships and very complicated fast jets the logic would then be to invest in an all-out genuine and muscular maritime-amphibious strategy, with an air force tailored to support. At least such a capability would afford London more discretion over the use of force in complex scenarios, as naval forces can come and go albeit at the expense of reach. However, given the trade-offs implicit therein the Army would be reduced to little more than a lower-readiness, support for the civil authority, home defence force. If such a choice is indeed made Britain should at least have the decency to say to NATO and other allies that Britain no longer really does big land stuff, but will make a serious material contribution to collective allied maritime and air security.

That IS the essential defence choice IR 2020 must now make and whilst painful it might just allow Britain to retain a seat at top tables, and possibly ensure Britain holds onto NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.  The worst thing for Britain to do would be to continue doing what it is now doing – pretending to its allies, most notably the United States, that Britain remains a serious land power when it can no longer field anything like the force the NATO Military Strategy and Defence Plan assumes. The furtherance of such deceit could, in time, lead NATO into disaster.

Britain and the European Future Force

IR 2020 and US military over-stretch: There is another change factor IR 2020 must grip. The attrition of a decade of full engagement operations, allied to the rise of peer competitors means the Americans are also facing an ends, ways and means crisis that the new Administration (whatever it is) will need to address.  It is a crisis (for that is what it is) that will have profound implications for the future defence of Europe because it will put transatlantic burden-sharing front and centre of the US policy agenda.  They will have no other choice. Indeed, without the full and combined leadership commitment of Britain, France and Germany across the multi-domains of contemporary and future warfare the US will be simply unable to any longer guarantee the defence of a free Europe.

A European Future Force: Europeans desperately need to build a European Future Force worthy of the name to ease pressure on the Americans, and to reinforce the credibility of Alliance defence and deterrence if, as would be likely, future enemies force the Americans to fight in multiple theatres the world over at the same time. Such a European force would also need to be a deeply joint, multi-domain, multi-national force and plugged into a tight command security and defence apparatus (an adapted NATO?). Britain, France and Germany would also need to act as ‘high framework powers’ by enabling force generation, command and control of coalitions by acting as autonomous command hubs. Therefore, in the wake of Brexit, IR 2020 should commit Britain to play a committed leadership role in the forging of such a command group by updating and expanding the 2010 UK-French Defence Co-operation Treaty with the aim of forging a new European fast, first responder and high-end force designed to reinforce effective deterrence in and around Europe, even if the Americans are busy elsewhere. A necessary reality check must be inserted at this point. Any such European Future Force would need to be weaned off US strategic enablers to be truly autonomous. For example, the US today provides 65% of NATO’s ‘fast air’ and 90% of refuelling aircraft. Indeed, if IR 2020 is to have a scintilla of strategic ambition or imagination it is just such a vision it must espouse.

Otherwise…

IR 2020: yet another strategic pretence and insecurity review?

Some will consider this ‘intervention’ unhelpful. It is necessary. This is because the future of defence is on the offensive.  The lethality and range of modern weapons systems, both offensive and defensive, allows ‘defence’ to be prosecuted by forward forces supported by ground, air and maritime-based weapons deployed at depths well-outside the tactical defence area. Deterrence by Denial is now not simply the presence of massed heavy metal, but the integration of so-called ‘fires’. In that light, IR 2020 must not be judged by its political, but its strategic value. It must also answer three questions: does it set Britain on a course to play the military role a still major European power of its size and strength should play in the defence of Europe? Does it enable Britain to support US leadership and make an adequate contribution to the sharing of transatlantic burdens? And, does it help to prevent the possible defeat of NATO by revealing a British future force able and willing to act in extremis? 

My fear is that none of those questions will be answered by IR 2020 and it will be the same ol’ British same ol’.  More of the same old defence pretence at which London has become the acknowledged master in which there is much talk of ‘ambition’ where there is none, more ‘commitments’ are made, even as the ability to meet them declines, yet more ‘efficiencies’ are called for that are little more than euphemisms for deep cuts, and in which defending Britain is a cost not a value. In other words, the same old mix of conceit and deceit that has done so much damage to Britain’s credibility and reputation as a power. For once it would be nice to be surprised by a British government that actually ‘gets’ the nature of twenty-first century power and is willing to prove it.

