Brexit: I Told You So!

Dear All,

Below is a segment from a paper I wrote for the French think tank Fondation de la Recherche Strategique in Paris in February....I told you so!

"It is the morning of 24^th June, 2016. Britain and the rest of Europe, indeed the rest of the world, are coming to terms with the shock result of the Brexit referendum the night before. By a majority of 52% to 48% the British people voted to quit the European Union. Prime Minister David Cameron goes before the TV cameras to announce that he has accepted the settled will of the British people. He takes full responsibility for the result and announces that Britain will invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union and begin the two-year ‘deaccession’ of the United Kingdom from the European treaties and institutions. He also announces his resignation forthwith as prime minister...

The rest of a shocked EU is faced with a quandary. Conscious that on this grey June morning the EU’s erstwhile second power might have set a dangerous precedent for withdrawal an emergency EU summit is called. Reactions across Europe range from pleading with the British people to think again, to outright condemnation of the British as ‘traitors’ to the very idea of a Europe Britain helped forge in blood. Quietly, some hard-line Euro-federalists express satisfaction that political integration can now proceed without the applied brake that London has come to represent for decades.

Berlin and Paris are under no illusions about the strategic and political implications of Britain’s split, especially so as President Putin continues to exert pressure on Europe’s eastern flank, and migrants continue to pour in from Europe’s southern flank. Privately, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande admit they should have tried harder to bring Britain into the Franco-German directoire. Across the Atlantic a lame duck President Obama joins presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to express regret having pushed hard for Britain to remain within the EU. After all, Washington have long seen the British as a strategic convenience and a tool to influence the EU. However, Obama also expresses confidence that now the issue has been ‘settled’ the transatlantic relationship in all of its myriad economic, social, political, and, of course, military forms can move forward. Donald Trump, just anointed Republican presidential nominee, says he really does not care, and that he will be happy to work with Britain as president. Mischievously, President Putin congratulates the British people for having chosen the path of ‘sovereignty’. In fact, for all the concerned leaders Brexit is a leap into the political dark for no-one knows what the strategic implications of Britain’s historic decision to quit EU will be".

Not that I am gloating...the situation is far too serious for that. Well, just a little bit.

Julian Lindley-French

The Battle of the Somme

“The English generals are wanting in strategy. We should have no chance if they possessed as much science as their officers and men had of courage and bravery. They are lions led by donkeys”.

General Erich Ludendorff.

1 July, 2016.  Zero Hour One Hundred Years plus Two. It was the bloodiest day ever for the British Army. A century ago some 300 kilometres/190 miles to the south of me the “big push” was underway. Twenty-nine British Army divisions were advancing across no man’s land in the face of heavy machine gun, mortar, infantry and artillery fire laid down by seven defending German divisions across a 50 km/30 mile front. By Zero plus Five the British had taken some 55,000 casualties, of whom 20,000 were dead.

The reason for the Battle of the Somme was the Battle of Verdun. By 1 July, 1916 the French Army had already been fighting on the charnel fields of Verdun for 134 days. German commander General Erich von Falkenhayn reportedly said his aim at Verdun was to bleed France white. Between February and December 2016 the French Army would suffer up to 540,000 casualties, of whom some 150,000 would be killed.

The French commander-in-chief Marshal Joffre pleaded with the British to launch a major offensive in the west to ease the pressure on French lines at Verdun. Crucially, British commander-in-chief General Sir Douglas Haig believed German forces had suffered sufficient attrition at Verdun to believe a combined Anglo-French assault on the German lines would succeed. Haig even believed it might be possible to enact a complete breakthrough of German defences and commence a rout. The Somme area was chosen for the offensive because it was where British and French forces stood alongside each other.

Five days prior to the offensive the British started an enormous artillery barrage that saw over one million shells fired at the German defences right up until the commencement of the advance. The fact that such a barrage could be mounted was proof the British had overcome the crippling shortage of artillery shells from which the British Army had suffered since the outbreak of war in August 1914.

