Britain's Defence of All the Talents

London: A Small Island to Which No-one Pays Attention. 12 September.  DSEI is the world’s leading defence equipment show.  The hall stretches before me like some latter day modernist, Mondianist cathedral. It is pot-marked with large bits of military equipment laid out in a kind of military feng shui.  This week I have had the honour of chairing various conference sessions and meetings.

 

The message I take away from the week is that Britain is to pioneer a radical approach to defence. Indeed, it will be national defence driven by all the talents - official and non-official, national and international. Given that ambition the best and the worst of official Britain was on show here. 

 

Britain’s armed forces were the best of it.  The centre-piece of the week was the RUSI Maritime Operations Conference at which the Head of the Royal Navy, the impressive Admiral Sir George Zambellas, laid out what he called “Britain’s Maritime Renaissance”.  Zambellas might have well called his statement “Britain’s Strategic Renaissance”.  In many ways the Royal Navy is the litmus test of Britain’s strategic ambition and the re-forging of a truly national strategic force.  One does not build large bits of floating national defence infrastructure (why are bridges counted and funded as infrastructure and not warships?) if one lacks strategic ambition.

 

Divided into three ‘epochs’ the Navy’s renaissance will stretch out to 2040.  Right now two large aircraft carriers are being built with a new class of frigates about to be built.  A class of new destroyers has just been completed with a new class of nuclear-attack submarines rolling off the stocks.  A decision will soon be made to purchase a like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent and a host of support ships are also being procured. 

This year Britain took delivery of its first Lightning 2 Joint Strike Fighter a version of which will operate off the carriers and the Navy is beginning to replace its entire stock of helicopters.  Britain’s Secretary-of-State for Defence Philip Hammond also announced here a further £250m investment in a new weapons system for the Navy and a radical new approach to defence-industrial partnerships.  

And then there was the worst of official Britain.  It is not the scale of the reinvestment in the Royal Navy that matters but the radicalism implicit in it.  From the Secretary of State down through his staff the message was the same – Britain’s defence is open to new business and new ideas.  And yet the body language from the Secretary-of-State down could not be more different.  Those of us who may have a tad of a reputation for thinking ‘outside of the box’ are still too often treated as though we are a bad smell.  For all the talk of new beginnings the new Ministry of Defence (MoD) looks just like the old MoD – open to new ideas as long as they come from within. 

It is not the people that are the problem but the culture and the climate of fear all too evident in the MoD.  The MoD has been under intense pressure these past few years but ‘openness’ must not simply mean another tired reincarnation of the closed and self-serving iron triangle of defence, industry and politics.  Indeed, if the ambition and enthusiasm evinced by Admiral Zambellas is to be realised (and it must be) the political and civilian side of the house needs to stop so obviously holding their noses when the supportive awkward squad make a challenging point.

New thinking requires risk and yes a few bad journalists will write a few unfair headlines because they are fully paid up members of the Little Britain mafia which is so pervasive in this town.  However, leadership is not telling people they cannot take questions at sessions I chair for fear they might be misinterpreted.  Leadership and effective defence engagement is about trusting people and maintaining the commitment to the exciting defence strategic vision Britain is pioneering whatever the headlines.  Once again bad politics in London is in danger of confounding good national strategy.

If Britain’s radical defence strategy is to be realised orthodoxy will need to be challenged because Britain’s strategic business will never go back to ‘usual’. London’s Excel Centre from where I write this blog is but a broken banker’s bonus distant from the City where four years ago this week Lehman Brothers collapsed sparking Britain’s worst financial crisis for a century because government got it so wrong. 

There is a really good news story to talk about Britain’s strategic defence renaissance. However, I fear it could well fail because of narrowness of mind and spirit in the Ministry of Defence.  If the MoD simply talks the talk of culture change but refuses to walk the walk it will be the same old, same old – big talk, poor delivery.  Culture change starts at the very top, Mr Hammond.

Julian Lindley-French

Europe, Syria and the Crisis of Global Governance

Riga, Latvia. The Riga Conference is a highlight in my annual calendar and an antidote to the eternal self-obsessed ‘westerneuropeanitis’ which passes for strategy in Europe these days.  Sharing a platform with the Belgian, British and Latvian defence ministers I fulfilled my now traditional role as Europe’s strategic hooligan.  Dangerously I also sent my first tweet – Yorkshire finally enters the twenty-first century!  My plea was simple and heartfelt - do not confuse the defence of Europe with the deepening of the EU.  If the former has to wait for the latter it will die of political old age.

 

The final panel of the conference did what the European elite loves most – talked about itself.  President Ilves of Estonia was joined by Europe’s two most impressive foreign ministers – Sweden’s Carl Bildt and Poland’s Radek Sikorski to consider the strategic outlook of the EU. A more oxymoronic session for a conference one could not imagine as Europe these days rarely looks out and does not do strategy.  And yet it must!

The brilliant Celeste Wallander the token American on the panel tried valiantly to intrude on Europe’s private grief but she was far too optimistic.  And to be fair to her fellow luminaries they are the most real world of all European leaders these days.  Indeed, the idea that ‘new Europe’ should hold ‘old Europe’ to account was refreshing, depressing and ironic (when will 'new' Europe simply become Europe).  I say ironic because in a few days the brand new HMS Daring will visit Riga, Britain’s and one of the world’s most advanced warships.  This is 'old' Europe investing in new military kit.

