The March of the Kippers

Alphen, Netherlands. 13 October.  “If I should die, think only this of me; That there’s some corner of a foreign field That is forever England”.  Watching the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) win its first parliamentary seat last week in England I could not help but be reminded of Rupert Brooke’s century-old requiem for a soon-to-be lost England and his soon-to-be lost self.  The March of the Kippers is a very English political insurgency but no less potent for that.  There are three main drivers of this insurgency: political disconnect between the narrow uber-elite who run England and the people: elite failure and a refusal of the elite to listen to the English people; and the loss of patriotism or any belief in the country at the highest levels of government and governance in England.

Political Disconnect: A clue to the cause and the depth of political disconnect between the uber-elite and much of the English population is apparent in two pieces written last week by Times columnist and former MP Matthew Parris, a fully paid-up member of the liberal London uber-elite.  In a couple of articles stunning in the ambition of their arrogance he called the electorate ‘out of touch’, and advised his uber-elite friends to tell them so.  His shrill chimes rang in unison with those in the London and Brussels Kommentariats who talk about political dissenters such as the Kippers as failed little people left behind by globalisation the voices of whom must be dismissed and if needs be actively marginalised.

 

Elite Failure:  If England was some form of idyll the dismissive howls of an aggrieved elite might be understandable.  However, England today is far from being an idyll.  Rather, it is a rudderless, broken, divided place, a political and social mess that has lost much of its identity in the face of the relentless tide of elite-led immigration and the ghetto-creating multiculturalism that has so undermined social cohesion.

In other words it is the London elite who have failed the people not the people who have failed the elite as Parris implies.  Indeed, it is the same elite who in the space of a generation have allowed the conditions for home-grown terrorism to spawn in England; handed over sovereignty and power to Brussels and denied the English people a promised referendum on the Lisbon Treaty; allowed the banks to bring Britain to its economic knees; lost control of migration and drove down living standards; and who by appalling political miscalculation this year brought the United Kingdom to the point of disintegration.  Indeed, it is the self-same elite who over the past fifty or so years have made just about every wrong strategic decision it is possible to make and thus fulfilled their own self-fulfilling prophecy of absurdly rapid national decline.

First, it is the London and Brussels elites who daily fail the challenge of globalisation.  Critically, they fail to understand that globalisation and Europeanisation as currently conceived are mutually exclusive.  Second, whilst past London elites were just as much ‘out of touch’ as the current leadership they at least had the interests of the country at heart and the power to do something about it.  Today, much of that power has been handed to Brussels.  Third, much of the London uber-elite are part of a new elite European politico-intellectual complex who talk far more to each other than their compatriots.

 

Loss of Elite Patriotism: It is also the self-same elite who privately sneer at the ordinary, decent patriotism of the ordinary, decent folk of England who are now rebelling. Sadly, the very people who run England are the very people who seem no longer to believe in England.  And that includes Parris and many of his elite fellow-travellers in the scribbleocracy.  They think that Little Britain can only survive as part of the ghastly mutual impoverishment pact that the EU has become.  These denizens of exaggerated declinism dismiss those who with no sense of hubris still believe that Britain, the world’s fifth or sixth most powerful economy with one of the top five world militaries, could and should matter and could if necessary forge its own future, forge its own partnerships and build its own alliances.

Indeed, it is the dignified quiet patriotism of millions who still believe in their country that the intellectually all-over-the-place uber-elite simply do not get so lost have they become in their theoretical ‘isms’ and ‘ations’.  Yes, many of the ordinary people now voting in huge numbers for Nigel Farage are no doubt to quote Parris “intellectually all-over-the-place”.  Some of them are no doubt the ‘Little Englanders’ belittled endlessly by the self-satisfied ‘liberal’ London uber-elite.  Some of them may also be guilty of the racism with which the politically-correct elite love to charge anyone with legitimate concerns about the social, political and cultural impact of rapid, uncontrolled hyper-immigration.

 

However, many millions of England’s political dissenters are also decent, ordinary people who feel let down by their political overlords and rightly so and who are finally breaking out of the political docility which the elite have for too long exploited.  People now willing to challenge directly the many dangers to democracy, identity and indeed security that to all intents and purposes unaccountable elitism has created.

