Scotland and the Crisis of Big Power in Europe

Alphen, Netherlands. 17 February.  Rabbie Burns once wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”.  It is hard to see but Scotland and Switzerland are linked.  Both are small countries in which a significant part of the population is seeking self-determination in the face of big and ever more distant power.  In Switzerland’s case it is against the distant behemoth the EU has become.  In Scotland’s case it is against the British State.  What has happened over the past week has demonstrated just how nervous big power is about government for the people, by the people and of the people and on that issue alone I am a Scottish nationalist.

 

In a carefully co-ordinated attack Britain’s three main political parties said an independent Scotland would be denied the pound sterling.  Yesterday, the President of the European Commission said it would be “difficult, almost impossible” for Scotland to join the EU.  Now, I am no fan of the Scottish Nationalists and their efforts to destroy my country but I am a democrat who believes that power should remain as close to and as closely linked with the people as possible. 

That is why I like Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy Leader of the Scottish Nationalist Party. She is bright, articulate, personable and honest and a breath of fresh air compared to the many truth dodgers and weavers in the Westminster Village.  For Sturgeon Scottish independence is not some misty-eyed nationalist fantasy courtesy of Mel Gibson bouncing around the Scottish Highlands in a skirt trouncing historical fact as he goes.  Independence is about re-establishing the lost link between people and power destroyed by a Westminster Village indifferent to the needs of the people and a Brussels elite obsessed with the creation of a distant new country called ‘ Europe’ nobody wants.  Indeed, her emphasis on political principle distinguishes Sturgeon from her Little Scotlander boss Alex Salmond.

So, why does Scottish independence scare big power?  There are two essential reasons both of which reflect the growing power of distant executives over parliaments and peoples.  First, Scottish independence would not just wipe out a 300 year old country and a 400 year old union.  Separatism would also gravely undermine London’s authority over England, Wales and Northern Ireland and raise fundamental questions about the governance of the British peoples.  Second, Scottish independence would reinforce the wave of democratic nationalisms sweeping across Europe as a consequence of elite incompetence and the deepening democratic abyss.

Sturgeon’s demand that a democratic relationship between power and people be re-established is made more acute by the disrepute into which both the Westminster Village and Brussels has fallen. Only last week Westminster quietly dropped a provision to permit local constituencies to recall an MP if their behaviour was no longer deemed appropriate.  This was a clear commitment made in the wake of the MP expenses scandal. 

In presenting the British people with a fait accompli Deputy European Commission President Vivien Reding said in London last week that 70% of all Britain’s laws are now made in Brussels.  She also said the unloved and unvoted for European Parliament is now the strongest legislature in Europe.  No-one told the British people that a consequence of EU membership would be the utter emasculation of the Mother of Parliaments. 

Now, in a sense the Scottish Nationalists make it easy for big power by presenting an absurdly rosy picture of Scottish independence and nor should they be surprised the British State they are seeking to destroy is fighting back.  Take the proposed currency union.  It is totally unfair of the nationalists to expect the British taxpayer to underpin and guarantee the debts of an independent Scotland.  At the very least the British people should have a say over Scotland’s continued use of the pound sterling and the fiscal and other liabilities they could incur in the name of an independent Scotland. 

However, it is not Scotland’s future liabilities what worries London.  Indeed, the Scots represent only 8.9% of the British economy and 8.3% of the population and currency union would actually ensure de facto British control over an ‘independent’ Scotland.  Of greater concern to Westminster is that Scotland’s departure from the UK would increase calls for an English Parliament to represent England’s 58 million or so people in the same way the Welsh Assembly represents the 2 million in Wales, and Stormont the 1 million in Northern Ireland.  

Therefore, rather than do tawdry big power deals with the European Commission London must offer a new political vision; a Federal Britain.  A Federal Britain in which London would retain control over federal taxation and the currency, as well as foreign and defence policy.  A new English Parliament would be established, naturally in York the ancient capital of Roman England and my own native Yorkshire.  Crucially, the Bank of England would be renamed the Federal Bank of the United Kingdom.  A Britain that looked more like America, Australia or Canada would actually furnish Westminster with far more political legitimacy to seek the repatriation of powers from Brussels that is the next big political struggle.

