Why Ten Year On Britain is Less Secure

It has been a bruising decade for Britain. If on 10 September, 2001 an analyst had suggested that within months British forces would be fighting on the ground in Afghanistan, let alone in Iraq less than two years later credentials would have been questioned. 911 quite simply changed all the planning assumptions upon which British security and defence policy was established.

In September 2001 London was still enjoying a late Indian summer of British power. Under Tony Blair’s leadership London had enthusiastically embraced liberal humanitarianism. The decade of tragedy in the Balkans had done much to shame Europe and Britain with it. However, the British armed forces had performed reasonably well when the bluff of the Bosnian Serbs was finally called in 1995.

The 1998 Strategic Defence Review was a radical document. Then Secretary-of-State for Defence in a moment of prescience said Britain faced “a complex mixture of uncertainty and instability. These problems pose a real threat to our security, whether in the Balkans, the Middle East or in some trouble-spot yet to ignite”. In his now famous Chicago Speech Tony Blaire set out the ‘doctrine of international community’ which effectively spelled out the Responsibility to Protect that became UN mantra. And, with British land forces leading the way into Kosovo in 1999 Blair was into his strategic stride.

And yet no-one could have foreseen both the impact on Britain’s armed forces and the traditional balance between protection of British society and projection of British power of what was to ensue. As the sheer scale of the horror of that day sank in London knew it faced a profound dilemma. Of course, standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States was the right and natural reflex for a country the defence policy of which in effect amounted to standing on America’s shoulders. America was the indispensable ally with whom Britain had a special relationship the support of which magnified British power and influence. And yet, sending British troops deep into the Muslim heartland was bound to ignite deep passion in Britain’s burgeoning Muslim population.

Furthermore, the cost would be prohibitive. The planning assumptions over the rate at which British military equipment would wear out presumed modest enough operations that the force would not need to be re-capitalised until 2025. In fact, it soon became apparent that the equipment would wear out by 2014, which partly explains government thinking in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review and the hire-purchase approach to affording the military adopted by successive Labour governments. Sooner or later it had to be paid for.

There were also unexpected benefits. When Tony Blair went to the US Congress on 20 September, 2001 any chance of the IRA re-starting its armed struggle in Northern Ireland was ended. Any attack on a British soldier now fighting America’s global war on terror would be seen by the Americans as an act of terror, not a struggle for freedom. Washington moved decisively to cut off funds to the IRA.

And yet, taken together the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been disasters for Britain. They have been too big, too long and too far away for Britain to sustain on a peace-time defence budget and peace-time political and bureaucratic mentality. Strenuous efforts have been made, mainly by the military, to square the cost-resource circle by enhancing civil-military co-operation and through the extensive use of reserves, but somehow neither war crossed a threshold to be sufficiently serious for London to organise itself on a war footing. This of course begs the question were the wars serious enough threats to Britain’s security to fight? Did fighting both wars in solidarity with the US actually make Britain a more or less secure place?

It is too early to answer those questions but given the many stresses and strains on a changing British society as a result of those two wars they are reasonable questions to ask. And, it does seem strange that whilst sending British troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to keep violent jihad at strategic distance millions of people entered Britain over the same 2001-2011 period from some of the most conservative Muslim societies on earth.

This apparent disconnect between security policy, defence policy and immigration policy continues to this day, given added spice by the need to cut Britain’s budget deficit. Britain’s already under-funded armed forces are to be cut by at least a further 10%. Tellingly, since 2001 there has been a four-fold increase in investment in the intelligence services over the same period. In spite of the fact that the British military has fought two wars if defence cost inflation is taken out there has been a 25% cut in the defence budget since 2000.

In effect security has consumed defence and in spite of the fine sounding intentions of the 2010 National Security Strategy Britain’s strategic footprint is shrinking fast. The British armed forces just about got away with Libya but it was a close run thing. Ten years on from 911 liberal humanitarianism and the adventurism some saw in it is effectively over. Britain has revealed itself as yet another strategically-illiterate European country as the friction between mass immigration and Britain’s twenty-first century wars make the first order priority to stabilise a dangerously fractured society.

