A New HMS Ark Royal?

I have just heard that a new HMS Ark Royal is to be built.  One of the monster aircraft-carriers currently on the stocks was to be called the HMS Prince of Wales, but apparently it is now to be renamed HMS Ark Royal. 

This is encouraging as it would be almost impossible (even for the Ministry of Defence) to scrap two Ark Royals in one year! 

On the other hand, don't bet on it.

Julian Lindley-French

The Death of Bin Laden: This is Not the End...

I have just awoken to hear of the death of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan at the hands of US Special Forces. All one needs to know about Bin Laden’s demise is in that single sentence. There is of course much rejoicing in the US. President Obama has spoken, as has Prime Minister Cameron, for both countries have suffered grievous losses since 911, and made egregious strategic mistakes.

In many ways, it is hard for we Europeans to grasp the enormity of the impact of 911 on the American psyche used as we are to struggle between and within our lands. Living with vulnerability is almost a European way of life. Certainly, Americans have every right to mark this momentous occasion, but none of us must get carried away. To many a terrorist has been served his just deserts; to many others a new martyr has been created. Martyrdom may well serve Al Qaeda well in the short-term, boosting the waning allure of a strange and dangerous interloper into history. We must all be on our guard.

So, what does the death of Bin Laden mean? I am reminded of Winston Churchill in the immediate aftermath of the British victory over Rommel at the Battle of El Alamein in November 1942. Speaking with the growling gravitas that was his power Churchill said, “This may not be the end, this may not be even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning”.

Two things became rapidly clear in the immediate aftermath of 911. First, the struggle against violent Islamism was going to be long and hard. Second, Afghanistan and Pakistan were the epicentres of struggle. There is nothing in the death of Al Qaeda’s spiritual leader to suggest the first is any less true today than a decade ago. It may however be even harder to galvanise popular public support for the continuing struggle to stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan in ways other than Islamist.

That said, listening to the BBC this morning there is already a sense of ‘job done’. To some extent that is correct; the West went to Afghanistan in late 2001 to kill Bin Laden. That has now been done. And yet, our understanding of the challenge has evolved so much since the dust of two New York towers and their trapped victims came to rest. Most importantly, the Arab Street seemingly so motivated by Al Qaeda in the early aftermath of 911 seems to have rejected the medievalism and nihilism implicit in the Al Qaeda creed. Both Islam and the word of the Prophet have demonstrated greatness and risen above the strategic sectarianism Bin Laden stood for. Furthermore, whilst the Arab Spring may evince the occasional vein of such sectarianism its message is clear; freedom!

In a sense it is fitting that Bin Laden should die as tumult erupts across the Middle East. Islamism was born in many ways from the failure of Arab nationalism in the wake of the colonial era. Hijacked by the corrupt and self-seeking many Arab states ignored the aspirations of millions of their fellow citizens. Frustrated and with no-one to believe Bin Laden offered the appeal of a false prophet. Today, new belief courses along the highways and bye-ways of the Arab Street. It is belief that for once must be given full chance of expression.

A post-Al Qaeda age is now apparent. However, the job is not done – not in Afghanistan, nor Pakistan, nor Somalia, nor Britain, nor a host of other places. Jihadists will strike back, they will evolve and they will continue to represent a danger to all free-thinking peoples and all right-minded faiths.

In essence the defining struggle of the past decade has been one between the legitimate state and the anti-state. That struggle will continue across much of the world and we in the West must stand ready to side with those committed to the principles of liberty and freedom for which millions aspire. We must also recognize the critical importance of an American-led West as a beacon of hope, just as America must be reminded of its obligation to lead soundly.

In May 1945 upon victory over Nazi Germany Churchill’s voice was almost lost in the wild celebration of the moment. “We may allow ourselves”, he said, “ a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead…We must now devote all our strength and resources to the completion of our task, both at home and abroad”.

This is indeed only the end of the beginning.

Julian Lindley-French

Goodbye, Ron. Job Done!

Ron Asmus is dead. The security community has lost one of its greats. I knew Ron for many years and had nothing but liking and respect for him. He was not just an analyst, we are ten a penny, but a man who had been at the coalface of geo-politics and wore the soot on his face with pride.