The British offensive should have succeeded, at least on paper. British forces enjoyed more than a three-to-one superiority in men and materiel. However, the offensive failed. The reasons for failure are manifold.  However, in the intervening century the myth of the Somme has become overpowering and made it hard to discern fact from fiction.

The British Army at the Somme included in its ranks a significant number of Kitchener’s New Army. This was a newly-formed, ‘green’ (inexperienced) ‘citizen army’, which included the Sheffield City Battalion, from my own home town, and which fought with distinction on 1 July at Serre.  However, there were also a large number of battle-hardened British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and other forces committed to the Somme offensive.

Marshal Joffre had promised the British that the French force on Haig’s right flank would be equal in size to that that of the British. However, by late June the French Army was simply unable to put such a force into the line such was the pressure being exerted on them by Falkenhayn at Verdun.

However, it was not green pal’s battalions or the French that did for Haig’s Somme offensive. It was Haig himself who doomed the Somme offensive to failure through bad strategy and over confidence.  By committing to a front some 30 km/50 miles wide the British force was spread far too thinly. The artillery barrage whilst impressive did nothing like the damage expected to the well-engineered German trenches and forewarned the enemy as to the scale and location of the offensive. Cohesion between the British divisions, and communications between high command and operational commanders was via a rudimentary command chain that was unable to withstand the confusion of a dynamic offensive after so long having been committed to a relatively static defence.

By November 18, 1916, when Haig called off the offensive, the British had gained an area some 12 km/9 miles deep and some 25 km/20 miles wide, but had suffered 623,907 casualties at a rate of some 3000 casualties per day. However, German losses also numbered 465,000 casualties. Conscious that the German Army could not suffer such losses again over the winter of 1916/1917 the Germans engineered the fearsome Hindenburg line behind the Somme battlefield to which they retreated in February 2017. Crucially, the Somme offensive did indeed help relieve pressure on the French Army at Verdun.

Lessons were learned from the failed Somme offensive. In March 1918 Ludendorff launched Operation Michael, a last desperate attempt by the German High Command to split British and French forces which were being reinforced daily by the arrival of US forces. German Stormtroopers were unleashed across what had been the old Somme battlefield. At first the British reeled back but crucially did not break.

At the Battle of Amiens, which commenced on 8 August, 1918, on what Ludendorff called the “black day of the German Army”, an exhausted German force faced a new new All Arms assault by the British. Out of the mist an enormous artillery barrage was unleashed, but this time British, Australian, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand forces, supported by American and French forces, and all under a ‘supreme’ unified command, advanced right behind the barrage employing new flexible ‘grab and hold’ infantry tactics. The force was also supported by a large number of tanks and massive air power.

Crucially, the assault took place over a much narrower front than the Somme offensive enabling the British force to punch through German lines. The German Army true to its tradition fought bravely but as an offensive force it was broken at Amiens. German commanders of a later generation studied the All Arms Battle very closely, but they gave it another name – Blitzkrieg! 

                    

In memory of all the fallen on all sides at the Battle of the Somme which began one hundred years ago today.

Julian Lindley-French

      

Brexit from Poland

Warsaw, Poland. 29 June. It has been an interesting couple of days. My reason for coming here on the eve of the NATO Warsaw Summit was to present my new paper, NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2016 for the German Polish Co-operation Foundation. However, the 65 million person elephant in the room for much of the debate was of course Brexit. Part of me wondered what kind of reception I would get. After all, in the past I called for Britain to leave the EU, I predicted Brexit, before I decided after talking to a lot of people, and in the wake of the Paris attacks, that on balance Britain should remain. My concerns were misplaced. Poland of all countries understands the difficulty of balancing patriotism, interdependence, and membership of an institution a significant part of which would like to replace the democratic state with an oligarchic super-state.

What I found instead this morning at the Sjem, Poland’s parliament, when speaking to senior parliamentarians, was a respect for the democratic decision of the British people. What I also found was Polish pragmatism. Poland deeply regrets Brexit. However, there was absolutely no sense that the British people should somehow be punished for having the temerity to have expressed a majority opinion on a matter of fundamental import to them. Rather, there was a genuine commitment to forge a new relationship for Britain with the EU, and to confirm Britain’s existing relationships with friends and allies on the Continent. The terrible events in Istanbul last night served as a stark reminder of the dangers we all face and must all face together.