The simple fact of political life is that whatever happens in the Scottish referendum on 18 September Scotland will remain a relatively small rock stuck on the end of a hugely bigger England at the windswept margins of a broken Europe.  The facts of power, people and geography will produce in effect the same result - independence-lite or devolution max. 

As an Englishman proud of the Scottish blood coursing in his veins the departure of Scotland from the United Kingdom would be one of the saddest days of my life.  However, as a democrat I would support the will of the Scottish people.  Scots deserve to be offered a far better vision by big power than Borg-like ‘resistance is futile’.  Like the rest of us they need a new vision of a twenty-first century United Kingdom in a re-democratised European Union - a new vision for a new country in a new century in a new Europe.

Nicola Sturgeon has at least put that agenda on the table and for that alone I am grateful to her.

Julian Lindley-French

Little Britain? (www.amazon.com) Book Extract Five - Asserting British Influence Over Strategic Change

Britain could still be a powerful player on the world stage if it so chose.  According to the CIA World Factbook 2013 Britain has an economy worth $2.48 trillion serving a population of 63,181,775.  France has an economy worth $2.60 trillion serving a population of 65,350,000.  Germany, on the other hand, has an economy worth $3.4 trillion serving a population of 80, 399,300.  As a comparison, the United States has an economy worth $15.68 trillion serving a population of 316,391,000, whilst China has an economy worth $8.23 trillion serving a population of 1,353,921,000.  In terms of purchasing power parity, Britain is the ninth richest country in the world and Europe’s second richest after Germany.  Moreover, according to the web-site Global Firepower, Britain ranked fifth in global defence spending in 2012, with the US having spent $689.59 billion, China $129.27 billion, Russia $64 billion, France $58.24 billion and Britain $57.87 billion.
 

In other words, Britain cannot hide from power and the responsibilities it imposes.  Therefore, Britain has every right to aspire to have influence over other states, if the security of the British state and its citizens is to be assured in a complex environment in which state power will remain the main driver of change and competition in the world.  As Britain is an architect of the contemporary state-centric international system, the meaningful, robust and durable stability of that system should be the necessary goal of British influence.  Equally, the institutions of systemic governance, most notably the UN, but also relevant regional institutions, must also be reformed if they are to be effective instruments for managing stability and stable change rather than expensive talk shops.  Strange though it may seem given the financial crisis, it is precisely this moment when Britain must seek to assert maximum influence over change.  For Britain to assert such an influence role, demands of Britain the policy, strategy and organisation worthy of such an ambition and the political will to seize the moment. 
 

Harvard University’s Professor Joseph Nye described national or grand strategy as the organisation of large means in pursuit of large ends.  Clearly, Britain still possesses a significant amount of that most important of strategic commodities - influence.  However, influence is as nothing if the ends of British strategy become estranged from ways and means.  That makes any call for an ambitious British strategy seem, on the face of it, perverse.  One can only imagine the tut-tutting and head-scratching response of tired, senior practitioners in a London worn down by political uncertainty, financial constraints and diplomatic and military over-stretch, not-to-mention the eternal bureaucratic infighting that, in the absence of firm political leadership, is Whitehall today.  A London today that does not know where Washington ends and Brussels begins.  However, it is precisely the danger of this moment and what it portends that makes such a call for a decidedly British strategy not only necessary but also timely. 
 

Part of London’s problem is that it sees avoidance of conflict as a strategy in and of itself, particularly if it means conflict with allies and partners.  However, as Sir Lawrence Freedman states, “…strategy comes into play where there is actual or potential conflict, when interests collide and forms of resolution are required.  This is why strategy is more than a plan.  A plan supposes a sequence of events that allows one to move with confidence from one state of affairs to another.  Strategy is required when others might frustrate one’s plans because they have different and possibly opposing interests and concerns”.