I am off to Estonia this week to address a high-level conference. As a child of the Cold War my freedom to go to that great country has much to do with the vision and determination of Ron. A couple of years ago Ron and I were in Afghanistan together as he struggled with the illness that has claimed him. He took a photo of me on a first contact visit with US forces. It is a photo I treasure not just because of the implicit “I was there” all arm-chairers seek for legitimisation, but also because it was taken by Ron; for whom an arm-chair was a lethal weapon on the battleground of negotiation.

No soaring rhetoric, no slick reference to popular culture.

Ron, job done!

Julian Lindley-French

The HMS Highly Unlikelys - Is Britain a Pocket Superpower or Super-Belgium?

Oh no, not again! The BBC’s Robert Peston yesterday discovered that the two currently under construction and now infamous British aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will cost more than originally envisaged. One outlier estimate has the cost as high as £10bn, rather than the £3.9bn budgeted for. This is apparently news.

There are two truisms about Royal Navy capital ships. First, they always cost at least twice the original quoted amount. Second, that almost all British ships with the name Invincible will be sunk.

I got myself into some trouble (nothing new there then) in Washington last year when at a high-level meeting I called the two carriers, HMS Highly Unlikely and HMS Very Improbable. That was before the Strategic Pretence and Impecunity Review during which the government discovered that it would cost more to scrap the two monsters than to complete them.

I have thus far been an agnostic on the carriers, especially as I believe the first order challenge is to extricate ourselves from Afghanistan with a semblance of strategic credibility. However, I have come round to them – and in time both of them. Why? Future defence strategy will be built around the ability to strike and punish rather than stay and stabilise.  The carriers will be critical to that.

Furthermore, they are not just aircraft carriers and will perform a range of useful maritime/amphibious tasks. They will also fly a very important flag – the White Ensign - which still implies a vestige of influence. Thus far we have seen everything through the lens of Afghanistan and it has understandably coloured strategy. There is endless debate in London about how to do future Afghanistans better. Unfortunately, the political appetite is such that there is about as much chance of Britain doing a future Afghanistan (at least on that scale) as there is of Sheffield United (a ‘soccer’ club to those uninitiated Americans amongst you) winning the Champions League. I could of course be proved wrong – Sheffield United may indeed win the Champions League. 

Rather, post Afghanistan Britain is going to need sufficient military power to a) influence Americans; b) lead European coalitions alongside the French; and c) lead ‘Commonwealth’ coalitions with Australian, Canadian and other partners. Why? Because the epicentre of global competition will be the Indian Ocean and the main focal point of activity will be the so-called Littoral (coastal bits to you and me) where 75% of the world’s population live within 100kms of the coast.

Britain is a maritime power. We have transitioned out of the Cold War focus on the defence of Northern Europe through Iraq and Afghanistan to an extra-European global role – albeit a modest one, as Libya attests. Today, Britain is in the worst of all worlds – too powerful to hide, too weak to effectively influence. Therefore, these floating airfields will serve several useful roles. First, they will act as platforms for the projection of critical air and supporting land power to critical places. Second, they will offer a command leadership role for Britain which is part of influence. Third, they will tell Washington (and others) that Britain is still in the power game.

Furthermore, the two ships are likely to have a life expectancy of over fifty years and will serve as the core of a new Royal Navy which Britain will desperately need, and one which is currently deeply depressed. That navy will in turn be needed as part of a balanced, joint and mutually reinforcing defence strategy in which no one service owns air, land or sea. That is also why we need both carriers. Current plans to sell one of them upon completion completely negate the point of the other one. Even if we have to mothball the Prince of Wales (now to be called Ark Royal) for a time upon completion it will be needed in the 2020s and beyond.

There is a problem. Years ago I wrote a piece called “The Hood Trap” in which I likened the carrier designs to HMS Hood, an un-modernised British battlecruiser that blew up in May 1941 with the loss of almost two thousand souls engaging the German battleship Bismarck. She was the wrong ship in the wrong place at the wrong time. Part of her weakness was her lack of armoured protection. The two British super-carriers will be 65,000 tons each because that is the minimum size needed to effectively operate the F-35 Lightning IIs they are being built for. However, to save costs they will have nothing like the protection of their American equivalents – a typically British compromise. Will a future British Prime Minister risk such valuable pieces of floating British real estate off some foreign shore given the nature of emerging anti-ship missile technology? It is a moot point.

