Hopes and Fears: Do not forget the Western Balkans

Budva, Montenegro. 8 May. A cliché rolls out before me. An assuredly azure Adriatic Sea as still as a millpond murmurs peacefully in its Sunday slumber cupped in a palm of firs on fingers of aged rock. Budva is like much of the rest of Montenegro, a small, beautiful place as breath-taking as it is peaceful. And yet that is not the whole story or even part of it. Yesterday, I saw the best and perhaps the not-so-best of Montenegro. Privileged to enjoy the luxuries of the splendidly-appropriate Splendid Hotel at someone else’s expense, last night I was ripped off royally by a Budva taxi driver. Perhaps it was only fair and I saw it as such. However, my experience brought home to me the reality of this beautiful country and the Western Balkan region in which it resides; so much progress made, so much more to be done.

First, the good news. My reason for enjoying the warm hospitality of Montenegro was to attend the outstanding 2BS (to be secure) conference. 2BS is the vision of my friend Dr Savo Kentera, the brilliant president of the Atlantic Council of Montenegro. Ten years after little Montenegro’s independence 2BS is a jewel in the crown of conferences precisely because it takes place where security really matters. Indeed, viewed from this cradle of Alexander the twin integrations of the Euro-Atlantic and of Europe make absolute and compelling sense.

Three conversations stood out for me on this visit. The first conversation was with President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, President of Croatia. The second conversation was with Professor Milica Pejanovic-Durisic, the Minister of Defence of Montenegro, and the third was with a senior Serb involved in EU accession negotiations. All three conversations conveyed both hope and fear.     

    

President Grabar-Kitarovic was blunt: the Western Balkans, a term she actually dislikes, affords Europe and the wider West two great potentials; the potential for great progress and the potential for dangerous instability. Indeed, President Grabar-Kitarovic was firm in her conviction that regional co-operation within the framework of Europe’s institutions was vital if peace and stability are to be affirmed.    Minister Pejanovic-Durisic was rightly proud of the fact that Montenegro is soon to become NATO’s twenty-ninth member. However, she was also firm in her belief that Montenegro must maintain progress towards EU membership. However, my Serb friend was frustrated that there seems little appetite in Brussels or other national capitals for the political effort needed to bring Serbia fully into the European family.

So, why the underlying concerns? It is something I picked-up on in one of my ‘can we please face reality’ questions at the conference. For some time now I have noticed the Western Balkans slipping from the agendas of security policy meetings where such meetings matter. Rather, there seems to be a tick-box view of the region with the Western Balkans now filed either under yesterday’s problem, or problem solved. This retreat from political engagement has been compounded by the threat posed by IS/Daesh and the twin fatigues; with further consolidation and with further reform. My Serbian friend said quite clearly that the key to regional stability was the establishment of rule of law across the region and the rooting out of the corruption that prevents it. Sadly, support for such a vital effort beyond the region is at best soft.

There has also been a profound loss of strategic vision about the need to integrate the Western Balkans and quickly if unfinished business is not to turn into tragic missed opportunity. To my mind this is most apparent in the ridiculous stalling of Macedonia’s (and I use that name deliberately) relationship with NATO, and the urgent need to implement to the full its Membership Action Plan.  

So, on one hand I leave this beautiful place firm in my concern that we in the rest of the West can take nothing for granted about the Western Balkans, not least because President Putin’s Russia is again trying to make it yet another contested space. Moreover, two critical futures must be resolved; Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. On the other hand, each time I have the honour of attending 2BS I see the progress and the massive change for good that has taken place in this region since it was shattered by war in the 1990s.

They will not thank me for writing this because rightly they both want to be seen first and foremost as effective leaders. However, for me the greatest proof of progress is the fact that both President Grabar-Kitarovic and Minister Pejanovic-Durisic are women. This is because the greatest comparative advantage Europe and the wider West has over illiberal challengers is that society and indeed power is and must be open to all the talents.

Thank you, Montenegro. Thank you, Savo. To be secure!