 

But, here’s the political rub.  In England these ‘little people’ might well be close to forming a majority precisely because of uber-elite failure and that will in time matter.  London and indeed Brussels better realise that and quickly.  However, so long as the London and indeed Brussels elites continue to dismiss the Kippers and their like as the errant, ignorant voices of a few political Luddites, political troglodytes who cannot be trusted with ‘reality’ then England’s political insurgency will not only grow it will spread across western Europe.

Surrounded by self-interested ‘Special Advisors’, bombarded by special interest groups and daily in receipt of ‘research’ that tells them what they want to hear the London political elite too often content themselves that their warped picture of society is in fact reality.  In such a world the people become sheep that can be bought off with political placebos (ever more spending on the National Health Service), lied to (immigration and Europe) or simply insulted.  Parris calls UKIP political “parasites” even though millions of his compatriots vote or indicate they will vote for UKIP leader Nigel Farage.  By so doing Parris implies that millions of voters are parasites too and that by definition they are parasites on his uber-elite.

 

It is my firm belief that in time a new England will emerge.  However, experience suggests it will do so because of the good, decent, ordinary people of England of all creeds, races and orientations.  And it will most likely happen in spite of London’s failed uber-elite.

Julian Lindley-French

The Euro has no Defence

Deepest England, 9 October.  This week the IMF declared “Among advanced countries, the United States and the United Kingdom are leaving the crisis behind and achieving decent growth”.  Indeed, the IMF expects the UK economy to achieve “sustainable growth” of 3.2% in 2014 and 2.7% in 2015.  At the same time the IMF has cut deeply its growth forecast for the Eurozone, most notably and most worryingly the three biggest Eurozone economies; France, Germany and Italy.  There is no schadenfraude here in Britain (well not much) because a strong Eurozone is clearly a British interest but there is deep concern.  Leaders are doing nothing to resolve the inherent contradictions of the Eurozone.  It is again politics at the expense of strategy and the implications are terrifying. 

The enormous scale of the challenge faced by the Eurozone is put into stark relief by the contrast in fortunes between the Euro-free British and the Eurozone.  The French economy is slated by the IMF to grow by no more than 0.4% this year, mighty Germany is now downgraded from 1.7% to 1.4%, whilst the Italian economy has not grown in real terms since the creation of the Euro in 1999 and is again contracting.  Worse, the IMF suggests there is a 40% chance of a triple dip recession in the Eurozone and a 30% chance of deflation.  The ‘best’ way to prevent deflation according to the IMF is for debt-laden Eurozone governments to flood their economies with even more debt.  That will only lead to stagflation and the worst of all Euro-worlds, a chronic mix of economic stagnation and inflation. 

This wholly EU-made mess has been caused by a cacophony of disastrous decisions.  First, the creation of a currency was a political project rather than a shared financial instrument established on sound economic and fiscal fundamentals.  Second, a one-size fits all interest rate policy for wildly divergent economies first stimulated insane borrowing and now prevents competitive devaluation by weaker economies locked into the Euro.  Third, the Stability and Growth Pact implied a set of rules rather than imposed them.  Fourth, the refusal of big states to observe those rules when politically inconvenient, as France has again done this month by missing its 3% debt-to-GDP target has undermined by the credibility of the currency and its governance. 

Worst of all few of the vital structural reforms have been enacted that would make weaker economies with over-regulated labour markets more competitive.  Indeed, several Eurozone countries simply lack the political stability or sufficiently strong political institutions to cope with such reforms.  The consequence is that taxpayers such as me in a few formally rich countries such as Germany and the Netherlands are bankrolling the Eurozone crisis whilst its leaders fiddle the books to give the appearance of a solution to the crisis where there is none.  Locked into their own inaction Eurozone leaders vaguely hold out the prospect of world growth as the panacea for all the Eurozones many problems.  It is not therefore not without some pathos if not indeed tragic irony that the IMF also makes clear that the greatest threat to world growth remains the Eurozone.  In truth the Eurozone could well be trapped in a near-zero growth no man’s land for at least a decade with leaders simply trying to mask the extent of their own failure from their increasingly irate, ever more unemployed and eventually impoverished voters. 

Nor are the consequences of such failure merely academic or economic.  This week a 1200 page report by auditors KPMG and lawyers Taylor Wessing came out on the state of the German armed forces.  Its main conclusion is that after years of cuts and under-investment the German armed forces are in no position to undertake any new assignments.  This deplorable state of affairs reflected poor project management and delays in equipment delivery which imposed extra costs now totalling €50bn or 66% of the entire German defence budget.  Germany has pledged to provide 60 Eurofighters to support an ally under attack.  In fact Germany has difficulty deploying 6 aircraft or half a squadron.  However, the core of the problem is the eternal Eurozone crisis. 