Syria was the elephant in the room demonstrating yet again Europe’s disconnect from the world and from each other.  In St Petersburg the Germans had just failed to sign the declaration of the several western powers present at the G20 meeting condemning Assad’s use of chemical weapons.  Now, Berlin could be forgiven for making a mistake given the thousand diplomatic shocks to which political flesh is heir to during an election campaign.  However, the Germans had demurred because Europe’s ‘President’ Herman Van Rompuy had prevailed on Berlin to wait until an EU meeting in Vilnius so as not to upset ‘les petits’.  Talk about tail wagging the elephant!

Overcoming my natural and habitual reticence I ploughed into the debate by suggesting that the Syria crisis is in fact far more than an issue of to intervene or not to intervene.  It is an essential struggle over the very nature of global governance with profound implications for those who believe in values and functioning international institutions.  Indeed, Syria reveals the most strategic of fights over the future of global governance between the ‘sovereignty at any cost’ lobby led by Russia and the ‘humanity at lowest cost’ lobby led by the Americans.

Now, there are a whole host of reasons why the strike the Obama administration is proposing will not work.  However, the crisis also reveals the extent to which whilst the Americans, Chinese, Russians and Indians et al play power poker Europeans continue to play integration chess.  What Europe refuses to understand is that the truly strong do not need strategy; it is the weak that need strategy.  However, the politics of European integration today makes Europe unique in international politics; weakness without strategy.  The whole process is making Europe's big powers behave like little ones. Someone even proffered the idea that the Eurozone crisis is deepening European integration,  If so it is the integration of despair. 

The bottom line is that Europe could do far more in the world. However, Europe lacks the shared vision, will, both soft and hard power and the willingness to share risk at the point of contact with danger upon which strategy is made. 

This brings me back full circle to my panel of defence ministers (plus little old me).  Philip Hammond the British Defence Minister rightly said there will be no new money for European defence but Europeans must do more together.  However, there also needs to be strategic investment in twenty-first century military capabilities such as HMS Daring if Europe's soft power is to have a vital hard edge.  Sure that will involve some cost.  However, a world that drifts back to the politics of grand cynicism will prove far more costly. 

There is a crisis of global governance today and European weakness is partly responsible.  Riga and its history attest to the consequences when European democracies choose to be weak.
  
Julian Lindley-French

 

Is the Special Relationship Dead?

Alphen, Netherlands.  5 September.  Is the Anglo-American special relationship dead?  In the wake of Parliament’s 29 August decision to block the use of British forces in any US-led strike on Syria British officers were ejected from planning meetings at US Central Command (CENTCOM).  At this week’s G20 meeting in St Petersberg President Obama will pointedly have a private meeting with France’s President Hollande, but not with David Cameron.

 

To understand the special relationship it is necessary to go back to its origins.  Not surprisingly it was the product of Winston Churchill’s fertile and febrile strategic imagination.  In a famous March 1946 speech in Fulton, Missouri entitled “Sinews of Peace” Churchill said, “Neither the sure prevention of war, nor the continuous rise of world organization will be gained without what I have called the fraternal association of the English-speaking peoples ...a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States”.  At the time Churchill was set on re-casting the victorious Anglo-American alliance of World War Two to confront Soviet expansionism.

That was then this is now.  Britain is no longer an imperial power but still retains one of the world’s leading economies and one of the world’s most capable armed forces, albeit one in which the link between capability and capacity is now dangerously tenuous. The relationship also tends to vary depending upon who is in charge in London and Washington and the extent to which British leaders determine they must align the British interest with the American. 

Equally, there are indeed areas of co-operation between the countries that can be said to be ‘special’ by international standards.  The co-operation between American and British Intelligence is certainly ‘special’ as Edward Snowden has revealed.  Moreover British Intelligence has been particularly effective in Syria which may explain Obama’s muted response to Parliament’s nay say.   

However, the true foundation of the special relationship is first and foremost the relationship between the armed forces of the two countries.  As retired US Army Four Star General Jack Keane said this week of the proposed Syria operation, "We operate side by side with the UK and we know who our closest ally is. We certainly would much rather do this with the UK side by side, that's how the military feels,[and] I really think the leaders of the country feel”.

Giving evidence before the Senate over the summer the new US Ambassador to the Court of St James said, "We are committed to working with that strong relationship [with Britain] to ensure that they [the British armed forces] remain full-spectrum capable, that they remain operable with us and also that they are able to continue to lead missions on behalf of NATO.  It is an area of critical concern."

My own conversations with American leaders underline the damage that was done to Britain’s influence in Washington by London’s 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).  The damage was not simply a question of the cuts per se but the way London failed to manage American expectations.  Some of that damage has since been offset by the large equipment programme announced for the British armed forces.  Sensible people in DC also understand that the British Government had to close a £38bn ($59bn) funding gap in Britain’s defence budget at a time when failing banks had brought Britain’s economy to its knees.

However, Washington does not do sentimentality.  A close friend of mine who is a very senior American said to me recently that the relationship works so long as Britain does not test it.  Critically, there are no blocks of hyphenated British-Americans with a US vote, in the same way there are Jewish-Americans and Polish-Americans.  Therefore as Churchill fades into the far-past it is British power that will define the scope and extent of British influence in Washington and the Americans will measure that power as being first and foremost military. 

