October 5th, 2016
By Julian French.
“This parrot is dead. It is an ex-parrot”, says parrot-purchasing Monty Python’s John Cleese in the famous parrot sketch. “No, no, he’s not dead. He’s resting. Remarkable bird the Norwegian Blue”, replies parrot-vendor Michael Palin. Watching what passes for Britain’s Brexit debate reminds me of the parrot sketch, not least because I am in Oslo. Actually, I am in Oslo to help launch a new book entitled “Ukraine and Beyond” which considers what to do about an aggressive Russia (which is of course brilliant and very reasonably-priced). However, parrots, Brexit and Norwegians seem to go together these days.
Reason is the dead Brexit parrot, with truth lying mangled in the corner. It is an ex-reason that is no more and has gone to meet its maker. On one side of the debate the Brexiteers suggest that exiting the EU will be straightforward when in fact it is plainly in the interest of so many powerful vested interests to make it as hard as possible. To suggest that post-Brexit Britain will have full access to the Single Market AND impose restrictions on free movement is pure Norwegian Blue (or is that bull). If agreed to by the EU the entire post-Lisbon edifice of an already shaky EU would crumble. On the other side, Remaniacs remain wedded to the falsehood that the poor little dears who voted for Brexit had not a clue what they were voting for and should be ordered to do it again, but this time get it right.
For all that being here in Norway does shed some light on Britain’s possible future. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those lunatics who suggests a Norwegian model for post-Brexit Britain. Britain is a top five world power with a population 65 million people, Norway is not. However, Norway is a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) which is a kind of EU-lite for those who want access to the EU’s Single Market, but do not actually want to join it. In Norway’s case one can see their point. EU membership for rich Norway would be utterly punitive as Brussels would almost certainly remove Oslo’s massive oil and gas-fuelled sovereign wealth fund in the name of ‘solidarity’ and to keep the eternal Euro disaster brewing.
And yet there are some pro-EU Norwegian politicians who will tell you what a terrible position Norway finds itself in. This is because to their mind Norway must pay but has no say. In fact, that is only partially true. Norway and the other three EEA members have proved remarkably adroit at getting EU directives amended. The real point about Norway’s relationship with the EU is a sovereign point. Norway has indeed chosen to pay a price for access to the Single Market, and part of that price is adherence to elements of the Free Movement Directive (FMD). But it is not the whole Norway-EU story.
As I was travelling this morning on the train from Oslo airport to Oslo Central Norwegian television was showing a criminal from Eastern Europe being deported. If that criminal had been convicted in Britain under the FMD the British would not have had the right to deport him as an EU citizen unless he posed an immediate threat to British (i.e. other EU) citizens.
Which brings me back to the Brexit dead parrot debate. This morning the normally sound Rachel Sylvester wrote in The Times: “The truth is that when nations prosper, by interacting with the rest of the world, it is impossible because of globalisation for any country to “take back control”. On the face of it Sylvester’s argument is sound. However, her use of the phrase ‘take back control’ is disingenuous. That phrase is a Brexiteer phrase and refers to their desire to remove Britain from the European treaties. Sylvester is instead referring to normal international treaties and quite deliberately conflating the two, when in fact there is a world of sovereign difference between them.
An international trade treaty is made between two or more sovereign states. They agree constraints upon their sovereign action to make the treaty work. However, they still remain sovereign actors free to make or break treaties as they so choose. The EU treaties, particularly (in sequence) the Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice and Lisbon treaties have become progressively different in both scope and ambition to traditional international treaties. EU treaties were and are designed to replace and thus abolish the nation-state by progressively transferring the legal international identity of said state across a whole range of competences (acquis) to the EU in order to eventually make the EU ‘Europe’s’ sole ‘sovereign’ legal international entity. Thus, whilst international treaties constrain the sovereignty of the state in the name of mutual benefit, EU treaties destroy the state and in so doing seeks to create a new and alternative form of government.