The domestic political implications of IR 2020 must also be gripped.  The recent spat between the BBC and huge numbers of the British people over whether or not Rule Britannia should be sung at this year’s Last Night of the Proms is sadly indicative of modern Britain. For the BBC the song is a nationalistic anachronism that reeks of jingoism. To millions of Britons it remains a leitmotif of national defiance. However, behind the culture wars there is something quite profound, the systematic deconstruction of British patriotism and national self-belief. As a trained Oxford historian I am the first to acknowledge the sins of the past and I am in sympathy with much of the ‘new thinking’, although I am profoundly concerned about the imposition of contemporary values on past actions. In that light the state of Britain’s armed forces is something of a metaphor for the state of Britain itself. With separatists in power in Scotland, and many citizens seeming no longer to care about Britain and its role in the world, could IR 2020 mark the beginning of the end of Britain itself?  After all, if the British establishment no longer believes in Britain as a power then how can the rest of us?  No state can be a power if it is deeply divided or is led by people for whom power is just pretend.  

If that is indeed the journey upon which Britain is embarked then the implications for Britain, Europe, and all the world’s democracies are profound. Freedom cannot be defended by values alone, however well-intentioned. Indeed, freedom, power and defence are inexorably and intrinsically-linked. Freedom’s defence must thus always involve a sufficiency (no more) of military power given the scope and nature of the threats democracy faces. To be credible any such power must also communicate to allies, adversaries and enemies alike both the determination and the capability to fight if needs be. That was the lesson of the 1930s. Britain 2020?

IR 2020: tipping Britain into an uncertain future

Basil Liddell Hart once famously said that between 1919 and 1939 the British were ostriches, and when their heads were jerked from the sand their eyes were too angrily bloodshot to keep clear sight. IR 2020 is a tipping point for a declining Britain and thus should not be seen as simply another review. As such, it will reveal the extent to which Britain is a serious power to be treated seriously by friend or foe alike, or a posturing, paper, pretend power in which the appearance of strength is far more important than strength itself.  Indeed, watching Britain from abroad it is hard not to conclude that much of the London establishment suffer from what is known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect, a type of cognitive bias in which they believe their nation/organisation is smarter and more capable than it actually is, and that allies and partners share such bias. Ultimately, Britain’s greatest weakness is not its inability to close its defence ends, ways and means gap, but the poor quality of Britain’s leaders, their strategic illiteracy and ingrained short-‘termness’, allied to a determined refusal and/or inability to lead Britain to the strategic role to which a state of its power and importance could still aspire. Prime Minister Johnson aspires to emulate his hero Winston Churchill. IR 2020 is his chance to begin that journey. Churchill was great not because he succeeded in easy times, but because he prevailed in appalling times. Over to you, Prime Minister!

The bottom-line of IR 2020 is thus: military threats are emerging and the nature of warfare is changing. The conditions for shock to happen are not only created through the design of aggressors but also the neglect of defenders. Given the strategic responsibilities of an advanced global trading power of some sixty seven million people that is a leading member of NATO and a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council Britain’s armed forces are fast becoming absurdly weak in relation to the threats they must face and the roles and tasks they are expected to perform. No amount of clever drafting can or will hide that reality!  Indeed, if Integrated Review 2020 is, indeed, more strategic pretence it is only to be hoped that some future enemy will be obliging enough to act in such a way that Britain’s defence planning assumptions do not simply collapse like the pack of cards they are, just as the Wehrmacht did in 1940.

Let me finish with the words of Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, “…now we are losing again, everything has taken a turn for the better, and we will certainly come out on top if we succeed in being defeated”. IR 2020?

Julian Lindley-French,  September 2020  

EMMENA: Shifting Sands, Turbulent Waters

 “To commit the navy irrevocably to oil was indeed to take arms against a sea of [Middle Eastern] troubles.”

