The Barrons Revolt: Why Big Wars Start

Alphen, Netherlands. 19 September. Big wars involving democracies usually start for three reasons; disarmament, distraction, and denial. The West today suffers from all three afflictions. The leaking of the so-called ‘haul down’ report of General Sir Richard Barrons, the former commander of Britain’s Joint Force Command, is simply the latest warning from a senior commander. Some years ago I worked briefly with Barrons. I have rarely met a more thinking or erudite officer.

In an interview with The Times of today Barrons warns that Britain and NATO have no effective plan for defending Europe from a Russian attack because of splits within the Alliance. Russia, he says, could deploy tens of thousands of troops into NATO territory within 48 hours whilst it would take months for the Alliance to do the same thing. The result; “…some land and control of airspace and territorial waters could be lost before NATO 28 member states had even agreed to respond”.

Disarmament: The July NATO Warsaw Summit Declaration states; “Since Wales we have turned a corner. Collectively, Allies’ defence expenditures have increased for the first time since 2009. In just two years, a majority of Allies have halted or reversed declines in defence spending in real terms”. This statement might be right in fact, but it is complete nonsense in reality. It is not absolute power that is critical in any given military balance of power, but relative power. In relative terms too many NATO nations continue to disarm relatively to Russia, which is still busting its economy to rearm. Indeed, what really worries me is the combination of a weak Russian economy crippled further by massive defence investments by an autocratic regime that seems to claim political legitimacy from what is a policy that can only end in disaster.

Distraction:  Reading the outputs from last week’s EU informal Bratislava summit I became very concerned. Apparently. Britain is now the enemy of the EU and many of its member-states. And yet, many of those same EU (and NATO) states routinely expect British soldiers to lay down their lives in their defence. Let me be clear; if in the Brexit negotiations the EU and its members attempt to punish the British people for an act of democracy it will weaken the commitment of Europe’s strongest democratic military power to the defence of Europe. Cut the stupidity, and stop turning Brexit into what is an almighty strategic distraction.  Fight Britain, Europe loses.

Denial: In a recent exchange with the former Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski I challenged Poles to confront the myth that Britain and France betrayed Poland in September 1939. Incompetence yes, betrayal no. The fact that both countries declared war on Nazi Germany on 3 September and fought a world war that ended them as world powers was proof that London and Paris were willing to honour their commitment to Poland. Moreover, I argued, if one looked at the deployment of German forces on 1 September, 1939 there was precious little else Britain and France could have done. The Wehrmacht may have had some sixty divisions on the Polish border before the invasion, but it had forty-six divisions on their western border reinforced by the Westwall (or Siegfried line) at its very strongest.

However, the Poles also have a point. Britain and France did not simply offer ‘commitments’, they offered solemn treaty guarantees for Poland’s defence before the conflict, and ‘guarantees’ of action once the war began. Neither happened. Worse, the real power in the West at the time, the United States, had retreated into isolationism. The result was that when the unthinkable happened the Western democracies were forced to trade the space of their allies for the time to ultimately defeat the enemy.

Which brings me to a fourth ‘D’; deterrence. Barrons is making essentially the same point that was made recently by NATO’s former No.2 soldier General Sir Richard Shirreff in his excellent book 2017: The Coming War with Russia.   Now, I am not equating Putin’s Russia with Nazi Germany because I have too much respect for Russians and their sacrifice in World War Two to do that. However, the warning from Barrons, Shirreff, me and others is clear; when faced with aggressive, unpredictable, nationalist, autocratic regimes that seek a critical military advantage at a place and time of their choosing one has no choice but to prepare for the worst. In other words, wishful thinking does not make for sound deterrence.

      

NATO's Warsaw plan is to base 1000 troops in each of the three Baltic States. Barrons says this of the plan; “There is no force behind it, or plans or resilience…It is an indication of how, at this stage in our history, I think many people have lost sight of what a credible military force is and requires. They think a little bit of posing or a light force constitutes enough and it isn’t”. So, just how many troops does Russia have right at this moment in the Western military oblast directly adjacent to the Baltic States? Four corps or 120,000 troops.

As an Oxford historian who has studied and written at length about the causes of both World War One and World War Two I have been, and I am, increasingly worried that an unstable Russia could at some point be unable to resist the opportunity to exploit an overwhelming local advantage to take Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and present the West with a nuclear-backed fait accompli. Many of you out there will think that is unthinkable. You are in denial. It really is now thinkable. My mission, and that of Sir Richard, is to ensure that never happens.

World War Two happened because of Adolf Hitler. However, it also happened because like so many of the leaders of today’s Western democracies Britain and France were for too long in denial about the extent and the scope of the threats to the borders of democratic Europe. What to do about it? Political leaders must finally face hard reality and begin the complete and proper overhaul of NATO defence and deterrence so that defensive forces properly deter offensive forces. This means going far beyond the Warsaw window-dressing where getting the language agreed for the Declaration was more important than defending Europe.  Nothing less than the strategic renovation of the Alliance is needed. To that end, I will co-lead a major project in the coming months with retired US General John Allen. Will the politicians listen? They should because if they don’t THEN history really might be revisited…and on their watch.

Julian Lindley-French

Tank!

“Victory in this war will belong to the belligerent who is the first to put a cannon on a vehicle capable of moving on all kinds of terrain”.

Colonel Jean-Baptiste Estienne, 24 August, 1914

Alphen, Netherlands. 15 September. At 0515 hours on the morning of 15 September, 1916 at Flens Courcelette in the Somme battlefield the air was rent by a sound new to the battlefield. The engines of 32, 29 ton British Mark I tanks of the Guards Division powered up to a crescendo before beginning their lumbering 3mph/4kph advance towards the German trenches. Seven tanks immediately broke down. The sight of 25 of these ‘monsters’ suddenly appearing out of the early autumn fog in which the Somme valley was swathed led some German troops to panic. However, as one would expect of the German Army, most did not. Although the British tanks, supported haphazardly by infantry, made some limited, initial gains once the shock had worn off the inevitable German counter-attacks negated much of the early advance.

Equally, for all that the attack failed to make the hoped for break-through this day a century ago marks the beginning of a new phase in manoeuvre warfare and the search for the right mix of speed, armour, firepower and effective strategic and tactical application of the tank that continues to this day. Indeed, even a quick glance would confirm the link between the caterpillar-tracked Mark I tank of 1916, and the advanced main battle tank of today.

One irony of the first British tanks was that they had been inspired by naval thinking of the time. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill was behind the idea of a ‘landship’, and even to this day ‘tankers’ use nautical terms such as ‘turret’ and ‘hatch’ etc. Indeed, the only reason they are called 'tanks' is that to mask their true purpose the workers at the agricultural machinery manufacturers in Lincoln where the Mark I was being developed were told they were ‘water tanks’ destined for Mesopotamia.