Indeed, the plight of the German armed forces is reflected if not magnified across the Eurozone as austerity and zero growth bite into government budgets.  To maintain core services such as health and welfare defence budgets are being raided in countries across the Eurozone.  The consequence is that Europe’s security and defence is ever more at risk. Moreover, with no end in sight the Eurozone crisis is now placing NATO and indeed the wider transatlantic relationship at severe risk of collapsing. 

The EU today is a mutual impoverishment and insecurity pact precisely because to all political intents and purposes the EU and the Eurozone are one and the same.  The hard truth is that the Euro cannot survive in its current form and yet the choices leaders face are to say the least stark.  1.  Deepen the political and economic integration of the Eurozone at the expense of its member-states and democracy.  This will cost an immense amount of taxpayer’s money, will almost certainly trigger a Brexit and increase Europe’s strategically-inept self-obsession.  2. Split the Eurozone up into a core area of fiscally-strong economies focused on northern and western European states and allow states such as Italy to return to their former currencies so they can competitively devalue.  This will also cost an immense amount of money as the new/old currencies would need to be underpinned by an EU fund to soften the social impacts of leaving the Euro. 3. Simply end the single currency.  That would mean an end to the European Project beloved of the elite and would also cost an awful lot of money.  Given the difficulties of all three choices Eurozone leaders will instead adopt the Merkel Approach and do next to nothing.  In time that option will prove to be the most expensive of all.

For the Euro to be fixed its power-brokers need to realise that the Euro itself is the problem.  If not the Euro could destroy Europe.

The Euro has no defence.

Julian Lindley-French 

Defeating IS Starts in the Mind

Somewhere in Deepest England. 7 October.  Humanitarian Alan Henning died a hero at the hands of Islamic State (IS) thugs this weekend.  He died as he lived trying to reach up and over a deepening cultural and religious divide.  It is a divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in European societies that IS is ruthlessly exploiting to attract alienated young people in Western societies to their cause, and to further destabilise Western European societies already destabilised by hyper-immigration.  In spite of attempts by politicians to cover their political tracks that divide is nowhere more apparent than here in Britain.

Now, I am no bleeding heart liberal.  Ten years ago I left the Labour Party which I had hitherto supported all my life horrified at the complete disconnect between Tony Blair’s immigration and security policies.  It made no sense to me as a strategist and analyst to send large numbers of British troops to Afghanistan to keep Islamism at bay whilst the government actively encouraged large numbers of deeply conservative Muslims from some of the most traumatised parts of the world to immigrate into Britain.  Sadly, my fears were justified as Labour’s insane experiment in multiculturalism led to today’s ghettos of mistrust and mutual incomprehension that are all too apparent in many of England’s broken cities.

Many Britons of my generation look on aghast at what our once secure country has become and the refusal of politicians to face up to the mess they have made of a society once renowned for its balance.  This disconnect with the ordinary people – both immigrant and non-immigrant - who have to live with the consequences of a failed political experiment and the politicians fighting each other in the out-of-touch Westminster bubble helps explain the rise of parties such as UKIP in England and the SNP in Scotland. 

For all that my job as a strategist is to consider where ‘we’ are and look at ways forward to a better future.  Alan Henning showed us a different Britain which I CHOOSE to hang onto and believe in.  Henning showed us a Britain in which compassion can reach across cultural dividing lines.  That good people irrespective of faith or ethnicity can come together.  He also showed me the need for understanding of communities under intense pressure from fear-fuelled racism and the tensions caused within by trying to preserve traditional cultures in a country that has abandoned so much of its own.

Here in deepest England there is much talk of quick fixes.  “Send in the SAS”, one man said to me.  “They will sort out ‘Jihadi John’”, the man believed to be responsible for the murder of several Westerners captured by this murderous group.  Not only is such a plan unworkable such action in and of itself will not even begin to deal with the challenge to regional and world order that is Islamic State.  No, the best way for all of us to confront Islamic State is to honour Alan Henning and the many other victims of IS by reaching out to each other and to actively march across the divide that separates us and which IS exploits. 

As I sit here and write this I am remembering the Muslim cleric who stood in front of IS forces as they took Mosul and pleaded for the lives of his Christian fellow Iraqis.  He was martyred for his courage.  My thoughts also turn to the young British Muslims who serve their country in the armed forces, in the police and in a whole host of other ways that offer a picture of hope rather than the despair that so many indigenous English people now feel about their society and their country. 