It was Mr Peston who broke the news of the banker’s balls-up which has so blighted all our lives and so damaged British national strategy. Mr Peston is of course the BBC’s Business Editor so it is not surprising that he sees everything in terms of cost and nothing in terms of value, particularly strategic value.  However, it is now time to look to the future beyond the mess created by the terminally selfish. Moreover, at least somebody needs a job in Britain and building such carriers offers just that. 

Above all, Britain needs a navy worthy of the name.  The carriers are about the coming age and will be paid for as such. They may indeed look today like floating versions of the Millennium Dome – Tony Blair’s London folly - but in twenty years time they will be emblematic of a new Royal Navy.

Every now and then even the Brits must take the long view. Now that would be a nice change. The carriers are about the future; Britain’s level of strategic ambition in it, influence over it and for such a goal the branding of power matters.

Pocket superpower or super-Belgium? That is the choice implicit for Britain in the carrier-debate.

Julian Lindley-French

Appeasing and Fighting Al Qaeda: Lessons from Fantasy Island?

This is a difficult piece to write for it takes me into very troubled waters. And yet it is the duty of the analyst to sail such waters. I am ashamed. Wikileaks confirmed yesterday that my country was the strongest recruiting ground for Al Qaeda outside the Middle East. Britain is also the main source of funding for the Taliban. No wonder French Intelligence call my country’s capital – Londonistan. How has this been allowed to happen and what must be done about it?

I am also angry. I am angry that over the past decade we have sent thousands of British troops to the foothills of the Hindu Kush to keep Islamism at ‘strategic distance’ and yet at the same time radical Imams have been allowed into Britain behind the backs of our soldiers to radicalise Muslim youth – both British and immigrant. It is self-evident that there has been a profound disconnect between security policy and immigration and asylum policy that is verging on the insane. As a result Britain has been simultaneously fighting and appeasing Al Qaeda.

One only has to visit official Britain to understand how this happens. Shot through with political correctness, poorly led by politicians too weak and lame to deal with this reality, with complacent security services and a Human Rights Act that seemingly places the well-being of aggressive minorities above the well-being of law-abiding majorities such contradictions have been allowed to flourish. The result; this refusal to face facts has left Britain today a far more divided and insecure place than it was in 2001. It is an insecurity that is now threatening key allies – such as the United States and France.

It would be easy for me to blame the Labour Government that ‘served’ for some thirteen years but these failings go back a long time. Indeed, one of the profound ironies of the past years has been the implicit alliance between right-wing businessmen in search of cheap labour and left-wing ideologues in search of a ‘new’ Britain. Dissent over policy has been suppressed by accusations of racism with the result that only the lunatic right have ventured into this dangerous swamp. The result; the mainstream has been forced to look the other way as cities have deteriorated into ethnic ghettoes and the white middle class has fled to the hills.

Former Labour Home Secretary (Interior Minister) David Blunkett said last night that he was still not sure that official Britain really understands the nature of the threat posed by Al Qaeda in Britain – either to the British people or partners. He should know. Look at the provenance of the various shoe-bombers, look at the 7/7 bombing of London.

Government is beginning to take this threat seriously but riven by ideological divisions between Conservative and Liberal Democrats it is too little, too late. Indeed, too often ‘action’ has meant simply trying to mask the nature of the threat from the British people for the sake of virtually non-existent ‘social cohesion’.

So, what is to be done? First, the debate over the security impact of mass immigration and asylum must be confronted. To that end, the debate must be taken back from the far right and much greater efforts made to properly understand how so-called ‘preachers of hate’, such as Abu Hamsa and Abu Qatada, exploit vulnerable members of British society.

Second, the Human Rights Act must be urgently reviewed. The HRA has been used time and again by extremists and criminals in a way that was never envisaged. It is now nigh on impossible to deport such people once they are in Britain with the result that my country is too often a safe haven for enemies of our very existence. The Government promised a new British Bill of Rights and then kicked it into the long grass of a commission. Another bullet dodged.