The reason that sovereign Norway bemoans its lack of influence over the EU is the same reason Norway has always bemoaned its lack of influence over the rest of Europe. With the possible exception of the Viking period Norway is simply too small and thus too lacking in power to exert much influence – period. Britain is not Norway and its relative power would afford a sovereign Britain far more influence over the rest of Europe – EU or no EU – than Norway precisely because Britain is a powerful state. Chancellor Merkel acknowledged as much last week when she said that it was far too early to write the British off because Britain remains a “formidable” economic and military power.
At the end of the parrot sketch when farce has finally turned into complete absurdity Cleese says, “I’m not prepared to pursue my line of inquiry any longer as I think this is getting too silly”. The same could be said for Britain’s dead parrot Brexit debate.
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September 26th, 2016
By Julian French.
“Where do we stand? We are not members of the European Defence Community, nor do we intend to be merged in a federal European system. We feel we have a special relationship to both…we are with them, but not of them”.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 11 May 1953.
The defence implications of Brexit are enormous. It is now three months since the Brexit referendum which saw the British people vote 52% to 48% to quit the EU. Since then, and in the absence of firm leadership in London, a phoney war is being ‘fought’ into which all sorts of nonsense is being injected. However, the defence aspect of Brexit has been by and large AWOL, both in Britain and elsewhere in Europe. Speaking in Riga, Latvia last week the need for Europe’s strongest military democracy to remain fully committed to the defence of Europe is as clear to me as ever. That commitment is in danger and here is why.
Nasty Brexit: Last week Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico warned that the, “V4 (Visegrad) countries will be uncompromising. Unless we feel a guarantee that these people [V4 citizens in the UK] are equal, we will veto any deal between the EU and Britain”. Whatever emollient British politicians and diplomats might say if the V4 states (or others) did indeed veto a Brexit deal the commitment of British public opinion to the defence of other European states would be dangerously undermined. Mr Fico cannot expect to threaten Britain and still expect British soldiers to possibly lay down their lives in defence of Slovakia and others. A nasty Brexit would thus not only damage the EU, but also NATO, an outcome that must be avoided at all costs. Remember, I called Brexit right!
Disarming Corbyn: The re-election on Saturday of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader threatens to critically undermine Britain’s military power. The leader of the main political opposition party is not only committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament, he is also a committed pacifist. This weekend Corbyn said as prime minister he would want to re-direct Britain’s armed forces towards ‘emergency support’. In other words, if Corbyn ever gained power in London he would turn the British armed forces into little more than a poorly-armed first aid force. An anti-NATO, anti-American Prime Minister Corbyn would thus put the entire Western defence architecture at risk at what is a dangerous time. There must be no complacency about the threat Corbyn poses to European defence.
Rearming Barrons: Last week the leaked ‘haul down’ report of recently-retired General Sir Richard Barrons warned that Britain’s armed forces have become a ‘shop window’ force due to repeated ‘skimming’ of the defence budget by Government. They look good but there is little of substance beyond the image. He argued (and rightly) for the need to reinforce the front-line with all the necessary support elements needed to ensure and enhance the ability of the force to project power projection, strike, and command coalitions and thus fulfil the roles and tasks assigned to it. Europe’s future defence will be dependent to a significant extent on just such a British military capability.
Anglosphere: If the Corbyn disaster can be averted post-Brexit Britain will inevitably form part of the American-centric defence Anglosphere (Yanksphere?), itself at the hub of the coalescing World-Wide West. For Britain the move towards Anglosphere is obvious. With the commissioning of the two new super-carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, the British will find themselves integrated ever more deeply into the global power projection order of strategy of an over-stretched US.
Eurosphere: The rest of Europe will have to move towards some form of defence Eurosphere via tighter European defence integration. Indeed, as efforts to save the Euro intensify the only way for the Eurozone states to make the single currency work AND afford credible security and defence will be to radically re-order their defence effort and integrate more tightly. Such integration would not, at least in the first instance, lead to the creation of a European Army, but rather a very tight intergovernmental structure favoured by EU foreign and security policy supreme Federica Mogherini in the EU’s recent Global Strategy.