Encouragingly it was also an opinion of hope and goodwill expressed by Ambassador Rolf Nikel, Germany’s envoy to Poland, at a delightful reception held last night at the German Embassy. Indeed, the only humiliation to which I was subjected concerned the tactical withdrawal from the European football championships by England following their defeat by mighty Iceland. Don’t worry.  I immediately countered by enquiring as to the state of Berlin’s new airport!  

Poland is committed to keep the British fully engaged in the security and defence of Europe. They are right. To that end the forthcoming NATO Warsaw Summit must to some extent be a Brexit summit. Indeed, it will be a chance for London to remind it allies and partners that Britain remains a power and is utterly committed to the security and defence of Europe. There is one caveat. David Cameron and George Osborne are talking of more cuts to public expenditure in light of Brexit. It would certainly be a mistake to cut the British defence budget any further. It would also be advisable to re-invest in Britain’s diplomatic machine as London will need all the tools of influence at its disposal in the coming years.     

So, Poland need not worry…too much. However, Poland’s help would be much appreciated, recognising Warsaw faces its own political challenges at present. Forget all the pre-negotiation posturing. As France and Germany have proven in the past it is amazing how flexible European ‘principles’ are when it comes to power. A post-Brexit deal is possible. That was also the view of my Polish counterparts.

Which brings me to Scotland. If European partners such as Poland want to find a solution with and for the UK to the mutual benefit of all they must be careful how they respond to the political manoeuvrings of the Scottish Nationalist Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon. Her political mission is and always has been to destroy the UK. The Scots had a referendum in September 2014 which saw a decisive 55%-45% rejection of Scottish independence. Above all, Sturgeon legitimised the UK-wide Brexit referendum as a UK-wide referendum by campaigning in it, and by campaigning outside of Scotland for the Remain side. She can hardly cry foul simply because she lost a vote that she legitimised. She might have had a case if she had ordered the SNP to abstain on the grounds that such a referendum had not been formally endorsed by the Scottish Parliament. She did not. Therefore, countries like Poland have a choice to make; London or Edinburgh.

What struck me most about this visit is the deep and enduring human relationship between Britain and Poland. What rightly matters to Poles is the proper and respectful treatment of the up to one million Poles now living in mainly England. However, if Poland really wants to help a friend at this difficult time it could do so by recognising that it was the sheer scale and pace of inward migration that drove much of the Brexit vote. It was also the refusal of fellow Europeans to heed warnings about this.

Britain will not get access to the single market unless it upholds the principle of free movement. A huge swathe of British people will not accept a new deal with the EU unless and until some degree of pragmatic management of immigration is in place. Absolutism on either side right now will simply entrench already entrenched positions. It would be better for all of us to properly explore the possible, not retreat behind the barricades of the impossible.

So, the message from Warsaw?  Let’s all calm down, those trying to stir the pot cease and desist, and those responsible for moving us all forward…get a grip!  There will be a solution but together we must fashion it.

Julian Lindley-French    

Causes of Brexit

Warsaw, Poland. 27 June. The causes of Brexit that I have heard thus far are as follows:

The politics of austerity, the collapse of the Labour Party and the loss of the white working and not-so-working class, splits in the Conservative Party, Tory grandees, David Cameron’s political gambling, David Cameron’s ‘deal’ to the keep Britain in an unreformed EU, English political culture, the erosion by the EU of national democracy and sovereignty, popular demands for ever more devolution, elite demands for ever more centralisation, the Euro, the growing gap between the Eurozone and the non-Eurozone, the 1991 Treaty of Maastricht and the UK opt-outs, the marginalisation by France and Germany of the UK within the EU, immigration and the refusal of the political elite in London and Brussels to address popular concerns over many years, the sheer pace and scale of immigration, failure to prepare sufficient housing, schools and public services to cope with mass immigration, refusal of Brussels to be flexible, the failure to make the case for immigration, Commonwealth immigrants who did not like a perceived bias in favour of migration from the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker, the 1973 lie that ‘Europe’ was only a common market, the 1957 Treaty of Rome, a nostalgic view of English and Welsh history, a lot of Westminster politicians, some Whitehall bureaucrats, the Establishment in general (both British and EU) which many in England just wanted to give a good kicking to, the collapse of political integrity spectacularly revealed by both the Leave and Remain campaigns, Martin Schulze, Tony Blair, George Osborne, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, protectionism, the European Commission and interfering Eurocrats, the European Parliament and its lack of political legitimacy, Iraq, Afghanistan, President Obama, globalisation, blaming globalisation, the British media, de-industrialisation, patriotism, fat cat employers, multinational corporations, the European Court of Justice and the dictatorship of legalism, the European Court of Human Right, because it got confused with the European Court of Justice, ignorance, bigotry and downright prejudice, and from a personal point of view the Eurovision bloody song contest, Sheffield Wednesday which I blame for everything, and me because I predicted it!

As for who voted for what and for what reasons please take your pick. However, be careful. The latest I have heard from our Dear Leaders today is a) that the referendum should be re-run so that the peasants can this time get the answer right; b) the referendum should be re-run because it upset Martin Schulze who injured his fist banging a table; c) the referendum should be re-run because the peasantry were so stupid that they ticked the ‘leave’ box when they meant to tick the ‘an awful lot more Brussels’ box, d) the referendum should be ignored by Parliament because Britain has a representative democracy even if it is not very representative; and e) the EU would like the British to pretend the referendum never actually happened at all.

Happy days…not!

Julian Lindley-French   

Brexit: Some Personal Reflections

Alphen, Netherlands. 25 June. It is 30 hours or so since Britain’s historic decision to leave the EU and the fallout and backlash is just beginning. What do I feel now about Brexit? Over those hours I have been saddened but little shocked by the vitriol sent my way. One email even suggested that Britain has become an enemy of Europe, whatever that means. Emails have been refused, and one good friendship lost, which I regret. But don’t worry, I can take it. After all, I am cut from the same Yorkshire oak as the many of the people that drove this decision, and I have always taken responsibility for my writings.

I am an analyst and my job is to analyse. Back in 2010 I did believe Britain should leave the EU. Britain was mired in a massive banking crisis, and the Eurozone was mired in a massive debt crisis. The Eurozone faced a choice; integrate or collapse. Britain did not face such a choice.

Back then it was clear to my mind that the only way for the Eurozone to resolve the crisis, and indeed make the Euro work was a deepening of European political and monetary union, including a banking union. Eurozone leaders still face that choice, they just haven’t taken it. And so the Eurozone crisis bubbles away below a thin crust of apparent political stability ready to explode at any moment. Given that Britain was never going to part of deeper political integration my on balance sense was that back then Britain should leave the EU.

What has I admit irritated me throughout this entire intervening period is the extent to which some senior Americans have treated my country as a strategic public convenience; Britain and the British people as mere instrument of American grand strategy. In so doing they have denied that Britain is a living, breathing democracy with its own issues, and its own tensions, its own interests, and its own political identity. The Obama administration has routinely dismissed British concerns about the direction of travel of the EU as some kind of post-Imperial psychosis rather than seen such concerns for what they are; a complex reflection of the same distrust of distant power that drove their own revolution back in 1776, and about which Americans are so proud. Indeed, far from backing British calls for EU reform the Obama Administration tried to force Britain into into simply accepting a status quo that was never sustainable over the longer term. Still, one can hardly blame the Americans for that Little Britain view of Britain. Too many needy British leaders have convinced American leaders to think of Britain as little more than an American strategic public convenience.

Several events led me to shift my position on the EU. The outbreak of the Syrian war and the emergence of ISIS began to change the strategic environment in which Britain and Europe reside, and threatened the collapse of states across the Middle East and North Africa. In 2014 Russia seized Crimea and began the long dissection of Ukraine which continues to this day. Moscow also began to threaten and intimidate Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. Huge flows of desperate people forced their way into Europe and compounded the many problems faced by countries in southern Europe. In November 2015 ISIS terrorists attacked Paris and then Brussels. Whilst I retained some sympathy for the frustrations many feel in Britain about the EU. and the way it is run, in such circumstances I could not countenance Britain leaving the EU.