Therefore London has some ground to catch-up which will not have been helped by this week’s Parliamentary vote.  Moreover, the Anglo-American relationship has been diluted in the American political mind over the years by a rather sordid and sorry mix of over-needy British politicians desperate for American presidential blessing, London’s retreat from big thinking about strategy and massive cuts to Britain’s armed forces.  For all that America and Britain still enjoy the closest strategic relationship of any two sovereign states on the planet. And, the relationship is not a beauty contest.  If America operates with others from time to time as it will London needs to be mature about it.   

However, if SDSR 2015 does not re-set the British armed forces back onto a path towards an ability to lead coalitions then not only will the special relationship wane further in the American mind but the value of NATO with it.  Indeed, British military capability is a key factor in keeping NATO relevant in Washington.  Therefore, SDSR 2015 must be strategically substantive and sold well in Washington.  One of the big mistakes the British made in 2010 was to under-estimate the influence of DC think-tanks over both White House and Pentagon thinking. 

The special relationship is not dead but if SDSR 2015 fails in the American political mind Britain will simply become yet another of those pesky European allies forever demanding, offering little by way of return and all too willing to fight to the last American.  There is nothing special about that.

Julian Lindley-French

Syria, Obama and the Value-Interest

Alphen, Netherlands. 2 September. President Obama’s 31 August decision to authorise but delay a military strike against Syria’s Bashir al-Assad’s regime in the wake of the alleged use of chemical weapons is an important moment.  Taken together with the 29 August decision of Britain’s Parliament to deny Prime Minister Cameron permission to use force two changes are apparent.  First, an evolution is taking place in both America and Britain over the use, utility and place of force in strategy.  Indeed, what is striking about Obama-Cameron is how far they are from Bush-Blair, even if their respective peoples fear otherwise.  Second, the now traditional confusion between values and interests is morphing in the presidential mind into a new Obama doctrine - the value interest. This is a place where Justus Lipsius meets Machiavelli (not to mention Talleyrand).  

 

The problem for Obama is that the subjectivity implicit in the value-interest and the law of unintended consequences to which it is heir makes it hard to discern any relationship between ends, ways and means.  Would an Assad regime with the blood of tens of thousands of its people on its hands feel a slap on the wrist?  Would cruise missiles slamming into empty command and control bunkers and arsenals degrade the regime?  Would the action in and of itself send a message to other tyrants not use chemical weapons?  Would such a strike open up new avenues towards a regional political settlement? 

It is precisely the cracks in the American (and British) strategic mind between punishing Assad and sending a broader message into which ends, ways and means are falling.  The punitive strike Obama has on offer is neither intervention nor punishment, something Senator John McCain has rather pointedly alluded to by suggesting there is neither plan nor strategy.

The value-interest is the strategic sibling of democratic legitimacy in that it beautifies the national interest.  This is particularly important now that international law is in crisis and the UN Security Council has once again been reduced to the theatre of big power cynicism.  

A Washington power struggle is now taking place between values and interests with the President casting himself as arbiter rather than leader.  Whilst the slaughter of innocents should indeed cause deep moral indignation it is not enough of and in its own right to act as the basis for American grand strategy.  The language of US Secretary of State John Kerry has at times come close to being a statement of values masquerading as interests.  This is precisely what made the Bush 2 years so unpredictable.  Getting the balance right between values and interests is absolutely essential at such moments and thus a pause for reflection is no bad thing.

Equally, the very hybridity of the value-interest makes it an uncomfortable partner for strategy given that it occupies an indeterminate and ill-determined space between Western liberalism and Realpolitik.  At one end of the spectrum the value-interest leads many on the left to call for Western intervention in all the world’s conflicts under the UN’s tattered and sovereignty-flouting Responsibility to Protect.  This is Tony Blair’s view.  However, given the experience of Afghanistan and Iraq and cuts to Western armed forces the value-interest simply makes a mockery of ends, ways and means. 

At the other end of the spectrum the Chinese and Russians uphold the utterly cynical view that the national state interest is the only test of intervention and sovereignty the sovereign coin of the realm.  Indeed, 'sovereignty' is the new fault-line in international politics.  This does not suggest a rosy international future should China ever dominate.     

The value-interest has also masks a deep fault-line between Americans and Europeans over the ends, ways and means of geopolitics.  Americans believe in the value-interest because it is part of American ‘moral exceptionalism’ whereas Britain and France still retain just a smidgeon of global reflex, albeit one that it is fast-eroding.  However, for many other Europeans national sovereignty is simply an empty shell in which the remains of the national interest occasionally twitches but is now by and large dead.  For them the dystopian uplands of legalism offer a false refuge against the imperatives of the age.  With the UN Security Council stymied that means utter inaction.

The only way for Obama to some restore balance between ends, ways and means and the value-interest would be a return to American statecraft.  This is clearly what President Obama was referring to when he said “...this mission is not time-sensitive; it will be effective tomorrow, or next week, or one month from now”.