Implications for post-Brexit NATO: The Alliance would continue to be organised around an American-led pillar and a European pillar. However, the US and Canada would be joined by the post-Brexit British, and by extension non-NATO strategic partners such as Australia, and possibly even India and Japan. The Eurosphere would in time begin to take on the appearance of an EU-centric European pillar of the Alliance. This is what perhaps Jean-Clause Juncker was implying in his State of the European Union speech this month when he called for NATO-friendly defence integration.
Implications for the Defence of Europe: Brexit will thus lead to a new organising principle for the defence of Europe with profound implications for several European states. France will be finally forced to demonstrate just how much ‘Europe’ she is really willing to accept in defence. The Nordic states will have to balance their traditional closeness to Britain with their commitment to EU defence, as will the Netherlands. And Germany will be forced to assume the mantle of European defence leadership that for understandable reasons is still politically sensitive if not toxic in many quarters of the Federal Republic. Italy?
Respectful Brexit: Britain’s REAL commitment to the defence of Europe, the use of Britain’s armed forces as an agent of influence not simply a function of defence, the cohesion of an Alliance organised along new lines, and the commitment of the British people to the defence of eastern and southern Europe, are all dependent to a significant extent on a respectful Brexit.
Therefore, if there is a respectful and reasonable fulfilment of the democratic desire of the British people to leave the EU, allied to a clear British commitment to remain close friends and partners of the EU and its member-states, then security and defence Brexit could even help reinvigorate the security and defence of Europe. If not, then the deep divisions that ensue will in turn ensure that no-one in democratic European ‘wins’ and everyone is less secure.
Brexit will mark the final and irrevocable end of Britain’s dalliance with European defence integration, just as it will inevitably mark the start of a new era of European defence integration. It is time to plan accordingly to ensure the Western Alliance is organised for optimal effect in the Europe of tomorrow, not the Europe of yesterday.
Britain must be with ‘Europe‘, even if it is no longer of it.
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September 26th, 2016
By Julian French.
“I have conquered an empire; but I have yet to conquer myself”
Peter the Great
The news that United Russia, the party President Putin backs won 54.2% of the vote in last week’s elections for the Duma, Russia’s parliament, hardly came as a great political surprise. United Russia now holds 343 of the 450 seats in the Duma, with the nearest rivals having gained only 13% of the vote, whilst the ‘liberal’ failed to surpass the 5% threshold and lost their last remaining seats. President Putin really has kicked the 1990s into the long, long grass of Russian history. President Putin also rules (or is that reigns) supreme and is thus free to further cultivate the Russian strongman image he has carefully crafted both at home and abroad. It is an illusion, but seen here from Latvia it is an exceptionally dangerous illusion.
In reality Russia is growing relatively weaker than most of its European and Western partner-adversaries in every area that matters, save armed force. The facts speak for themselves. According to the UN in 2016 Russia has an economy worth some $1.8 trillion, which is about the same size of that of Canada, and slightly bigger than that of Australia. This compares with a US economy worth $17.3 trillion, a German economy worth $3.7 trillion, and a British economy worth $3 trillion. And yet, SIPRI suggests that whilst the US in 2015 spent 3.3% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defence or $597 billion and the UK spent 2% or $55.5 billion, Russia spent $66.4 billion or 5.4% of its GDP on defence. In fact, the true ‘burden’ of the Russian security state on the Russian economy is closer to, if not more than, 10% of GDP.
Why is Putin committing so much Russian taxpayer’s money to defence and other ‘security-related’ expenditure? For many Russians ‘strength and greatness’ means a strongman leader backed up by armed forces geared for aggression. For them history has taught that forcing supplicant respect from neighbouring others is the only way Russia can be secure. Consequently, Russia is an aggressive isolationist power that sees itself and sets itself apart from contemporary European/Western ideas of mutual interdependence. It is a profoundly Russian sense of isolationism twinned with exceptionalism that runs deep in the Russian soul, reinforced by President Putin’ belief that the disastrous Yeltsin years simply confirmed that closeness to the West simply makes it easier and cheaper for the perfidious West to confound Russia.