        

There will be some Americans who will also blame Brexit for the weakening of NATO. OK, I will admit that there can be no EU Common Security and Defence Policy worthy of the name without Britain. But then, there never was going to be a truly ‘C’ CSDP with Britain because to make the ‘C’ word mean something a European government would be required. How many of you out there really want a European government? Your call.

As for NATO it is not Britain that has weakened the Alliance. After all, under NATO rules the British are one of of only four Allies who actually meet the target of 2% GDP to be spent on defence with 20% on new equipment. If there is any one factor that has prevented so many Allies meeting what should be a minimum commitment to the Alliance it is the Eurozone rule that prevents a state ratcheting up a budget deficit of more than 3% GDP, even at a time of crisis.  Don’t blame Britain for that.

          

Next week President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel will hold one of their directoire meetings to discuss the post-Brexit EU. Years ago I called for a trirectoire and the inclusion of British prime ministers in such meetings. After all, Britain is Europe’s second biggest economy and strongest military power. That call was rejected. It has always seemed to me one of the EU’s many contradictions how European ‘integration’ has always been defined by two major powers and their national interests in the name of ‘Europe’.

Here’s the irony. At that meeting Merkel and Hollande will call for a more flexible Europe. They will not agree on much else. Had they done that even a few days ago they may have swung enough undecided British voters (you know the people who are meant to matter, but to much of the elite do not) to back Remain.

Brexit also marks a moment of opportunity. With Britain about to leave the EU we will see just how enthusiastic those Europeans (and Americans) who have long blamed Britain for blocking ‘progress’ really are for some form of United States of Europe. This is your moment, guys. No longer can you Euro-federalists blame us British for blocking your glorious Project Europe. I suspect, however, we will soon discover just how many of you do not actually want ever closer political union.

Brexit was long in the making, but too many refused to see it coming. Read my blogs and other writings and I warned people that Brexit could happen because for years Britain and the Real EU, the Eurozone, have been drifting apart. Brexit has now formalised what for a long time has been an observable fact on the ground. Indeed, those that argued that by remaining in the EU Britain would be upholding the status quo were talking as much rubbish as those that argued leaving would mark the start of a new Elizabethan age for Britain, or more accurately England. The EU was never going to, nor could it ever, remain where it is today; trapped between debt, integration, and impotence.

So, we all have a choice to make right now. If the blame game of the past 24 hours gathers pace then Brexit will indeed weaken Europe, Britain and the West and there will be no winners at all. If, however, common sense prevails and a period of calm reflection is then followed by sober considerations of how best to proceed mutually beneficial outcomes can be crafted and at least some positives will come out of this mess. The next two and a half years would then be about the nature of Britain’s future relationship with a future EU. Good sense would ensure such a relationship works for all – Britons (even Scots), other Europeans, and even Americans.

As for Britain as enemy, really? There are plenty of those elsewhere. So, keep calm and carry on talking.

Julian Lindley-French        

Brexit: For Better or Worse, For Good and Ill

“Oh what tangled webs we weave when at first we seek to deceive”.

Alphen, Netherlands. 24 June. Why did Brexit happen?  Peering through the grey drape of fatigue in which I am cloaked having spent the night watching history being made (or is that unmade) the decision the British people have taken last night is quite simply momentous. To be honest I felt something like this might happen the moment I saw people in a working men’s club in my native Yorkshire declare for leave to a man and woman. I know these people. Part of me is hewn from their stock. This was the English, and I stress the English, at their stubborn best and bloody-minded worst. An Agincourt-beckoning two fingers (the English don’t do one finger) to distant Establishments from people who have for too long felt ignored, bypassed, and don’t give a damn who tells them what they must do however exalted.  

It would be easy to blame a lot of people for Britain’s decision. And yes there are many who should be looking hard at themselves this morning. French and German leaders who for years excluded Britain from the leadership of the several European projects always implicit in what eventually became the EU. A Brussels Establishment impervious to all and any argument that did not fit into their ‘one size fits all’ idea of ever closer political union.  A kommentariat of which I am in some ways a minor part who simply could not believe the peasants would ever revolt.