Statecraft demands a balanced package of co-option and coercion in pursuit of ends that are both desirable and achievable.  It requires strategic judgement, sound intelligence, the patient building of coalitions but above all a political strategy supported by credible national means – political, economic, diplomatic and finally military - applied consistently over time and distance. 

In Syria and the wider Middle East it is the absence of statecraft that has done so much damage and the confusion of values with interests could be about to make the situation a whole lot worse. 

Julian Lindley-French

"I Have a Dream"

Washington, USA. August 1963 

“I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. 

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

 

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  I have a dream...

 

I have a dream that one day in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

"I have a dream even today...I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low.  The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight.  And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.  This is our hope.  This is the faith that I go back to the South with.  With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. 

 

With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.  With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning.  “My country, ‘tis of thee sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.  Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring”.  And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. 

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.  Let freedom ring from the mountains of New York.  Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.  Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.  Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that.  Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia.  Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.  Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi, from every mountain side.  Let freedom ring...

When we allow freedom to ring – when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last”. 

The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr.

Syria: A Shot in the Dark

Alphen, Netherlands.  27 August.  There are times when a punitive military strike can be justified, legitimate, proportionate and effective.  US Secretary of State John Kerry has described last week’s use of chemical weapons against the population of a Damascus suburb as a “moral obscenity”.  He is of course right – the use of such weapons against civilians is a disgusting act and illegal under the 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).  In response US, as well as allied aircraft and ships, are now being moved to the Eastern Mediterranean in preparation for a strike with a British air-base on Cyprus likely to be at the centre of operations. 

 

Would a punitive strike be justified?  If clear evidence can be established that the Assad regime was responsible for the attack then there would be some grounds for a punitive strike.  However, the UN Chemical Weapons Inspectors have as yet to conclude their investigation and British Foreign Secretary William Hague has suggested that the ‘crime scene’ will have been tampered with.  US officials suggest that there is “little doubt” the Assad regime is behind the attack.  Is that the case?

 

A friend of mine commanded a group charged with countering nuclear, biological and chemical attack.  He told me, “There are worrying anomalies, though it’s difficult to assess the occurrences from the limited amount of data that is coming through. There are some Sarin-like symptoms but survivors talking about burning eyes and feelings of suffocation do not square with Sarin. The classic symptoms of Sarin (GB) and other nerve agents are, at low doses, the mother of all headaches”.  He goes on, “The argument for this is reinforced by the evidence as far as I can see it that there wasn’t a lot of chemical released. Professionals would have achieved tighter concentrations and a higher death rate”.   In other words the jury is still out as to just who is responsible.

 

Would a strike be legitimate?  There is a difference in international law between legal and legitimate.  However, given Russian and Chinese opposition it is clear that such a strike would not receive a UN mandate and in that event could therefore be deemed an illegal act under international law even if its proponents claimed it was legitimate given a breach of the CWC.  The consequences would be profound.  First, it would reinforce the belief in Beijing and Moscow that the West is a law unto itself.  The UN would be further weakened making any co-ordinated action in future virtually impossible when the time comes (as it eventually will) to negotiate a settlement.  Critically, it would allow the Assad regime to present itself as the victim.

 

Would such a strike be proportionate?  If one assumes that a strike would use cruise missiles then the targets are likely to be the defence ministry, air defence command centres and other military facilities, including the three sites close to Damascus at which Syria's chemical weapons are now concentrated.  The Assad regime will know this and quite possibly start using human shields to protect such sites.  If a Western punitive strike ended up killing Syrian civilians then it could not be said to be proportionate.  Such a strike may soften Syria’s air defences up in preparation for a ‘no fly zone’ but almost certainly the Russians would move to offset Assad’s losses.

 

Would such a strike be effective?  To be effective such a strike would need to change the balance of power in the Syrian struggle.  Even if Assad is responsible for the chemical weapons attacks the limited use of a few cruise missiles is unlikely to deter a clearly desperate regime.  Indeed, it may make it harder to establish contact with those in the regime open to a possible dialogue.  In other words making the rubble bounce – which would in effect be the consequence of such an action – would take Syria no closer to peace. 

In such a conflict clarity of objective and method is vital.  Tony Blair has called for "intervention" which is very different to a punitive strike and would require a sustained air campaign and boots on the ground.  After Iraq and Afghanistan that is not going to happen.

 

Respected former US diplomat Ryan Crocker has said the US and its allies should instead “contain the fire”.  He is right.  It is not punitive strikes that are needed but the re-establishment of credible US and allied influence in both the conflict and the wider Middle East region.  Only then can the US and its allies hope to bring together those on both sides that a) might offer a possible political way forward; and b) ensure extremists do not gain power.  That means support for the states that border Syria, particularly Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey to both prevent spill-over and to alleviate the humanitarian suffering of Syrian refugees.  Above all a new political strategy is needed.

 

Therefore, it is hard to see analytically how a punitive strike right now could be demonstrably justifiable, proportionate, legitimate but above all effective.  Indeed, there is little evidence that a punitive strike now would further policy, strategy or the well-being of the Syrian people. 

 

Sadly, Washington is fast backing itself into a corner with any retreat from action a humiliating climb-down which could further undermine America’s already brittle Middle East strategy.  However, venting political frustration would be little more than a shot in the dark and that does not constitute sound leadership.