Third, properly confront the failings of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is lazy government. As I have seen in my own home town Sheffield, communities live parallel lives with completely separate belief systems. Ten years on from the race riots in Lancashire little progress has been made to break down barriers and this has only served to deepen the pools of hopelessness and despair that Al Qaeda exploits. Over the same period large numbers of immigrants have arrived from the Punjab and Bangladesh which are some of the poorest and most conservative regions in south Asia. Any yet very little has been done to integrate them into what must be a bewildering Western society. It goes without saying that the vast majority are decent people, seeking a better life. As an immigrant myself I know how difficult life can be and I live in an advanced Western society. However, pretending that the importation of large numbers of people from such places at a time of radical unrest has no impact on security is precisely the kind of delusional behaviour that has brought Britain to this sorry place. Prime Minister Cameron promised action. He often promises action – before elections.

Fourth, we have the society we have and we must make it work better. Discrimination is rife in Britain. Large numbers of second and third generation Britons are routinely discriminated against and not accorded the respect that is their due. I do not believe that diversity is strength, but I do believe that if one invests in people they can feel comfortable with a whole range of identities. Respect people and they respond. That is the future. To that end, Government must seek real partnership with communities to de-radicalise youth with a much more systematic approach than was offered through the PREVENT programme. The great institutions of state have a critical role to play in this regard. At the same time, the Government must take much firmer steps (and openly so) to insist that institutions vulnerable to extremist infiltration act, not least the terminally politically correct British universities.

Finally, aggressively educate society as to the essential contribution of Muslims to Britain. The massive majority of British Muslims want what is best for Britain. That is why they or their forebears came to Britain. The current climate of fear and mistrust at community level simply starves decent people of the chance to communicate across communities. Mosques are unfairly and routinely seen by the rest of the population as recruiting grounds for terrorists. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For too long the British elite have lectured others on how to deal with the challenges posed by radical Islam and yet at home they have hoped the problem would simply disappear. By engaging Islamism abroad but doing far too little at home Britain has become a threat to itself and to others. This is all the more galling as successive British leaders have told a disbelieving British public that Britain is an example to the world, as others have laughed at us.

One cannot both appease and fight Al Qaeda at one and the same time.  Surely, that is a lesson from Fantasy Island that is all too clear.

Julian Lindley-French

The Libyan Job - Ultimately, It is All a Question of Prestige

Some of you of a certain vintage will recall a superb Michael Caine caper film, “The Italian Job”. No, I am not referring to that appalling 2003 American re-make which had none of the delightful irony of the 1969 original (typical!). In the real Italian Job a bunch of ‘plucky’ London criminals steal $4 million in Chinese gold being paid to the Italians (plus ca change…?) from the centre of Turin. To steal the loot Caine’s gang cause a monumental traffic jam in and around Turin. Escaping from the city three Mini Coopers use the only route available – the sewers. The Mafia boss is, of course, a tad dischuffed but grudging in his admiration for the planning that went into the job. “If they caused this traffic jam, they must have planned a way out”, he laments, his prestige having been severely tarnished.

In the Libyan Job we have created the jam, but have no idea how to get out. Indeed, the Libyan Job exemplifies all too clearly the inherent contradiction in much of Western (particularly European) policy as we routinely confuse values and interests. It is all too easy to espouse values when one never has to really defend them.

I was in a conference call with a senior French official who admitted candidly that there had been no real plan prior to the action. The impulse was simply to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Benghazi. I believe that but find it bizarre that so little contingency planning had apparently taken place in Washington and the major European capitals. Tunisia, Libya and Egypt are on Europe’s doorstep and I was warning (in writing) some years ago of just such dangers…and was dismissed. Yes, I know that sounds a bit of an ‘I told you so’ moment - but I did.

So, how do we get out of this jam – which is all the West’s leaders are really thinking about? Clearly, ‘we’ are at the go all the way or simply go away point, facing an adversary who is rapidly turning the struggle into urban counterinsurgency successfully negating much of NATO’s air power. The mythical international community has as ever gone for a hike at the critical moment. The UN and the Arab League keep reminding NATO that UN Security Council Resolution 1973 imposes very real constraints on allied action. And yet, they are doing very little to create the conditions for a political solution.

Indeed, I am surprised how little political vision is at all apparent, let alone creative thinking. What matters now is a political settlement that brings a rapid end to the killing. However, to bring that about a critical vision is needed for a post-Gadhafi future for ALL Libyans. To do that the unpalatable will have to be swallowed.