Julian Lindley-French      

Balancing Germany: The Need for a St Malo 2.0

Vienna, Austria. 5 May. Back in 1998 at St Malo in France Britain and France came together to create a leadership framework for the future of a NATO-friendly EU security and defence. They need to do so again and urgently. A senior French official warned the other day that if Britain left the EU France would be surrounded by herbivores, i.e. countries with no strategic tradition or culture, and no willingness to resort to the hard stuff. Equally, something has to give; Europe’s ‘non-defence’ of Europe cannot go on like this. Forget all the drivel you may have heard about European defence budgets being stabilised. This is what academics call counter-intuitive and what I call a complete load of bollocks. Given the adverse change in the global balance of power if Europeans are to play an appropriate role in their own defence a complex mix of three things must now happen: Europeans must spend more on defence, Europeans must do more defence together, and Europeans must find a better balance between the two. There are two distinct schools of thought emerging about how to achieve such a balance; one German and the other (sort of) British and French.

Let me deal with German ambitions first. Last year German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leye gave a speech calling for the creation of a European Army. In July (conveniently after the Brexit vote) Germany will reveal its plans in a new defence White Paper in which it will call for a European Defence Union (EDU) organised around (and by) Germany. Berlin is already in the process of acquiring the Dutch armed forces, which are well on the way to becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Bundeswehr. There is certainly some logic to this as the Netherlands is fast becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Germany.

However, Germany’s ambitions are not simply about defence.  Indeed, they are part of a wider political stratagem to bolster the EU and impose some form of leadership and discipline at a critical moment in the political evolution of the EU. Look around the EU institutions and one will find Germans carefully inserted into almost all the key posts, often just below the political radar. It is not a conspiracy. Rather, the stratagem reflects Berlin’s legitimate concerns about the EU’s loss of political momentum and the need to hold things together.  

And, at one level of European defence Germany is right. Too many Europeans have become serial free-riders. As the world becomes more tense and dangerous the refusal of Europeans to face up to the hard defence choices they need to make is not only undermining NATO but warping the defence policy of an over-stretched America. Germany is certainly genuine in its desire for a more effective and efficient European defence effort, albeit within the EU framework. 

The problem with Germany’s big defence plan is that Berlin’s ambitions are not reinforced by Germany’s defence reality. Last year the British spent some $58bn on defence, and the French $48bn, but Germany only $36bn. Future defence spending plans show Britain re-emerging as Europe’s leading military power (Russia excluded).  

Moreover, for all the firm rhetoric that will be written into the German White Paper about how modern Germany is willing to use force if needs be, Germany remains essentially and instinctively a defence herbivore rather than a carnivore. In other words, German leadership of European defence would ensure Europeans remain a herd of cows, rather than a pack of fast-hunting wolves.

The Dutch are proof of that; once carnivores, now herbivores. Indeed, at one time one of the most robust and Atlanticist of the smaller European powers, the Dutch were willing and able to deploy forces at the sharp-end of military operations.  Today the Dutch armed forces have been reduced to what in effect is a small but expert group of peacekeepers, with a few Commandos and Special Forces thrown in to keep the Americans sort of happy.   

    

The cruncher is this; if Germany becomes THE framework nation for driving forward European defence there may well be in time more Europeans under arms than exists today, but they will not be able to do very much. Indeed, the very idea of a European Defence Union is to a large extent counter-bollocks. For such a ‘Union’ to work one would need either a European Government or a German Empire, neither of which is desirable nor practicable. Certainly, an EDU would do little to assuage American concerns about a lack of burden-sharing and thus do little to reinforce NATO.  

And here’s the ultimate paradox; much of the rationale for an EDU in the German White Paper will be for enhanced European crisis management that may in time lead to the formation of a European Army. However, in the absence of a ‘Government’ i.e. a unitary decision-maker who can decide quickly how and when to use such a force, it would probably never be used for crisis management, and only used during an existential crisis for which it was not designed.