 

Julian Lindley-French

 

The Parody of Democracy

Alphen, Netherlands.  23 August.  Aung San Suu Kyi said recently, “Sometimes I think that a parody of democracy could be more dangerous than a blatant dictatorship because that gives people an opportunity to avoid doing anything about it”.  Some reports suggest 1700 people were murdered by a Sarin gas attack this week in a Damascus suburb.  The Assad regime or some elements of it are being blamed for the attack but it is impossible to verify.  In Egypt deposed President Mubarak has been placed under ‘palace arrest’ by a politically-savvy Army.  Indeed, the Egyptian Army leadership has so completely out-manoeuvred the opposition that at least half of those who in 2011 opposed their rule now support them, albeit conditionally.  So what can the West do?

 

In Syria the Assad regime now has a grip on power that seemed unthinkable a year ago.  The Syrian opposition is divided and out-gunned.  In Egypt the Army is clearly determined to force the Muslim Brotherhood underground.  Indeed, many in the ‘liberal’ opposition seemed to have concluded that after sampling ‘democracy’ under President Morsi they may prefer an Orwellian ‘stability’ after all.  Clearly without cohesion, direction, structure and leadership the oppositions in both Egypt and Syria are faltering whatever the Facebook or Twitter fed activism of its followers or the fanaticism of opposition fighters. 

French Foreign Minister Fabius warns of a no-fly zone if the UN confirms the use of chemical weapons by the Damascus regime, the EU warns Egypt that European aid could be cut.  Meanwhile the people of both Egypt and Syria are steadily being crushed in a meat-grinder of geopolitics, competing ideologies and plain old political cynicism.  Sadly, beyond the wringing of hands there is little the West will do to influence events in either Egypt or Syria. 

At the geopolitical level the profound split in the UN Security Council between the Western powers and China and Russia is crippling efforts at conflict resolution in both countries.   At the regional level the Saudis and their Gulf allies are all too happy to see the eclipse of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Moreover, as Baroness Ashton and the EU foreign ministers this week sat in grand deliberation about what aid to cut to Egypt’s Army-backed interim government they did so full in the knowledge that the Saudis would more than make up any shortfall in EU aid. 

However, the real cause of inaction is the West itself.  There has always been something vaguely absurd about those in the West who demand democracy as the solution to political instability.  However, as President Morsi demonstrated all too clearly in his brief time in power his view of democracy is that it legitimizes an illiberal Islamic state.  As for what the Syrian opposition would offer - who knows.

Democracies require strong and legitimate state institutions which can only develop within the framework of relatively stable domestic politics and a benign international environment neither of which are the lot of Syrians or Egyptians.  Rather, when the West talks about democracy it really means liberalism and neither incumbents nor insurgents are offering that.  Egyptians it seems now have the choice between one man one vote once.  Syrians have no choice at all.   

Instead the West is (sort of) pursuing an ‘anyone but’ strategy - anyone but Assad and anyone but Mubarak or Morsi.  Sadly, the latest tragedy in Syria simply reveals such strategy for what it is – hollow.  President Obama might be reviewing his infamous ‘red lines’ but they were cast in dust and have simply been blown away by Assad.  Efforts by the British and French to lead the EU to arm the Syrian rebels only triggered a further flow of Iranian and Russian weapons to the Damascus regime.  Trapped as it is between values and interests the collective West has in fact not got a clue what to do about the tragedies in either Egypt or Syria.

Consequently, the creed of liberal democracy as a political future for the Middle East is slowly being suffocated in the dust of Egypt and Syria.  Ironically, it is the illiberal secularist regimes that have for so long fought Islamism that is killing any hope of liberal democracy far more than Al Qaeda.  And. sooner or later the West may well have to take sides between political Islam and authoritarianism. 

Naturally, it is a choice the West will put off as long as possible.  This has nothing to do with the Middle East.  Unlike in the old days when the calculation of foreign policy was a matter for elites every Western foreign policy choice today is in fact a reflection of the West’s own internal battles over power and representation.  

Perhaps a parody of democracy in the Middle East is the best the West can hope for.  Perhaps a parody of democracy is today the West itself.

Julian Lindley-French

Labour Migration: Just Close the Curtains

Alphen, Netherlands.  19 August.  There is an old joke about the state of the then Soviet economy.  Stalin, Kruschev and Brezhnev are sitting in a train.  Suddenly the train judders to a halt the locomotive having failed.  Stalin shouts, “shoot the engineers.  They are enemies of the Soviet Union”.  Kruschev demurs, “No!” he exclaims, “we need a new five year plan for the railways”.  Brezhnev has a better idea. “Tovarish, there is a much better solution.  Simply close the curtains and pretend the train is moving”.  Much the same can be said about the non-policies of Western European governments faced with the next wave of EU labour migration. 
  

With the ending of transitional controls on 1 January 2014 a large number of low income Bulgarian and Romanian workers will likely move to Western Europe under the terms of the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon.  For example Migration Watch, a well-respected London think tank, suggests some 50,000 will come to Britain each year for at least five years.  Add dependents and it is quite reasonable to assume that at least 500,000 Bulgarians and Romanians will move to Britain between 2014 and 2019. 