In recent days I have spoken to Muslim friends.  They feel they are under siege from quiet but forceful distrust, even hatred is very English here in England.  They are blamed for acts which they detest as much as the rest of us and feel trapped in a no-man’s land between cultures and identities.  There is no future at all for such a society.  

The simple truth is that IS and their fellow-travellers, including the irreconcilables in British society, will never be defeated by RAF bombs, ever more liberty-sapping counter-terrorism laws or ever more freedom of speech killing racism and hate laws.  IS will only be defeated by strong societies built on mutual respect and tolerance which is organised, established and integrated on the fundamental values of liberal-democracy.  If any group rejects liberal-democracy then they have no place in British or indeed wider European society.  Therefore, finding an accommodation between Islam and liberal democracy is now the challenge for Government and governance not just here in Britain but across Europe.  Indeed, the rejection of liberal democracy is after all the rallying cry of Jihadism and which is causing so much tension within Muslim communities within Britain.  

In the wake of Alan Henning’s murder Imams across Britain stood up to condemn IS.  In so doing they honoured Alan Henning by offering a bridge to the rest of a society of which British Muslims are now an important part. The greatest defence against Jihadism will be the creation of a liberal-democracy in which the millions of decent, patriotic and law-abiding Muslims can feel comfortable and welcome.  Such a goal will be a challenge but it is by no means impossible because it is the very idea of freedom for which many people came to Britain.

Yes, my old Britain is dead but long live the new Britain in which mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual tolerance act as the strongest of shields against radicalisation and fanaticism.  

Alan Henning showed in his simple but righteous life that defeating IS begins not just at home but in the mind and demands of all of us the need to reach out and beyond our own prejudice.  That includes me.  The strange thing is that once we are start speaking to each other as a conscious effort to build the new society it might be far easier than many of us think.  Just make the effort, for Alan.

Julian Lindley-French

Brexit: Why the British will get the Scottish Treatment

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 October.  Those of you who are regular victims of my musings will know I am a pro-European Eurosceptic, i.e. I believe deeply in close co-operation between European states and I am implacably opposed to democracy-destroying, freedom-frying, liberty-lacking European federalism in which power is ever further removed from the people.  No sooner has the Scottish referendum been sorted (for now) than the battle over the Brexit referendum has recommenced.  Indeed, in many ways the Scottish referendum was a dry run for the Brexit referendum and here is why.

There are two lessons from the Scottish referendum which will be pertinent for the Brexit vote when it eventually comes in 2017 or 2022. First, the elite Establishment in both London and Brussels will warn of grave economic consequences for Britain should the British leave the EU.  Second, hard commitments should be exacted from the EU Establishment BEFORE the referendum.   

The battle-lines over the Brexit are already apparent.  This week Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman of WPP a ‘media conglomerate’ (whatever that is), warned the British against even holding a Brexit referendum.  Sorrell’s comments are pretty much the same as those employed by the political Establishment and big business in the week prior to the Scottish vote as the latter threatened to decamp south en masse in the event of secession. 

Now, I know little of Sorrell or his wider views and he may be a model democrat.  However, on the face of it at least his comments appear to reflect contempt for democracy that is apparently shared by many captains of industry and commerce.  The simple truth is that big business does not give a damn about democracy and liberty.

The strange thing about Sorrel’s argument is that it collapses under its own weight.  The EU is the only region in the world that is not growing.  Much of this has to do with EU over-regulation and the political irresponsibility implicit in the economic, financial and fiscal contradiction that is the Eurozone.  And yet Sorrel believes Britain should remain marginal part (in fact the EU and the Eurozone are one and the same thing) of what has become from even the most cursory strategic and structural analysis a European mutual impoverishment pact. 

Given the close relationship between the leadership of the Conservative Party and big business some level of cynicism with Prime Minister Cameron’s promise to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU is not only justified, but entirely healthy.  And yet here is the paradox; Cameron's bid to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU is probably the best chance of a pre-referendum deal particularly if the Brussels-elite can be convinced there really is a chance the British might vote to quit.  

However, for Cameron to succeed he must confront two dangerous contradictions in his own position.  First, Cameron will need to fight less for Britain and more for the principle that the ever onward march to ever closer political union and eventual federation must be stopped.  In this he will find a growing number of allies across Europe.  Indeed, a clever Cameron is about the only thing that frightens the euro-fanatics about the Brexit.  Second, he will need to convince EU leaders that if he fails to get EU reform he will recommend a Brexit.