And what of the future? If the economic situation permits in 2015 (and it is a big ‘if’), and of course the current government is still in power, then a commitment has been made to reinvest in the British armed forces. However, the future force will be far smaller. Indeed, by 2015 the British Army will be smaller than at any time since 1911, when Britain had by far the world’s largest navy.

This can only mean Britain is shifting from a strategy of engagement to a strategy of protection. In effect, a fortress Britain is being created with a residual military able to reach out strike and punish on occasions but little more. Yes, there will be great emphasis (and much bluster) on conflict prevention through aid and development but so many of the causes that start conflicts are out of Britain’s control, not least the hyper-competition between the emergent and more established Great Powers.

Ten years on from 911 Britain is a much reduced power in spite of the heroic efforts of its young men and women under arms. Perhaps the two wars and financial and economic crisis of the last decade represent not merely the consequences of 911 but the final end of four hundred years of global influence. If so, Britain as super-Belgium is not very appealing and Britain’s retreat will mean the world is more dangerous, not less so.

Julian Lindley-French

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Liberty's March

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried”. Winston Churchill

10 September, 2011. There comes a time when all the analysis must end and a simple act of remembrance undertaken. I remember the three thousand people of all nationalities, faiths and creeds who died that bright, bad day in Washington and New York. I remember the many tens of thousands of our young men and women who have sacrificed their lives to defeat Al Qaeda. I remember the many tens of thousands of believers in the great faith of Islam who have lost their lives and I honour them. I remember the brave men and women across the Middle East who today are dying to take their lives back from the corrupt, the intolerant and the downright evil. I also remember those many tens of thousands whose lives have been blighted by this sad decade. Now is the time to honour our fallen, and move on.

Tomorrow I will drive from the Netherlands to Britain through the great monuments of freedom’s struggle. I will pass Nieuwkirk which marked the end of the trenches in the 1914-1918 Great War when British, French and American forces fought side-by-side against the Kaiser’s autocracy alongside young men from across the world. I will drive on past Bray Dunes from which in 1940 the British Army was plucked in the miracle of Dunkirk only to return exactly four years later to defeat Nazism as part of the greatest armada in history. I will cross the Channel through the Tunnel, a concrete link between European powers that is as well the symbolic representation of a new Europe at peace with itself and the world. I will drive along the south coast of England under the very skies which in 1940 Royal Air Force Spitfires and Hurricanes defeated Hitler’s Luftwaffe ensuring the eventual defeat of the Nazis and in time the restoration of liberty across the whole of Europe.

For all the self-doubt, the many siren voices of decline and defeatism one hears the merest glance at a political map reveals a simple truth; having embraced Europe and defeated Soviet totalitarianism liberty is now marching beyond our Atlantic shores. It is marching across the Middle East and in time will ensure the defeat of violent extremism. Even when extremists lash out from time to time and may hurt us they can never defeat us.

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried”, Winston Churchill once famously quipped. There may be much wrong with our democracies and there certainly is. The professional political class in North America and Europe has become a self-licking lollipop. It spends too much time in arrogant self-contemplation and not enough time reflecting as to how it might better serve the people. And yes, our societies are changing profoundly causing friction and mistrust. And yet, all the massive majority of incomers want is the right to be Americans, Canadians or Europeans. We must never allow ourselves to be defined by any one race or religion. Indeed, if there is any one message from the roll call of fallen honour that marks Ground Zero that is it.

There is simply no other form of government or governance that comes close to democracy for it champions liberty and we are the champions of liberty. The fact that I have the right to be profoundly critical of my own British political class is a liberty I will exercise until my final breath. Indeed, speaking truth unto power is a right which defines us all. It is that which makes the democratic West the beacon of hope for millions in support of whom once again American, British and French forces are again risking their lives.

