European Federalism, European Defence and Britain: Open Response to a Senior French Friend

Dear Friend,

You sought my view on the politics of European security and defence and how they relate to Britain and European federalism.  As you know my main concern with a future Federal Europe is that it would concentrate too much power in the hands of an unaccountable few and thus makes the distance between me the citizen and the elite intolerably wide for any entity that could reasonably call itself democratic. It is also my firm belief that we are far closer than most people realise to crossing a political Rubicon towards some form of federalism.  In reality the British are faced with a simple reality if they stay within the EU; they must sooner or later join the Eurozone.  Here is why.

The Federalist Danger: Britain’s future EU membership dominates the air waves in the UK. And yet precisely because of that London wilfully refuses to recognise the federalist danger and focuses instead on the importance of preserving the single market and Britain’s access to it.  This conceit pretends that somehow the market can be kept distinct from the EU’s wider or rather deeper political development. 

What Comes Next:  The critical issue in the coming crisis will be one of timing.  Britain will not join the euro in the next decade or so which is precisely the critical period for Eurozone deepening.  It would be political suicide for a British prime minister to even suggest membership.  And yet for the Eurozone to survive and to eventually have any chance of enriching its citizens (and not punish us as is currently the case) then further integration must place.   

Alternatives to Deeper Integration: The only alternative to a neo-federal system would be a form of zollverein built around a German neo-empire administered by Brussels.  There are some in Berlin who find that attractive.  Or, rather they want such a neo-empire to take on the appearance of Union.  There is of course a third option.  The Eurozone collapses and the EU eventually picks itself up from the wreckage and goes back to the British view of Europe as a single market.  That to say the least is highly unlikely given the political capital invested in project euro.

The Current British Position:  The "Balance of Competences" review purports to assess the cost and benefits of Britain’s EU membership.  It is at best a snapshot of today (and a biased one at that) designed solely to ease the here-and-now political dilemma of a weak prime minister. As such the study is indicative of a London that routinely confuses strategy with politics because it makes no effort to consider the implications of the coming structural changes in the EU for the future politics, society, governance AND economy of Britain.

British ‘Strategy’: You suggest that London is seeking to divide Europe. Sadly, London today is so politically split and so strategically myopic that it is incapable of such vision.  One critique of London in my new book, Little Britain? Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power is the inability of the elite Establishment to see the big picture and think grand strategically. As such London is in denial about what is happening here on the Continent.

Britain’s Options: Whether the EU is empire or union it is hard to see a place for Britain in it unless the British effectively surrender their view of the EU as market.  This would at a stroke render their position outside the defining Eurozone ridiculous.  To my mind in such circumstances Britain should leave the EU particularly as the only alternative would be the permanent marginalisation and minority-status of Britain within the EU and a 'balance' between costs of membership and benefits that would become politically untenable.  These pressures will increase not decrease by the time of any planned 2017 referendum. 

The Twist: What I am already detecting in the parliamentary debate over the EU Referendum Bill is preparation for surrender dressed up as reform.  The simple truth is that much of the London Establishment is prepared to keep Britain in the EU at any cost even if that means the effective abandonment of British sovereignty.  Consequently a great manipulation has been underway in London for some time and which is supported by government and their fellow travellers in big business who simply want to keen to head off the coming political crisis.   Pro-EU big business does not care about democracy at all and simply wants access to large markets via large pools of cheap labour.  The essential conceit of this group is to pretend that Britain’s EU membership is solely about economic interests and that such interests are served by Britain's continued membership.   A race is thus underway to maintain the manipulation before the reality of deeper EU integration becomes apparent to an instinctively Euro-sceptic British people. 