This is what will happen prior to a Brexit referendum.  Firstly, all talk of ever closer political union will be banned in Brussels.  However, eventual political union will remain the purpose of the EU.  Secondly, the European Central Bank will instigate a short-term re-inflation of the Eurozone economy to give the impression of economic growth.  Thirdly, a sustained campaign would be commenced involving the likes of Sorrell designed to intimidate the British people in very similar ways to the intimidation to which the Scots were subjected.  

Therefore, those wanting real change in Britain’s relationship with the EU should not simply wait for the Brexit referendum that may or may not happen and which may or may not be rigged.  Instead, they should push, cajole and support Cameron to press for real EU reform and help him to construct the necessary Europe-wide alliance necessary if future Europe is to be an alliance of nation-states rather than an EU confederation or federation. 

There is of course a game-changer that would move the goal-posts on a Brexit; the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  A transatlantic free trade zone could permit Britain to join a non-Eurozone super-European Free Trade Area AND permit the Eurozone to pursue deeper political and economic union.  In effect, the TTIP would render moot all the dire warnings about Britain having no access to the EU single market in the event of a Brexit, which would in any case be illegal under World Trade Organisation rules. 

There is also a potentially dangerous twist that those desperately keen for a Brexit referendum should consider.  Any such vote would not in fact be considering the EU of today but the EU of tomorrow.  If the vote in the end goes in favour of Britain staying in the EU then the Euro-fanatics will immediately claim a false mandate for Britain to join the Euro just like Jean-Claude Juncker claimed a false mandate from May’s European Parliament elections to become President of the European Commission.  Indeed, far from protecting Britain’s status as an independent nation-state a referendum could actually hasten its demise and open the door to a truly federal European super-state.  In other words, euro-sceptics beware of what you wish for.  Just food for thought.

Julian Lindley-French

Afghanistan: Ghani or Gandhi?

Alphen, Netherlands. 1 October.  Mahatma Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”.  The swearing in of President Ashraf Ghani as Afghanistan’s head of state this week is an important moment.  It is the first peaceful, democratic hand-over of power in Afghanistan’s history.  No-one should under-estimate the importance of the moment or the achievement for Afghanistan and democracy in a country deeply divided by ethnicity, power and traditions and which is too often consumed from within by elite corruption and a criminal economy.  Equally, President Ghani faces immense challenges.  He came to power in a disputed election and will need to provide leadership Afghanistan has never known at a particularly dangerous moment.  Is he up to it?

President Ghani and I have engaged on several occasions at meetings over the years.  He is without doubt a brilliant man who always impresses and who has an unrivalled understanding of his country and its challenges.  The very nature of our engagement at such events was itself fascinating.  My approach was to look at the challenge of Afghanistan from an unashamedly Western viewpoint.  This is because having looked at Western strategy in Afghanistan and written several big reports on the challenges posed I thought it important to be clear; Western powers were not in Afghanistan out of an act of charity whatever the rhetoric to the contrary.  It was pure, naked national interest that drove the Western powers into Afghanistan and it is the self-same interests which has driven most of them out.

Ghani’s response to me showed his strengths and his weaknesses.  In our exchanges I was always careful to bow to his knowledge of Afghanistan and simply listen.  His love for and his deep knowledge of his country is something to behold.  However, he also suffers from the weakness of conceit shared by many brilliant people.  A very clear weakness evident on several occasions (and not just to me) was his occasionally dismissive belief that he knew about the interests, strategy and policy of my country far better than me.  He was wrong. 

Part of his ‘certainty’ was the natural defensiveness of anyone who is part of the Washington ‘thinktocracy’.  To survive in DC think-tanks one must know everything, all of the time and never be wrong about anything.  However, too often the Ghani lecture (for that is what it was) was not so much an analysis of Western interests as a wish list of his ideas for a permanent Afghanistan-centric Western interest.  This led him to believe that Afghanistan and by extension Ghani himself were and are far more central to the national security of Western powers than was ever the case.

This juxtaposition between leader and thinker, informed and inspired leadership and wishful thinking is probably the place where Ghani’s presidency will succeed or fail.  If he approaches his task as an elevated Washington think-tanker he will fail.  Indeed, as President Ghani he needs to be able to look down upon ideas from the heights of power and great responsibility rather than up at power via a simple exchange of ideas without great responsibility, which is where I live. 