Many years ago I stood on the old inner-German border not far from the Gudow/Zarrentin crossing.  Anyone who witnessed the Iron Curtain that divided Europe will understand that the free movement of European people’s is one of Europe’s great achievements.  Indeed, as a principle free movement defines modern Europe.  However, should free movement of peoples mean unfettered free movement of labour at a time of profound austerity? 

This weekend the Dutch Labour Party Social Affairs Minister Lodewijk Asscher warned that further migration was a threat to ‘vulnerable’ low-paid workers in Western Europe and that the EU’s leadership was failing to recognise the danger.  Asscher’s message is clear; allowing a major influx of poor, migrant workers to Western Europe at a time of economic stress is foolhardy.  For many poorer communities already reeling from the last wave of immigration it will be like pouring oil on fire.

Boston, a small market town in Eastern England with a largely agricultural workforce, is a case in point.  Since 2001 Boston has seen an increase in the non-English population of 467%.  In 2001 Boston had a population of 1727 migrants in a total population of 55,800.  By 2011 the foreign population had risen to 9790 out of a population of 64600 or 15.8%.  By all accounts Boston is a social tinderbox and will not cope with another influx of low-paid foreign workers.

Across Britain the evidence is fast growing that another tidal wave of migrants is about to cross the Channel.  Last week government announced that between March and June 2013 the number of Bulgarians and Romanians coming to Britain had soared by 25% from 109,000 to 141,000 compared with the same time last year some nine months BEFORE the ending of transitional controls.  813,000 or 60% of all the jobs advertised on COMRES, the European Commission funded website, are for jobs in Britain with money offered to cover the cost of moving country.  Keith Vaz, the Labour Party Chairman of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, has rightly chided government for not getting over to Bulgaria and Romania to get some idea of just how many workers are planning to travel to Britain. 

Plain common sense suggests mass immigration and austerity do not mix.  For immigration to be successfully assimilated by a society healthcare, housing and education must be provided.  Earlier this year the Accident and Emergency (A&E) wards in National Health Service hospitals came close to failing.  Much of the crisis was caused by rapid inward migration.  One respected economist has said that at least 250,000 new homes needed to be built each year for the next 25 years (compared with the current 110,000) simply to meet the needs of Britain’s current 63.5 million population.  And, at least 250000 new school places will be needed in England by 2015 to educate the young of that same population.  None of the above targets will be achieved.  An already creaking infrastructure is about to suffer another shock.

The issue of immigration is destroying trust between peoples and politicians because leaders are failing to address the causes and consequences of mass-immigration – labour exploitation and the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon.  Low-income salaries are at least four times greater in Britain than in Bulgaria and Romania.  Evidence from the post-2004 mass migration to Britain highlights the role of agencies set up to recruit Eastern European workers.  They systemically exploit migrant workers and distort the labour market. 

The Treaty of Lisbon belongs to another age signed as it was before the sovereign debt and banking crisis crippled Europe.  Sadly, Brussels will never accept that reality.  Therefore, action must be taken at the national level.  At the very least prudence would suggest that the provisions allowing for unfettered labour migration should either be temporarily suspended until after the financial crisis or a strict system of work permits introduced.  If that means breaching the treaty then so be it – either suspend the treaty or abandon common sense.

To increase mass low income migration and cut public services at one and the same time is a recipe for social, cultural and political frictions.  And yet that is precisely what is about to happen.  Sadly, the collective failure of mainstream Western European politicians to confront this most strategic of issues is simply fuelling popular frustration and the politics of hate.  It is the blind madness of European elites.

Labour migration: just close the curtains and pretend nothing is happening.  

Julian Lindley-French

Gibraltar: Rock of Rages

Alphen, Netherlands. 14 August.  Signed just up the road from here three hundred years ago Article X of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht is pretty unequivocal.  “The Catholic King does hereby, for himself, his heirs and successors, yield to the Crown of Great Britain the full and entire propriety of the town and castle of Gibraltar, together with the port, fortifications, and forts thereunto belonging; and he gives up the said propriety to be held and enjoyed absolutely with all manner of right for ever, without any exception or impediment whatsoever”.  That was the “Rock” then, this is now.  Whilst the majority of Britons and Spaniards look on in a sense of bemusement this latest Gibraltar ‘crisis’ raises some interesting questions as to the validity of the old treaties that continue to shape Europe’s political space. 

First, let’s call this manufactured crisis for what it is; a blatant attempt by Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy to distract attention away from the corruption scandal that is engulfing his political party and Spain’s economic crisis. Politics like this have no place in 2013 Europe, especially between fellow EU members and close NATO allies.  The only thing that comes close to Senor Rajoy’s silly game-playing are those in UK press trying to imply a link between a departing aircraft-less British aircraft carrier and this latest Anglo-Spanish spat over Gibraltar. For the record Exercise Cougar 2013 to which the Royal Navy’s ships are sailing has been in the planning for years.  

Spain claims Britain’s occupation of the Rock is illegal.  However, until adjusted or brought to a formal end by mutual agreement the Treaty of Utrecht remains valid under international law.  Therefore, if the Treaty was unilaterally declared illegal and Spain’s action supported by, say, the EU it would bring into question every other treaty and agreement made ever since.  That would include the Final Act of the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and all the various treaties and agreements signed thereafter.  In other words the Treaty of Utrecht is not only legal it remains in force.