The problem with the Mark I was reliability. It had been originally intended that 59 tanks would take part in operations on 15 September, but 27 of the tanks were non-operational. This was mainly due to problems with their experimental 105 bhp Foster-Daimler-Knight engines. Of the 25 tanks which made it into action they were divided into ‘male’ tanks, armed with two quick-firing 6 pound Hotchkiss cannons, and ‘female’ tanks armed with four Vickers .303 calibre machine guns.

Although the first use of tanks in action by the British undoubtedly came as a complete surprise to the Germans several countries were developing similar systems at the time. Indeed, perhaps the first real tank was developed not by the British but by Austria-Hungary, although Vienna’s ‘tank’ never made it beyond the prototype stage.

It was not until April 1918 that the first tank-on-tank battle took place at the Second Battle of Villiers-Bretonneux when three British Mark V tanks encountered three enormous German A7V tanks, each with a crew of 30. In what proved to be perhaps the slowest battle in modern military history it was eventually the solitary British ‘male’ tank which successfully struck its German enemy and forced the A7Vs to withdraw.

However, it was dawn on 8 August, 1918 at the Battle of Amiens that the tank began to be used to real effect. One of the most innovative of British commanders General Sir Henry Rawlinson had commanded Fourth Army at the Somme and had seen the potential of the tank. On what German commander General Erich Ludendorff called ‘the black day of the German Army” Rawlinson for the first time used air power, infantry and massed tanks in close order to punch a hole through the defences of over-extended German forces. What followed thereafter was a fighting German retreat that would continue to the Armistice in November 1918. The tank had come of age.

It was German commanders such as Guderian and Rommel, and Russian thinkers such as Tukhachevsky, who saw the real potential of the tank during the interbellum and properly exploited Rawlinson’s August 1918 lessons. The result was the Blitzkrieg tactics unleashed by Nazi Germany on Poland in 1939, France and the Low Countries in 1940, and on the Soviet Union in 1941. In the inter-war years the British once again retreated behind the wall of the Royal Navy, whilst the French went down the tactical dead-end of that ultimate World War One trench, the Maginot Line. The idea of static defence-in-depth had by and large been abandoned by the Germans as a concept of warfare as early as 1918 with the destruction of the Hindenburg Line.

       

Perhaps it is best to leave the last word on the tank action at Flers Courcelette to Winston Churchill. “My poor ‘land battleships’ have been let off prematurely on a petty scale…This priceless conception, containing, if used in its integrity and on a sufficient scale, the certainty of a great and brilliant victory, was revealed to the Germans for the mere purpose of taking a few ruined villages”.

Julian Lindley-French

Europe Needs a Defence Innovation Partnership

Alphen, Netherlands. 12 September. On Friday I had the distinct honour of addressing Airbus senior management at a swanky resort outside Geneva on European security and the need for a return to the principles of worst-case planning. The speech was against a backdrop of more European defence wishful-thinking last week from Jean-Claude Juncker and Federica Mogherini as they again try to use defence to counter Brexit without actually enhancing European defence. As ever with such meetings some of the most important conversations were informal. Perhaps the most important idea that emerged for me was the need for a new defence innovation partnership in Europe.

What do I mean by that? The July NATO Wales Summit Declaration referred to some modest increase in European defence expenditure in 2016. However, it is very modest and still bears little or no relation to the investment needed to render deterrence and defence credible, let alone maintain the ability to project power efficiently and effectively with the Americans. Worse, Jean-Claude Juncker only called for a more integrated EU ‘defence’ to promote his federalist agenda, whilst the more pragmatic Mogherini wants to see if Britain’s departure from the EU could lead to a more efficient investment by EU member-states in an EU-centric security and defence effort.

The problem with all such pronouncements is that they all assume the same essential defence ‘contract’ with the European defence and technological industrial base (EDTIB). In my evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee late last year I highlighted the appalling waste of taxpayer’s money this ‘contract’ creates with Europeans getting far too little return on their defence investment.

The problem is that much of Europe’s defence investment has little to do with defence. Rather, it is a way a) maintain a taxpayer’s subsidy to keep inefficient defence industries in business; b) preserve a hi-tech research base when in fact the civilian sector is often far ahead; c) preserve jobs in key political constituencies; or d) a combination of all of the above. This shameful waste of taxpayer’s money is often compounded by the pretence that competition takes place between Europe’s few big defence contractors for the relatively few ‘big ticket’ defence projects on offer. In fact, such is the byzantine relationship between government and defence industries in most European countries that false competition is usually simply a metaphor for government trying to shift the risk of defence innovation onto the manufacturer and then the manufacturer claiming the cost back via cost overruns. Inevitably, it is the taxpayer who ends up footing the often exorbitant bill, although on some other politician’s watch.

There have been many attempts to overcome these problems but all have failed, for various by and large political reasons. The European Defence Agency being the most obvious of these failures through no particular fault of its own. As a consequence there are still too many metal-bashing defence industries in Europe bashing metal on very similar bits of over-priced, under-performing bits of defence metal.  Production runs are simply not long enough nor big enough to produce the necessary economies of scale. Or, the inflated cost of such platforms are made worse by what I call the Christmas Tree effect – the hanging of too many systems onto platforms rendering both the platform and the system sub-optimal because systems integration is rendered impossible by governments constantly changing the requirement.

What is needed is a new European Defence Innovation Partnership, which would necessarily include the post-Brexit Brits, with the whole idea of false competition needs to be abandoned. Now, I am not suggesting a return to the appallingly wasteful ‘cost plus’ or ‘juste retour‘models of partnership. Nor am I suggesting any more Smart Procurement nonsense by which governments mortgage their defence future by delaying fronting up to the cost of defence present.

To make such a partnership reality companies like Airbus, which struck me as surprisingly nimble by defence-industrial standards, need to form a standing partnership with other big European prime defence contractors, such as EADS, Thales, and Bae Systems. Having formed such an alliance they need to be brought into discussions about defence requirement far earlier in the in planning/political cycle than is the case today so that a new balance can be struck between defence capability and defence affordability. Thereafter, the entire industrial/service supply chain needs to be exploited, not just the bespoke defence supply chain. And, where possible, as much hardware and software as possible bought off the shelf.

Take the new British super-carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Much of the press focus is on what many see as the inflated cost of the two ships at £6bn. The reason for that is simple; at the outset of the project politicians and businessmen told porky pies to Parliament about the cost of the project and how long it would take to realise. If they had told the truth the carriers would have been sunk at birth.

In fact, the construction of the two carriers by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance is a story of innovation and points to the future. The ships were built in sections across the UK, with the each section then floated on barges to Rosyth where they were assembled. To realise the project the prime contractors Bae Systems and Thales UK had to make use of much existing expertise from the declining North Sea oil industry and exploit a much wider supply chain than has been traditionally the case for such projects. This helped lead to the Defence Growth Partnership and attempts by the British to generate much more defence capability for each pound spent.        

  

However, if ever a real Defence Innovation Partnership is to be realised politicians must begin to answer a question they have been dodging since the end of the Cold War; what does the defence of Europe require, not how much defence of Europe can we afford.

Thank you, Airbus!

Julian Lindley-French

Can the West Peacekeep and Warfight?