Looked at from across the ages, the need for strategy is even more pressing.  In 1562, John Hawkins sailed to the Americas at the dawn of a new strategic age for England.  Britain may well now have come to the end of that unparalleled strategic adventure which started with Hawkins’ 1598 battle with the Spanish at San Juan de Ulloa.  If that is indeed the case, the consequences will be profound and not just for the British.  There is a strange but compelling symmetry to British history.  The true age of Empire began with the 1607 arrival of English and Dutch settlers in what eventually became the United States.  Britain’s two hundred year domination of the seas can be dated to the 1713 signing of the Treaty of Utrecht that saw Gibraltar ceded permanently to Britain.  In 1815, Britain’s supremacy was confirmed by Wellington’s final victory over Napoleon at Waterloo.  In 1914, the First World War broke out and, in spite of British victory in 1918, the long slide of decline was set inexorably in place.  Will 2014 and a possible Scottish secession from the Union mark the true end of Britain as a strategic power?  The jury is out.
 

Julian Lindley-French

Le Rapport Spécial?

Alphen, Netherlands. 13 February. When asked at the Franco-American summit this week if France had replaced Britain as America’s special friend President Obama replied that it was like asking him to choose between his two beautiful daughters.  President Hollande replied that France and America had helped each other win freedom and that France was America’s oldest ally – against Britain.  In so doing President Hollande ignored the many tens of thousands of British soldiers lying dead in Commonwealth war cemeteries across France who also died for France’s freedom.  President Obama ignored the many thousands of British soldiers killed and maimed supporting American policy this past decade.  Clearly, Britain’s relationship with the US is being downgraded by this administration whilst France’s relationship is being upgraded.  Why?

 

1.               Washington has a very short memory.  All that matters to the Americans is what you are doing for them today not yesterday.  Yesterday in Geneva a senior NATO official asked me why it seemed France was able to do far more with its armed forces today than Britain.  Simple.  The French were not in Iraq and refused to commit fully to Afghanistan.  There are still 8000 British troops supporting the US in Afghanistan.  Moreover, the British armed forces have been seriously denuded over the past decade giving full support to the US in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. 

 

 2.               Paris has successfully manipulated the British Parliament’s wise rejection of last summer’s deeply flawed American 'neither one thing or another' limited strike against Syria for which France offered full support.  The US is also supporting French operations in Mali for which Britain has only offered some modest logistical support and a training mission. 

 

3.               The Obama administration does not like Britain very much.  Some of the serious heavy-hitters in the Administration from the President down really believe that the future special relationship is with an EU led by Germany and France.  Britain – Euro-sceptic in Chief – is seen as a troublemaker for not bowing to the ‘inevitability’ of further European integration.  Indeed, the Americans are quietly trying to force British compliance.

 

4.               Washington today simply fails or refuses to see the fundamental issues of political and democratic principle that Britain is fighting for.  They are blinded by the belief that a ‘USE’ would be a kind of putative USA, rather than the inward-looking, neo-pacifist bureaucratic, dogmatic and intransigent institution which no American would ever begin to consider legitimate.  The coming treatment of Switzerland will be proof of that.

 

5.               France, whilst utterly frustrated with current EU defence still believes the future is European.  The EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy is utterly stymied and unlikely to lead soon to either a reformed or improved European defence effort.  Therefore, for the time-being a France also worried by the growing influence of Germany over the European project is signalling a move towards the US and NATO.

 

6.               London completely miscalculated and under-estimated the impact on Washington of the military-slashing 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review.  To the Americans it signalled a determined British retreat from influence which an Anglophobic administration was all too happy to seize upon.

 

7.               The whole concept of a ‘special relationship’ was and is over-blown.  There was a moment during World War Two when the Anglo-American relationship was special.  However, after the war the Americans were ruthless in their treatment of Britain, particularly over the repayment of war debt.  Over time the ‘special relationship’ simply became a fig-leaf the Americans offered British leaders to mask Britain’s rapid decline.  There were moments when the politics of London and Washington aligned, such as Reagan-Thatcher in the 1980s.  However, the ‘special relationship’ is today little more than a metaphor for Britain’s poodleism. 