Implicit in EDU is a recognition that Britain and France have lost control of European defence and its development. Brexit has not helped. But here’s the thing; it is power that drives defence planning not rhetoric, but Britain and France need to get their strategic act together.  Indeed, not only is there a need for a St Malo 2.0 to ensure Britain and France re-exert their influence over European defence, should Britain leave the EU the need for a St Malo 2.0 will be even greater. And, should Britain remain in the EU a St Malo 2.0 would also be vital in saving Germany from itself by helping to re-establish the political power balance on which Europe is still founded and which German plans for a German-centric EDU threaten to render unstable.  

It is therefore time for a St Malo 2.0.  Now that is real counter-bollocks! Anyone for more grass?

Julian Lindley-French      

America First: The Trump Doctrine

“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”.

Lord Palmerston.

Alphen, Netherlands. 2 May. If one wants to understand the Donald J (‘J’ for Julius?) Trump world-view one had better be armed with an MBA rather than the international relations degrees I hold. Trump’s 27 April “America First” speech was less foreign policy and more the kind of doctrine beloved of American presidents since Harry S. Truman in the late 1940s. As one would expect European policy wonks went into dismissive over-drive. The current mantra of much of the European policy herd is that anything Trump says must be by definition dumb. Rather, I have considered the provenance, the content, and the implications of Trump’s world view as seen possibly from the White House next January.

First, let me deal with the title; America First. Perhaps it was an unhappy accident. After all, it is a natural political leap for a populist, rabble-rousing, nationalist of the political Right to call for America first in the midst of a US presidential campaign. This is not least because it implies that President Obama has put everything but America first and that Hillary Clinton would do likewise. If no accident then the Trump Doctrine harks back to the America First Committee established on 4 September 1940, almost a year to the day after the outbreak of World War Two in Europe. The committee comprised hard-line isolationists desperate to keep the United States out of what the group saw as another European ‘civil’ war.

However, to my mind there is little evidence in the speech that Trump was aware of the historical irony of adopting America First.   There are many current accusations against Trump that stand up to evidential analysis, but isolationism is perhaps the least weighty. No, to understand how Trump sees the world it is vital to understand the man and the group from which he hails.

Donald J. Trump is a New York businessman, an entrepreneur, a risk-taker and deal-maker. He is most decidedly not a member of the Washington policy establishment, and certainly not a member of the Washington foreign policy establishment. Read the speech and it becomes rapidly apparent that Trump sees foreign policy as an extension of business; a series of transactions in which the powerful succeed because they are by definition smart and ruthless, and the weak must accept both their place and their fate.

Professor Mary Beard in her fascinating new history of Rome makes a comment about Caesar Augustus that could equally apply to Trump’s world-view today: “The emperor’s did not make the empire, the empire made the emperors”. Trump is a business emperor and his empire has made him. He has succeeded in business precisely because he understands the space between power and weakness and how best to exploit it and the billions of people who live in that space.

Therefore, President Trump would have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies. And, whilst Trump uses the ‘love’ word a lot, he ‘loves’ only to the extent that an ally is an ally (i.e. a supplicant) and for how long. Consequently, there is absolutely no room for sentimentalism in Trump’s world-view, no shared values, no special relationships, and no historical worth. A President Trump would be willing to be friends with anyone who supports his power, and an implacable, ruthless foe of those who do not. Critically, he would be utterly dismissive of those who seek to sit on a fence between the two, which is where much of the European elite would seek to ‘hide’. Equally, if a foe sees the error of his or her ways and accepts Trump First then a Trump presidency bear no grudges.

That is why a Trump presidency would likely endeavour to re-kindle the ideas of Viscount Palmerston at the height of British imperial power the chimera of which still lingers in some parts of the British and American bodies politic. As such he would define the American interest in the same way any successful hard-bitten New York businessman would; as an extension of himself. That is why unlike Ronald Reagan there are no members of the Washington foreign policy elite on his team to soften the edges of the Trump Doctrine.