First, Gadhafi and his clan must be progressively isolated. This will require a back-channel political track to the regime elite that offers them encouragement to defect in the short-term and gives them a say in post-Gadhafi Libya. This will likely also require concrete inducements, such as immunity from prosecution and protection for families/clans. Libya is not simply a state, it is also a complex amalgam of clan/tribal loyalties. Of course, Gadhafi's departure would be preferable prior to any cease-fire, but need not be insisted upon and could take place AFTER an agreed period if necessary. That, the opposition would have to swallow.

Second, the political space must be created to enable the Gadhafi regime to withdraw/leave. This may well require immunity from prosecution by self-seeking Spanish lawyers, the self-juridicating International Criminal Court and, sadly, the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing. I say this with the heaviest of hearts recalling vividly as I do that dark December day in 1988 when Pan Am 103 blew up. As I write this I wince.

Third, tribal leaders have been marginalised recently following the concentration of power in the hands of the Gadhafi clan. They must see they have a role in immediate post-Gadhaffi stability and that their interests will be protected. This should extend to elements in the Army so that the Libyan top brass need fear no reprisals, nor an Iraqi-style disbanding of the Army.

Fourth, the West must engage the Arab League and the African Union much more aggressively in consideration of a post-Gadhafi constitution. The European Union has a vital role to play in this respect, particularly as it concerns bringing key parties to the conflict together. An informal Libyan Transitional Conference in Europe would help give political momentum to the vision.

The next steps will be critical and this will involve some risk because to create the political space a breakthrough of sorts is needed. Two actions are needed urgently. NATO and/or the EU (preferably the latter) must now intervene on the ground in Misrata which is fast becoming the leitmotif of the struggle. This humanitarian intervention in strength could unlock what is fast becoming a stalemate with Misrata the key to the struggle. Turkey must be encouraged to play a leading role in post-Gadhaffi stabilization. Although a former colonial power that was a long time ago and as a Muslim, allied country that has expressed grave concerns about Operation Unified Protector, Ankara would have all-important legitimacy.

Mission creep? Perhaps, but unless the regime is placed on both the political and military back foot and quickly this quagmire will only deepen.

Why is Libya so important? First, Libya and the struggle of the Libyan people is of course important in principle. It is amazing for an idea apparently in decline that so many people are prepared to die for freedom. Second, we are already embroiled. The Libyan Job is therefore important in fact. Third, we cannot afford any more successes of the type we are 'enjoying' in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been a bruising decade for the West. And, the Taliban have just given us another good kicking by re-enacting “The Great Escape” in Kandahar.

Ultimately, as Mr Bridger, the English capo dei capi (played by Noel Coward) tells Caine in “The Italian Job” - “It is all a question of prestige”.

Yes, ultimately, it is all a question of prestige.

Julian Lindley-French

The Franglosphere - No, Not Bad BBC Science Fiction

I was in London this week and two things happened that suggest l’albion perfide might be about to do the dirty on both America and France. First, in high-level meetings in the Ministry of Defence British officials confirmed that the disastrous 2010 Strategic Security and Defence Review (Strategic Pretence and Impecunity Review) had been the right thing to do and was on track. Oh, please. Second, unattributed briefings to senior members of the Commentariat (a self-formed, self-mutating, self-important, and self-imbibing group of strategic ‘thinkers’) urged ‘caution’ about the value of the 2010 Franco-British Security and Defence Treaty. Oh, please again.

London, as ever, has got it diametrically wrong – sacrificing, as ever, the medium-term for the short-term. Which brings me to the Franglosphere (no, it is not a bad BBC science fiction shocker). Far from dissing it, London should be investing in it. Indeed, it could mark a new trirectoire of critical American, British and French leadership as Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya begin to shake down. Such leadership could in time bring both NATO and EU back from the abyss of irrelevance over which both are hovering.

Sitting in one of those delightful central London squares dusted by the spring sunshine doing an interview for BBC Radio (I suppose that is what they mean by outside broadcast) my mind short-circuited and out sprang an idea. The gap between the strategic pretence that is NATO and the EU and the true alignment of security and defence power is fast becoming so embarrassing that no amount of institutional wall-paper can now paper over the cracks.

The result? Coalitions are fast replacing alliances as the place where real security business is done.  Institutions are fast becoming places where the complacently secure try to prevent the dangerously insecure from doing what they must to protect their citizens. This is not simply inconvenient, it is downright dangerous.