Now, one way around this would be to say that the EU’s 2007 Treaty of Lisbon effectively nullifies all other previous treaties.  However, my sense is that such a move would set a precedent that would effectively guarantee Britain’s exit from the EU because at a stroke the EU’s treaty powers would have been greatly expanded.  At the very least a new Congress of Vienna would be needed to tie up all the treaty legal anomalies that would emerge across Europe from the Treaty of Utrecht’s arbitrary legalisation.  That of course is not going to happen.

The more serious point concerns the relationship between the parties to old treaties and the rights of self-determination of the inhabitants of disputed lands and territories.  This is a serious issue as self-determination is a not a treaty legal concept per se and the very concept post-dates most of the treaties still in force. 

Is Spain’s position good politics?  Spain is threatening to make common cause with Argentina at the United Nations in its dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands.  By so doing Madrid is implying that the views and wishes of the Gibraltarians matter not, just as they imply that Gibraltarians are neither British nor EU citizens.  Recent polls in both the Falklands and Gibraltar show clearly an overwhelming desire to remain British.  Argentina may have little regard for self-determination but for Spain and Europe it remains the cornerstone of democratic legitimacy.

Furthermore, Spain is ill-advised even to open the issue of the status of treaties.  If Spain pushes too hard Morocco may wish to re-open a debate about Spain’s two so-called “Plazas de Soberania” (Places of Sovereignty) or enclaves embedded in Moroccan territory – Ceuta and Melilla.  Ceuta was ceded to Spain by Portugal through (coincidentally) the 1668 Treaty of Lisbon whereby Melilla was conquered by Spain in 1497.  Both cities have populations of around 75,000 people determined to remain both Spanish and EU citizens.  Gibraltar is a Plaza de Soberania that just happens to be British populated by people just as determined to remain British. Sorry, but if Spain wants Gibraltar Madrid must first hand back Ceuta and Melilla.  Do that and Spain might just have a moral leg upon which to stand, even if no legal leg. 

This crisis started because the Gibraltarian authorities dropped concrete blocks in its waters to create an artificial reef which impacted upon one Spanish fisherman.  Spain reacted by blocking access to and from the Rock.  Like all such Gilbert and Sullivanesque crises they blow in and blow out like the summer rain.  Therefore, both Britain and Spain would be best advised to put the issue back in the box and quietly get on with working together to solve the many more serious issues facing Europe. 

In other words, more quiet diplomacy less silly megaphone diplomacy please.

Gibraltar – Rock of Rages.

Julian Lindley-French   

Grazie signor Letta!

Alphen, the Netherlands. 7 August.  There is a hoary old Irish joke that gets quoted far too often at conferences I attend.  An American tourist is lost in the Irish countryside (the lost Yank is always in Ireland) and asks a farmer directions to Dublin.  “Well”, says the farmer. “I would not start from here”.  Much the same can be said for the EU which must soon face its uncomfortable reality; to work the Union must either properly integrate and become a real federal state or retreat back into a loose club of nation-states.  Lost as it is in a never-never land between power and weakness the only thing today’s EU will generate will be more crises.
 

This reality was implicit in Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta remarks warning that European leaders have underestimated the likelihood of a British exit from the EU.  Indeed, he said, “It’s a huge risk...we have to prepare a discussion on trying to prevent this risk”.  What Mr Letta has bravely done is in fact to confirm that the British Question is in fact THE European Question.  With that admission maybe just maybe we can move towards an equitable political settlement that re-injects fairness and legitimacy into the EU and at the same time protects the democratic rights of all Europeans.

However, the problem as usual is dogma of the Brussels elite.  After my last blog, The Balance of Incompetents, I was harangued by a Brussels insider who told me that, “the job of the analyst is surely to dig deeper rather than hold up a flattering mirror to the rabble”.  Rabble?  Is that how much of the Brussels-elite see Europe’s people? 

The central tenet of this dogma is that in the twenty-first century the European nation-state is too small to make its way in the world. Critically, the argument does not define what is meant by ‘small’.  If power is a combination of economic and military might then according to the CIA World Factbook (it must be right then) four European states are in the world’s top ten power states.  Indeed, the arguments’ proponents seem to allude to size being defined by the extent of territory and/or population size.  If that is the case then it is not an argument that can be made.  Behind the façade large parts of China, India and Russia are virtually ungovernable.  Indeed, it is precisely the ungovernability of the EU that created the Eurozone disaster. 

Implicit in Sgr Letta’s remarks are two immediate fundamental questions that urgently need resolution; who or what is in charge of the Eurozone and can an equitable political relationship exist between those in the Eurozone and those not?  This is particularly important if this divide is to become permanent.  If the British were not so self-obsessed they would make their argument on that issue of principle rather than simply one of cost.  Indeed, whilst Sgr Letta, who is an EU-believer, calls for more Europe he is honest enough to admit that there is a “legitimacy crisis” in the EU today as typified by my Brussels ‘friend’.

There is something else that is fascinating about Sgr Letta’s remarks.  When he talks of more Europe, i.e. deeper European integration, he really means a strange hybrid form of governance that somehow combines both more power to Brussels and a balance of power between EU member-states.  One sees that in Chancellor Merkel’s remarks; embed German power within a Berlin-friendly EU and enshrine German power at the top of it.  This is a perfectly legitimate political aim for any country but it also mask THE most fundamental question Europeans must confront – who decides, what, when and how?