Trump’s hard-edged world-view is also why so many European commentators are bleating. Trump would bring to an end the comforting transatlantic relationship as Europeans have come to know it. That is what Trump clearly implied in his disparaging remarks about NATO. Indeed, to Trump Europe is evidence of all that is wrong in his mind about socialised, welfare junky European state. To Trump Europeans are an inefficient, free-riding, ‘socialist’ drag on American leadership and thus would not fit to be either a partner or an ally of his America. To Trump the EU is a failed ‘business’ led by yesterday’s ‘men’ unable or unwilling to cope in the twenty-first century world, constantly asking the American taxpayer to foot a security welfare bill so Europeans can continue to live a life they can no longer afford.  

Furthermore, by focussing on the Trump Doctrine many Europeans hope that a President Clinton would be ‘better’ precisely because she would allow them to continue in their free-riding ways. She would not. Even if she wanted the coming Congress would not let her. Yes, she would be softer in her rhetoric. However, she too has little time for a Europe that wallows in its copious self-delusions.

The ultimate irony of a Trump Doctrine would be the absence of one. A presidential doctrine is traditionally linked to American grand strategy; the organisation of America’s immense means in pursuit of global ends. Instead, the foreign policy of Donald J. Trump would be more akin to a form of super-mercantilism, a series of iterative trade-offs for marginal gain.

Therefore, to understand the Trump Doctrine all one need do is add the missing bit to last week’s speech. The title should have read; America First, China Second, Russia Third, Europe, maybe, Fourth.

Europeans had better start thinking about how to do ‘business’ with a Trump White House. If not, we’re fired!

Julian Lindley-French

   

Brexit: Dear Christopher...

Dear Christopher,

As a Europhile, EU-sceptic the decision I have made that Britain remain within the EU is an on balance decision to do with all the issues I laid out in my blogs; the survival of a politically-fragile UK, British influence over the big change that is coming in Europe, Britain's need to lead the anti-federalists within the EU (there are many), the existence of the constitutional lock that prevents further transfers of sovereignty, Britain's history as Europe's common-sense power balancer, the nature of the threats we all face from the likes of Russian and IS/Daesh (and the vital need for strategic unity of effort and purpose to confront them), and the coming battle over the new Treaty on European Union. 

Democracy: If we cede the field to the Euro-federalists at this critical moment in Europe's history they will win. This is why many of them want us to depart. We can only stop what I believe to be an historic mistake if we remain within the EU and do what England/Britain has done since the 16th century - stop misguided, self-interested, far-distant uber-elites from imposing a grand dessin which shields them from the 'inconvenience' of democracy. Yes, Cameron achieved little in his efforts to achieve EU reform, primarily because he sought a poliical fix to a political problem of his own making. However, the issue of, and need for EU reform is very real. Moreover, the reform process is only just beginning and Britain must help lead the fight to return the EU to the nation-states which remain the foundation of political legitimacy in Europe. And, by so doing honour the mass of people who regard the nation-state as THE focus of power, identity and representation. 

Governance; Again, Cameron's sadly typically smoke and mirrors 'reform' effort masked another struggle; the coming fight between those of us who believe that most European nation-states have matured and no longer pose a threat to themselves and others (my view), and those who believe Europe can only be saved from itself if the state is scrapped (the Obama view). Europe is on the verge of a new political struggle over governance, legitimacy and efficiency that Britain cannot and must not turn away from. 

Sovereignty: We will not protect our sovereignty by turning away from the EU because left unchecked the euro-federalists would impose another form of 'sovereignty' upon us. No, to protect our sovereignty Britain must remain within the EU to fight for the principle of shared as opposed to transferred sovereignty. Specifically, that means fighting to ensure the European Council remains the pre-eminent and only truly legitimate body of the EU. Therefore, Britain needs to be engaged to prevent the ubercrats of the Commission, the European Court of Justice and their fellow travellers from wilfully misinterpreting the treaties for federalist convenience and then using the legitimacy-lite, rubber-stamp European Parliament to provide a fig-leaf of faux legitimacy.