We have made mistakes since the fall of the twin towers and we should be always conscious of our many failings. We are superior to no-one. We must learn to learn better and be humble enough to admit our errors. We must better respect the choices of others if they are made free and fair. But, we must also remember that the world is a better place when the West is strong and we are united.

Justice, tolerance but above all liberty, are the proper memorials to our fallen. I for one remember them on this day; and in their honour look to a better future. 

Requiescat in pace.

Julian Lindley-French

Brigadoon

“Brigadoon, Brigadoon, Blooming under sable skies. Brigadoon, Brigadoon, There my heart forever lies.

Let the world grow cold around us, Let the heavens cry above! Brigadoon, Brigadoon, In thy valley, there'll be love”.

Alphen, the Netherlands. 9 September. There is an old Danny Kaye film about a mythical Irish village called Brigadoon which appears to the people but occasionally and where all is perfect and problems such as they exist at all are reduced at a stroke to a merry metaphor. Since that bright, bad day ten years ago ended the age of the twin towers the Whitehall Village has become a political Brigadoon; fighting and appeasing the causes and consequence of 911 at one and the same time, with little idea of strategy or mission. It has been an awful decade for a Britain in which the disconnect between the governed and the unworldly governing class is now dangerously wide. Political correctness means that real issues are rarely confronted, only hinted at indirectly.

Elected representatives have been stripped of any meaningful influence as politics and law have become hopelessly entangled. Presidential but politically impotent prime ministers have been held to account by unelected lawyers whilst all became obsessed with serving that media mogul on the Sky. How the mighty are finally fallen. The cult of political celebrity has been little different in its vacuous waste from the celebrity culture that today obsesses Britain’s politically impotent masses.

Brigadoon has instead slipped into half-truths, half-policies and half-leaders. No voter has the desired government. Labour conned itself into power under the mantra of social democratic New Labour only to be captured by the Hard Left of the Party when an unelected and unelectable Gordon Brown was offered the chance to experiment on Britain. Today, the Coalition Government sees a small Liberal-Democratic minority exerting influence way beyond its meagre representation in Parliament, whilst the high-bureaucracy has become a focal point for competing ideologies as to how Britain should be run and its place and role in the world.

In Brigadoon there is no cultural or racial tension. In Britain lives are routinely being blighted by racism and intolerance. Indeed, as Brigadoon vowed to make Britain safe in the wake of 911, it simultaneously lost control of Britain’s borders. At least discrimination in Brigadoon is now more equally shared. Formal discrimination against the majority comes in the form of multiculturalism and ‘equal opportunities’. Employment today is offered not on the basis of quality or capability but race and gender. Those insidious little boxes on application forms asking for race and gender details are not simply for statistical purposes.

Beyond the bounds of Brigadoon an angry majority has instead been cowed into silence. Anti-racist and anti-discrimination campaigns simply pushed intolerance underground and at the same time made it worse. Too often too many take out their frustrations on minorities who, unfairly blamed for the fantasies of Brigadoon, not surprisingly huddle together for safety in urban ghettos. The indigenous population that could afford it has simply fled to the hills leaving the centres of many English cities dangerous places where poverty, hopelessness and too often hatred stalk the streets. At night and at weekends gangs and drunkenness rule the space law and order too easily abandoned. Today, a million of our young people are bereft of education, employment and training, and streets burn as police do nothing for fear of being accused of breaking politically-correct taboos. Damned if they act; damned if they don’t.

Even the very existence of Britain is now under threat. An enemy of the British state has virtually unchecked power in Scotland with his one professed aim to bring down the United Kingdom. The English of course are forbidden to comment on anything for fear of being accused of racism and/or imperialism. This is in spite of the regular provocations that now emerge from Edinburgh as their sons and daughters at Scottish universities suffer blatant fee discrimination. The broke and put upon English are however still expected to pay the Scots to stay in Britain and for the feral elite who ran Britain’s banks into the ground in their pursuit of greed.