 

So, a rapport spécial?  Non!  First, France still believes that the future of Europe’s defence should in time be European and focussed on the EU.  Second, France refuses to see NATO as anything other than an alliance of last resort that should only be used for collective defence.  Third, when a Republican administration eventually returns it could well be that the politics of London and Washington become re-aligned.  Fourth, with a confirmed defence investment budget of £160bn/$261bn the British will re-invest far more in defence than a France trapped in the Eurozone. Moreover, excluding France the British defence investment plan is bigger than the rest of NATO Europe combined.

 

The real lessons for London, Paris and the rest of Europe are this; abandon romantic notions of a special relationship/rapport spécial with the Americans.  Yes, European allies will still have value to the Americans as a pool of democratic legitimacy for American action.  However, the real test of any relationship with and for the Americans will be the extent to which an ally offers an increasingly Asia-Pacific focused and over-stretched America hard support.  And, if London plays its current cards right and stops retreating both in political mind and fact within a decade the only real military show in Europe will be a British show.   

 

Power is what influences Washington – nothing more, nothing less.

 

Julian Lindley-French

No Power to the People

Geneva, Switzerland. 11 February. Such is the wrath of power!  Following Sunday’s vote here in Switzerland to re-impose restrictions on free movement of peoples and since I posted my blog yesterday I have been inundated by emails and texts from the more EU at all and any cost lobby and members of the European establishment.  They have routinely denounced the Swiss accusing the people here of xenophobia, racism and stupidity or a combination of all three.

 

Some of the emails have been downright hysterical.  A few suggested that any block on the road to further European integration will see the start of a long slide back to general European war.  What utter alarmist tosh!

Yesterday I spent part of the day talking to people and monitoring the Swiss Press.  Yes, some of those who voted for the restrictions are clearly xenophobic and I am sure not a few are plain racist.  An examination shows a clear split between town and country and between the Swiss German, Swiss Italian and Swiss Romande cantons.  Equally, many of the votes appear to have come from across the political spectrum which suggests many cast their vote because of very legitimate concerns about identity, accountability and trust.  .

What seems to have been the most powerful motive for many was a sense Switzerland is sliding towards EU membership by the back door – all the obligations with few of the benefits.  

The simple truth is that millions of people across Europe see the EU like some form of giant jellyfish hovering over their lives with dangling tentacles that ensnare them in ever more onerous European regulation.  They instinctively feel that harmonisation is leading to de-democratisation. 

Given the Eurozone crisis they believe the EU makes them poorer, less secure, less free and ever more subject to the whims of a political and bureaucratic elite over whom they have no control. 

In fact, much of that is untrue but by no means all of it.  The EU does excellent work protecting people across Europe from the excesses of unscrupulous government and rapacious external states.  And, there is no question that failed national politicians too often blame Brussels for their own incompetence.

However, rather than dismiss such concerns as the raving reflections of a bunch of Swiss backwoodsmen and women European leaders must start to engage we the European peasantry and our concerns.  Sadly, there are too many high apostles of European integration actively out seeking their European federal fantasy. 

One of the many messages from this complex vote is that the EU should return to basics and focus simply on ways to support the member-states to make Europeans wealthier, safer and more efficient - period . 

It is the twin issues of identity and accountability that has driven many perfectly decent Swiss people to vote the way they did.  Those twin issues are the core of concerns of millions of Europeans across the Continent.

The European elite spent yesterday acting true to type uttering muffled but clear threats about the dire consequences Switzerland now faces because of its democracy.  Instead, they should come down off Mount Brulumpus, get out amongst the peoples of Europe, and start to really listen to their concerns.  Only then can they explain how and why the EU is good for all Europeans.  Indeed, if there was one unifying factor in the Swiss vote it was the rejection of elite arrogance and indifference.