Furthermore, to succeed Ghani will need to achieve and reconcile two almost contradictory missions both of which concern the ‘normalisation’ of Afghanistan as a state.  On the one hand, President Ghani must build on the very genuine sense of nationhood that most Afghans feel irrespective of ethnicity if he is to create a state called Afghanistan that is more than a giant security complex.  On the other hand, President Ghani must deal with the consequences of ‘success’ that ‘normalisation’ entails, i.e. the more normal Afghanistan becomes the less interested the US and indeed other allies will be in Afghanistan and by extension him.

With this week’s signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement with the US and the exemption of American forces from prosecution under Afghan law the security effort to buttress the new Afghan state and Ghani’s presidency has been physically reinforced.  The Agreement means some 9800 US personnel can in principle stay in Afghanistan in a training and mentoring capacity until at least 2024.  This is important.  However, for Ghani to be legitimate in the eyes of Afghans Kabul cannot again become synonymous with force or a protected canton of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).  Indeed, if that happens Kabul will again be seen simply as a Western-imposed distant elite ‘legitimised’ by American, i.e. foreign power.  This is something the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and the many fellow-travellers amongst the tribal and clan leaders will exploit, particularly in the Pashtun lands and quite possibly with the assistance of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence.  If that happens Afghanistan will be cast back not moved forward.

Therefore, the true test of President Ghani will be the emergence of some form of civil society across Afghanistan itself buttressed by the just rule of law.  It will see an Afghanistan further established on an economy that moves steadily away from the cultivation and exploitation of hard narcotics and which is properly re-integrated into the wider regional economy.  To achieve the demilitarisation and decriminalisation of Afghanistan President Ghani will need to stamp down hard on corruption in Kabul and the regional capitals and reach out to Afghanistan’s powerful and troublesome neighbours.  Above all he will need to lead a real government of national unity in close partnership with Afghanistan’s new ‘Chief Executive’ and presidential rival Abdullah Abdullah.  Such a strategy will be at least as important as reliance on his many contacts in elite Washington.  

  

Here is my concern.  My reading of President Ghani is that on occasions he too often allows an elevated ego to cloud a masterful intellect.  Indeed, he has an insecurity about him at times which renders him susceptible to the charms of those who ‘agree’ with him out of self-interest.  The President will need to realize that he cannot be an expert on all things and have the strength to seek wise counsel even if he is an if not the acknowledged expert on how to build a broken state. 

President Ashraf Ghani is no Gandhi.  However, Ghani has it in him to be a truly great Afghan leader if he allows himself to rise to the status of his elevated office (as indeed he can) and yet retain the openness of mind to listen.  There is one thing of which I am sure; President Ashraf Ghani will certainly imbue the Presidency of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with the respect and dignity that the Afghan people need and deserve. 

As Gandhi also said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”.

Good luck, Mr President.

Julian Lindley-French

Stoltenberg’s NATO Challenge

Alphen, Netherlands. 29 September.  Winston Churchill once said, “Civilization will not last, freedom will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them”.  This week Norway’s former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will take over as NATO Secretary-General.  In the wake of this month’s NATO Wales Summit Stoltenberg will face the greatest strategic challenge to the Alliance since the Cold War.  The threat comes not specifically from Russia or Islamic State unpredictable and potentially dangerous though they are.  Indeed, no NATO member presently faces an existential threat.  No, the real threat to the Alliance comes from the members themselves and the steadfast refusal of many of them to see the world as it is, not as they would like it to be.  European leaders bereft of vision and political courage talk endlessly about long-term strategy when they mean short-term politics.  Solving NATO’s strategy conundrum is without doubt the greatest challenge Stoltenberg faces. 

In that light Stoltenberg’s tough job will be no less than to nudge the European members of the Alliance back to a strategic reality in which credible military power is re-established in Europe as the hard rock upon which the twenty-first century influence of a twenty-first century Atlantic Alliance must necessarily be built.  Sadly, all my research shows the exact opposite is happening.  Only four NATO members meet the Alliance target of 2% GDP on defence and if one looks closely at the language of the Wales Summit Declaration few have any appetite to meet it. 