Ten years on from 911 ‘Strategy’ has been done to death in Brigadoon; as empty a word as it is misunderstood. Trapped in the longest post-Imperial apology in history Brigadoon has been fighting and appeasing violent jihad at one and the same time. In the immediate aftermath the renowned British military was sent eastward to keep the threat at strategic distance, even as millions from some of the poorest and most conservative places on earth were allowed into Britain. And then came 7/7. Ten years on a thousand of our brave young men and women are dead and many more grievously-wounded fighting wars that cannot be won. The British military is broken, the wars un-won and London’s influence diminished the world over.

Ten years on Brigadoon has passed much of its authority to Brussels-doon and the European Onion in an attempt to create the perfect alibi for failure. It is an EU that is patently and patiently dragging its richer members down into the depths to pay for its failed members like some super-institutional Titanic. Huge burdens are now imposed upon Britain with absolutely no benefits to show for it, other than the strangely abstract that Brigadoon claims.

And yet there is still hope. The generosity of the British people remains as their support for starving millions the world over attest. Although Brigadoon, true to form, has exploited that generosity by getting the British people to pay for India’s nuclear weapons programme and armed forces. And, whilst the British spirit is bowed, it is not as yet broken. There is a genuine thirst to be proud again and many of the incomers simply want to be given the chance to be British. It will take at least ten years to recover from a disastrous decade but if Brigadoon can be kept out of our lives the good will and common sense of the massive majority of ordinary Britons of all creeds and colours will prevail.

“Brigadoon, Brigadoon, Blooming under sable skies. Brigadoon, Brigadoon, There my heart forever lies. Let the world grow cold around us, Let the heavens cry above! Brigadoon, Brigadoon, In thy valley, there'll be love”.

Julian Lindley-French

Sleepwalking into a Nuclear Nightmare

"Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
Robert Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita

Alphen. The Netherlands. 7 September. With the West deep in sombre remembrance of 911, a new and dangerous shift in the nuclear balance is taking place in the shadows.  There is a New Nuclear Realpolitik afoot that is shaping today’s world... and tomorrow's.

Iran is moving patiently towards a nuclear weapons system. Taken together the empty commitment made towards a global nuclear zero, calls by the strategically-illiterate to remove the last US nuclear forces from Europe, and the out-dated US-Russian Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) make the world’s nuclear future more dangerous not less so. The entire global arms control architecture is in urgent need of renovation if it is to be relevant to this century not the last.

Iran is playing clever. According to the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) Tehran will soon begin enrichment of weapons-grade uranium at a new underground site near Qom. Iran has been swift to remind the world that its intentions are entirely peaceful. At Bushehr the first nuclear power reactor to generate electricity in the Middle East began fuelling up in late August. It could be operational within a few months, although it will more likely take a year or so. In effect, Iran is using the civil programme to remind the international community of the failure of the so-called Nuclear Weapons States (NWS) to fulfil their side of a bargain struck 43 years ago in the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the NPT the Non-Nuclear Weapons States (NNWS) would be given assistance to develop peaceful nuclear energy in return for the Nuclear Weapons States divesting themselves of nuclear weapons at the earliest opportunity.

With Russian support the Bushehr plant complies with the NPT, and by keeping its civilian development on a separate track to its military programme Iran is complicating attempts to reveal the extent and scale of Iran’s current efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The West is of course huffing and puffing and some limited sanctions have been applied by the United Nations, but oil-rich Tehran has little concern for its image in the West. Rather, it aims to become the strongest actor in the region sitting at the crux of the Middle East and Central-South Asia and snubbing the West is a conscious part of that strategy.

