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

The Honourable Gentleman

Alphen, Netherlands. 4 February.  Socrates once wrote, “The unexamined life is not worth living”.  Last week in Washington I met the usual coterie of impressive, high-level men and women some of whom I have the honour to call friends.  However, the one truly inspirational figure was a humble cab driver who drove me from my central DC hotel back to Dulles Airport.

 

This honourable gentleman is a Somali-American who left his native Somalia amidst chaos and carnage twenty-three years ago.  He spoke no other language than his local dialect and was faced with a fearful choice – stay and die, or leave in fear.  As he escaped he had no idea when or where he would see his family again, if at all.  Many died, some made it out. 

He is a proud man.  He went first to Germany and then the Netherlands, Britain and finally to the US.  Today this honourable gentleman does not only himself great credit but also reminds one that the US still has the capacity to take the huddled masses that built a great country; something too many Americans too easily forget in these days of decadent decline and faux failure.

My short but inspirational trip came against the background of more suppressed reality emerging from the twilight of failed government.  In London last week a leaked Home Office report (interior ministry) highlighted the massive fraud being committed by EU migrants against the British people with criminal gangs systematically trafficking people into the country and then fraudulently claiming benefits. 

In one case more than 1000 children were trafficked into Britain by a Romanian gang and forced to steal, beg, and commit benefit fraud.  In another case 230 Polish drug addicts and people suffering from mental health problems were “lured” to Britain and tricked into opening bank accounts to fraudulently claim benefits.  The leaked report concludes, “It is clear that criminal gangs exploit the free movement rights of EU citizens in order to facilitate fraud against the UK benefits system”. 

The Romanian Prime Minister recently accused concerned Britons of racism.  Sir, it is not the Romanian or Bulgarian people that concern thinking British people but Romanian and Bulgarian criminals who represent a clear and present danger to an already teetering British society.

This week launching a new report the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmstroem described the level of fraud in the EU as “breathtaking”.  The EU Anti-Corruption Report says fraud costs me the law-abiding European taxpayer some €120bn per annum or twice the annual British defence budget.  As a freelancer struggling to find work I find that figure and the people that steal from me obscene.  However, as the fate of the British report testified rather than deal with the problem governments prefer to hide the fact in plain sight.  It is no wonder the EU and politicians are today held in such contempt.

Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote, “Do one thing every day that scares you”.  As an analyst it would be easy for me to steer clear of the Big I – immigration.  However, it is a matter of the utmost strategic gravity – changing, reinforcing and undermining societies at one and the same time.  As such the consequences of hyper-immigration must be examined analytically. 

Equally, analysis must also be informed by humanity as no-one is any better or worse than anyone else.  We are all the victims and the beneficiaries of circumstance.  Yes, many of our countries have been changed beyond belief in the past twenty years and without our permission.  Yes, we have the right to hold governments and the EU to account for their appalling refusal to recognise the very real social and cultural impacts that hyper-immigration has generated.  Equally, we all of us have a duty to treat each individual with the respect they deserve irrespective of from whence they come.

Today, this honourable gentleman owns his own car and company in DC which he uses to ferry people like me around Washington. With great pride he told me that in his twenty-one years in the US he had never taken a benefit check.  He had done whatever it took to find work and build a life so that he, his family and his community can contribute to modern America. 

The balance all western governments must strike between social cohesion and openness is a devilishly difficult one.  Behind the justified headlines about the negative impact of immigration are many honourable people who come to our respective countries and do indeed enrich our societies and economies.  All and any of us who are rightly concerned about the dark side of hyper-immigration must do so always with that reality in mind.

Socrates might also have written that all lives are worthy of examination in order to make one’s own worth living. 

Thank you, sir. It was an honour and privilege to meet you. 