Implications for Europe’s Future Security and Defence:  The question for Europe's future security and defence then becomes existential.  Should Europe's future security and defence be organised exclusively around and within the EU (and by extension France and Germany) or should another mechanism/framework (NATO?) be created which is more reflective of political realism rather than EU idealism?  France faces a paradox.  France’s partner of choice Germany has concluded that if its leadership of Europe is to be legitimate Berlin cannot be a military power.  Indeed, the more economic and political influence Berlin enjoys the less military influence Berlin is likely to seek.

France and Britain:  France needs Britain and Britain needs France.  However, for a new pragmatic settlement to be reached Britain and France must be...pragmatic. However, (and I say this as a genuine friend of France) for that to happen France must recognise Britain’s legitimate concerns about a quasi-federal Europe, at least until the British cave in.  That might appear to contradict what I have said above but the politics of today mean that no British leader can any more afford to be seen to equate Britain’s future defence with a European Army than call for Britain’s membership of the euro.  These tensions existed in the 1998 St Malo Declaration and have never gone away.  Indeed, unless London and Paris put aside issues of federalism in defence and consider together Europe's politically realist interests in the global security context then I fear that however important on paper strategic, security and defence co-operation between Britain and France it will be limited and iterative.

Next Steps: Four things will soon happen: a) The current phoney war over inevitably treaty change will end.  This will probably happen after this year’s European elections because many in the elite still seem to believe the way to ‘Europe’ is to deceive Europeans about the objective, particularly in Germany; b) Eurozone states will finally have to face up to the consequences of integration for their sovereignty and peoples and confront these issues honestly; c) As this change will necessarily happen before any substantive political shift in the UK and because we British are forced into a permanent minority in the EU by those states dependent on German largesse London will no longer be able to fudge this issue with the British people; and d) London will then be faced with a simple choice - surrender or leave. 

Conclusion: Further Eurozone political integration is inevitable and will inevitably lead to critical loss of national sovereignty, more federalism and in time an EU and Eurozone that are to all intent and purpose one and the same thing.  We could (and I stress could) then be on the road to the kind of bureaucratic dictatorship of the kind Tocqueville warned against with few if any meaningful checks and balances on an over-mighty bureaucracy.  This slide towards a form of bureaucratic autocracy would be accelerated and confirmed by a fig-leaf European Parliament made up of MEPs who enjoy either power or substantive legitimacy.   Whilst such an idea might be attractive to some born of the Colbertian tradition it is utter anathema to those of us who descend from Locke and Mill.

Therefore, the current political situation in the EU is unsustainable and some form of federalism is on the way because the EU and its most committed backers cannot help themselves.  But here's the rub; without root and branch reform such federalism will lock in political aspic an uncompetitive Europe in a hyper-competitive world.  A federal Europe will thus mean a decadent and in time doomed Europe and as such will be self-defeating.

 

We will all soon have choices to make.

En toutes amities,

Julian

Julian Lindley-French

The Oxford Handbook of War 2014

Alphen, Netherlands, 15 January.  My books are a bit like London buses. One waits a year or so for one and then two come along at once. Last week I published my book Little Britain?  Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power. This week the paperback edition of my enormous Oxford Handbook of War has been published by Oxford University Press.

 

The Oxford Handbook of War is unique.  My fourth book (of five) and my second for Oxford University, my alma mater, it took five years to research, plan, structure, prepare, write and edit.  It is certainly no pot boiler being almost 600 pages in length and some 45 chapters the Handbook considers war in all its forms – strategic, historical, political, military, social and economic.  Indeed the Handbook is a helicopter study of war as a phenomenon.

The Handbook was a joint collaboration with my old friend and co-conspirator Professor Yves Boyer of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.  Who says the English and French never get on?  ‘Research’ of course occasioned many hours sipping excellent French wine in Yves’s wonderful home overlooking the Loire Valley.  Yes, I suffer for my art.  Vive, l’entente intellectuelle!

In preparing the Handbook Yves and I were supported by over forty leading thinkers, policy-makers and leading civilian and military practitioners from across the globe - Brazil, China, Europe, India and the United States.  Indeed, the Handbook is graced by chapters Chiefs of Defence Staff, as well as a former US Ambassador to NATO and NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.  The Handbook was nominated for the prestigious Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, my second book to be so honoured. 