Power: Given Britain's slow relative re-emergence as an, and possibly in time THE, economic and military power within Europe the way politics works is such that whether Britain votes to stay or go Britain will end up to my mind in pretty much the same place - the leader of the non-Euro Europeans. This power role will be vital for Britain to play in the coming intergovernmental conference about the new political settlement without which the EU will be unable to function and which will be the best guarantee of both political accountability and a return to political balance.  Indeed, it is the absence of that balance in the EU between the Eurozone and non-Eurozone which has led to the Brexit referendum and of which it is a symptom. 

Leadership: Too often Britain's incompetent political and bureaucratic elite blame the EU for their own failings, and indeed their own lack of belief in Britain. The Scottish question became a crisis not because of the EU but because successive British governments withdrew from the world role a top five world power should play and eroded the institutions that help forge British national identity, most notably our armed forces. Critically, locked into the short-termism of London they failed to understand that the very idea of Britain is based on the world role Britain has and must play. This monumental failure of political leadership has been further compounded by a Whitehall bureaucratic elite who routinely seek to gold plate EU legislation to prevent proper parliamentary oversight and scrutiny. The result is a country that far from punching above its weight in the world, after what is a tired and utterly misplaced mantra, now punches far beneath it, be it in Brussels, Washington or elsewhere. This weakness was apparent again last week in the needy, fawning body language evinced by Cameron during the Obama visit.  Indeed, the people who pose the real danger to Britain are Britain's own elite Establishment precisely because of its lack of belief in Britain, lack of ambition, and the lack of strategic imagination from which the Westminster/Whitehall bubble suffers. 

Finally, I like your optimistic belief in our great country which is one I share. However, I believe we must fight with others to reform the EU AND fight our elite to re-establish a belief in Britain that will once again forge a sense of national pride, confound the secessionists, and with partners and friends enable us to carry the principled fight for a democratic Europe.  Britain can lead that fight and win it if we the British, together with our many admirers desperate for us to again lead, have the courage and the determination to engage in it. 

Therefore, right now, given the issues, given the moment in British and European history, given the dangers we face, given our history, and given who we are, I am committed to remaining within the EU to change it, to reform it, and to give the Euro-federalists hell in the coming fight for Europe. Indeed, my mission is a simple one; to return the very idea of 'Europe' back to the people where it rightly belongs. 

I hope that explains my position and thank you for a clarification of your own Eurosceptic position.

All best,

Julian     

NATO: End Europe’s Ten Year Rule!

“Great empires are not maintained by timidity”

Tacitus

Rome, Italy. 27 April. History does not repeat itself, but patterns of power certainly do. The classical Roman Republic prior to the first century BC was absolutely no democracy in the contemporary European sense. However, compared with the subsequent Roman Imperium the Republic enshrined at its core a system for limiting power; both of those who were ‘elected’ to lead it, and more particularly the power and rights of the Roman legions that served it. On Tuesday I had the honour of giving a speech at NATO HQ in Brussels about my latest and of course utterly brilliant book – NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2015. In fact, it was less a speech than an appalling two-footed tackle with studs showing on self-deluded Alliance leaders for which I should, and probably have, received an immediate red card.

As I spoke I was struck by a profound sense of Yogi Berra-ness – déjà vu all over again. Many years ago at Oxford I wrote a thesis about British policy and the coming of World War Two. As part of my research I was given access to all the Downing Street Cabinet minutes covering every day for a decade or so prior to and during the war. What struck me yesterday was this; the response of the British Government to the rise of Nazi Germany bears a striking similarity to the response of contemporary European democracies to what Winston Churchill would no doubt have called the latest World Crisis.

When Adolf Hitler became German Chancellor in January 1933 the attitude of London was one of indifference. The British were far too busy trying to fix their broken economy mired as it was in the Great Depression. Indeed, the government of Ramsay MacDonald was simply too focused on the economic crisis to properly consider a possible new threat to the European and world order. After all, the League of Nations existed to prevent such a challenge, didn’t it?

However, within ten months, and the failure of the Disarmament Conference, the British began to realise they had no choice but to consider the possibility of another major European war. In October 1933 the Committee of the Imperial General Staff finally laid to rest the so-called Ten Year Rule, whereby British policy stated that there was no need to plan to fight another major war for at least a decade.  