Clearly, the blind drive towards ‘ever closer union’ seems to have reached its zenith.  Sgr Letta implies that, as does Dutch Foreign Minister Timmermans.  Even Chancellor Merkel is cautious given that Germans have no stomach to endlessly pay for the socialising costs of European integration.  However, if that is indeed the case then the EU of today is in the worst of all political worlds.  Far from their being a federal centre subject to checks and balances imposed by the states it comprises there is instead a sovereignty black hole at the EU’s core.  Member-states may have transferred very large amounts of state sovereignty to Brussels but the exercise of such power is weak and uncertain.  This renders the EU a crisis-generator rather than a crisis manager. 

Therefore, even a modest dose of political realism would suggest the need for a new EU treaty.  However, rather than handing more power to Brussels the treaty would take power away from it.  At least such a treaty would end the competition for power between Brussels and the very member-states that created it.  

Clearly, the EU cannot stay where it is, but as to the future I would not start from here.

Grazie signor Letta!

Julian Lindley-French

The Balance of Incompetents

The European Federation Benelux Region. 31 July, 2063.  The Berlin-based European Government orders the European Federation (EF) English Regional Government to increase taxes to pay for the South-East European Regional Development Plan.  England’s first female President and European Commissioner instructs the English Regional Parliament to duly rubber-stamp Berlin’s wishes.  Comprised as it is of 60% EF appointees the Parliament duly obliges.  All of Europe’s remaining constitutional monarchies were scrapped in May 2050 on the centennial of the Schuman Declaration and the creation of the European Federation. Indeed, democracy as Europeans once knew it has long been replaced by an elite-led technocracy that governs in the name of ‘stability’. 

 

The technocracy is ‘overseen’ by a remote and weak European Parliament that acts in the name of the people but rarely has much direct contact with them.  The English still get to vote but only on minor local issues.  The United Kingdom also ceased to exist in May 2050 as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland became part of the EF’s British Isles Region.  The last vestiges of national sovereignty were finally abandoned at the 2040 Brussels Summit which not only transferred the seat of European government to Berlin but also revealed Europe’s worst-kept secret – no decisions of any substance had been taken at the national level since 2032 and the signing of Maastricht Treaty 2. 

Fanciful?  That is precisely where Britain/England will be in 2063 if London continues to transfer national powers to Brussels at the rate that has been taking place since the 1986 Single European Act.

Last week the first reports of the British Government’s so-called Balance of Competences Review were published.  Already dubbed the Great Whitehall Whitewash the Review has thus far concluded a) the EU does not cost Britain too much; and b) the balance of competences between London and Brussels are about right.  However, the benchmark against which the reports core judgements are made are impossible to discern.  The reason is that most EU member-states can point to tangible benefits of membership but with the cost of membership to Britain so high the ‘benefits’ are at best intangible.

The aim of the Review is to demonstrate ‘fairness’.  Of course, I should add ‘or otherwise’ but thus far the Review is simply making the case for EU membership and does not begin to address inequities.  For example, of the 1.4 million advertised jobs on a European Commission funded web-site – EURES - 814,359 are in Britain – almost 60% of the EU total.  Germany’s economy is some 25% bigger than Britain’s but offers only 20% of the advertised jobs. Why and how?

On the face of it the Commission appears to be actively discriminating against British workers by offering £1000 to any British employer who will take on a non-British worker with any worker travelling to the UK offered an additional £900 to cover travel costs.  And yet over a million young British workers are mired in the despair of long-term unemployment.  How can this possibly make sense or be fair? 

Part of the problem is the FCO itself.  To be fair, those charged with preparing the Review face an almost impossible task in the current political climate.  Equally, asking the FCO to review the EU is akin to asking the Pope to review the Catholic Church and whether the Holy Father should be part of it.  In other words, the Review is “Yes Prime Minister’s” Sir Humphrey Appleby at his very worst. 

The reports thus far also critically undermine David Cameron’s calls for EU reform, the very reason they were commissioned in the first place.  Cameron is thus firmly skewered on a very uncomfortable political fence.  He should now be under no illusion as to the opposition he will face from a Whitehall elite appalled that the British people should have their say about Britain’s future place in a future EU.

And it is 'futureness' which is the essential weakness of the Review.  Indeed, perhaps the most telling indictment of the Balance of Competence Review is that it deliberately sets out to establish the ‘cost-benefit’ of Britain’s membership by addressing today’s EU.  However, the real issue is Britain's relationship with the EU of 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050 and beyond given the reasonable assumption of  Eurozone-driven 'ever closer union'.  

A real British referendum would thus ask two questions.  Are you the British citizen prepared to accept further reduction in both the power and influence of the British Government and Parliament and see more power transferred to both the European Commission and European Parliament?  Are you the British citizen prepared in time to join the Euro?  A yes vote would by definition entail an implicit acceptance of both outcomes.

If they ever get the chance in 2017 the British people face the gravest decision over their future since declaring war in 1939.  However, it is precisely this decision that the Balance of Competences Review clouds by providing the wrong answers to the wrong questions.  For Whitehall it is any EU at any cost. 

Julian Lindley-French