Alphen, Netherlands. 8 September. “The UK and U.S. are determined to play our part in ensuring that our peacekeepers are up to the task of protecting civilians, abiding by the rule of law, and honouring the UN principles of humanity, impartiality and independence”. This was the central message from US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon in a piece in Today’s Times. The piece was written on the occasion of the “UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial” which Fallon will today host in London. The meeting begs a critical question that neither Carter nor Fallon were willing to address: can the West any longer undertake both peacekeeping and warfighting missions?

The facts. As of 30 June, 2016 there were 16 UN peacekeeping missions led by the Department for Peacekeeping Operations with 88,221 troops deployed from 123 countries, plus police and other support staff. Whilst Western forces provide important specialised support only some 5000 or 5% of UN peacekeepers actually come from the West.

The big elephant in today’s elegant Lancaster House room will be thus: how can ever-shrinking Western forces engage in ever more missions across an ever more demanding conflict spectrum demanding in turn ever more tasks and skills? Take the U.S. and UK; sequestration has critically undermined the ability of Washington to undertake longer-term force planning as modernisation has had to be sacrificed for readiness. Whilst on paper the US Army appears strong with some 450,000 active duty personnel, plus a US Marines Corps of 180,000 personnel, 40,000 troops are to be cut by the end of 2017.  The British cut their tiny regular army down to 82,500 from over 104,000 in the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review.  Worse, problems with recruiting means the regular force is now only some 78000 strong, whilst the much vaunted ‘Reserve Army’ is finding it hard to recruit the 30,000 troops to ‘compensate’ for repeated cuts to the front-line force, which has seen limited modernisation too often come at the expense of readiness.

Michael Fallon said this morning that Western engagement in UN peacekeeping was vital to prevent weak states collapsing and consequent hyper-migration and terrorism. Back in the 1990s it might have been possible for Western forces to engage exclusively in peace-making and peacekeeping missions because in a relatively permissive post-Cold War strategic environment the idea of major war had been banished. However, as I will say in a major speech I will be giving in Geneva tomorrow, those days are long gone.

If NATO is to successfully adopt what it calls a “360 degree approach” not only will Alliance forces need to look simultaneously east, west, south north, up and down, if they are to be credible ‘deterrers’ and defenders they will also be called upon to operate to effect throughout the conflict spectrum from low-end peacekeeping, to peace-enforcement, engaged counter-terrorism operations AND prepare for a possible future major war.  That will mean large, tightly-interoperable forces able to operate to effect across the seven domains of twenty-first century warfare – air, sea, land, cyber, space, information, and knowledge.

Colonel J.F.C. Fuller, the great British military-strategic thinker said that all forms of warfare involve manoeuvre and attrition. At the lower end of the spectrum even relatively ‘permissive’ operations demand a large amount of manpower. As such peacekeeping operations are not ‘warfare-lite’, as many Western (particularly European) politicians like to pretend. As Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have demonstrated preventing a weak state tip into terrorism and migration-fuelling anarchy demands a grand strategic campaign involving the application of huge forces and resources over time and distance.

So, if the Alliance is to credibly defend Poland and the Baltic States, which is my firm commitment, NATO forces must also be ready to prevent a possible war with Russian forces, a strategic hybrid war with a nasty nuclear tinge. That means the forward deployment of NATO forces in sufficient strength and of sufficient quality, and with the demonstrable ability to reinforce quickly, overseen by crystal clear political will and deft decision-making, and underpinned by resilient societies.

So, can the West peacekeep and warfight? At present no. The Americans lack sufficient mass of force to do both, whilst the Europeans lack both mass and manoeuvre forces in anything like the strength, or indeed at the level of necessary military capability and capacity. 

On the BBC this morning Michael Fallon was not even asked this pivotal question. Rather, after announcing 100 more British soldiers will go to the South Sudan, he then retreated into the now usual strategy-defying politically-correct guff about how important it is to get more women involved in peacekeeping, and to prevent sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers. Yes, these are important topics.  However, they are also part of a displacement strategy by politicians to avoid the real issue; sending 100 more British troops to peace-keep in South Sudan is 100 less British troops to defend the Baltic States. So small are European forces in particular that such choices really are these days part of a zero sum game.

If the West wants to peace-keep and war-fight seriously it will need to first act as the West and aggregate all of its forces and much of its effort. That means more and far more, far better forces than the West’s possesses today. For the democracies to suggest otherwise is to simply engage in yet more 1930s-echoing reality-appeasing political guff. The result of such guff is all too apparent in Europe's armed forces today; small forces with a little bit of everything, but not much of anything.

Julian Lindley-French                 

Is the G20 the Real Security Council?

Alphen, Netherlands. 5 September. Is the G20 the real Security Council? Over the past two days the heads of state and government of the G20 (Group of Twenty) top world economies met in Hangzhou in China to discuss a whole host of weighty topics. It is certainly interesting how the G20 seems to be steadily eclipsing both the Western-weighted G8 and the UN Security Council as the place where real power meets.

It is also worth stating just which states are in Hangzhou: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, UK and US, plus (of course!!!!) the EU.   This year the likes of Egypt, Spain and Singapore were also invited, along with the leaders of leading regional powers, together with a host of institutions.

Whilst the agenda was essentially economic in flavour the context was doggedly and decidedly about strategy and power. And, whilst the states represented come from all the world’s flashpoints it is also clear to see three emerging twenty-first century strategic groups; the World-Wide West, the Illiberal Great Powers, and the New Non-Aligned.  In a sense G20 more than any other forum captures the way of the world in 2016; a strange, dangerous and unpredictable world of power, weakness and informality. It is a rapidly changing world in which state power matters more than ever, but in which there are also a whole host of weak and failing states. It is a world in which international institutions proliferate, but their influence over world events appears to be failing. It is a world in states dominate, but are challenged by the anti-state more than ever before.

Take the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) which, since its 1945 founding and for all its many travails, has remained the formal focus of state power interaction, even during the Cold War. Indeed, it was the UNSC which during the Cold War provided the theatre for much dramatic confrontation between the West and the former Soviet bloc. However, even though it appeared paralysed for many years the very bipolar nature of the Cold War made it possible for institutional conflict resolution to play an important part in its eventual resolution. 

The world today is decidedly multipolar with institutions not only paralysed but fractured by many different disputes with no dominant state or bloc, not even the United States. Indeed, one notable aspect of this G20 were the divisions within the West, which would have been noted by all others present, particularly Presidents Putin and Xi. The strange sight of President Obama both reaffirming the ‘Special Relationship’ with Theresa May’s Brexit Britain and then dissing it was indicative of a new age in which power relationships even between close allies are as fluid as at any time since 1939.

That strategic fluidity ran through the G20 and with it the danger that ‘might’ will progressively replace ‘right’ as the shaping force of twenty-first century geopolitics. In a fluid strategic environment the ability of a state to decide and act quickly is at a premium, whilst multilateral institutions are rendered ponderous and reactive.