Julian Lindley-French

Democracy Strangled

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 February.  Democracy was strangled last week in the Mother of Parliaments.  By killing the EU Referendum Bill on instruction of their gutless, Machiavellian political masters in the House of Common unelected Labour and Liberal Democrat peers set out with the express mission to thwart the will of the people.  This is but the latest example of Europe’s steady retreat from democracy as the will of the people is replaced by ‘we know best’ elitism.  The very real and frightening prospect of European autocracy now beckons and the European people must fight it.

 

The hypocrisy demonstrated by Britain’s not-so-great and not-so-good last week was breath-taking.  The whole point of referenda is to put to the people issues of profound constitutional importance that change the relationship between power and the people.  Instead, what has taken place in the EU over the last decade has been a massive shift of sovereignty from national parliaments to the unelected Brussels bureaucratic elite.  And yet, the people have either been denied a voice or their views simply ignored.

In 2005 the so-called EU Constitution was put to referenda in France, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands and all of them said no.  Rather than heed the will of the people the elite simply re-packaged the Constitution as the 2007 Lisbon Treaty and told the people to vote again until they got the answer ‘right’. 

Britain did not even get that far.  Tony Blair had promised the British people a referendum on the draft Lisbon Treaty.  He then promptly broke his word when it became clear the people had profound concerns about handing over so much British sovereignty to Brussels.  David Cameron made the same promise and then retreated using the spurious argument that the horse had already bolted by the time he came to power.

The people were correct.  Thanks to Lisbon over 50% of all ‘British’ laws are now made beyond the compass of the Mother of Parliaments with the phrase “new European regulations require…” a daily reality.  Consequently, Parliament, like so many legislatures of EU member-states is a shadow of its former self with Britain a hollowed-out state that this year could collapse.  Turn out at elections is in precipitous decline partly because there is little point voting for politicians who upon being elected tell the people they no longer control borders, security or much else.

The experience of the Netherlands is little different.  Thierry Baudet, an academic and commentator, gathered 60,000 signatures which was sufficient to trigger a debate in the Dutch Parliament on a popular vote on Dutch membership of the EU.  The Dutch Parliament dismissed the idea of a referendum out of hand.

The irony is that a referendum will indeed take place in Britain this year on Scottish independence.  Permitting only 8.3% of the British people to decide the fate of a country of 65 million people that has existed since 1707 is an obscene caricature of democracy.  Moreover, having conceded to the Scots the right to referendum the systematic denial of an EU referendum is rank political hypocrisy but then the voice of the English in particular is systematically ignored by Westminster.   

The elite trot out the usual nonsense that referenda never answer the question put or are mere comments on this or that government.  They suggest the people can in any case express their views via general elections which involve a whole rag-tag of issues.  Such assertions reflect utter contempt of the elite for the people.

The irony is that the denial of national democracy could paradoxically strengthen the European Parliament and European federalists.  The likelihood is that the current wave of anger with Europe's incompetent leaders will see a huge protest vote in the May elections to the European Parliament.  The emergence of a European Parliament that begins to function like a real parliament complete with a loyal opposition challenging the usual motley crew of rubber-stamp European federalists could see Brussels take on the appearance of a Washington or Canberra. 

However, the rise of Euro-realism and Euro-scepticism in the European Parliament will reinforce the belief that the only debate that now matters is in Brussels (and absurdly Strasbourg) because that is where power now lies.  Holding the EU bureaucracy to account will thus become more important than pointless regard for shrivelled up national parliaments and parliamentarians whose only power it seems is to vote themselves into history and irrelevance. 

The problem is that Brussels would only look like Washington or Canberra.  If the European Parliament were Europe’s real legislature effective representation of the European citizen would be diluted from the current one deputy for every 50,000 people, to one for every 500,000.  Moreover, such are the differences in political culture, language and needs across Europe that the EU bureaucracy would drive a London double-decker bus through parliamentary oversight.

By denying the people a right to a fundamental question on a fundamental issue democracy was strangled last week in London.  In Europe it will not be too long before national democracy exists in form only with the once great countries which did do much to spawn freedom in Europe reduced to little more  than serf-like enablers of Brussels Law.