So that’s the plug.  Now, let me offer those of you contemplating the writing of a book a few words of advice, particularly as I have just enjoyed the delicious pain of writing yet another.  One does not write a book, one lives it.   One endures every comma, every word, every scintilla of a book – a word here or is it there?  A book is a solitary affair and yet it is a movie, an epic involving a cast of thousands.  And, like a movie one needs to believe, to put one’s heart and soul into ‘the project’ for many years before one sees the final cut...and one rarely becomes a millionaire. 

The active support of an excellent publisher is vital as is the commitment of a lot of very busy senior people.  The support of my publisher Oxford University Press was invaluable, particularly Dominic Byatt, Elizabeth Suffling and Sarah Parker.  Thanks guys!

So, if you want to understand war then I humbly recommend a copy of the paperback Handbook because as Plato once so poignantly put it, “only the dead have seen the end of war”.  Sadly, there is nothing I can see of this world that convinces me that war has been cast as a purely academic pursuit now the sole preserve of dusty historians with big titles.  Nor is there glory in war.  Yes, individual stories of daring-do shine through because war creates extreme experiences in otherwise ordinary lives.  Perhaps that is why so many (including me) are obsessive sports fans. 

War is dark, cold, and often boring, rent by sudden moments of terrifying, terrible terror which test for the instant but scar for life, leaving nightmares in many who then 'live'  life unsure of where a mind’s day ends and night begins.  Warriors of modern democracies walk amongst the society they fight to protect  often made distant from society by the very act of protection they offered.  The soldier pays an enormous price for the duty s/he owes. Indeed, as anyone beyond the moronic who has ever had any experience of war will tell you, there is no glory in war simply suffering for a purpose. 

Equally, it is utterly naïve to believe wars need not be fought nor will be fought again.  Be it the human condition, the shaky distinction between power and pauperism that humans create or simply that what is to come cannot be tolerated then war will continue to lurk amongst us all.

That is why Yves and I set out on this ambitious project; because war is important.  Yes, the book seeks to prevent war through the better understanding of it.  However, piety is for theologians; if war is to be fought it must be won and hopefully by those on the side of good.  Only then will war be seen as an exception to the human rule not a tombstone on it. 

The Oxford Handbook of War 2014; in all good bookshops now at a very reasonable price! 

Julian Lindley-French

Euro-Realism: Of Law and Power

Alphen, Netherlands. 13 January.  “Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world”, so advised eighteenth century German philosopher and father of Universalism, Immanuel Kant.  Kant is the darling Philosopher of the EU elite which believes that an entirely European concept of international law can replace power. Is that possible?
 

A new report from European Geostrategy (www.europeangeostrategy.org) seems to suggest that Europeans in principle still enjoy sufficient state power to be influential political realists.   In “Audit of Power” the group cites state power as a “productive force” based on “cultural pull, diplomatic influence, economic strength and military reach”.  The report concludes that in 2014 the United States is still the world’s most powerful state followed by Britain.  Thereafter in order of power come France, China, Russia and Japan with Germany a lowly seventh, just above Australia and Canada.

The report’s conclusions contradict my new book “Little Britain? Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power (www.amazon.com). My book uses CIA figures to conclude that Britain is at best the fifth or sixth most powerful state in the world (at least on paper) and in rapid and exaggerated decline.   

One event this week helps to explain the friction. Two groups of left-wing lawyers have submitted a 250 page dossier to the International Criminal Court citing systematic abuse of Iraqi detainees by British politicians and military chiefs.  Their aim is as much political as legal; to replace state power with international law and thus prevent direct action by Western states.   