The whole purpose of post-1945 institutional architecture was to embed states in institutions to prevent extreme state action. However, be it China’s claims to much of the East and South China Seas, Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea, or the West’s selective interpretation of UN Security Council resolutions over the past twenty-five years, it is clear why formal international relations and the 1945 institutional construct is beginning to fail.

Hence G20. Since its founding in 1999 the G20 has steadily become the forum for real power. Naturally, the architects of the G20 would beg to differ. They would claim that as a place where power can talk G20 reinforces rather than diminishes institutional international relations. However, in much the same way as informal coalitions within alliances eventually threaten to destroy said alliances, regimes such as G20, reflective of power as they are, and indeed where power actually resides, over time inevitably eclipse and then destroy formal international institutions.

Therefore, if one places this week’s G20 in its rightful strategic context one sees a world teetering on the brink between might and right. Much like prior to World War One it is a world in which big state power is increasingly eloquent. This means that even if a powerful state defects from a set of accepted rules and norms, and even if it might be condemned for so doing, its very power means that it could not be punished. There simply would not be sufficient countervailing power to exact punishment, nor sufficient willingness on the part of other states to join together to re-impose agreed norms, precisely for fear of the power of the defecting state.

So, is the G20 the real Security Council? No, because such a council is where accepted norms and rules are applied. However, it is a ‘regime’ in which true power resides. And, as Thomas Hobbes once warned, “Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of use to secure a man at all. The bonds of words are too weak to bridle man’s ambition, avarice, anger, and other ambitions, without the fear of some coercive power”.

Forget the formal agenda of the G20. The real agenda in Hangzhou concerned power, change, who is up…and who is going down.

Julian Lindley-French                

Brexit: How hard can it be?

Alphen, Netherlands. 2 September. This summer I successfully undertook three major projects. First, under the command of the Supreme Authority here I decorated a bedroom. Second, working closely with a much esteemed friend and colleague I finished a new book. Third, I constructed a pond in my back garden. The pond is about the size of Jean-Claude Juncker’s Luxembourg, although not as wet, and comes complete with my homage to the Dutch mountains (together with mountain spring and utterly naff mountain stream). Complex projects all; but with a bit of thinking, planning and a lot of muscle, success! In other words, if one puts one’s mind to something one can achieve a lot.

Which brings me to Brexit. This week Prime Minister May held an ‘at home away day’ for ministers at her official posh country residence Chequers to discuss how to make Brexit happen. As she talked the former Head of the Civil Service Lord Gus O’Donnell (aka G.O.D) was opining in the media that the collapse of the Roman Empire was as nothing compared with the travails of Brexit, or words to that effect.  So, having endured dire warnings about pending economic Armageddon if Britain left the economically-destitute EU, I am now told by G.O.D. that extricating Britain from the EU will be the most difficult political and legal exercise in recorded history. How so and why so?

On the face of it G.O.D’s warnings look like yet another attempt by die-hard Remainers to delay Brexit in the hope that the British people will face up to their ‘folly’ and cancel out 23^rd June with a new referendum expressing ever-dying love for Project Europe and those lovely people in Brussels. ‘Fraid not! All the latest opinion polls show that same majority for Brexit as set Britain on this path back in June.

One of the arguments made by G.O.D. is that simply disentangling British law from EU law will be a gargantuan task. Why? What's the rush? After Article 50 is eventually triggered a process will begin that will take many years during which all existing laws will be reviewed. Some of the laws will be good, some indifferent, and some bad but there need be no rush to change laws. What matters is that one starts with the current corpus of statutes and the review process.

Another of the arguments is that Britain now lacks the expertise to conduct trade negotiations. Surely, if necessary, London can buy in such expertise until Britain’s own house-trained trade negotiators are up to speed? Again, there would appear to be no particular need for haste. First, Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU will be a political decision not a technical one. What really matters is that Britain is the world’s fifth biggest and Europe’s second biggest economy. Power is what dictates such arrangements, not technical attribute. Second, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is fast falling apart. Obama wanted Britain in the EU to help save it. Obama is dead political meat.

Which brings me to the real problem with Brexit; the British political class. It is a problem that has dogged Britain for years and which explains why Britain never actually behaves these days as the world’s fifth largest economy or Europe’s leading military power. Rather, much of the British political elite believe Britain to be a small wind-swept island off the West coast of Europe. Worse, it is are fundamentally split about the real issue at the heart of Brexit – EU trade versus EU immigration.

The evidence suggests a majority of those who voted for Brexit did so in the belief that Britain would regain ‘control’ over its borders, i.e. immigration. The problem for them is that whilst the referendum was an exercise in direct democracy it is the denizens of representative democracy who will control much of the process in Government and/or the House of Commons. A majority of them put access to the EU single market above control over immigration. Squaring this British circle could prove impossible.

Which brings me to the political problem of Brexit. First, the Conservative Party is split, the Labour Party is off into the fantasy realm of the red fairies, the Scottish Neverendum Party simply wants to destroy Britain, and the rest of them are led by a bunch of political nonentities. Second, unless the political class really believe in Britain’s ‘independent’ future London’s negotiating position will be weak from day one. Third, unless Britain’s political class show sufficient unity of effort and purpose in agreeing a vision of Brexit Britain’s negotiators will soon find themselves in an impossible position as London’s ‘red lines’ wobble all over the place. Fourth, unless the political class commit to the long-term and do not seek to change aspects of Brexit the civil service, excellent though it is at saving Britain from its politicians, will be simply unable to work its customary magic, G.O.D. or no G.O.D.

Prime Minister May has called for a “unique” deal for Britain which would see only those with a guaranteed job allowed to enter Britain from the EU, in return for full British access to the Single Market, including so-called ‘passporting rights’ for Britain’s financial services. If Brexit is to be made to work then both the British people and their politicians will have to confront the stark reality that is staring them in the face; free trade with the EU or controls on EU immigration. They are unlikely to get both.

Ho hum!

Julian Lindley-French        

The EU Migrant Ferry Service

Alphen, Netherlands, 31 August. The website of the EU External Action Service states that the “mission core mandate” of the EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia “…is to undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and dispose of vessels and enabling assets used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or traffickers, in order to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean and prevent further loss of life at sea”.  In the past twenty-four hours European naval forces, together with up to forty other agencies, have rescued close to 10,000 migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa.  Most have been picked up only 12 miles/20 kilometres off the Libyan coast as the traffickers are now putting just enough fuel in their horribly overloaded boats to get them outside Libyan territorial waters.

It is of course vital all such souls are rescued. No-one should have to endure a slow, lonely, drowning death in the middle of an alien sea and some 3000 people have already died in the attempt. Nor should Europe try to erect a Trump-like and frankly unworkable wall to keep migrants out. Equally, the strategic implications for European society of this seemingly endless flow of human misery must be gripped, reduced and its effects understood and mitigated.