In reality none of the above were really the cause of Brexit. Britain’s departure began the day Britain joined the then European Economic Community back in 1973. Ticking away deep in the heart of Britain’s accession was a political time-bomb with a delayed fuse that last night exploded. To convince the British people to accept a new idea of ‘sovereignty’ then Prime Minister Edward Heath and his ministers simply lied. They knew that the EEC was far more than a ‘common market’. Indeed, one had only to read the preamble of the 1957 Treaty of Rome to realise that Britain was joining a political project.

As the ambition of that project grew over the years stepping, sometimes stumbling, forward from treaty to treaty successive British leaders wriggled and struggled to maintain that original lie. An opt-out here, a special ‘deal’ there, all to defend a political space that over years steadily shrank. Finally, the idea that Britain could be in the EU but outside the European Project could no longer be hidden and began to look like the absurdity it was. In the end the original lie came to be seen even by some members of the British Establishment, as an original political sin.

The problem with the lie was that it eroded one vital conversation and replaced it with another. Since at least the English civil war British democracy has been established on what Abraham Lincoln would describe in his magisterial Gettysburg Address as government of the people, for the people, by the people. However, as British politicians danced ever more clumsily on the head of a hot political pin to maintain the original lie the conversation with the British people itself became a lie.

Rather, for the British Establishment the traditional conversation between power and people was replaced by a more ‘important ‘conversation with Brussels and the leaders of other EU member-states. And, as the gulf in importance between the two conversations became ever wider it become ever clearer the European elite conversation was far more important than the British political conversation. Worse, too much of that elite conversation took place behind closed doors in a secrecy-obsessed Brussels. This exacerbated a gnawing, growing sense in the political instincts of millions that Europe was not for the people but against the people.  That democracy was being eroded with the Mother of Parliaments reduced to little more than a political reality show.

The die is now cast. My arguments against Brexit have been confounded. This is a moment for calm reflection. Given the dangerous world into which Britain and states and peoples that this morning remain friends and allies are moving, it is vital a new relationship between a post-Brexit Britain and the EU is quickly established. The British people cannot be punished for democracy. Britain must also sail towards new horizons with countries with which it shares old visions.

The bottom line is that with respect Britain is not Norway or Switzerland. Britain is a major power, the world’s fifth biggest economy and fourth biggest defence spender. Turbulence is of course inevitable. However, it is surely in the interest of all Europeans and indeed the world-wide West to re-embed Britain in new relationships, not least with what will soon inevitably be a new Europe. The British people have exercised their democratic right. Other Europeans will exercise their own right as they see it. That, after all, is why Britain fought and helped win two world wars this century past. Britain has not suddenly become an ‘enemy’. There are plenty of those elsewhere.

         

That Agincourt-beckoning two fingers has in the past saved Europe from slavery. It maybe that last night the English helped break the Europe that could not have been built without Britain. I hope not. But, for better or worse, for good and ill Brexit is now fact and I am very, very tired, and very, very sad. And, I now need some sleep. As clearly does David Cameron for he has just resigned.

Julian Lindley-French 

Russia: The Italian Job

“I am a fool with a heart but no brains, and you are a fool with brains but no heart; and we’re both unhappy and we both suffer”.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Idiot

Alphen, Netherlands. 20 June. It seemed, I suppose, fitting. In a speech to President Putin at the St Petersburg Economic Forum Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi reminded the Russian President that Dostoyevsky had written The Idiot in Florence. Who is playing the idiot now? Certainly not President Putin. As Renzi announced deals in St Petersburg with Russia worth some €1.3bn it was as though Russia had done little to concern anyone of late; the illegal annexation of Crimea, the forced detachment of much of eastern and south-eastern Ukraine, the downing of MH17 by an anti-aircraft missile from a missile battery belonging to the Kursk-based 53^rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, the treaty-busting stationing of treaty-illegal nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, and the almost daily illegal incursions by the Russian Air Force into the air space of Baltic and Nordic EU and NATO members.