Julian Lindley-French

Warm Beer Surrender Monkeys

Alphen, Netherlands. 31 January.  On Wednesday evening I was sitting in the Sky Team business class lounge at Washington’s Dulles Airport with a senior French colleague and friend waiting for my KLM flight back to Amsterdam.  We had chewed the cud about a range of matters strategic pertinent to our respective countries.  It was a discussion that was just about as Franco-British as one can get during which he made a comment which for me sums up the Paris view of their London counterparts.
 

The specific issue at hand was Franco-British nuclear co-operation.  My point was that as I could not envisage a scenario in which one country would use nuclear weapons and the other not London and Paris should find a way to co-operate more deeply.  Surely, I opined, we could at least alternate patrols of French and British ballistic missile submarines at times of peace to reduce wear and tear?  British and French nuclear submarines patrol just about the same bits of sea and have almost identical targets. 

His response was to say that whenever France had proposed deeper co-operation the British had backed away.  Nothing too French you might assume in that apart from precisely that – the assumption.  To Paris Franco-British co-operation starts from an assumption that France sets the agenda and it is up to the British to respond.

For Paris that is how it should be. It is the job of French negotiators to get as much for France as is possible in any negotiation.  And, they are very good at it.  The real tragedy is that London lets Paris get away with it.  Indeed, during my years living and working in Paris I saw repeated examples of supine British officials apologising privately for London’s inability to give France all and everything it wants.

Now, I know some senior British officials will read this and say that if I was in the room I would realise how hard they fight for this position or that.  That is not my point and in any case I tend to know what goes on in the room.  British negotiators are master tacticians able and willing to gain or squeeze advantage from the hopeless positions bequeathed to them by hopeless political masters.  London’s political culture is now so defensive that London invariably surrenders the strategic high ground to France from the outset.

Since Britain retreated from the world in the 1960s British ‘strategy’ has been the search for common ground between the US, French and German position on all and anything.  This has been compounded by Planet Whitehall which believes Britain should be in the Euro and at the heart of the EU whatever price Germany and France demand.  The result is that London no longer thinks strategically for itself and is constantly on the negotiating defensive.

This game will be played out today at the Franco-British pub lunch.  Downing Street spin has it that PR-Meister Cameron is going to forcefully try to convince President Hollande of the need for EU reform.  However, Cameron has already said he will support Britain’s EU membership even if France (and more importantly Germany) says ‘non’, as the Élysee has also already said it will.  The warm beer conversation will thus be short.  Dave: “I want to reform the EU so that it becomes more competitive, more democratic and power is handed back to capitals”.  Francois, “Non!”  Dave, “OK then”. 

After the meeting the Downing Street Press Machine will talk of “substantive discussions” and “real progress”.  Strategy-free Dave, who has clearly been captured by his euro-friendly officials, will be told by the Mandarins present that by preventing summit failure he conducted a master-class in diplomacy.  The confusion of strategy, politics and diplomacy is the very essence of Britain’s contemporary weakness. 

In fact, the French position is also as weak today as at any time since the founding of the EU.  The Franco-German axis is hollow to the point of empty, France is far more broke than Britain, Merkel and Hollande do not get on and the prospect of Britain leaving the EU should give London negotiating leverage if only the people do the negotiating believed in the possibility.  Not only do they not believe in Britain leaving the EU but behind the scenes they are telling the French and others that they will do all they can to prevent it.

London should seize what is an historic moment and tell Paris that whilst the future Franco-British strategic relationship is vital - and it is - Paris must work with London if France really wants Britain to stay in the EU and help balance Germany.  Right now, there is not the slightest incentive for Paris to do anything other than say ‘non’!  Indeed, as far as the French are concerned Cameron will either cave in (likely) or Labour will win in 2015 (quite possible) and offer to hand over even more sovereignty to Brussels.

London: home of the warm beer drinking surrender monkeys.