Winston Spencer Churchill

EMMENA

August 27. In 1914, HMS Queen Elizabeth was commissioned into the Royal Navy. She was the first oil-powered battleship and as such represented a strategic risk for the British who had huge reserves of high-grade coal (still do), but few secure sources of oil. At a stroke, energy security, European security and the Middle East became inextricably intertwined and they have been ever since. A new geopolitical region was also formed: EMMENA - Europe, the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa, although Europeans have long tried hard to pretend otherwise. The hard reality is that for much of the past century Europe has imposed its struggles on those far beyond its borders.

A central message of my 2017 book Demons and Dragons: The New Geopolitics of Terror (London: Routledge), which is brilliant and still very reasonably-priced was that it is structural and systemic instability across a broad geopolitical space that creates the conditions for potential conflict across the full spectrum of destruction. Consequently, European security and defence cannot be separated from events to its south and east. 

The very existence of EMMENA also disproves a fundamental and false assumption driving much Western thinking about contemporary European defence. To the east there is Russia whilst to the south there is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the threats they pose are very different. In fact, they are all part of the new geopolitics of EMMENA, and the threats they pose are not all different.

The new geopolitics of energy

On August 13^th, oil and gas rich UAE and Israel signed an historic peace agreement. Tel Aviv agreed to suspend its formal annexation of the West Bank in return for UAE recognition of Israel, only the third Arab country so to do. Critically, the UAE would not have done this without the “cautious welcome” for the agreement of regional energy superpower Saudi Arabia, recognition of an emerging tacit anti-Iranian bloc. On August 25^th, Greece and United Arab Emirates (UAE) began joint military exercises in the Aegean Sea.

Two weeks ago a Turkish frigate collided with a Greek ship close to the area off Crete where Turkey is surveying for hydrocarbons. Turkey’s ambitions are of concern to both France and Greece, even if they are nominally at least, NATO allies. Paris has already moved to increase its military presence on Cyprus and has indicated particular concern that TOTAL, a French energy company which is also working in the area, is being subjected to ‘harassment’ by Turkish warships.

Energy containment and the new Realpolitik of energy?

There is a new Realpolitik of energy underway with Russia effectively seeking the energy containment of Europe, possibly in conjunction with Turkey and Iran. Ankara believes it has been systematically excluded from potential energy discoveries because of deals done between Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt, whilst France’s actions imply EU backing for Greece and Cyprus, both member-states. This infuriates Ankara and is pushing the Turks further towards the Russians. In July, Iran, Russia and Turkey issued a joint statement condemning Israeli action in Syria after three military strikes which they attributed to Tel Aviv. This is in spite of Ankara’s support for forces trying to overthrow the Moscow and Tehran-backed regime of President Bashir al-Assad. It is also in spite of Russia and Turkey competing with each other in Libya to end the civil war therein and reap what they both see as economic benefits, including from the vast energy reserves therein. 

Russia’s ambitions do not stop there. Moscow (with possible Iranian help) is seeking to exert control over much of the oil and gas supplies upon which Europe depends, and/or threaten the supply lines upon which Europeans depend. If successful, not only will this make Europeans more dependent on Russian energy (the geopolitics of NORDSTREAM 2) but it would also push up the price of hydrocarbons thus benefitting the sorely-tried Russian economy.

Little Europe, shifting sands, turbulent waters

EMMENA is not just the focus for the new geopolitics and Realpolitik of energy it is also the stuff of grand strategy: the organisation of immense means in pursuit of grand ends. The problem is that it is precisely such geopolitics at which Little Europe is useless. Europeans seem incapable of seeing Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East and North Africa as one strategic space. It also reveals a profound lack of European strategic ambition and imagination epitomised by the high intentions, low delivery Barcelona Process. As ever, Europeans are full of grand language (Union for the Mediterranean?) which has at best limited impact. The consequence is that too much of what is a vital effort for Europe is left to front-line states such as Italy. 

If ‘Europe’ (and it would need to be ‘Europe’) is willing to seriously engage in the Middle East and North Africa it must treat the people therein as partners and be willing to demonstrate a level of strategic patience that has hitherto been lacking. For example, the promotion of free trade would be vital. However, EMMENA also reveals a fundamental weakness: the refusal and inability to compete with others often weaker powers in areas that are vital to the interests of Europeans.  Hitherto, the implicit manta has been ‘leave it to the Americans’. Increasingly, Europeans are ‘leaving it’ to the likes of Russia and Turkey. If Europeans are unwilling to properly engage seriously to help construct a more peaceful and stable MENA, then MENA will shape Europe. Sadly, ‘Europe’ itself has become a metaphor for strategic pretence and destabilising weakness.