The dossier highlights the dilemmas Europeans today – the balance to be struck between law and power and its locus – national or supranational.  The EU is a consequence of Europe’s many power struggles over the ages.  Indeed, so many of Europe’s leaders act today like reformed power junkies – afraid that one ‘puff’ of state power might turn Europeans back into addicts of state power, with legalism the only antidote. 

Europe’s leaders are retreating into a definitively ‘rules-based approach’ to international politics in which law is progressively replacing power in the form of ‘universal’ EU ‘laws’ that go way beyond the intent of treaties.  In so doing Europe is abandoning traditional concepts of state sovereignty in favour of pan European rights.  The problem is that because Europe no longer sets the rules of the global road legalism detaches European security from world security.  So, whilst European states might on paper look powerful by paralysing action with legalism Europe punches far below their international weight. 

Legalism explains the friction between European Geostrategy’s rankings and my new book.  By trying to remove the balance of state power from Europe the EU has removed Europeans from global power reality.  My book cites Britain which more than any other member-state gold-plates EU rules and thus has drastically reduced London’s ability to run Britain let alone influence others both within the EU and without. 

An attempt to create a rules-based international system happened once before in the immediate aftermath of World War One with the creation of the League of Nations.  It was also based on Kantian notions of Universalism and also sought the replacement of power by law.  The reason it failed was that no effective sanction existed to punish defection.  Instead states were to be judged by the “court of public opinion”.   In 1939 the League’s international order collapsed in the face of Nazi Germany’s power perversion which haunts Europe to this day. 

Today, Brazil, Russia, India, China and many others are challenging the world-view of the European elite.  They share a very classical view of the world based on state power and the need to compete for their respective interests.  And, in spite of the rhetoric of the Obama administration, the US also shares much of that view.  Indeed, implicit in last week’s attack by former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates on the Obama administration is a Democrat/Republican split over where state power ends and law begins in international relations.

If the West is to survive into the twenty-first century its essential mission will be the search for a new balance between political realism and idealism.  The future of the EU, NATO and the transatlantic relationship are all dependent on such a balance being stuck.  Equally, for the West to prevail Europeans must first stop turning their noses up at power because Kant’s paradox is that if “purpose of action” is to become law then it must first be informed by power.    

If Europeans continue to replace power with rules and laws then once power predators will render themselves power prey.  Security in the twenty-first century world will not be achieved by Europeans simply abrogating power.  Rather, Europeans should better heed the words of seventeenth century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes who famously said that, “Covenants without the Sword are but words and of no strength at all”.

Julian Lindley-French

New Book: Little Britain? Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power

It is my honour to inform you of my new e-book which has been published this week online at Kindle Select for the very reasonable price of $14.51/£9/10 Euros.

With a foreword by General Sir David Richards until 2012 the Chief of the British Defence Staff the book considers five key issues: the world Britain faces in the twenty-first century; Britain's role and ambition in Europe and the wider world; how Britain should defines its national interests and secure them; how best to organise and apply British national power through innovative national strategy; and the role of Britain armed forces in national strategy.

Although the book is about Britain the dilemmas, strategies, choices and options the book considers are pertinent to the US, all European states and indeed democracies the world over. The strategic choices Britain makes over the next decade will also have a profound effect on the institutions vital to British influence, most notably the EU, NATO and UN. 

The message of the book is stark: after a bruising decade of strategic failure and economic crisis Britain's decline is today rapid and accelerating. However, crisis is becoming an alibi for the political class with much of that decline is driven by a loss of strategic vision and will at the very top of government.

With proper leadership, a concept of national power invested in sound national strategy built on political realism Britain can remain a potent international actor with the influence to shape events rather than await their harsh judgements. Britain's elite must show strategic leadership that has too often been lacking of late as declinism and short-termism has led to the deliberate confusing of politics with strategy by the political class.

Britain’s exaggerated decline is hidden by the political metaphors of a political class that has retreated from pragmatism into dogma.  Many on the political Left champion the EU because they no longer believe Britain should compete as an independent nation-state.  Many on the political Right are dogmatically wedded to small government cutting the very tools of influence to the point of impotence.  The result is that the cost of influence increases and in so doings undermines the security and interests of the British people.