Julian Lindley-French

Little Britain Book Extract 3: The Franco-British Pub Lunch

Alphen, Netherlands. 31 January.  Today is the Franco-British pub lunch, sorry, summit at which defence, energy, space and of course Europe will be discussed.  Therefore, in honour of Prime Minister David Cameron’s infliction of an English pub lunch and a pint of that most venerable of beers Hook Norton on an unsuspecting French President Hollande today’s blog is devoted to an extract from my new book Little Britain: Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power (www.amazon.com). 

 

“The November 2010 Franco-British Defence and Security Co-operation Treaty and air operations over Libya in 2011 confirmed the importance of the Franco-British strategic relationship.  London and Paris share a classical state-to-state strategic defence relationship.  However, Britain’s strategic relationship with France is important and complex in equal measure.  That said it must be of concern to London that Paris was less than complementary about the support it received from Britain for their Mali intervention, even though France seems to have conveniently forgotten France’s unwillingness to support the British where it mattered in Afghanistan. 

 

For all those irritations it is hard to over-state the importance of the relationship.  Indeed, if the strategic utility of NATO depends to a very great extent on Britain’s strategic relationship with the Americans the future of European defence is dependent on the Franco-British relationship. A close strategic partnership with France is clearly in the interest of both countries because of the quality of their respective armed forces.  Recent French operations in 2013 have confirmed that.  The challenge Paris faced when four thousand French troops arrived in Mali in February was complicated to say the least.  Tuaregs had taken control of northern Mali and sought separation.  They were supported by a a particularly nasty bunch of Islamists (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Mujao) who had profited (literally) from the chaos in neighbouring Libya.  To make things worse the Malian Army, or what was left of it, was in meltdown and the country’s political system with it…. 

 

With the conclusion of the first phase of the crisis the political battle for Mali is still to be won.  And, of course, Serval has not stabilised the Sahel as a whole, partly because the West thinks states, Islamists think peoples and not too many strategic implications should be read into Serval.  However, the French military success in Mali should not be under-estimated.  Mali is a big and desolate place and as an example of statecraft France has every right to be proud of Serval whatever happens next, wherever it happens.

 

The lesson for Britain is clear.  Britain and France must together work to build on the putative Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF) concept and collaborate to being real military substance to both NATO 2020 and the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The need is pressing.  As the failed December 2013 EU defence summit demonstrated the European defence effort is woefully inadequate and can only resolved by either structural increases in defence expenditure (unlikely) and/or much greater unity of strategic effort and purpose leading to deep defence synergy (necessary).  For some of the smaller NATO and EU members that will mean defence integration that begins in the tail but reaches towards the teeth end of armed forces (desperate).  Fifteen years on from the St Malo Declaration Britain again must seek common strategic cause with France.

 

The relationship with France will also be vital in rendering NATO fit for purpose.  However, for France to overcome its latent suspicions of NATO, Paris will expect deeper British political investment in CSDP.  One aspect of that relationship will be British support for the strengthening of the EU as a homeland security hub across the European security space.  Indeed, if NATO is once again to become the strategic military sword and shield of the Euro-Atlantic Community, the EU should transform itself into a security hub better able to provide civilian protection of the European homeland through improved and enhanced resiliency.  The EU must also provide a credible political option for leaders so that European forces can be used effectively under a European flag.  This would better enable political leaders to feel confident in taking pro-active offensive action together when deemed necessary.  The flag a force operates under is almost as important as the force deployed in a complex place where politics and insecurity are one and the same”.

 

As for the pub lunch it is perhaps reflective of the political problems the relationship faces that today’s summit is the first time that such an event has taken place in two years.  The strategic logic for co-operation is overwhelming.  However, a political gulf still exists between the two countries over the future orientation and direction of the European Union.  Nothing that takes place today in an Oxfordshire pub is likely to change that.

 

Plus ça change, plus la meme chose?