The new geopolitics looks frighteningly like the old geopolitics. If that is the case not only will the people of the Middle East continue to suffer, but Europe will have to face the dangerous consequences systemic instability, entrenched terrorism and dangerous geopolitics.  The fate of Europe is inextricably tied to the fate of Middle East and North Africa because it is not ‘over there’, but right here.

EMMENA: shifting sands, turbulent waters, and a sea of Middle Eastern troubles.

Julian Lindley-French

Europe’s Neutered ‘Neutrals’

 “Never break the neutrality of a place or port, but never consider as neutral any place from when an attack is allowed to be made”.

 Admiral the Lord Nelson

 Neutrality?

August 19, 2020. There are two kinds of neutrals in Europe, the self-deluding non-aligned and the maliciously undermined. The Finns, Irish and Swedes fall into the first category being just about as aligned as it is possible to be aligned, albeit comfortable in the political fantasy of their ‘neutrality’.  Then there are the maliciously undermined, such as Belarus and Ukraine, for which, through the twin accidents of geography and proximity to power, ‘neutrality’ is imposed through corrosively neutered sovereignty.

In the wake of Belarus’s predictably-rigged presidential election there is much excitement amongst Europe’s chattering classes.  Lukashenko’s Nikolai Ceausescu moment is either the vanguard of democracy or a prelude to a Russian military annexation, or both, as ever the truth lies somewhere in between.  Belarus is no Ukraine and the current tensions are as yet unlikely to be the source spring of some new Maidan. Indeed, not one of those challenging the dictator Lukashenko is particularly or at all pro-Western, all having made strong pro-Russian statements and all, in one way or another, supported by factions within Russia.

Russia attacks?

That is not to say Russia is not considering the use of military force to keep Belarus firmly in Russia’s orb of strategic influence.  If, by some ‘catastrophic’ sequence of events, a group were to emerge in Minsk that was decidedly pro-Western Moscow would act. That is why President Putin has offered ‘military assistance’ to Lukashenko. Russia would rather stop the protests early because for Moscow Belarus is the hinge around which its European grand strategy turns, and home to the vital 90 km long land link to its enclave Kaliningrad. The ground is certainly being prepared for a possible Russian intervention with the usual Soviet/post-Soviet narrative about ‘outside interference’ and Lukashenko claiming “NATO troops are at our gates”. Any such intervention would also invoke the 1997 “Treaty on the Union between Belarus and Russia” to create the so-called ‘Union State’. Where there could be parallels with Ukraine given the likely nature of any Russian intervention, especially in its early stages. Expect Little Green Men!

There are some reports of Russian troop movements in the area but the sources available to this Analysis suggest they are false or exaggerated and such an intervention remains unlikely for the moment. First, the Belarussian Army remains loyal to Lukashenko, as does the oppressive and repressive security apparatus. Second, much of the protest movement is more about emerging Belarussian nationalism than a popular demand for Western-style liberal democracy. Third, Russia can still exert control over Belarus without ever having to undertake an expensive and potentially dangerous invasion.

Some time ago I pioneered the concept of 5D warfare to describe Russian statecraft. 5D warfare is applied and continuous conflict designed to exploit the many seams in complex societies via deception, disinformation, destabilisation, disruption and applied coercion via implied or actual destruction.  All 5 ‘D’s were evident in Ukraine in 2014 and still are. At least three of the five are also evident in Belarus – deception, disinformation and destabilisation. Prior to the elections Lukashenko made a big nationalist play about Russia using mercenaries to destabilise Belarus. It was pure theatre. The Kremlin may have little regard for Lukashenko as Putin sees him as a buffoon but Lukashenko, and more importantly the cronies around him, are firmly in Moscow’s pocket. Few tears would be shed in Moscow if Lukashenko went, so long as the replacement was also Russian-leaning. Indeed, there are some domestic Russian reasons why Putin might wish to play the statesman and facilitate the peaceful departure of Lukashenko.