Furthermore, in February 1934 Britain launched the Rearmament Programme. This initiative would lead in relatively quick order to the warfighting force that prevented Hitler from winning World War Two. Spitfire and Hurricane fighters eventually emerged from the ‘Programme’, as did a re-equipped Royal Navy, and a war-proofed industrial base. However, it was RAF Bomber Command which would become the focus for much of the Rearmament Programme. One obsession of the 1930s was the widely held elite belief that the bomber would “always get through”. On the night of November 14^th, 1940 515 ‘light’ Luftwaffe bombers attacked the British city of Coventry. On the night of May 31^st, 1942 1000 RAF ‘heavies’ blitzed Cologne. The creation of that massive British force dated back to a decision taken in 1934.   

     

Which brings me back to NATO today. Much of my presentation concerned NATO’s forthcoming Warsaw Summit in July.  Ahead of the Summit there is apparently some ‘good’ news – NATO Europeans have stopped cutting their defence budgets. First, if that is all there is to celebrate the Alliance is in real trouble. Second, be it Britain playing fast and loose with defence accounting rules to maintain the appearance of 2% GDP expenditure on defence, or the disarming Dutch and others presenting small investments below the level of defence cost inflation as ‘increases’, NATO Europeans are clearly not as yet prepared to scrap the current implicit Ten Year Rule that drives most defence planning in Europe.

Therefore, if Warsaw does nothing else it must move to scrap NATO’s implicit Ten Year Rule. If Europeans do not they will soon be in for a shock. At the 2014 NATO Wales Summit NATO nations agreed in principle to move towards 2% GDP defence expenditure “within a decade” of which 20% should be spent on new equipment. Indeed, that IS the implicit Ten Year Rule under which the Alliance now labours. However, my bet is that within a year Washington will demand that the 2%/20% ‘guideline’ becomes the absolute minimum European commitment to burden-sharing if the US security guarantee to Europe is to be maintained. And, that the guideline becomes a commitment that will need to be met well before 2024.

Europeans might dream of a world of latter day Roman republics. In fact, the world is brim full of the putative wannabe ‘sons’ of Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Trajan, and not a few Caligulas and Neros. Therefore, no more NATO summits for nothing in which success is measured purely by the fact that ‘language’ was agreed for a Declaration, even if said declaration bears little or no relation to, or has little positive impact upon, strategic reality.

Europe is again at the centre of big, bad horrible history-making. And, whilst the history that is today being made will by definition be no repeat of the past, the power pattern that is driving dangerous change is all too familiar. End Europe’s Ten Year Rule now!

Julian Lindley-French       

America Needs a Unity Europe, Mr President

Alphen, Netherlands. 24 April. To save the EU on Friday last President Obama finally ended what Winston Churchill first dubbed the Special Relationship (big ‘S’, big ‘R’).  And yet the president offered no American view of the future of Europe. Indeed, what was striking about Friday’s carefully-staged Obama-Cameron (in that order) press conference in the utterly inappropriate Locarno Room of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office was just how ‘unspecial’ the Special Relationship has become. Rather, the world witnessed a lame duck president telling the facts of power life to (and for) a lame duck prime minister about the future of what Washington clearly regards as a lame duck power in what has become a dangerously lame duck institution. Why?

First, President Obama repeated the enduring American misunderstanding about European history. For many in the Washington elite there were no ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Europeans in the past. Neither World War One nor World War Two were struggles between good and evil, democracy and totalitarianism. They were European ‘civil’ wars for which and in which all Europeans were responsible for the price America had to pay to ‘save’ said Europeans from themselves.

Second, President Obama repeated the enduring American elite obsession with a united states of Europe. Ever since Jean Monnet seduced US Secretary of State and uber-grandee John Foster Dulles the Washington elite, both left and right, have by and large bought into the silly notion that a US of E would one day emerge in the image of the US of A. Moreover, many still believe a federal Europe would share the American world view and be supportive of it. Wrong on both counts.