The specific focus of the book is Britain's future defence strategy, the bedrock upon which all forms of credible national power and influence are built. The book calls for a radical change in both the organisation and structure of the British armed forces so as to better prepare them for future challenges in a future operating environment that will undoubtedly test Britain and its people in an age of hyper-competition.

Britain must compete for influence and to secure its national interests. Therefore, the book concludes by suggesting a British strategy built on four sets of critical relationships all of which demand Britain invests policy with power:

1. A close strategic relationship with the US to help keep the Americans engaged in European security and defence by demonstrating to Washington that Britain is prepared to ‘lead’ Europeans in serious defence investment. This will help ease American over-stretch by keeping the US strong where it needs to be strong through an equitable sharing of burdens;

2. The establishment of a Euro-strategic partnership with Germany that recognises Berlin’s ‘strategic’ role in European economic and political stability in return for Berlin recognising British and French leadership of Europe’s military effort.  France will resent German leadership and further resent any relationship between London and Berlin that might appear to eclipse the Franco-German axis.  London will need to work hard to overcome French suspicions and German indifference;

3. The development of a stable Franco-British strategic defence partnership with a particular emphasis on a joint effort by London and Paris to improve and increase European expeditionary military capabilities; and

4. The re-establishment of strategic relationships with the English-speaking Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, Nigeria, India and others) lost when Britain joined the EU, as well as wider relationships with states such as Japan to reinforce a Congress of Democracies central to new worldwide security web.

The book is relevant to all those interested in strategy, policy and the decline of the West and I have chosen to publish online to make the book affordable and accessible. These days the social media is the best channel for independent strategic thought which I believe is vitally needed not just for Britain but the wider West. I would be honoured if you would read my work and recommend it to colleagues and friends.

Britain's leaders today suffer from the same delusion as the rest of Europe; they want to play soft power chess whilst the rest of the world wants to play hard power poker.

The book can be downloaded at Amazon Kindle Select: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNNV1H8  For those with iPads there is a Kindle app that can also be downloaded.

Julian Lindley-French

Why the English are Angry in this Big Year for Britain

Alphen, Netherlands, 1 January.  Happy New Year!  Well, apparently not if you are English.  According to the much of the Press as I write hordes of Bulgarians and Romanians are en route to Dover courtesy of yet another diktat from loathed, lamentable Brussels.  With another wave of immigration likely elections to the European Parliament and the Scottish referendum there are lots of contentious issues in a 2014 that will be a big and possibly disastrous year for Britain.  The impact of these linked but distinct issues is that for the first time in many years the views of the English are suddenly in the political spotlight.  For the past decade and more the English have either been ignored or seen as a lab for some ghastly, failed political experiment in social engineering that destroyed the England I knew.  Five issues dominate the pub – poverty, Scotland, the EU, freedom, and of course immigration.

 

Firstly, England is becoming rapidly more populous but poorer.  The main crutch supporting hyper-immigration has been that it grows the economy.  With the British economy likely to grow between 2.5% and 3% next year there may be some truth to that.  However, with immigration growing faster than the economy the net result is a bigger economy and poorer people, a phenomenon most clearly seen in the rise of youth unemployment.

Secondly, the English have been marginalised in Britain.  Although some 90% of Britain’s 67 million people live in England devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has undoubtedly come at the expense of the under-represented, politically-marginalised English.  Moreover, with Scots contemplating an independence referendum on 18 September Westminster will spend much of the year appeasing the Scots at the expense (again) of the English. 