 

Julian Lindley-French

The State of the Alliance 2014

Washington DC, 29 January. “Our alliance with Europe is the strongest the world has ever known”.  As President Obama delivered his fifth State of the Union address the failing snow gave Washington a sense of unusual calm.  As the President spoke I was at a private dinner with General Jean-Paul Paloméros, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Transformation just a few hundred metres/yards from the Capitol.   Yesterday I discussed NATO with senior Americans and Europeans in preparation for the September NATO summit in Britain.  What is the state of the Alliance?

 

In September 2012 in a speech in Latvia I established for NATO the Riga Test which sets a benchmark for the Alliance; how safe do Rigans feel?  In his address President Obama said, “Our security cannot depend on our military alone”.  He is of course right.  However, security in the twenty-first century will be equally reliant on strong and credible North American and European militaries backed by political and strategic unity of purpose generated by a strong Alliance.

There was the now usual nonsense from the European elitist Left.  Europeans no longer trust or need America.  NATO will not die but will fade away.  The future of Europe is the EU.  In fact, with EU Europeans now spending an average of 1.36% of GDP per annum on defence (and doing it very badly) Europe is more not less reliant on an over-pressed America.  Too often too many in Europe’s elite act like security junkies who are in denial about their addiction to free-riding.   

Back in the real world one senior American called NATO’s September summit “a genuflection moment”.  Yes, we can continue down the path of cynicism and allow our collective war fatigue and depression to set what passes for ‘strategy’.  Yes, President Obama is right; a whole range of influence tools will indeed be needed to manage global security and America will need alliances with partners the world over.  Yes, there are a range of issues which NATO should not seek to engage, such as climate change.  And yes a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership will be equally important.

For all that Alliance leaders must seize the moment and the opportunity September offers at what will be NATO’s first truly strategic summit of the century unfettered by operational pressures.  If our leaders rise to the occasion and set the course towards a future transformative Alliance then the summit will succeed.  If instead they tick the box of pretend success in Afghanistan then the summit will fail the people of the Alliance and indeed their future.

For that to happen the leaders of my own battered old country who will host the summit must rise above their obsession with the politics of the moment and as US Secretary of State Dean Rusk once said, “For God’s sake act like Britain”.  I have been struck on this visit by the lack of respect senior Americans have for Britain and the sacrifice of my own men and women under arms in support of America.  I have also been struck by the failure of British diplomacy to convince Washington of Britain’s determination to be a serious ally in a dangerous world.

Why does this matter?  Seventy years after D-Day the Alliance is still founded on the US-UK strategic relationship and that in turn needs a strong Britain.  Yes, France, Germany and other Europeans are vital US allies but without a strong Britain the very cornerstone of the Alliance is weak.  Equally, NATO itself must understand its position in the West, no longer a place but an idea, and in Washington which leads a changing America.  To do that the Alliance must aspire again to be essential to Americans in an American-centred world-wide security web. 

However, America must also change tack.  The most moving moment in the State of the Union address was the rightful tribute President Obama paid to disabled Veteran and US Ranger Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg.  There are Sergeant Remsburgs across the Alliance and beyond struggling to build a life beyond sacrifice.  Make no mistake these young men and women left their homes from Riga to the Rhondda to go and fight in support of America.  Americans need to understand that and make a much greater effort to acknowledge their sacrifice too.

“Nothing worth achieving in life is easy”, President Obama opined.  As in life so in strategy.  With a world getting more military not less, a world with dangerous frictions many on Europe’s doorstep the need for a strong Alliance is again strategically self-evident.  Call me old-fashioned, and I know some of you will, but the world is a safer place when the West is strong and at the centre of a strong West is a strong Alliance.    

Getting NATO through strategic rehab will not be easy but it starts in Wales where leaders must openly and publicly retake their vows to each other, our Alliance and of course the good people of Riga.