Even those states that nominally spend 2% GDP on defence either spend badly or use accounting tricks to maintain the illusion of upheld defence expenditure.  Take my own country Britain.  David Cameron made much of his commitment in Wales that Britain would continue to spend 2% GDP on defence.  Sadly, like so much of his smoke and mirrors premiership the ‘commitment’ is in fact a political illusion and a mask for further defence cuts.  Senior word from within Parliament tells me that Britain will only maintain the 2% target on defence by including costs hitherto outside of the defence budget, such as nuclear forces, pensions and operations.  As ever with Cameron clever politics masks appalling strategy as in all likelihood should he win the British general election in May 2015 he will move to cut the conventional force even more.  Proof of this is the difficulty the Royal Air Force has had mustering six ageing Tornado aircraft for operations against Islamic State this week and the spin operation by London to pretend otherwise. 

Strategy-killing politics oozes from the many pages of the NATO Wales Summit Declarations and reflects a fundamentally false assumption; that the United States is and will remain the strongest military power on the planet, by some distance and for the foreseeable future.  Yes, the Americans are still the strongest military power on the planet but Washington is mired in debt and uncertainty with the US military facing defence cuts between now and 2020 greater than the combined defence expenditure of ALL the NATO Europeans.  In other words, the great age of unrivalled American supremacy is coming to an end and NATO needs collectively to get its heads around the implications of that.

The terrifying truth Secretary-General Stoltenberg will face this week is that the military balance of military power is shifting away from the West at breakneck speed.  By 2016 Russia will spend more on defence than France and Germany combined.  China, which now spends at least $130bn per annum on it armed forces (and probably far more) has been investing per annum double-digit percentage increases in defence ever since 1989.  President Xi is determined to further increase such expenditures.  Contrast that with NATO Europe.  Thirteen of the world’s top twenty defence slashers between 2012 and 2014 are in NATO Europe.  These are cuts upon cuts for between 2008 and 2012 many NATO Europeans cut their defence budgets by up to 30%.

And yet, if NATO members got their collective act together as part of a twenty-first century transatlantic security contract they could a) help keep the US strong where it needs to be strong – Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific; and b) demonstrate to the world that whatever a state spends on armed force such expenditures will never outstrip those of the West and are thus a waste of money.  To do that NATO and its members will need to look hard at how to generate real efficiencies and generate new strategic partnerships the world to multiply real effectiveness.  That will require a radical NATO.  Sadly, the words ‘radical’ and ‘NATO’ are strangers to each other.

There is one other challenge Mr Stoltenberg will need to consider on his first day in the office – the coincidence of crises.  It is annoying that the Russia-Ukraine War and the threat posed by Islamic State to the Sykes-Picot Middle Eastern order should come at one and same time.  It would be so nice to deal with crises separately and sequentially.  Welcome to the real world.  The future Alliance will rarely be allowed the luxury of choosing crises.  Indeed, the West’s adversaries will do all they can to complicate American strategy (and by extension NATO ‘strategy’) by generating simultaneous crises.

NATO’s bottom-line is this; the United States is the world’s only world power that is present in strength in every world region.  However, to be critically strong in every region the US will need NATO Allies that can act credibly in and around Europe as crisis first responders.  Succeed and NATO will reinvent itself as an Alliance and regenerate itself in the American political mind.  Fail and NATO will simply fade into anachronistic strategic irrelevance and the world will be a very much more dangerous place for that.

European defence irresponsibility has been a major factor in making the world today more dangerous than it need be because it has made the costs of challenging the West’s supremacy both achievable and bearable.  Therefore, if freedom is to be defended Stoltenberg’s first challenge will be to shift the Alliance beyond its false comfort zone. To do that Secretary-General Stoltenberg will need to get the North Atlantic Council to look up and outwards at big strategy rather than down and inwards at narrow politics where so many of Europe’s short-sighted leaders find false comfort.

Good luck, Mr Stoltenberg!

Julian Lindley-French

Fukuyama, Europe, Power and Law

Riga, Latvia. 25 September.  "What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War...but the end of history as such...and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government".  Twenty-five years ago Francis Fukuyama wrote one of those epoch-bending, era-defining articles that caught the imagination of the moment.  "The End of History?" first appeared in the review "The National Interest" in 1989 before being expanded into a best-selling 1992 book.  Fukuyama's book has been much misunderstood ever since, mainly by those who claimed to have read it but never actually did.  Fukuyama was not suggesting the end of events but rather that law would replace power in international relations built on the principles of liberal democracy and peaceful free market competition.  'Law' to Fukuyama represented a series of normative rules and practices by which all states would abide.  Still, twenty-five years on the re-appearance of Macho-politik and Machtpolitik in Europe challenge Fukuyama's thesis to the core.