Like it or not the Swiss people voted the way they did.  And even though Switzerland is not an EU member the vote matters.  Instead I fear it will be dismissed as irrelevant and/or inconvenient.  There is of course a way of avoiding such annoyances.  Simply scrap democracy and never ask the people anything.  Democracy is after all so messy and causes power such inconvenience.  When you in the elite do that could you at least answer one question for me; for what did my grandfather risk his life for in World War Two?

Julian Lindley-French

Switzertand: Power to the People

Geneva, Switzerland. 10 February.  Genevois philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote “Free people, remember this maxim; we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost”.  As I write this I am looking over stately Geneva as it embraces Lac Leman under a grey dappled sky.  Yesterday, exercising the right of direct democracy the Swiss people here voted by a margin of 50.3% to 49.7% to re-introduce curbs on the free movement of peoples agreed a decade ago with the EU. The implications are profound because the vote is really about who gets to decide and where. 

 

The vote now instructs the Swiss Government to re-introduce immigration quotas, to limit rights to asylum and to restrict the rights of families of foreign workers to live in Switzerland.  Swiss citizens must again be considered for work before a foreign national.  The motivations of those who voted for the break with the EU, for that is what it is, were motivated by factors felt deeply by people in many EU member-states; the destruction of identity and social cohesion by hyper-immigration and the under-cutting of labour markets.

Why does the vote matter?  Switzerland unlike the UK is part of the so-called borderless Schengen Area, which is at the very heart of the principle which underpins the EU; the free movement of people under Article 3c of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. By voting to end unfettered free movement between Switzerland and the EU the Swiss are in effect voting to leave Schengen.  And, by so doing they have established a principle of popular rejectionism that will resonate across Europe.

How Brussels responds could decide the future direction of the EU.  At its heart is a fundamental issue of democracy and the relationship between the people of a state and their obligations under treaties signed on their behalf with an EU that is slowly morphing from international institution into a form of government.  To that end by transferring power through treaty from a state to EU institutions the importance and influence of the national voter has been progressively diluted.  The Swiss yesterday effectively said enough.

Brussels counters that by saying the European Parliament exists to prevent a democratic deficit because as a directly-elected chamber it provides effective political oversight.  For the Swiss that is irrelevant because they are not a member-state and have no members in the European Parliament.  Even for the citizenry of the EU the Parliament is regarded as an illegitimate talk-shop for over-funded and by and large irrelevant minor politicians for whom only a very few Europeans ever bother to vote. 

No doubt hushed conversations will already be taking place between Bern and Brussels over the need for a second referendum at some as yet unspecified date to give the Swiss people the chance to get the answer ‘right’.  However, if those who run the EU are intelligent they will stop and pause as to the reasons why the Swiss people voted the way that they did and accept that the EU is truly at a crossroads between more or less ‘Europe’. 

To do that Brussels must come down from Mount Olympus and start to listen.  Everywhere I go I hear the same message from perfectly decent thinking and frustrated people.  The EU is a distant power that imposes itself on me.  The EU is forcing unwanted change on my society and threatening my culture.  The EU makes me poorer, more insecure and less free.  The EU never listens to me.  The EU is only for the powerful.  It is not my EU.

Now, I have just spent the weekend with a close friend of mine who is a senior Commission official based here in Geneva.  He objects to much of this and even the idea that a European elite exists.  My assertion as such is simply a factually incorrect cliché. To my mind such views just reinforce the gulf that exists between millions of citizens and those perfectly decent but detached people who spend their lives in the Brussels institutions.

The Swiss may indeed be a special case but the reasons for the vote are not.  If the Swiss are treated with respect and some adjustment made to their relationship with the EU acceptable to the people then some power will at least have been reinvested in them.  If the Swiss are made an example of as a lesson to the British and others about the price of dissent then Europe is on the rocky, downhill Swiss alpine road away from liberty.

Swiss Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga said, “This has far-reaching consequences for Switzerland…and our relations with the European Union”.  The consequences go far beyond that.  Once, just for once, it would be good to see those in power be it in Brussels or EU member-states asking themselves why the people feel as do they rather than tell them yet again they have simply got it wrong.

It is called democracy.