Thirdly, Euro-scepticism is a very English phenomenon.  The EU is seen as a form of foreign legislative occupation that has failed the English badly costing them far more than they gain.  Brussels is perceived by much of the English population as openly anti-English fronted by a London Establishment unwilling to fight England’s corner.  The English were told that joining the then European Economic Community back in 1973 would strengthen Britain and make the English more prosperous.  Internationally Britain (and by extension England) has been profoundly-weakened by an EU first dominated by France and Germany and now dominated by Germany.  Domestically, by transferring so much funding power to the EU Brussels is steadily replacing London as the decisive locus for decision-making.    

Fourthly, England’s sense of self is being steadily undermined.  Britain was built on ancient English concepts of freedom.  By signing up to EU treaties that fundamentally change the relationship between leaders and led and human rights legislation that fundamentally changes the relationships between rights and obligations belief in the efficacy of representative democracy is fast collapsing in England.  If power is elsewhere what is the point voting for people who cannot actually do anything?  Indeed, the EU is seen by many as an illegitimate, bureaucratic assault on ancient English rights and liberties.  Perhaps the most hated phrase in England these days is “new European regulations…”

Fifthly and finally immigration is again on the rise.  In many ways immigration has indeed been a good thing for England as the best and brightest of many poor societies have been cherry-picked to support an ageing society.   However, immigration has also imported real hatreds, intolerance and criminality into England and has done grave damage to English society.  A close friend of mine is a black community leader in Salford in the north of England.  He told me recently a chilling story about the impact of Eastern European organised crime on his community.  The Yardee gang drawn mainly from the Afro-Caribbean community tried to resist.  A battle for the streets ensued lasting three days before the Yardees were forced to retreat in the face of utter brutality.  London as usual is in denial.

For all that blaming immigration and immigrants for England’s woes is far too simplistic and wrong. Immigration is rather a metaphor for the collapse of trust between the English and an unworldly, failed Westminster political class.  The real problem is the dangerous gap between a political class that has retreated steadily into a private conversation between themselves about fantasy policy, pretend power and political correctness.  Today, the gap between that which politicians say, what they can do, and what they actually do is now a gulf of credibility open to political exploitation. 

However, in his big year for Britain the English must also be clear what it is they want.  The only way for England to be again a self-governing country is to let the Scots go, leave the EU and establish an English Parliament with real power.  And yet many English people are confused, trapped between romantic Englishness, romantic Britishness, failed Europeanness and hard-headed political calculation.  I am no different.  

The English simply no longer believe their politicians have their best interests at heart…and they are right!

 

Julian Lindley-French

The Battle of North Cape

Alphen, Netherland. 26 December, 2013.  Seventy years ago today one of the most important and least known naval battles in history took place.  At the height of the Second World War the German battle-cruiser KM Scharnhorst ventured out of a Norwegian fjord to attack a British convoy en route to Murmansk, Russia.  She was ambushed and sunk by the Royal Navy in what was the first ever use of synchronised computers, radar and heavy guns.  In the perpetual dark of the December Arctic the Battle of North Cape was the last exclusively battleship-to-battleship gun duel in naval history and in effect the dawn of the guided missile age at sea. 

 

On 25 December the Scharnhorst had set sail from Alta fjord under the command of Konteradmiral Erich Bey with five Narvik-class destroyers in escort to attack convoy JW55B.  Little did Bey know he was sailing into a carefully laid British trap.  Supporting the convoy over the horizon steamed Force 2 comprising the heavy battleship HMS Duke of York under the command of Admiral Sir Bruce Fraser, together with the light cruiser HMS Jamaica and four destroyers. Critically, HMS Duke of York was armed with ten fourteen inch guns and equipped with the latest radar technology.  Directly supporting the convoy was Force 1 comprising a heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk armed with eight eight-inch guns, two two light cruisers HMS Belfast and HMS Sheffield, and four destroyers under the command of Vice-Admiral Robert Burnett. 