Why should the World be concerned? First, Iran’s ambitions are putting Tehran on a collision course with nuclear-armed Israel, which has some 200 warheads at Dimona. Second, if Iran succeeds in upping its prestige amongst developing states by deploying such weapons then with India, Pakistan and North Korea all now established nuclear powers any hope of President Obama’s Global Zero will soon evaporate. Third, nuclear weapons act as the great equaliser for states the armed forces of which are relatively weak, such as Iran. In the event of, say, ten or more nuclear powers a whole new balance between deterrence and defence will be needed.

Europe is not being at all clever. Earlier this year Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway moved to have the remaining 200 or so European-based US nuclear warheads removed from their soil. The role of nuclear weapons is to offset weaknesses in conventional forces. However, these very same countries not only want rid of NATO’s cornerstone nuclear defence, but they are also savagely cutting their respective militaries AND trying to neuter missile defence. This is strategic illiteracy of breath-taking proportions.

The US could have been cleverer. By proposing a Global Zero of which there is little reasonable chance the hitherto dormant strategically-illiterate have once again become exercised. Nor were the implications of the 2010 START treaty fully thought through. Reducing nuclear weapons is a good thing and with some 23,000 warheads the world-over there is clearly work to do. However, focussing purely on an out-dated bilateral track with Russia not only beefed up an untrustworthy Moscow but more importantly (and inadvertently) actually offered incentives to the likes of China and India to build-up to US and Russian levels precisely so they can be seen as equals – and made such a goal attainable.  Strategic parity is precisely the essence of both countries’ national strategies.

Together, Iran, Global Zero and START 2010 have in effect killed the 1968 NPT – with nothing under consideration to replace it. Worse, US thinking reflects profound confusion in US strategy between Realpolitik and strategic political correctness. There is no European thinking of note.  Consequently, an out-of-date multilateral arms control treaty will be left in place for fear that to replace its failing structures could bring the whole edifice crashing down. This is not least because the West itself is on very dodgy ground in terms of compliance. Where is the nuclear logic in that?

Political risk must now be taken. The democratisation of mass destruction allied to globalisation is driving seventy-year old nuclear weapons technologies and their associated missiles into the strategic open far faster than arms control can stop it. Consequently, the leader powers are losing control over both the technology and likely end-users.

With the Non-Proliferation Treaty dying of old age what is needed is an entirely new treaty with new incentives, enhanced constraints and with an International Atomic Energy Authority that is truly fit for purpose. Those Europeans who want rid of US nuclear weapons (and what about British and French systems?) should for a moment take a strategic view and realise that in this anarchic, Realpolitik world empty-unilateralism is as dangerous as uncontrolled proliferation.

The nuclear genie is now out of its aged and cracked bottle. It is therefore time for the West to regain the nuclear high ground and negotiate whilst there is still a semblance of strength. If not we will sleepwalk into a nuclear nightmare.

Julian Lindley-French

When Think-Tanks Stop Thinking

“A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him”. Samuel Johnson

Alphen, The Netherlands. 5 September, 2011. Something strange happened to me last week. A leading London think-tank (which shall remain nameless) asked me to remove my affiliation as an Associate Fellow from my blog because in the words of the offending email, “I do not mince my words” and because my blog may be seen as the official position of aforesaid think-tank. Excuse me!

Associate fellowships, special professorships and the like have proliferated over recent years. They offer institutions free labour during a time of austerity in return for an affiliation that implies prestige. What happened to me is of course immaterial but what it implies is not; that think-tanks stop thinking and challenging for fear of offending the so-called ‘great and good’. Whatever happened to academic freedom?

There are two reasons why this is happening in London (and I have seen evidence of it elsewhere). First, some of the more traditional think-tanks have become too close to the Establishment. Consequently, their instinct is to validate rather than challenge Establishment thinking. As a result they become progressively co-opted by the Whitehall Village and thus add little to it. Second, there has been a host of new think-tanks in London over recent years most of whom support one political party/issue or another. Their mission is simply to justify the political positions of their political/vested interest masters. Sadly, whilst there are a few think-tanks still free to do what they should be doing – thinking, challenging and provoking – they are perilously few in number.