Third, President Obama reflected Washington’s dislike of anyone challenging the mistaken American view of ‘Europe’. Far from being America’s closest ally in Europe Britain has become one of its biggest irritants. This is why the president so belittled Britain, its people and its role in the world. It is also why the Americans last week compared Britain’s relationship with Brussels with that of North Dakota to Washington. The simple fact that Britain is the world’s fifth largest economy and a top five world military power was simply brushed aside. The only special relationship (small ‘s’, small ‘r’) that exists is between America and Germany precisely because it is founded on power.  

At the beginning of this blog I referred to the inappropriateness of holding the Obama-Cameron press conference in the FCO’s Locarno Room. The 1925 Treaty of Locarno allowed Germany to join the League of Nations as part of the then hope that laws and institutions could replace power and force in the affairs of Europe. President Obama and the fawning David Cameron hoped this would send a signal about the continued need for such institutions and the ‘laws’ they spawn in Europe.

The political sentiment is of course right. However, law without power are, as Hobbes had it, “covenants without the sword” and doomed to fail. In 1936 Adolf Hitler destroyed that hope when he marched German forces into the Rhineland. The Obama administration seems like many on this side of the pond to also believe that if ‘laws’ are just and institutions effective then there will be little need for power and force. Sadly, law must be reinforced by sanction and institutions can only be effective if they are seen by the people as legitimate. At no point during his visit did President Obama address the crucial dilemmas of power, legitimacy and efficiency facing contemporary Europe.

The paradox of contemporary US policy is that the blind commitment of the White House and much of Washington to the failed Monnet-Dulles ‘vision’ of Europe is also preventing Europe recover from its strategic slough. If Europe is to recover from the self-engineered Eurozone crisis and the Schengen-exaggerated migration crisis, and if Europeans are to again reinvest in the defence of their own continent, what is needed is not more fantasy federal Europe, but a realist Europe built on a close super-alliance of Europe’s nation-states.  In other words, Europeans need a unity Europe, not a united Europe.

The clear failure of President Obama to understand that simple distinction was perhaps for me the most striking failure of his London remarks. It also reinforced the paradox of this most paradoxical of Obama’s visits to Britain. Yes, there are unthinking Brexiteers who can be described as parochial, nostalgic little Englanders. Indeed, Cameron is trying to paint all Brexiteers as such. However, there are also serious, heavyweight thinking Brexiteers who like me understand the real problem; this ‘Europe’, i.e. this EU, simply does not work. It is not democratic enough, and will never generate either sufficient wealth or sufficient security precisely because of its very self. Critically, unless the link between people and governance is restored by putting the member-states firmly back at the centre of the European Project the EU will never become a power partner of the United States in the world.

My view is not peculiar to Britain or indeed myself. Indeed, it is a view now held by millions of Europeans. Therefore, the strategic task now at hand is to step back from the dead-end of a united Europe and to create in its stead a functioning unity Europe, without as the Americans fear the collapse of the whole edifice of ‘Europe’. However, the failure of President Obama to a) recognise Europe’s contemporary reality; and b) commit to helping Britain achieve such a realist reality was perhaps the greatest failure of vision in Obama’s London remarks. Certainly, the implicit suggestion by President Obama that the EU represents the status quo will soon prove to be utterly misplaced.

    

My on balance judgement is that Britain should remain within the EU at this tipping point in its affairs and help fix it. However, it will be very hard to ‘fix’ the EU if Washington remains fixated on a fantasy federal Europe. The future of Europe is a unity Europe, not a united states of Europe and both America and Britain must help create it. However, to succeed Washington must first understand the limits of ‘Europe’, and London must relearn how to wield power.

You insulted me last week, Mr President. Not because you insulted my country because on the issue of British weakness I think you have a point. No, Mr President, you insulted my intelligence by trying to reduce all the fundamental issues of democracy and governance implicit in the Brexit debate down to a simple issue of trade. Somehow I thought you were bigger than that. Silly me. No matter, Mr President. After all, I am a mere European citizen and my views count for nothing.

Julian Lindley-French    

                      

Brexit: Do No Harm Mr President!

“The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. If they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies”.