Let me deal with the strategic implications for European society first because that is what this blog does, however uncomfortable. Those picked up off Libya are but the latest of 110,500 migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and Italy this year. Most of them are decent people who arrive in hope. When they arrive in Italy will be given a medical check-up, registered, and then sent to a migration centre where the process of seeking asylum begin. However, most migrants do not want to stay in Italy, and in any case the process is so lengthy many lose patience. They then drift northwards or sink into enforced Mafia-manipulated petty criminality on the streets of Rome and other Italian cities. Others get trapped on the Italian border with Austria, France and Switzerland, whilst many eventually make it through with the help of local traffickers. They then head further northwards towards Germany, the Netherlands and other Western European countries, whilst others end up in ‘The Jungle’ trying to reach Britain.

The essential problems are of scale and pace. Take those 110,500 who have made it to Europe this year. By year’s end that means at least 150,000 migrants will have reached Europe. Add this to the 1.1 million who went to Germany last year, together with those entering Europe via other routes, some 2 million people will have entered the EU illegally in the past two years. At least 80% will remain in Europe either legally or illegally, which means some 1.8 million people.

Experience suggests that over time there will be political amnesties and almost all will be granted the right to remain as European politicians buckle under the weight of human rights legislation and ‘community’ appointed human rights lawyers. The migrants will then be allowed to bring their families over, which means the European population will grow by at least 8 million over the coming years simply as a result of two years ‘business’ by traffickers. Given Turkey could well break the deal agreed last March with the EU that figure could climb rapidly.

Now, look forward twenty years. Experience of mass imposed immigration does not suggest the creation of harmonious multicultural societies. Trevor Phillips, former head of the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, even went as far this year to suggest that ‘multiculturalism’ has failed. Rather, recipient societies become progressively destabilised as migrant ghettoes form often with people who hold very different values to liberal Europeans. This destabilisation is made worse by the fact that the migration is so concentrated with most migrants wanting only to go to some six Western European countries. These are societies already grappling with the threat posed by ISIS as Chancellor Merkel admitted last month when she said that ISIS fighters had entered Europe in the migration flow.

So, can the humanity and security square be circled? Most reasonable Europeans understand that migration cannot be completely stopped and that what Europe is witnessing is an historic, structural shift in migration. However, Europeans do expect their leaders to better manage the crisis, which they are not. Better ‘management’ would need leaders to recognise first and foremost that the threat to European society from such uncontrolled immigration is as great as that posed by ISIS, not least because it is part and parcel of the same threat. Unfortunately, not only is there a complete absence of any attempt to ‘manage’ the crisis, Europe’s leaders would prefer Europeans pretend it was not happening, even if the implications for Europe’s future are grave. It is in the political vacuum in between which Trump-like populists exploit.

Europe’s leaders must thus come together and craft the following agenda for systematic action: establish a Europe-wide refugee policy (not a ‘common’ policy) that sees genuine asylum seekers assessed quickly and distributed across the entire EU; open new routes for legal, managed migration to Europe; deport humanely those that do not qualify to remain, the message of returnees will act as a powerful deterrent to those thinking of making a perilous journey; used language and dialect experts to identify the home country of those who have deliberately ‘lost’ identity papers; massively increase aid and development to those countries which are the main source of economic migrants, and include education programmes and media campaigns about the perils of making such a journey; do far more to integrate those migrants that remain into European society so they begin to feel part of it; face down the racists and their nostalgia-fuelled appeals to an ideal Europe that never existed; and, above all, go after the traffickers wherever they are with whatever it takes. These criminals are a clear and present danger to Europe’s security.

The other day, in yet another example of crass political naiveté, Chancellor Merkel pleaded with Turks not to import their current rivalries into Germany. Sorry, but that is precisely what happens when huge numbers of immigrants enter a liberal society. There is every reason to believe that ten years hence if the current migration flows continue at the current pace and scale Europe will look ever more like the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa complete with all the same tensions and hatreds. Plus, of course, the anger that will be felt by many Europeans as they wonder how on earth their leaders allowed things to get so bad.

Operation Sophia is yet another example of all that is wrong with Europe’s pitiful attempts to deal with big, dangerous, strategic change. Whether it be the ongoing Euro crisis, the threats posed by Russia and ISIS, or society-bending hyper-migration they all require grand strategy – the organisation of massive means in pursuit of grand strategic ends over time and distance. The failure to generate such strategy has already led the British to quit the EU (immigration was the main driver), the effective failure of the border-free Schengen Zone, and a profound loss of faith in Europe’s by and large incompetent and spineless leaders.    

Sadly, far from disrupting the ‘business model’ of traffickers or protecting the external borders of the EU, EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia aids and abets criminals, and as such is little more than a migrant ferry service between Libya and Italy.

Julian Lindley-French          

European Defence: The In-Betweeners

Alphen, Netherlands. 25 August. Calls for a European Army are a bit like my school bus of old; it could normally and tediously be relied upon to turn up regularly, but never went anywhere interesting. Indeed, ever since I wrote my doctorate on the subject many years ago Groundhog Day calls for the creation of a ‘common’ European force have surfaced and re-surfaced every time pressure mounts for Europe to do more to defend itself. The problem is that no ‘common’ as opposed to a ‘collective’ force can exist without a European government, and unless the French have suddenly become fans of scrapping France in favour of ‘Europe’ that ain’t going to happen anytime soon. The latest calls emerged this week and, as is now traditional for Europe’s leaders, Brexit is to blame. I never cease to be amazed at the power of we British to be responsible for all of the EU’s woes these days, from the anaemic, for that read no economic growth in the Eurozone, to failure to develop a common asylum policy, to Europe’s inability to defend itself. Fool Britannia!

This week’s Franco-German-Italian meeting demonstrated all too clearly just how far Europeans are from creating a European government AND thus a European Army. Prime Minister Renzi wanted more ‘security’ i.e. help with the refugees flooding into Italy, but as a friend of Russia seemed little interested in defence. President Hollande, like all French presidents when in trouble, called for more Europe’ to ward off Eurosceptic challenges to his political left and right, but not too much more ‘Europe’. Like all French presidents of the Fifth Republic Hollande does not actually want more Europe if it means less France. Chancellor Merkel benignly (and it is benign folks) and deliberately confuses more ‘Europe’ with more ‘Germany’ as she desperately seeks to use the EU to separate much-needed German leadership from not-much-needed German history. The one thing that they could all agree upon is that we British are appalling.

Indeed, it was interesting to watch the body language of the three of them on the Italian aircraft-carrier Garibaldi, soon to be massively and mightily eclipsed by the first of the new ‘ours are far bigger than yours’ British Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft-carriers. This was the theatre of togetherness replete, complete and ‘deplete’ with symbolic adherence to the federalist thinking of Rossi and Spinelli and the 1941 manifesto for the creation of a federal European state in which none of them actually believes. Only Jean-Claude Juncker believes in such nonsense, as his comment this week about borders being the worst political invention ever attests. I assume Juncker means borders within Europe?