Corrosive neutrality

Which brings me to the essential point of this Analysis. A state may appear aligned with the EU or NATO but if its institutions and leaders have been corrupted then in fact, and in spite of appearances and obligations, it is corrosively ‘neutral’.  The real power Russia exerts in Belarus is through patronage and cronyism with corruption endemic. Sadly, such influence is not confined to Belarus and is evident in some countries along the entirety of Russia’s western border with the EU and NATO…and well beyond.

Where does Belarus fit into such Russian thinking? Moscow’s wet-dream is to create a ‘security buffer’ along its western border comprised of states effectively subservient to Moscow. The corrupting of political and other elites is a vital tool in Russia’s statecraft. Thankfully, the thirst for freedom in the Baltic States has limited Moscow’s ambitions therein, others have proven more vulnerable. If a strategically-placed state refuses to bow to such coercive influence Moscow then ups the stakes by exploiting divisions within it, as Russia did in Ukraine.

The extent to which Moscow can exert ‘corrosive neutrality’ is ultimately dependent on the political capital and hard defence Western powers are willing to invest in the eastern regions of both the EU and NATO. Moscow constantly tests the resolve of the West in this regard. The fear in the Baltic States is that the US and the major Western Europeans will over time simply get tired of the common effort required to maintain freedom, particularly in the wake of COVID-19. If so, expect Moscow to step up markedly what some call ‘grey zone warfare’.

Corrosive neutrality and the geopolitics of Belarus

The West cannot ignore the geopolitics of Belarus. The hard reality is that a conflict is underway from Finnmark in the north to the Mediterranean in the south to control what might be called the strategic land littoral along the eastern borders of the EU and NATO. Belarus sits slap bang in the middle of a geopolitical conflict in which China is also playing an ever more influential role in support of Russia. The plan to build the so-called Meridian Highway between Belarus and the Middle Kingdom is designed to merge the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).  Whilst ‘privately’ financed this mega-project has much to do with boosting President Putin’s legacy and driving the economic development of Russia’s vast interior. It is also power and strategic influence.

The current crisis? Any Western help in promoting a peaceful transfer of power in Belarus will require trade-offs. Dealing with Russia is always about trade-offs. Given the nature of the opposition in Belarus Moscow might, just might, accept new presidential elections overseen by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe or OSCE. The EU and US should use targeted sanctions that progressively isolate Lukashenko and make it hard for Moscow to prop him up. As for the wider struggle Moscow needs to be constantly reminded that its efforts to impose corrosive neutrality on EU and NATO members will fail and that their peace and freedom is non-negotiable, however many Roubles are passed under however many tables.

As for Belarus, as Nelson once intimated, the West can never consider truly neutral a place from which an attack might come.

Julian Lindley-French   

Summer Essay: Trump, Germany and the Pom-American Grenadier

“The Balkans [Europe?] are not worth the life of a single Pomeranian Grenadier”.

Otto von Bismarck

The guns of August

August 4, 2020. On this day in 1914 World War One broke out because Great Powers had created the conditions for relatively small events to trigger a major cataclysm. This is a story of two twenty-first Great Powers, America and Germany, both sleepwalking towards disaster, aided and abetted by a host of strategically delinquent lesser Powers, most notably Britain and France.

Whilst the cause of World War One was primarily due to the egregious arrogance and miscalculation of Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Prusso-German elite the other Great Powers of the day, Austria-Hungary, Britain, France and Russia, also ‘sleep-walked’ into a conflict that for many came out of the August blue. In June, I wrote a piece entitled The Guns of August 2020? My use of Barbara Tuchman’s classic book was quite deliberate. My fear was (and is) that a mix of miscalculation, complacency, stupidity, opportunity and growing Russian desperation, allied to a coalescence of dangerous events, could lead to another surprise war in a Europe paralysed by COVID-19 and asleep in the August sun. 