Thinking, challenging and provoking is also the overt mission of my blog. It is not without method or rigour. On occasions (dare I say) I may be wrong. However, when I challenge or provoke I do so after a lot of thought and supported by a lot of facts, and with many years of experience behind me. My goal is essentially simple; to fill with analysis and strategy the expanding gap between the abstractions into which government is retreating and the very different reality on the ground which real people see daily. In other words, I am trying to do what too many think-tanks now fail to do too often.

Implicit in this creeping vine of intellectual entanglement is a wider risk – the more sensitive the issue the greater the pressure for self-censorship driven on by the political correctness that now oozes from every fissure in political London. Of course, one must at all times be sensitive to the impact of ideas and words and I am acutely so. However, that must not stop free thought.

The ‘offending’ blog seems to have been “The Great Immigration Disaster” in which I analysed official figures and considered the impact on Britain’s social infrastructure from uncontrolled immigration. The fact is that Britain is my country and the pace and scale of immigration as confirmed by the official figures and the changes it implies for Britain – both positive and negative - represent one of the most profound and indeed strategic changes to British society ever seen. Thus, I have every right to consider it.

And yet here’s the rub; very few beyond the far Left or far Right are brave enough these days to consider this vital issue. This conspiracy of silence, which is not limited to immigration, reflects a lack of leadership at the very top – both on the Left and Right. It is a failure of leadership itself fuelled by fear and narrow political calculation that opens the way for the politics of hate.

The simple fact is that politicians are scared of dealing with difficult issues for which they have few or no solutions and their fellow-travellers in the think-tanks too often validate rather than challenge this. Cosy elites are always dangerous, but when free thought is either co-opted or simply quashed then there is something profoundly wrong.

Such insecurity also reveals a dangerous vulnerability at the heart of Britain’s elite. The British people still hang on to the now out-dated belief that Whitehall remains capable of dealing with all issues and establishing sound strategy as a result. In fact, the more sensitive the issue the more likely it is that Whitehall avoids it; and the more likely that think-tanks will take their cue from government.

The bottom-line is this; Whitehall’s inability to confront profound and sensitive issues explains why Britain is incapable of establishing sound strategy. The job of think-tanks therefore is to truly challenge orthodoxy, not to ratify it. And that means more than empty marketing slogans that appeal to government and corporate sponsors. All that does is to legitimise the group-think that inevitably leads to failure.

The alternative to moral courage? I see it here every day in the Netherlands the politics of which is dominated by a right-wing populist Geert Wilders. All he has done has filled the vacuum created by the failure of the intellectual class to challenge the governing class on issues of fundamental importance to society and the state.

The world is a safer place when think-tanks think, not merely pander. So, rest assured; I will not stop blogging, the views expressed herein are entirely my own, I will not mince my words and I will confront all and any issue I deem to be of strategic importance.

Oh, and I have also removed the offending affiliation. Their loss!

Julian Lindley-French

Thank You, Royal Wootton Bassett

Alphen, the Netherlands. 1 September, 2011. Every now and then politics is full of painful symmetries. Today saw the start of the long-heralded cuts in personnel of the British armed forces. Some 22,000 posts will be cut over the next four years with more possible on top. This represents over 10% of the force, with more likely to come.

Last night the people of a small, dignified Wiltshire town turned out for the last time in Sunset Service to mark their role in respecting Britain’s fallen soldiers. Since April 2007 Wootton Bassett has paid its respects to 345 fallen servicemen and women who have passed through the town on the return of their bodies from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Some 2,000 people turned out on 18 August to pay silent tribute to Lt Daniel Clack of the 1st Battalion, The Rifles; the last body of a serving British soldier to be repatriated via neighbouring RAF Lyneham which will shortly close due to the cuts. Henceforth, Britain’s dead will return via RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire where the town of Carterton will take up the vigil.