However, it is European defence again where all this ‘faux-Europe’ nonsense is really being played out. This week Bohuslav Sobotka, prime minister of the essentially Eurosceptic Czech Republic, called for the idea of a ‘common’ European Army to be put on the agenda of October’s post-Brexit EU summit, because unlike Renzi he really is worried about Russia. Put aside for the moment Sobotka’s now common confusion between a ‘common’ force and a ‘collective’ force. In a speech he also called for a ‘joint’ European force, which is different from a common and to some extent a collective force a la NATO. His argument appears to be that such are the security and defence challenges faced by Europeans be it from mass uncontrolled immigration, Russia or a combination of the two only a European ‘force’ could possibly help control unwanted movement within the EU, and even more unwanted movement into the EU.

Add ‘President Trump’ to that mix. Whether it be President Clinton or President Trump, but especially if it is President Trump, the days of Europeans free-riding on the Americans for their security and defence are soon to be over. Add to that equation the coming loss of Europe’s strongest military power from the EU’s Common (there they go again) Security and Defence Policy and a form of mild panic is setting in in some quarters.

The problem is that the EU can be either vaguely solvent or vaguely defended, but it cannot be vaguely both. The EU’s monetary and budgetary stability rules prevent the realisation of NATO’s Defence Investment Pledge. As I wrote in my big paper for the NATO Warsaw Summit “NATO: The Enduring Alliance: 2016” “Given that 18 EU member-states are…far beyond the 3% budget deficit to GDP ratio enshrined in EU law…if the next US administration demands that NATO Allies move towards the 2%/20% goals far more quickly than the ‘within a decade’ specified in the Wales Summit Declaration…NATO and EU members will likely find themselves trapped in a kind of political no-man’s land between German-demanded austerity, EU deficit to GDP laws, and American-driven demands for all NATO members to spend 2% GDP on defence”.

In reality, calls for a European Army are not driven by the strategic imperative to increase Europe’s military capability in the face of threats. Rather, they are a desperate attempt to find a way to increase defence investment without actually spending more money and thus breaking (again) EU rules. The idea is by ‘eradicating’ duplications and the inherent inefficiency of having 28, soon-to-be 27, separate national European military establishments money could be found at the cost of sovereignty.  All well and good on paper, but does not work in the current reality is unlikely to work in future reality.

European defence is lost in-between Europe’s in-betweeners: between the EU and the member-states; between ‘common’ and ‘collective’; between strategy and politics; between the EU and NATO; between capability and capacity; between soft and hard power; between deficit, debt and defence; between the strictures of the European currency and the needs of European defence; and between Europe’s past,  present, and politically-uncertain future.

At one level Merkel, Hollande and Renzi are right to recall Rossi and Spinelli; the EU cannot stay where it is right now and continue to function – it must either integrate more deeply or disintegrate ever so gently. And, it may be that once we pesky Brits are no longer sitting at the table in Brussels telling the rest of the EU a ‘common’ defence simply will not work without a European government, at least in President Putin’s lifetime, then Europeans will decide in time to handover the whole Kitten Caboodle of Europe’s defence to the EU. However, until then the whole debate on a European Army will be trapped between strategic reality and political pretence, and Europe will remain trapped between ISIS, Russia and a possible President Trump, and will thus be far more insecure than needs be.

Of course, the alternative for Europe’s national leaders is right between their eyes; spend more bloody money now on defence! Now, where’s that bus.

Julian Lindley-French               

London, Rio & Brexit

Alphen, Netherlands. 22 August. Sixty-seven Olympic medals, of which twenty-seven are gold, with Great Britain second in the medals table ahead of China. Anyone who thinks sport and politics are somehow separate does not live on this planet. However, there is and must always be a distinction made between the two. Equally, I am not going for a moment to suggest that Team GB’s astonishing success at the Rio Olympics denotes some moral and political superiority of the British nation, not least because there is no such thing. It is precisely the making of such false connections, and the nationalism it engenders that leads illiberal powers such as Russia to engage in the state-sponsored doping of Olympic athletes. However, there are two sets of strategic lessons that I believe must be heeded from both the London and Rio Olympics. The first set concerns strategic lessons for the British government to learn about strategy and performance in the coming post-Brexit world. The second set concerns how Britain’s European partners deal with Britain in the coming Brexit negotiations.

First, the strategic lessons for Britain. The decision to improve Britain’s Olympic performance was utterly political. In 1996 at the Atlanta Olympics Britain finished thirty-second in the medals table with a paltry single gold medal. The nation of plucky losers had again pluckily lost. Enough was enough! When Tony Blair came to power in 1997 his attempt to recast Britain as ‘Cool Britannia’ (remember that?) led to some £300 million of mainly lottery money being invested in British elite athletes to improve Britain’s Olympic performance.

This strategy was bolstered in 2005 when London was awarded what was to become perhaps the most successful Olympics in the modern era. The London Olympic Park was delivered on time and to budget with a clear legacy plan enshrined at the core of a well-designed and well-implemented strategy. Although the aim to get more people engaged in sport has proven slightly more challenging, particularly for younger generations bought up on computer games that an oldie like me, brought up on the playing fields of sporting battle and Oxford, does not get.

There are six specific lessons for the British government. The first lesson is an old one. When in a political corner the British remain very good at fighting their way out of it. Second, given a good strategy and belief in an objective Britain is very good at delivering. Third, Britain succeeded at both the London and Rio Olympics by going out and hiring the best coaches irrespective of from where they came. Fourth, the elite performance programmes for British athletes were utterly ruthless funding only those people and sports who continually delivered. Fifth, Britain set out to achieve Olympic success for itself, not to diminish anybody else.  Sixth, Britain’s exit from the EU must be for Britain and not against ‘Europe’. Indeed, Brexit must not be about leaving the EU, but re-building Britain’s place in the world as a top five economy and military power (which Britain will need).

Second, the lessons for Britain’s European partners in managing divergence; if Brexit is FOR Britain, further European integration must be FOR ‘Europe’, and not AGAINST Britain. This morning Francois Hollande, Angela Merkel and Matteo Renzi will meet on the tiny Italian island of Ventotene. The symbolism could not be more pointed. As Britain basks in a patriotic, nation-affirming Olympic moment the leaders of what is soon to be the rump EU will endeavour to recapture the spirit of European integration the loss of which Brexit has highlighted. Divergence is inevitable but how that divergence is managed will shape the future of Europe.

In 1941, whilst imprisoned by Mussolini, Ernesto Rossi and Altieri Spinelli wrote “The Manifesto of Ventotene”, which called for the creation of a European federal state.  Today, the the three leaders will need to consider how to promote further integration without punishing the British for a democratic choice to reject it. It is a serious point because such is the extent of pan-European euro-scepticism that failure could see the entire current crop of European leaders swept aside weakening an already pitifully weak Europe at a dangerous strategic moment. The pressure to ‘punish’ Britain will be hard to resist. The greatest fear in Brussels is that the British actually make a success of Brexit.