At 0900 hours on 26 December the Scharnhorst, shorn of its destroyers unable to cope with the mountainous seas, engaged Force 1.  Twice during the subsequent hours Burnett anticipated Bey’s moves and beat the Scharnhorst off even though the British cruisers' guns were no match for the eleven inch guns of the German battle-cruiser.  Critically, during these early engagements Scharnhorst lost what limited radar capability she possessed.

All this time HMS Duke of York was closing the Scharnhorst.  At 1648 hours HMS Belfast fired star shell illuminating Scharnhorst fore and aft and HMS Duke of York opened fire at the short-range of 11900 yards (10900 metres).  Using her Type 284M radar gunnery control system she straddled and hit the German battle-cruiser with her first salvo.  Thereafter, thirty-one of fifty-two radar-controlled salvoes straddled and hit Scharnhorst.  The Scharnhorst was caught so completely unawares of the British battleship’s presence that her main armament was trained fore and aft.  Petty Officer Godde, one of 36 survivors from a crew of 1968 (11 British sailors died on HMS Saumarez) said later that the first time the Scharnhorst realised she was under attack from a British heavy battleship was when enormous waterspouts erupted around her.  These could only have come from the heaviest of guns.

Scharnhorst used her superior speed to escape the trap laid by an enemy that now numbered one battleship, four cruisers and some eight destroyers.  However, as the range opened between HMS Duke of York and the Scharnhorst so did the plunging power of the British fourteen inch shells.  At 1820 hours a shell plunged deep into Scharnhorst’s vitals and destroyed No. 1 boiler room drastically reducing her speed to ten knots.  Scharnhorst’s fate was sealed.

Scharnhorst was steadily-overhauled and at 1825 hours Bey sent the forlorn signal “We shall fight on till the last shell is fired”.  By 1850 hours Scharnhorst was surrounded by British ships which were pouring fire into her at close range.  She was pummelled to destruction. 

Admiral Fraser later said that Scharnhorst’s last hour was most distasteful.  However, living up to the honour of the Germany Navy and her own motto “Scharnhorst immer Vorwaerts”, the beautiful German battle-cruiser refused to surrender.  At 1945 hours she eventually sank given the coup de grace by torpedoes from the Norwegian destroyer Stord and HMS Scorpion.  Fraser sent the succinct message to the Admiralty “Scharnhorst sunk”.  “Grand well done”, came back the reply.

The destruction of the Scharnhorst marked the effective end of the challenge of Germany’s once powerful surface fleet.  The German battleship KM Tirpitz lay broken in Tromso Fjord badly damaged by a British midget-submarine attack earlier in 1943.  She would never fight again.  On 12 November 1944 the RAF Lancaster’s of 617 Dambusters Squadron, under the command of Wing Commander J.B. Tait, sank her with twelve thousand pound Tallboy bombs.  Scharnhorst’s sister-ships Admiral Scheer and Gneisenau were holed up in the Baltic and would never again pose a threat.

Relevance today?  Any military worthy of its duty must have high-end military capability that properly combines eyes, ears, speed, firepower and protection.  Scharnhorst sacrificed armour and firepower for speed. However, with her new radar HMS Duke of York negated the very concept of the battle-cruiser proving how quickly military systems can become obsolete as the electronic age of warfare dawned. 

The KM Scharnhorst fought with the professionalism and honour one would expect from the German Navy and which one sees in today’s German Navy.  On the evening of the battle Admiral Fraser said to his officers, “Gentlemen, the battle against Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us.  I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an enemy many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today”.  

This note is in honour of the men of both sides who fought and died in the icy seas off Norway’s North Cape seventy years ago today and the men and women of the modern Royal Navy and German Navy…friends and allies.

The Battle of North Cape was a tragedy of war, but it was war and it had to be fought and won.  The battle is still with us today.  HMS Belfast is moored at peace opposite the Tower of London her guns pointing protectively northwards over the great city. 