Oliver Cromwell

Devon, England. 20 April, 2016

Dear President Obama,

Like you, Sir, I have accepted that Britain should on balance remain a member of the European Union. My reasons for so doing I suspect reflect pretty much the same strategic rationale as your own; at a moment when the West stands on the precipice of a potentially deep abyss of risk, threat and danger it is vital the West preserves unity and unity of purpose. This week you will arrive here in my native England to engage in the Brexit debate. You must be careful and respect the issues of history, power, liberty, governance and identity driving the debate over Britain’s membership of the EU. You are also entering the fray in what is the most fractious British electoral contest I can recall in my now long history. Therefore, sir, it is vital you get the tone, the content, and indeed the respect right if you are to avoid being told in no uncertain terms where interfering ‘Yanks’ might go. 

First, you ARE interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign democracy. However, if there is one foreign head of state who has the right to intervene it is the President of the United States. Our two countries share a unique bond. Moreover, you have the right to state the American national interest. Indeed, it is stated American policy to support the EU as such a US interest, even if some of the more misguided members of your Administration mistakenly confuse the political fantasy of a United States of Europe with your own United States of America. However, do not presume, Mr President, to lecture us about our own British national interest.

  

Second, the special strategic relationship between American and Britain is built first and foremost on power and operates at several often below the radar levels of influence. However, Britain is not a strategic convenience for the United States, and you must understand that Mr President. You must respect the fact that Britain is the world’s fifth largest economy and a top five military actor. Some analyses (Goldman Sachs) suggests that by 2030 Britain might well be Europe’s biggest economy. Moreover, given the £178bn (c$250bn) being invested in new military equipment Britain will be Europe’s strongest military power by far and again your main military ally. You must recognise the importance of the relationship to your own hard-pressed country, Mr President.

Third, democracy is in danger in Europe, Mr President, and you of all people must understand that. Specifically, you must avoid insisting the British people accept a form of governance that the United States and its people would never accept. The EU has become too distant and too remote from its citizens. It is run by a ‘we know best’ elite who interpret European treaties in a way that maximises their power at the expense of the legitimate member-states who signed them.  Indeed, in your intervention you must (and with respect, sir, I insist upon the use of ‘must’) state your determination to support the people of these strategic islands and all Europeans who want the return of real democracy in Europe.  

Fourth, remember who we are, Mr President. We English have fought tyrants for centuries. We created the modern world at least as much as you Americans. We paid with our blood in for liberty and democracy in Europe alongside a glorious generation of young Americans, Canadians and others. Through our language, our culture, and the institutions we gave the world, our soft power at least matches your own. Like many Britons I am willing to help lead Europe to better times as part of our transatlantic community. However, I will never be subject to an arbitrary EU and its Euro-Mandarins and you must not only accept that, but join me in my quest for EU reform.

So, Mr President, this week when you rise to speak honour who we are, respect us for what we have achieved, defend our liberty and our ancient freedoms, and acknowledge the concerns millions of us have about the EU. You may remind us of who we are and that we have never run away from a fight over Europe and that we cannot afford to do so now. Above all, Mr President, you must avoid the charge of ‘do as I say, not as I would do’ hypocrisy.

And one other thing, Mr President – understand the significance of this moment and your carefully-chosen words. You will arrive in a country torn asunder by the June 23^rd referendum. In less civilised times it would not be not unreasonable to assume that this debate could have led to a second English (and I stress English) civil war. After all, many of the issues that led Oliver Cromwell and Parliament between 1642 and 1649 to fight to end the unelected and arbitrary power of King Charles I go to the very heart of how the English view power.

In 1776 your own people revolted against arbitrary imperial rule from England and created the United States of America. The American Revolution was in many ways the continuation of the English civil war and England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. Your great President Lincoln once talked of power for the people, of the people, and by the people, the very principles at stake in the Brexit debate. Honour those principles and we will listen to you. Abandon those principles and we will wonder as a nation whatever happened to the principles your Founding Fathers enshrined in your magnificent Declaration of Independence.   

Do no harm Mr President!

With very sincere respect,

Julian Lindley-French