Therefore, it is time for cool heads all round. Let Britain enjoy its moment of Olympic glory with the clear understanding all round it is sport, not some alternative metaphor for war. The three leaders on Ventotene could help set the tone for the forthcoming Brexit negotiations and political reconciliation by jointly congratulating Britain on its Olympic success, even if it is through gritted teeth.  In return Britain must re-commit itself to being a good partner. That means first and foremost an absolute British commitment to the security and defence of Europe in the twenty-first century.  

The alternative is one in which all Europeans lose. Before the great battles with France of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries English and Welsh longbowmen, armed with the decisive strategic weapon of the age, would stand before ranks of French knights holding up the two arrow-pulling forefingers of the left hand to demonstrate their defiance and their firepower. Even today ‘two fingers’ is a mark of English defiance and there will be part of the English character this morning that sees Olympic success as ‘two-fingers’ to those who say Britain cannot thrive outside of the EU. That sentiment must be resisted and its further stoking avoided – Britain is too important to Europe and Europe too important to Britain for a serious set of negotiations to be based on defiance…on either side.

So no, I am not going to make a spurious connection between British sporting excellence and national superiority, because there is none, except perhaps for a moment in the organisation of some Olympic sports (football?). However, I am going to enjoy a bloody good, momentary gloat!

By the way, was Australia at the Rio Olympics?

Julian Lindley-French

Time to Block Barrel Bomb Bashar

“We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is if we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised. That would change my calculus. That would change my calculation”.

President Barack Obama, August 2012

Alphen, Netherlands. 17 August. To be effective statecraft must consider all options if strategy is to realise outcomes. Yesterday, at least nine civilians were killed in Aleppo, and others died on the outskirts of Damascus, as a result of the regime’s use of barrel bombs filled with life-crushing chemicals. Yesterday’s victims, alive when I had breakfast, now join the at least 300,000 who have perished in Syria’s ghastly war. Last week I argued in this blog that if the West is not prepared to do anything more than write hand-wringing op-eds in well-known newspapers then it must talk to Assad and his Russian backers. Indeed, for Assad and his backers are responsible for most of the killing in Syria. However, what would induce Assad and Putin to talk given they clearly believe they are winning and can act with impunity?

In fact Assad, Putin and their Iranian allies are not winning the Syrian war which is in stalemate. Even with limited Russian support the regime in Damascus is not strong enough to win. However, as long as Russia and Iran continue to back Bashar Assad he cannot lose. The stalemate is made worse by a weak and incompetent West. Like the Grand Old Duke of York of old in 2013 President Obama marched his troops and those of other Western powers up the hill of ill-considered action, only to promptly march them down again.  Today, Assad and Putin are betting the US will take no action beyond counter-ISIS missions before the November US presidential elections.

So, what did President Obama mean by ‘red lines’ back in 2012? The White House said that if the regime or others used chemical weapons against civilians the US would deem the regime to have crossed a red line. It is not too late even now to reinvest those ‘red lines’ with presidential political capital by warning Assad that the red-lines are still in place.  In other words, if the regime continues to use barrel bombs against Syria's civilian population filled with chlorine, napalm and other chemicals as part of a truly deadly fuel-air mix there will be consequences…and mean it.  

What could be the consequences? Between 1991 and 2003 America and Britain declared and enforced no fly zones over Iraq to protect the Kurdish and Shia Arab peoples in Iraq from the vengeful actions of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Baghdad. Over that period both the Americans and British undertook air and missile strikes against Iraqi military targets to deter, prevent and punish Saddam.

What would the no fly zones restrict? It is now time to establish no fly zones over all Syrian cities. To ensure proportionality the American-led coalition could first agree that current air operations over Syria against ISIS would be expanded to attacks on the slow-moving regime helicopters entering self-declared zones and which are responsible for carrying up to eight barrel bombs per mission. If that fails to deter the regime following due warning a complete no fly zone could then be established banning all aircraft from the zones.

How would the no fly zones be enforced? Given President Erdogan’s rapprochement with Moscow it is unlikely that he would permit the use of Turkey’s Incirlik air base to enforce the no fly zones. Therefore, RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus would need to be the hub for air operations, reinforced by the US Sixth Fleet and the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. At present there is no US fleet carrier in the Mediterranean but operations could also be launched from the Gulf. The ability of the West to undertake such operations will be significantly enhanced over the next few years by the commissioning of the two large British aircraft carriers HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.       

Why would no fly zones force Assad to talk? First, it would flush the Russian role out into the open and force Moscow to make a choice. Last week Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov suggested Russia and the US were close to undertaking joint actions over Aleppo. If this is the case ‘joint actions’ could only take place if the Russian’s themselves stop applying the tactics of Grozny to Aleppo. Second, Western action would remind Assad just how fickle Russia’s support for him actually is. If Moscow was to be offered a deal that would preserve Russian influence in the region without Bashar Assad he would be dropped by Putin faster than an empty vodka bottle in a Russian government dacha. Third, commitment to no fly zones would at last communicate not only Western resolve, but a reasoned course of Western action. Faced with a West that is finally resolved to act Assad would talk and the stuttering Geneva talks might finally begin to make headway.

This week Assad flew several Mi-24 Hind helicopters right through President Obama’s red lines. It is time for the West to block barrel bomb Bashar and for President Obama to step up to his own lines.

Julian Lindley-French     

Decline and Fall 2016?

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security.  They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom.  When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

Edward Gibbon “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”

Alphen, Netherlands. 10 August. The West is in trouble. Whatever one might think about President Erdogan’s post-coup power grab he understands the ebb and flow of power. This week Erdogan went to St Petersburg to meet Russia’s President Putin less than a year after Turkish aircraft shot down a Russian plane. The implications of the trip are clear; given Turkey’s difficult geopolitical and geographic position Ankara’s best option is to back the ascendant power. Ever since Turkey joined NATO in 1952 Ankara has taken the view that alliance with the West affords Turkey the best chance of security. That assumption would appear to be changing.  Why?

There are many afflictions undermining the power and influence of the contemporary West. The very fact that an insurgent such as Donald Trump is so close to the White House is already profoundly shaking the confidence of America’s allies and partners in the value of US leadership. The obsession of European leaders with Project Europe at the expense of all else is doing real damage to the West’s strategic brand. It is now obvious that the EU far from aggregating European power on the world stage is accelerating the retreat of Europeans into an obsession with values and legalism. However, it is the focus of to many elites in the West on short-term political and/or financial gratification at the expense of long-term strategic probity that is doing the real damage.

Let me highlight the point by citing two examples of this problem over the past week or so from my own country Britain; the stalled deal with China to build a new nuclear power-station, and a leaked report on the relative capabilities of British and Russian armed forces.

Last week new British Prime Minister Theresa May ordered a review of a deal under which China would have funded the construction of an as yet untested French-designed nuclear power station at Hinkley Point in return for China being able to build another showcase reactor at Bradwell in Essex. This desperate deal was the brainchild of the strategically-illiterate Cameron-Osborne duopoly.