Julian Lindley-French

NATO: The Future of Western Military Power

Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. 27 January.  I am sitting in the lounge at Schiphol Airport en route to Washington to speak at the CSIS-NATO Transatlantic Forum on the future of the Alliance.  This is fortuitous…for NATO and the Americans.  It is about time Washington was again subjected to the Yorkshire world view. In the way these things are done in London the Ministry of Defence last week ‘leaked’ a report.  It is not clear if this was an official or not-so-official leak but the message was interesting and speaks volumes about Britain and the wider West’s future military posture.

 

The report suggests that Britain’s ever-expanding kaleidoscope of ethnic minorities have a problem with British troops tromping around their former/current homelands in the way British troops tromp.  Therefore, the report suggests, future British operations will no longer be based on the kind of big footprint one saw in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

To be frank this is one British change that cannot be pinned on immigration.  The massive bulk of the population, most senior officers and even strategy wonks like your faithful Blogonaut find it difficult to see how sending a small force a long way for a long time into a hopelessly complex political space makes strategic sense.  This is simply another of those moments when the common sense of the British people regardless of ethnicity trumps the tortured policy logic of Planet Whitehall.

In my new book Little Britain (www.amazon.com) my chapter on Britain’s Future Force calls for a radical rethink about the role and nature of force and its relationship with a changing world and changing society.  It also informs much of what I am going to say in Washington about NATO.

By 2050 most serious analysts (Exxon Mobil, CSIS, International Energy Authority, Goldman Sachs and Citibank) foresee a major shift in power from west to east.  To my mind it is exaggerated but it does at least point to a hyper-competitive and instable 21^st century.  It is a future that will not only see the littoralisation and urbanisation of the world population but also the emergence of peer military power competitors.  Indeed, the military expenditures of China, Russia and other powers are burgeoning.   

For military planners this implies a radical assumption check. First, the use of force to change societies will become almost impossible even if the friction generated by societal change will increase.  Strategic security and human security will be clearly one and the same.  Second, good old-fashioned geopolitics will make a stunning comeback and with it Machtpolitik and Realpolitik. Third, technology will mass-multiply force.  However, given the nature of future operations it will need to be intelligent force.  Fourth, political will and global stability will inseparable.  Europeans will not assure security by sticking their heads in the Brussels sand and hoping change beyond Europe ignores change in Europe.

Small Western militaries in a huge cross-dimensional strategic space will need a single strategic mind-set overseeing strategic operating practice via connectivity and interoperability.  Given that assumption the West’s future force will need to be organically-joint and able to reach and dominate across air, sea, land, cyber and space.  And, given the balance to be struck between strategy, technology, manpower and affordability the core force will need to be small, intelligent and demonstrably lethal.  Equally, the force will need to be strategically and intellectually interoperable across government, with allies and partners and much more deeply embedded within society.

Forces that can simply operate to a very limited extent at the lower end of the conflict spectrum to the effective exclusion of all else will soon be obsolete – much like the Dutch military today.  Indeed, by sacrificing both capacity and capability even that limited low-end aim is now unachievable for the Dutch and many European forces.  Rather, the West’s future force must be built around a tight high-end military capability that can credibly engage to prevent conflict, to stop conflict and if needs be act as a strategic conventional deterrent.

By hook or by crook that is where the British are going – and partly why I wrote the book.  The British Future Force will be constructed around two large aircraft carriers.  They will be central to future task groups that can offer power projection and political discretion at one and the same time.  They will be platforms run by the Royal Navy but from which both the Royal Air Force and the British Army will operate.  They will also act as force hubs for colaitions. Critically, if the radical new concept of the Reserve Army can be made to work the Future Force will be plugged into wider society enabling a rapid surge of capacity if a high-end crisis develops…as it could.

NATO should look hard at the British experiment.  NATO is not the EU.  It is a politically-realist, hard-edged politico-military alliance built around worse-case scenario planning.  Future NATO must therefore be considering how best to generate and command the West’s future force via a hard-nosed analysis of the post-2014 world. 

Many think the withdrawal from Afghanistan is the end of NATO’s test.  In fact it is just the beginning.

Julian Lindley-French