The reason for my concern was President Trump’s decision to withdraw and move some 12,000 US troops from Germany, which he has now confirmed.  It is a decision that is sending a powerful message to friend and foe alike, and not the one Secretary of Defense Mark Esper would like that the US is merely “…following our boundary east, where are newest allies are”. On cue Poland has agreed to fund the headquarters of US Army V Corps and the infrastructure and logistics needed for the basing of 4500 American troops and an additional 1000 rotational troops. On Monday Esper stated that the US-Polish deal "...will enhance our deterrence against Russia, strengthen NATO, reassure our allies, and our forward presence in Poland on our eastern flank will improve our strategic and operational flexibility". 

The move will certainly shorten the distance between the diminishing bulk of US force in Europe and NATO's eastern border, but is the aim really to strengthen deterrence? In June, President Trump said, "…we're protecting Germany and they're delinquent. That doesn't make sense. So I said, we're going to bring down the count to 25,000 soldiers."  In other words, Trump is using US forces as a negotiating tool in a high-stakes game of poker with Chancellor Merkel where the defence of Europe is the main chip. His message to Germany is brutally clear: if Germany and other Europeans fail to spend enough on their own defence, why should the defence of Europe come at the cost of even one American ‘grenadier’? 

Low politics, high stakes

President Trump is playing presidential politics with Europe’s defence. Political decisions have strategic consequences. This August a host of events will take place that reveal the extent of America’s strategic dilemma, the global military over-stretch from which its forces are suffering, and Europe’s utter and shameful indifference to the consequences of both.  Ironically, it is not Russian military exercises that perhaps pose the greatest threat.  If anything President Putin has scaled back KavKaz 2020 on the Russo-Ukrainian border.  Still, Russian forces and their proxies continue to act aggressively around Europe’s borders and the build-up of Moscow’s forces on the Ukrainian border must be watched carefully. In July, NATO also held the twentieth Sea Breeze exercise in the Black Sea Region with the US Sixth Fleet to the fore.  In any case, Moscow is fully capable of striking at short-notice almost anywhere from Northern Finland to Ukraine and into the Mediterranean.

It is the politics of the European theatre and the relationship between Europe’s deteriorating deterrence and defence and events that is the greatest cause for concern. Of particular concern are the August 9 elections in Belarus, or at least what passes for ‘elections’ in Belarus. There is an extraordinary campaign underway to unseat President Lukashenko which Moscow is closely monitoring. The extent of Lukashenko’s concerns were revealed last week when Minsk ordered the ‘arrest’ of several members of The Wagner Group, Russian mercenaries with close links to Russia’s SVR (foreign intelligence) and GRU (military intelligence). The purpose was to demonstrate Minsk’s ‘independence’ from Russia. In reality, Belarus is firmly in Moscow’s strategic pocket and President Putin will go to great lengths to keep it that way, even using force if necessary.  Belarus is the hinge around which Russia exerts complex strategic coercion across the entirety of Central and Eastern Europe and across the spectrum of 5D warfare – disinformation, deception, destabilisation, disruption and threatened or actual destruction.

Papiertiger?

A senior American friend of mine was at an event in Washington last week on the occasion of a visit by the State Secretary of the German Ministry of Defence, Thomas Silberhorn. On the face of it all is well and good in the US-German relationship. Silberhorn not only re-committed Germany to NATO’s nuclear deterrent, he used the visit to announce Berlin’s decision to purchase US F-18 Superhornets.  Berlin is already committed to buying F-18 Growlers to replace the Luftwaffe’s elderly Tornado fleet.

However, Germany’s purchase of the F-18s also reveals Berlin’s lack of understanding of the direction and utility of future force and thus Europe’s strategic dilemma. Berlin should have purchased the F-35 Lightning 2’s as the ageing F-18s will soon prove a false economy. They are good 4G platforms but Europe is fast entering a 5G and soon a 6G world. The Germans bought the F-18s to placate the Americans and to have at least one system that for a time might penetrate Russian air defences. For a time. The utility of force is relative and changes all the time. Germany’s political class do not seem willing or able to understand that.  

For the past thirty years the main utility of force was as a super-police force in discretionary wars of the people.  Now, the core utility of force is again fast becoming high-end deterrence which means a whole different kind of force, whilst at the same time such a force will also need to contribute to a raft of stabilisation missions. If Berlin really wanted to assist the Americans it would instead focus on how it could better prepare NATO Europe for the defence and deterrence posture the Alliance will need across the hybrid-cyber-hyperwar mosaic of the twenty-first century conflict super-space. After all, Germany IS, to a very significant extent, Europe’s defence and technological industrial base. And yet, whilst Berlin is all too happy to sell advanced military stuff, it is not at all keen to invest in it.