 

The EU is in many ways the ultimate embodiment of the Fukuyama thesis, far more than his own native United States.  Indeed, it is power versus law that is at the very centre of the clash of cultures embodied in the 2014 Russia-Ukraine War.  On the one side of the clash (much more than NATO) is the EU and its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which was launched amidst much fanfare in 2004.  Central to the ENP is a very technocratic view of international relations with so-called "association agreements" designed to tie states beyond EU borders to the Brussels Way.  Future EU membership is implicit rather than explicit in such agreements with the prospect of copious amounts of EU taxpayer's cash on offer to ease the path of weak states to the east and south of the EU as they 'align' with Brussels via regulation and EU "law". 

 

On the other side of the clash is Russia.  For Moscow whatever the means the EU employs to extend its influence is still a function of  competitive geopolitics and thus a zero sum game in which Russia loses.  To Moscow Brussels might dress up its advances in "law" but ultimately EU expansion is all about influence and power and thus can only be at Russia's expense.  In the recent past Russia rather lamely tried to counter the EU with its own Eurasian Union. However, Moscow's EU has little attraction to those in Russia's "near abroad" who have no wish to find themselves back in a Soviet Union re-born.  

 

The irony is that Fukuyama's thesis is being contested by a Russia that Fukuyama did not predict.  Russia is simply a traditional illiberal power (although it shares many of the hallmarks) but a state that sees itself as a form of hybrid "sovereign democracy".  This confuses other Europeans and helps to explain why 2014 marks the end of the Fukuyama thesis (at least for now).  Such confusion is also reflected in the stark nature of the clash and Russia's very real return to the principles of Machtpolitik.

 

This cold new/old reality was evident in the 5 September abduction of senior Estonian Intelligence officer Eston Kohver who now languishes in a Moscow jail.  All the evidence suggests he was abducted from within Estonian territory by the so-called "Alpha" Spetsnaz team from the Special Operations Centre of Russia's FSB Intelligence agency.  On the face of it Russia's action suggests that Estonia, the most exposed of the Baltic States, might be the next target for the ambiguous warfare Russia unleashed on Ukraine.  Certainly, Mr Kohver will have deep knowledge of Estonian defences and Estonia's working relationship with both NATO and the EU and no doubt that has now been extracted.

 

So, power or law in Europe?  At present it looks very much like Russian power is winning with what is essentially a weak hand given the state of Russian society and its economy. The ceasefire in Ukraine is in fact a de facto acknowledgement of Russian gains.  Mr Kohver, much like the shooting down of MH17, seems sadly to have been confined quickly to the politically-convenient archives of history. 

 

The essential folly of Fukuyama's EU has also been revealed.  In practice Fukuyama's thesis has helped to disarm Europe, politically, militarily and even mentally.  For twenty-five years Europe has played EU legal chess in a bid to fulfil Fukuyama's dictum with a Russia that pretended to play along.  In fact, it was only a matter of time before Russia went back to playing the power poker with which Moscow is much more comfortable.  Moscow's "defection" from EU chess this year has left Europeans simply unable or unwilling to see what is happening, not least because many of them have simply forgotten how to play power poker.  Technocracy does not do geopolitics.

 

This reality was brought home to me in Oslo this week.  I had the honour of addressing the excellent international Army Summit 2014 hosted by the Chief of Staff of the Royal Norwegian Army.  It was a fascinating day.  We talked about defence cuts, interoperability between armed forces, diversity and political correctness and the experiences of the ordinary soldier.  The one word that was missing from the conference was 'power', until of course I rose to speak.  I imagined Churchill alive today and what the great man would have said about Europe's retreat from power into 'law'.  He would have gazed sternly at the audience and in good time and no doubt as politically incorrect as me, the great gravel of a voice would have thundered, "Power is a fickle mistress.  Treat her with respect or she will soon seek favours elsewhere".      

 

It is Fukuyama's relationship with power that causes his thesis to fail. In international relations power is more abiding than law.  In geopolitics 'law' can never be an alternative to power but a consequence of it.  Law needs power and no amount of clever technocracy can replace power.  This is what Moscow understands and 1989 Francis Fukuyama caught up in the Cold War ending euphoria of the moment failed to understand.  I bet he does now. Does Europe?

 

Julian Lindley-French