Julian Lindley-French

Little Britain? Book Extract 4 - The Ends of British Strategy

The ends of British strategy require the generation of the maximum possible capacity and capability to achieve maximum possible influence as part of an overarching British strategic concept as enunciated and elaborated by British security policy.  This of course begs several very large questions. Capacity and capability should certainly be geared to the ends sought.  To that end strategy must also strike a balance between effectiveness and economy – cheese pairing simply leads to a waste of reduced resources.  One of the many nonsenses of official Britain today is the oft-heard notion that in the absence of overt threat there is nothing to plan for.  Friction is the stuff of today’s world and strategy informed by sound strategic judgement is more not less important.

 

Up to World War Two, British strategy traditionally combined a well-honed policy mix of power, pragmatism, national cohesion and power projection.  Britain was for a long time a key enabler of sound and balanced strategic engagement, even in the midst of previous domestic crises.  The system worked.  British society can still produce the creative strategic talent to prosper in the world of the twenty-first century.  However, to do so, Britain’s leaders must first break out of London’s dangerous short-term mind-set if the country is to properly conceive strategy and policy relevant to the challenges posed by the twenty-first century. 

 

That will not be easy.  General Sir Nick Houghton warned in a December 2013 speech of what he called “a creeping aversion to risk in the employment of our [British] armed forces”.  He said such aversion had “…multiple origins – politics, society, the media and the Armed Forces themselves”.   With the connivance of a risk-averse political leadership much of British society has been lulled into a strange almost child-like state; at one and the same time uncertain and uneasy and yet in many ways disengaged from their own security.  In the absence of an elite consensus on strategy there is no honest debate with the people about the aims, costs and responsibilities of security, which is dangerous in a democracy and particularly so given Britain’s many challenges. 

 

Sound national strategy can only be fashioned via a partnership between government and people.  Such a partnership must be informed and with government unwilling or unable to trust the people with the fact and extent of Britain’s many challenges that partnership today has weakened to the point of fracture.  The result is a dangerous paradox; by attempting to maintain the illusion of security, it is only a matter of time before the fact of its absence results in the kind of shock which could see the partnership between political class and people broken beyond repair.  

 

Furthermore, if London is to shape the choices of others, a conscious national effort will need to be made and that will mean a Britain with the necessary power to be attractive as a partner.  The need for partnership is important because Britain will continue to bear a great burden of strategic security responsibility for the foreseeable future - too powerful to hide, and yet too weak to lead – the worst of all strategic positions for any country to occupy in international relations.  Therefore, London has no alternative but to properly organise and aggregate British influence at home and abroad.  However, generating influence will demand of London a clear idea of the ends of British strategy, allied to a sober debate with the British people about the dangerous world into which Britain is moving. 

 

The world in which Britain must compete is one in which there are powerful, undemocratic states emerging, the leaders of which are legitimised not by democracy but rather by the maintenance of economic growth.  Being the proxy target of choice for those angry with the United States, Britain must also cope with a world of mass movements in which the technologies of mass destruction are becoming ever more accessible to ever smaller and more dangerous groups.  Indeed, in many respects, this age will be defined by mass disruption and haunted by the possibility of mass destruction.  The crafting of British strategy worthy of the name will thus only be possible through a clear, elite understanding of the realities that must be confronted, the necessary end-states sought, and the costs and impositions the British people must expect.  In other words, what Britain needs is a far better understanding of the what, the why, the where, the when and the how of British interests, i.e. a distinctively British strategic concept.

 

Julian Lindley-French

Mother Germany

Alphen, Netherlands. 6 February.  One of the many clichés and myths that provide the pitted pillars of Europe’s contemporary security is that Germany is an economic power.  In fact, for twenty-five years and more Germany has invested billions in European stability and security.   In his first ministerial speech to the Bundestag and during this week’s visit to London new German Foreign Minister and SPD leader Frank-Walter Steinmeier signalled a new “active foreign policy”.  The speech highlighted Germany’s three essential places’: Germany’s place in the world, Germany’s place in Europe, and Germany’s place in history.