However, there are other factors driving President Putin’s over-mighty security state, not least the sheer size of Russia. President Putin is determined to instil centralising political discipline on regional governors and oligarchs in an enormous country that covers 13 time zones, suffers from poor infrastructure, and in which Vladivostok is roughly the same distance from Moscow as London is distant from Chicago. In a conversation I had with Mikhail Khodorkovsky a couple of years back I was struck by the extent to which even the illusion of threat instils a fierce loyalty to Mother Russia.
If there is an illusion of threat, there is also an illusion of power. Russia has simply been unable to come to terms with the twenty-first century and instead reached for those two great comforting balms beloved of many Russians; nostalgia and illusion. President Putin appeals to a sense of false nostalgia that afflicts many Russians outside relatively more liberal Moscow and St Petersburg. An idea that somehow the Soviet Union was the ‘good old days’ when Russia had the respect of the world, even its Western enemies. It is an illusion that President Putin is brilliantly (for the moment) and ruthlessly fostering. It is also why Moscow engages in lethal strategic grandstanding in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere, even if contemporary Russia simply lacks the power fundamentals to be a true twenty-first century Great Power over the medium to longer-term.
This illusion of power runs right through the Kremlin. In a recent interview with the BBC Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich warned that Brexit would weaken Europe and that no individual European state could anymore influence world affairs alone. Russia? For example, Britain is an intrinsically stronger power than Russia so why does Moscow think weaker Russia can influence world affairs when stronger Britain cannot? President Putin believes Russia is at its ‘strongest’ outside a rules-based world order and that Moscow’s very unpredictability is Moscow’s strength.
Whilst I am a fierce critic of President Putin I have a genuine respect for the man. Indeed, I find it nauseating when European political leaders express shock at his actions. He is not, and has never claimed to be, a woolly European liberal democrat. He is a Russian nationalist who will act in what he sees as the Russian national interest whatever that takes and we in the West had better come to terms with that. His world-view is the product of Russia’s war-winning, land-grabbing sacrifice in World War Two which fashioned a love of country from the dark, dark crucible of destruction. In other words, President Putin believes he IS Russia and that is all the political legitimacy he needs. He is not alone in this belief. For several years I educated Russian officers and diplomats at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and I never ceased to be impressed by their love of country, their profound belief in Mother Russia, and their determination to defend her.
The Russians have a saying, “umom Rosiya neponjat” or one can never understand Russia. For the sake of friends and allies such as Latvia the West must stop trying to look at President Putin through ‘why can’t he be likes us’ Western eyes and quickly. The very disconnect between Russia’s weak power fundamentals and Russia’s vaunting power ambition that is driving Russian policy means Russia’s power illusion is as much a danger to itself as to its neighbouring others. Unless President Putin changes course Russia will again sink under the burden over its own over-securitized insecurity. The reckoning may take a little longer to arrive than some Western commentators believe because Russians are willing to sacrifice longer for what they believe to be Russian ‘greatness’ than most ‘soft’ Westerners. However, catastrophe will come.
President Putin is hoping that by then he will have re-established Russian influence over its near-abroad to such an extent that his place in Russian history will be assured, and that whatever test Russia must ultimately face durable Russians will outlast weak Westerners. In preparing the ground for this great ‘test’ of strength President Putin sees himself as the natural heir of Peter the Great. However, President Putin should remember that the use of the suffix ‘Great’ was not simply because Tsar Peter understood power. He also understood that to make Russia a real eighteenth century Great Power he had to transform Russia from a fifteenth century state.