In the Atlantic Alliance today we have four categories of power and weakness: America - the erstwhile superpower; Britain and France – the ersatz pocket superpowers; Germany, Italy and Poland - the pretend weak powers; a ‘proud to be weak’ group of dodgy powers with a propensity for bicycles, and what I call the McEnroe Six – the ‘you cannot be serious’ ‘powers’. The exact composition of the Six I will leave to your imagination.

Which brings me to the where are we ‘at’ over Libya question? Well, we are at the ‘go all the way or simply go away’ point. At least London has understood that, although the response is, shall we say, a tad arcane.  As with all such moments the British are engaged in one of those semantic debates in which the British official elite specialise and which make London look like the setting for one of those old Peter Sellers movies. Ruritania was the place, I think. 

This particular iteration concerns the balance to be struck between the Cameron, Obama, Sarkozy ‘let’s get Gadhaffi’ letter, the meaning of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 and just how far ‘we’ can go, even though ‘we’ have not got much to go much further with. Today, this concerns how many boots have to be on the ground BEFORE there are boots on the ground.

Power of course has its own eloquence. Three of NATO’s twenty-six powers hold over eighty-five percent of the military power. Now, of course, one of them is so primus inter pares that the primus rather embarrasses the pares. That said it is precisely primus inter pares that makes both NATO and the EU look ever more like bureaucracies in search of a pension. Why?  Both institutions were created at a time when the ethos of the age was not just to defend against the great power of the ‘other’, but to constrain the great power of the self. In the past such constraint was believed to be necessary due to what was believed (mainly by Americans) to be Europe’s innate tendency to war with itself.

The problem today is that power is also a form of vulnerability. The more powerful one is the more a target one becomes and because of this Europe has found a whole new way to be divided, as well as being lost in a sea of uncertainty. And here is the crunch; differentials in power create profound differentials in strategic perspective. The result is not just free-riding, but too often free-braking and on occasions free back-seat driving by the pretend weak and weak powers. They want to constrain the powerful for fear a) they will be embarrassed domestically; and b) be sucked in to the vulnerability psychosis of the powerful. And yet the complacent seemingly demonstrate little concern for the security needs of the powerful beyond the merely rhetorical. How 'symbolic' does commitment have to be before it is not a commitment?  Such wobbliness critically undermines the contract at the heart of any alliance that can only function if fuelled by real solidarity – the small get the security of the powerful in return for the sharing of responsibilities.

But that is not all. They also want to be washed and fed by the powerful, i.e. getting someone else to buy the ingredients, bake the cake and then eat their bit as well.  The great unwashed are of course pretending they are preparing for something - humanitarian operations, peacekeeping etc. etc.  But time moves on and nothing much appears.  Libya has utterly exposed the sham that is conventional military capabilities in Europe, especially if it is even vaguely hi-tech. 

Sadly, the 2010 NATO Strategic Concept gave the McEnroers and friends exactly what they wanted – free defence. Now, the great and not so good had hoped that in return for such protection some of the relatives would pitch in from time to time to help do the washing up. Not a chance – they are too busy sunning themselves on the broad sunlit uplands of strategic self-delusion.

There is of course a caveat (it is impossible to write a piece about European security and defence without referring to caveats. Perhaps I should throw in a Rubicon as well as I am sure something is about to be crossed?). Whatever. In any case, Britain and France must look collectively to their own ersatz pocket super-powerdom and the Franglosphere because if they do not invest in the new alignment they will create an entirely new and dangerous category for themselves – the pretend strong. If that happens both institutions will be little more than homes for the strategically insane.  That, I thought, had been the reason for the Franco-British treaty but according to London not.

Now the critical question that ensues is profound; will the Franglosphere serve NATO and the EU or bypass them? That is up to the relatives. But as Shakespeare would have it, there is a rub. We need the Franglosphere precisely because only states can save institutions which are after all tools not ends in themselves. Then maybe, just maybe, America, Britain and France can together inject military backbone into the increasingly invertebrate NATO and EU.

The alternative? Big power will be forced to act independently of institutions.  Indeed, if NATO and the EU are only there to get the committed to pay for the security of the recalcitrant that will truly mark the beginning of the end for the age of institutions which the West did so much to create.  I thought driving without insurance was illegal.

“What is the sweetest form of death”, Caesar was asked shortly before an interruption in Imperial service; “The kind that comes without warning”.

Get a grip, London!

Julian Lindley-French