The town’s mayor, Paul Heaphy, said last night that the service was the “last full measure of devotion” to those who had died.

In June President Obama said the people of Wootton Bassett marked the “best of British character”. From this October the title Royal Wootton Bassett is to be conferred upon the town by Her Majesty the Queen as a mark of royal respect. Yesterday the Union Flag was lowered one last time before being taken to the memorial garden at Brize Norton.

The wife of one servicemen when asked about the cuts said, “I don’t believe Mt Cameron and those involved in making the decision to cut the Armed Forces are fully aware of the true cost and impact that the stroke of their pens will have on those who served them so proudly”. I am sure the people of Wootton Bassett are, as are the rest of us who think about these things. But that is perhaps for another day.

Thank you, Royal Wootton Bassett. You are indeed the best of British; already royal to my mind in both spirit and generosity.

Julian Lindley-French

The Worst Journey in the World

Alphen, The Netherlands. 31 August, 2011. Seventy years ago this day the first Arctic Convoy set off from Scotland en route to Murmansk in Northern Russia. Between August 1941 and May 1945, 78 convoys comprising some 1400 merchant ships completed what Winston Churchill called, “the worst journey in the world” to deliver vital war supplies to Soviet Russia under a lend-lease agreement with the United Kingdom and United States.

The convoys were escorted by the ships of the Royal Navy, supported by units of the Royal Canadian and US navies. Over that period 85 merchant ships were sunk by enemy action, together with 2 Royal Navy cruisers, 6 destroyers and 8 other escort ships. Sinking was almost certainly fatal as life expectancy in the freezing waters of the Norwegian Sea and the Arctic Ocean amounted to a few minutes at best.

Operating under constant threat of air and U-boat attack from occupied Norway the convoys had to operate either in perpetual dark or perpetual light. Moreover, severe weather, fog, strong currents and the mixing of warm and cold waters not only made the use of ASDIC (sonar) difficult, but also greatly complicated convoy cohesion.

Keeping ships together was vital. In July 1942 convoy PQ17 suffered the worst losses of any convoy in World War Two. Fatally, following constant attacks by air and the threat from the German fast battleship Tirpitz (sister ship of the Bismarck), the convoy was ordered to scatter. Only 11 out of 35 ships made it to Archangelsk on Russia’s Arctic coast.

Hitler deemed the convoys to be of such strategic importance that intense efforts were made by the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine to disrupt them, but at an enormous cost to both services. On December 26, 1943 Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, flying his flag in the battleship HMS Duke of York and supported by the cruisers HMS Belfast, HMS Jamaica, HMS Norfolk and HMS Sheffield, trapped and sank the German battle-cruiser Scharnhorst by employing for the first time radar-controlled gunnery. In the Arctic twilight Duke of York straddled Scharnhorst with the first salvo from her 14 inch guns. On 12 November 1944 32 Royal Air Force Lancasters from Nos 9 and 617 (Dambusters) squadrons dropped the massive Tallboy bombs on the Tirpitz as she sat in Norway's Tromso Fjord. She rolled over and sank within minutes. In all the Germans lost 2 battleships, 3 destroyers and some 30 U-boats in addition to many aircraft.

The convoys provided essential support to a hard-pressed Soviet Union, particularly during the siege of Leningrad in 1941 and 1942 by delivering critical food and ammunition supplies. As the war moved towards its conclusion the Soviets insisted the convoys continue, mainly for symbolic reasons. In the end the Arctic Convoys proved a decisive victory for the Allies, but at an enormous cost in lives and ships.

Vital to that success was ULTRA intelligence gained as a result of the cracking of the German Enigma code at Bletchley Park in southern England. This enabled the Royal Navy not only to make the best use of its forces, but also provided the forewarning to route convoys around U-boat wolf packs and German surface raiders.

Seventy years on from what was an epic struggle which claimed the lives of thousands of men on both sides it is right that we pause and remember their sacrifice.

Julian Lindley-French