Julian Lindley-French

EU Defence: Not Much Ado about Nothing Very New

Alphen, Netherlands. 20 December.  Looking through the usual empty guff about Europe’s role in the world last night’s Joint Statement on the Common Security and Defence Policy  by EU leaders came down to how to afford a few unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and a few air-to-air refuelling aircraft.  As a statement of the strategically-irrelevant it comes straight out of the ‘we only recognise as much threat as we can afford’ school of European appeasement.  European leaders (as ever) avoided the real issues facing European defence: how to afford, generate and organise a full spectrum capability of military forces (affordability); where best to organise them (EU or NATO); and who has control over them (sovereignty)?

 

The affordability question goes to the very heart of Europe’s defence crisis.  Europeans spend around €180bn/$246bn per annum on defence with much of it a chronic waste of European taxpayer’s money.  Indeed, there are nineteen EU member-states that spend less than €4bn/$5.5bn per year and extremely badly whilst 90% of all defence-technological research in Europe is done by just three countries – Britain, France and Germany.  Meanwhile, Russia aims to inject about €568bn/$775 billion by 2022 for new armaments and a more professional military whilst Beijing increased the Chinese defence budget by a further 10% in 2013 bringing defence expenditure close to 14% of GDP (Read this week’s Japanese National Security Strategy).  In other words, if Europeans were in the real world they would realise that something radical must be done to afford Europeans twenty-first century defence.  At the very least the smaller European nation-states must consider defence integration.

However, defence integration raises the second question; should the EU or NATO lead such an effort?  Today, the indivisibility of European defence is a myth.  Different states want different things from different institutions and invest accordingly. One reason for Europe’s military paralysis is that there are European federalists within the European Commission and beyond who see an opportunity to use Europe’s defence to further erode state sovereignty.  Indeed, whilst the European Commission is absolutely right to warn about the inefficiency of the European defence industrial base it is utterly wrong to believe EU control would afford the European taxpayer a more competitive arms industry. 

Worse, only Britain and France retain some commitment to maintaining warfighting power and thus an ability to work with US armed forces.  The need to maintain transatlantic military cohesion has traditionally made NATO the locus for the generation of military power however hard France has tried to replace NATO with the EU.  Sadly, NATO is a busted flush and faced with American disinterest and the Eurozone crisis many Europeans are now clustering around Germany and by extension Germany’s EU.  However, Germany is caught in a history trap; the more powerful Berlin becomes politically the less military. 

It is who has control over future European forces that is ultimately at the heart of Europe’s defence paralysis.  The central paradox of European defence is that remove the sovereignty question and pragmatic progress would be far more likely towards a credible European force.  However, whilst defence integration makes sense from the affordability angle from the utility of force angle it is it little short of alternative pacifism.  The Benelux countries are a case in point.  Belgium, the Netherlands and mighty Luxembourg are deepening defence co-operation but getting the three countries to agree over the actual use of a single force makes crisis management glacial…and thus oxymoronic.

Britain as ever in the EU these days is the outlier.  In 1953 Winston Churchill in rejecting British membership of Europe’s first attempt at European defence integration said, “We are with them, but not of them”.  On Wednesday in a London speech the British Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir Nick Houghton warned about the hollowing out of British armed forces by repeated defence cuts.  One argument in in my January e-book “Little Britain?  Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power” is this; if Britain does not offer a leadership alternative in Europe and properly invest in the influence powerful British armed forces would afford London the British could well in time have join the very European Army it fears.

There is one final irony over last night’s non-event.  Fifteen years ago this month at St Malo Britain and France established a blueprint for EU defence that would have seen the development of a NATO-compatible capability that would have afforded the Union ‘…the capacity for autonomous action”.  If anything Europeans are now further from autonomous action than ever and thus more reliant than ever upon the United States for their defence.  However, the Americans will be busy this century and unless Europeans find a way to generate credible and useable strategic military power – be it organised through the EU or NATO - the real consequence of last night will be a Europe that is to all intents and purposes defenceless.

Merry Christmas!

Julian Lindley-French