 

Papiertiger? What would the demise of Trump reveal about Germany? Many German officials refuse to believe the US troop draw-down will ever take place, or it will have a minimal tactical effect. Many of them also assume Trump will not get re-elected in November and that a Biden administration would take a very different view. First, the US presidentials have yet to start and it is far too early to make that call. Biden has many weaknesses and frailties which Trump will mercilessly exploit.  Much like Corbyn’s Labour Party in Britain it is also hard to believe much of patriotic Middle America will vote Democrat if the woke Left of the party continues to enjoy the influence it has today. Second, US military over-stretch will worsen.  Iran is about to conduct a major military exercise and Washington has been forced to markedly increase its presence in the South China Sea. US policy towards Europe over the sharing of burdens and risks will thus not change radically and a Berlin no longer able to use Trump as an alibi will need to think and act differently. Third, and most importantly, there can be no credible European defence without German strategic leadership and a strong US-German strategic partnership.  That means a Berlin finally willing to confront the political demons that prevent the emergence of a democratic German strategic culture. It will also mean a Germany that finally stops bolting down the political rabbit hole of the fantasy that is a common EU defence every time someone calls on Berlin to pay the price of leadership.

 Trump, Germany and the Pom-American Grenadier

World War Three is not about to break out tomorrow, but war in Europe can no longer be discounted, possibly as early as this month.  In that light Bismarck’s famous quote needs unpacking because it was not about the Balkans per se, but posed much more fundamental questions about the utility of force that are relevant today: what is the best use of US forces in Europe and at what strength to serve both the US interest and the defence of Europe? What should the German-led Allies do in support of those legitimate strategic aims?

The Pomeranian Grenadiers were something of a joke in the imperial German Army, very different from US combat forces today. Bismarck cited them to contrast his policy of strategy underpinned by force with Kaiser Wilhelm II’s preference for force without strategy. Bismarck’s essential point was that policy in the absence of strategy was not worth the life of a single soldier even in Germany’s most third-rate regiment for it was doomed to fail.  President Trump’s decision is bad policy, Berlin’s reaction reveals a vacuum of strategy.

Contemporary Berlin and Washington both miss Bismarck’s essential point: the peace of Europe is maintained via a complex matrix of constraining agreements and treaties reinforced by minimum but credible conventional and nuclear military force. Too much force and Europe becomes unstable, too little force and Europe becomes unstable.  Today, Germany has neither force nor strategy nor policy relevant to the threats it faces and the Europe it leads, whilst President Trump sees US forces in Europe only as a transactional ‘joker’ card in an obsessive poker play with a “delinquent Berlin” that he is using to appeal to his voter base. 

There is another factor in the causes of World War One that is relevant to Europe today and which many Americans tend to miss, preferring instead to see ‘WW1’ as another European ‘civil’ war into which they were dragged. In fact, World War One was the first major war between democracy and autocracy. The very cause of the war was the fear the agrarian Prussian aristocracy in then Germany’s east had of burgeoning calls for democracy in Germany’s industrialising west.  For all President Putin’s put-downs of liberal-democracy, and as COVID-19 chaotic as it is, it is the fear autocracy has of real democracy which is driving much of the Kremlin’s strategy.

The real cause of US-German dissonance and the weakening of the transatlantic relationship is the structural shift in geopolitics underway, America’s inability to be strong all of the time everywhere, and Germany’s refusal to recognise that Americans can only underwrite European peace if Europeans do far more for their own defence. Critically, such a defence will not only require German leadership but more (and better) legitimate, democratic German armed forces. No-one in Berlin wants anyone to point that out.

So, until there is a new and formal peace with Russia, and the Middle East and North Africa re-establishes stable states across its region, the security and defence of Europe will likely continue to ultimately rest on the lives of a relatively few ‘Pom-American Grenadiers’. At least they are first-rate. As for Americans and Germans they might heed the words of Albert Camus: “Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend”.

 Julian Lindley-French