In a breathtaking act of political insincerity Renzi danced on the head of a legalistic pin to justify the deals. The deals were not technically in breach of EU sanctions, he said, because they cover infrastructure and energy. And yet everyone in St Petersburg with half a brain knew exactly what Renzi was doing. The only ‘strategic’ matter of import to him is that on his watch in 2015 the Italian budget deficit ballooned to a record (even by Italian standards) 132.7% of GDP. Italy is broke, the Italian debt crisis will soon break, and Renzi will do whatever deal he can, with whoever he can, to delay what is now the inevitable.

President Putin understands all of the above, precisely because President Putin understands power…and weakness.  He certainly understands the strategic implications of his Italian Job which is why he is pushing it. Moreover, the deal could not have been announced at a worse time for NATO, something which is not lost on Moscow. With the July NATO Warsaw Summit beckoning the Italians have at the stroke of a misplaced pen revealed there is little or no strategic unity of purpose in the Alliance.  To Rome the Russians can intimidate Eastern European allies all they like just so long as Italy can get down and do a dirty deal with Moscow.

Consequences? Putin has brought a political cleaver down right through the middle of NATO and prized open an existing cleavage. There will be much empty rhetoric at the Warsaw Summit about NATO’s so-called 360 degree adaptation; that through political solidarity and the efficient use of Allied forces credible deterrence will be afforded the Eastern Allies against Russia, and a credible defence mounted in the south against ISIS. Many words, little meaning, even fewer forces.

Rather, Renzi has demonstrated there are two NATOs. One NATO defends Eastern Europe against Russian aggression, about which Italy cares little. The other NATO helps defend against ISIS and threats from the south to Italy, of which after the Renzi deal Eastern Europeans will also care little.

Renzi has also revealed the essential and dangerous contradiction, dare I say lie that is European defence. Europeans are all too happy to defend their own bit of Europe, but not each other. After all, is not defending Europe what the American taxpayer is for?

If the St Petersburg kow-tow to Putin was Renzi alone then maybe the damage to Alliance and EU strategic unity of effort and purpose could have been contained. However, just when one thought it was safe to go out up pops ‘President’ Juncker to imply that EU sanctions on Russia might soon be lifted. You can always count on good-old Jean-Claude, the former prime minister of superpower Luxembourg, to put his political foot in his strategic mouth. Worse, German Foreign Minister Franz-Walter Steinmeier even suggested that by undertaking Exercise Anaconda in Eastern Europe NATO was “warmongering”. This is the stuff of Monty Python, the political equivalent of being forced to apologise to a bully for striking one in the face. "Run away!"

By the way, you might like to know Herr Steinmeier that since 2014 Russia has conducted twelve major snap exercises all of which have been designed to intimidate Eastern European allies and partners from Tallinn to Warsaw. Moreover, your government agreed to Allied exercises at the 2014 NATO Warsaw Summit as a necessary demonstration of Alliance solidarity and strategic reassurance. There are also some 120,000 Russia troops if not threatening the Baltic States, at least implying a threat. They are all peacekeepers of course.

Statecraft 101: it is enough to make this seasoned strategist weep. Juncker, Renzi and Steinmeyer all share a desperate desire to promote dialogue with Putin by sacrificing strategy to short-term politics, and security for trade, in the hope that trade can provide security.

Dialogue with President Putin is needed but must only take place as part of considered statecraft and from a position of strength. Such dialogue begins first with confidence-building measures being undertaken by both sides. Kind words are then matched with good deeds, and then built-up over time to a moment when both sides deem a formal codification of bona fides to be appropriate.

Instead, Prime Minister Renzi has sold Italy, the EU and NATO down the Tiber, Juncker seems to have forgotten not just the threat to EU citizens Russia continues to pose, but how many died due to Russian military incompetence, whereas Steinmeier clearly does not understand statecraft. We British remember a word for that from our own history; appeasement.

President Putin says Russia demands respect. Why would he want respect from European leaders who repeatedly and consistently demonstrate that they fail to understand power, statecraft, and the considered application of both?

Who indeed is the real idiot now?

Julian Lindley-French