The fact that such a deal could have ever been contemplated reflects the political stupidity of what passes for British energy policy. When I was a kid I used to work in a pub at Oldbury-on-Severn right next to a nuclear power station at a time when Britain was the world leader in civil nuclear power. However, the ‘power’ of the green lobby, and the political obsession of several governments with renewables when it was clear such technologies could never meet Britain’s energy needs led Britain down an energy dead-end. It also highlighted the cost of the 'little politics at the expense of big strategy' problem that has dogged Britain for years.

As for China there is nothing in Beijing’s behaviour of late in the South and East China Seas or in the levels of Chinese state cyber-hacking or Chinese espionage that would suggest Beijing is ever going to be a real strategic partner of either Britain or the West. London must understand that Chinese state funding for such projects is only undertaken as part of what Beijing perceives as Chinese state, i.e. geopolitical interests. What are Chinese interests? To weaken Britain’s ability to act as an independent strategic actor by imposing a level of British dependence on China, and in particular to weaken London’s still vital strategic partnership with the United States.

Even on commercial grounds this deal is madness, on strategic grounds it is full on insanity.   To then compound the problem by giving an illiberal power such as China unheralded and utterly unwarranted access to key components of Britain’s critical nuclear energy infrastructure simply demonstrates the retreat from sound ‘strategy-fying’ which has afflicted London for far too long.

And then there is Russia. This morning a leaked report from the British Army’s Land Warfare Centre publicly confirmed something of which I have been aware of for some time – Russian forces could now out-think, out-manouevre, and out-fight British and all other European forces. General Sir Richard Shirreff, NATO’s former military No. 2, and for whom I had the honour of working briefly when he was commander of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps, is a friend and colleague. He was attacked by London’s chattering classes earlier this year for publishing a book entitled 2017: War with Russia.  His assailants had clearly not read the book.

What is really interesting was why Shirreff was attacked. The general thrust of the criticism seemed to be that Shirreff was a warmongering general who was bothering people with an uncomfortable reality and that he really did not understand that the idea of war has been banished because it is neither politically-correct nor politically-convenient. Indeed, the abuse, for that is what much if it was, was little more than strategic and political decadence from a political and intellectual class in London too many of whom seem unwilling or unable to comprehend that really, really bad things can still happen in world affairs. And, that it will fall to states like Britain to stop it and if it happens do something about it. Syria?

So, decline and fall? Not quite. The good news is that Prime Minister May seems to have adopted a far more sober view of British strategic interests than the strategically-illiterate Cameron and the mercantilist Osborne. The fact that the British Army is beginning to properly address the issue of relative power suggests strategic realism might be returning. And, Prime Minister May is surely right to review the Hinkley Point deal and hopefully kill it; the French reactor does not work, the Chinese must not be able to use energy as a geopolitical lever on Britain, and the British taxpayer is being screwed by both.

It is time the West got a strategic grip and that can only happen when leading powers like Britain start again to put strategy before politics. Then the likes of Turkey will again believe that their security can only be afforded by allying with the liberal powers against the illiberal powers for that is the choice all of us must now make.

As for Mr Trump???????????

Julian Lindley-French  

     

      

Syria is the new Chechnya

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 August. August always fills me with geopolitical foreboding. With the democracies on vacation it is this month that is traditionally the moment for dirty geopolitics. This August is doubly concerning because it coincides with the Brazil Olympics. True to form our old friend Vladimir Putin is using both to ruthlessly pursue his strategic ends in Syria. Remember the Beijing Olympics back in 2008 when he invaded Georgia? This August he is applying the same tactics against Aleppo that he used against Grozny during the two Chechen Wars. The shooting down of a Russian Air Force helicopter some 8 km from where a barrel bomb had just been dropped is eerily reminiscent of the destruction of Grozny. As is the offer to ‘assist’ with humanitarian efforts, but only so long as such efforts are under the complete control of both Damascus and Moscow.

What is the West doing about it? Next to nothing. Limited coalition raids are being mounted against ISIS targets, but nothing to resolve the situation in Syria. There was an interesting piece in the British digital newspaper The Independent last week by Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders. Sad to say it was all too typical of the ‘something must be done, but not too much, and not by me’ nonsense beloved of Europe’s handwringing, strategically-inept political elite.

Entitled Aleppo must not become synonymous with global inaction the title was carefully worded, particularly the use of the phrase, ‘global inaction’. Of course, Koenders should really have said ‘Western inaction’ or to be more precise ‘European inaction’. Why? Because as a foreign minister he knows all too well that without UN Security Council agreement ‘global’ action is a non-starter. Yes, the piece likens Aleppo to Srebrenica and the dark chapter in UN and Dutch peacekeeping when Dutchbat permitted the Bosnian Serbs to murder thousands of Bosnian Muslims. Yes, Koenders makes the valid point that most Syrians want to live neither under the murderous Caliphate nor under the equally murderous Assad regime, and their cynical Russian and Iranian backers who see the Syrian people as no more than very small pawns in a great geopolitical game.

What he suggests as a solution is both clever and disingenuous. Koenders calls for a stepped up campaign against ISIS and a much greater humanitarian effort. However, what he wilfully fails to point out in the piece is that in Syria humanitarian action cannot be effective without strategic action. In other words, any alleviation of suffering and/or defeat of ISIS is not possible without either confronting Russia and removing Assad, or accommodating Russia and talking to Assad. It is a stark choice that has been obvious for some time but which Koenders and his fellow leaders have pretended they need not make.

Confronting Russia and Assad at this stage would require the West to threaten a major military land, sea intervention, involving both Western and Arab forces. That is not going to happen. Turkey is now close to being a failed state and no longer a sound base from which to launch such an assault. President Obama is a lame duck president who can at best order a few air strikes against ISIS in Libya. Europe has become strategic prey and abandoned all pretence of engaging danger at distance and simply waits these days for danger to come to Europe, mitigate the effects, and/or pretend no danger exists.

Thus, there is only the alternative? If the West/Europe is not prepared to act against Assad and Putin it must talk to Assad and Putin if there is to be any chance of an alleviation of the suffering of the Syrian people. There are many factors that have led Syria to this point but Western, in particular European, weakness is a major factor. Sadly, it is weakness typified by a European political elite of which Koenders is a part.  

So, as America blusters the summer away in what is perhaps the worst US general election in American history, and Europe slumbers on what is now a permanent strategic vacation Assad and Putin will continue to act with impunity. No amount of hand-wringing articles by impotent foreign ministers from small European states who have decimated their own ability to influence big, dangerous events will matter a jot.

Let me be clear; Syria is the new Chechnya and Aleppo is the new Grozny. In the two Chechen wars Putin believed that the only way to break the secessionist movement was to destroy Grozny. Assad, with Russian backing, is now determined to wipe Aleppo out. And, like Chechnya, both Assad and Putin will give the West just enough excuse to turn away and do nothing.

The consequences? Many thousands more will die and in October at the latest President Erdogan of Turkey will abrogate the March 2016 deal with the EU and open the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking to escape to Europe. Then, Europe will again see the folly of being too weak to stop what is happening in Syria.

Still, there is always the Olympics to watch.

Julian Lindley-French