 

Germany’s place in the world: “In light of the millions of people who are victims of conflict or civil wars today…in light of the millions of people who might be forced to flee their countries because of these conflicts, [I believe that] what has often been written in recent years…about the declining status…or even the insignificance of foreign policy is not only insupportable but also quite cynical”.  Reading between the lines Steinmeier shifted the balance between power and policy. 

He said that German policy will remain anchored firmly in a humanitarian foreign policy via legitimising institutions with a clear focus on conflict prevention.  However, by suggesting Germany will seek more ‘responsibility’, i.e. influence he reinforced Berlin's determination to legitimately instrumentalise the EU in pursuit of German policy goals.  And, by accepting that soft power must be underpinned by a credible modicum of legitimate military power Steinmeier  confirmed Germany 's return to power normalcy. This is an important shift.

In balancing ends, means and ways Berlin is also seeking to instrumentalise the UN.  With Germany ever more influential in talks with the likes of Iran over its nuclear ambitions Berlin is fast becoming a virtual permanent member of the UN Security Council.  Logically, Berlin would in time welcome a permanent EU seat on the Council to replace the individual memberships of the British and French and a special relationship with the US but getting to both will be difficult.   

Germany’s place in Europe: “Pursuing a policy of military restraint is the right way; but it must not be mistaken for a general shying away from responsibility.  Germany has become slightly too big and has too much influence in Europe to adopt this kind of strategy.  If an influential country does not take part in seeking solutions to international conflicts, they will not succeed”.  Europe today needs German leadership.  However, Berlin is not so much leading as mothering Europe. 

To the Berlin elite ‘Germany’ and ‘Europe’ are pretty much one and the same thing.  Berlin’s challenge is somehow to extend German influence, organise the fiscal disciplining of the Eurozone around Germany via deeper political and economic EU integration and somehow get the British people to believe in the EU (the British elite have already raised the white flag) and thus stop acting as a brake on German/EU ambitions.  One angle could be a Germany willing to work with Britain and France to make European defence credible and thus boost the 'prestige' of the old powers even as their influence declines.

Germany’s place in history:  “1914 was proof of a failure of diplomacy, a lack of foreign policy and an increased estrangement between states”.  Steinmeier’s comment demonstrated both the extent to which Germany’s place in the world and Europe is still informed by history and the extent to which German policy, strategy and history are still at odds. 

Your blogonaut is a real student of the origins and causes of World War One.  In my time I have written Oxford papers on the matter, consume all and any literature, and I am even considering writing a book on the controversial “Fischer Thesis” (Weltmacht oder Niedergang) which saw a German historian point the finger of blame clearly at Wilhelmine Germany. 

World War One might have been triggered by a “failure of diplomacy” but the causes of it were overwhelmingly German: the unworkability of the Prusso-German constitution; the fear of the emergence of Steinmeier’s own SPD amongst the Prusso-Junker elite, German nationalism (Drang nach osten), fear of an emerging Russia, German militarism and the influence of the Army over foreign and security policy.    

Why does this matter?  First, Germany is not a hegemon and thus incapable of leading Europe without the consent of others. Simply air-brushing truth out of history for political convenience far from strengthening German legitimacy undermines it.  London should of course point this out but Britain’s leaders are either too PC or too supine either to confront strategic reality or Germany’s historical illusions.

Second, implicit in Steinmeier’s vision is again a German Europe.  It is so different from the German Europes envisaged by the Kaiser and Hitler that one must be sensitive in making the comparison.  However, the comparison will be made and Berlin should acknowledge the historical record for what it is not what Germans would like it to be.  Such an acknowledgement would strengthen German leadership because Germany can only lead via a balance of partnerships. Criticism is not ‘German-bashing’, it is simply the price of power.   

To paraphrase E.P. Hartley the past is indeed another country but it is an influential country.  If Germany is to successfully mother Europe it must treat both strategy and history with respect.  If Berlin understands this Germany will find its rightful place in the twenty-first century world.

Julian Lindley-French