If President Putin is to make Russia a real twenty-first century Great Power then he will have to transform Russia from a twentieth century state. At present there is no sign he understands that precisely because he has failed to reform, which is precisely because he has failed to conquer himself and his many prejudices about Russia and the ‘other’. Yes, much of President Putin’s power is but an illusion, but when viewed from here in Latvia it is a very real and a very dangerous illusion.
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September 19th, 2016
By Julian French.
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 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 informal 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. The fact that both countries declared war on Nazi Germany on 3 September and fought a world war that ended their collective world power was proof that London and Paris were willing to honour their commitment to Poland. Moreover, I argued, if one looked at the deployment of 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 they 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 one 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 if they are able to generate 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.
The 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.
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September 12th, 2016
By Julian French.
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.
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September 5th, 2016
By Julian French.
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.
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September 3rd, 2016
By Julian French.
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 23rd 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!
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August 31st, 2016
By Julian French.
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.
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August 26th, 2016
By Julian French.
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.
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August 17th, 2016
By Julian French.
Time to Block Barrel Bomb Bashar.
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“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.
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August 11th, 2016
By Julian French.
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 aircraft. 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 withProject 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 elites on short-term political and/or financial gratification at the expense of long-term strategic probity that is doing the real damage.
Let me cite two examples of this problem over the past week from my own country Britain to highlight the point; the stalled deal with China to build a new nuclear power-station, and a leaked report on the relative capabilities of the 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 into an energy dead-end. It also highlighted the cost of 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, 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 are 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 putting strategy before politics. Then the likes of Turkey will again believe that 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???????????
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August 5th, 2016
By Julian French.
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.
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July 13th, 2016
By Julian French.
Alphen, Netherlands. 13 July. Geopolitics is a permanent power struggle between symmetry and asymmetry. There is certainly a certain symmetry in the delicious coincidence of the launch of the new EU Global Strategy and the rejection yesterday in The Hague by the UN’s Permanent Court of Arbitration of China’s feisty claim to some three million square kilometres of the South China Sea, through which some $5 trillion of trade passes every year, and under which huge oil and gas resources are believed to be oozing and bubbling invitingly away.
Whereas Globstrat is the usual blah blah that passes for ‘strategy’ in the EU, China’s quick denunciation of The Hague judgement, and de facto rejection of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), suggests a twenty-first century that could be every bit as cold as the waters Beijing claims as its own. For Europeans events in the South China Sea are equally momentous and beg THE geopolitical question; are pious words ever going to be matched by real power? It is EU yawn versus Chinese brawn.
China has certainly acquired a lot of brawn of late. In 2016 China will increase its defence expenditure by 8% to around $150 billion. Paradoxically, an 8% increase in Chinese defence expenditure is the lowest such percentage increase since 1989. Between 1989 and 2015 the Chinese defence budget grew year-on-year by more than 10%. The key stat is this; in a conservative estimate CNN values the size of the US economy in 2016 at $19 trillion, with the Chinese economy worth some $12 trillion. The US will spend some 3.4% of GDP on defence in 2016, with the Chinese spending 8%. Therefore, one has only to do the ‘math’, as the Yanks say, to realise the trouble that could well lie not too far ahead.
Furthermore, whilst Chinese defence expenditure would appear to be far below 2016 US defence expenditure of $573 billion, the gap is not as wide as it appears. First, the US must spread its forces and resources across the globe; China concentrates its military power by and large on East Asia. Second, declared Chinese defence expenditure is believed to be far lower than the actual amount Beijing invests in ‘defence’, particularly in defence research and development. Third, China would appear to get more ‘yang’ for each yuan invested, than the Americans get bang for each buck. Pork barrel politics and sequestration have done terrible damage to the US military.
The EU? Lots of yawn. In 2016 EU members will spend some $200 billion. However, that expenditure is badly fractured and generates nothing like the same bang for each euro/pound etc., spent as either the Americans or the Chinese. Moreover, the British 25% of EU defence expenditure is about to quit the Union, taking with it some 40% of defence research and technology investment.
Taken together Globstrat and The Hague judgement suggest a geopolitical tipping point which could point to either peace…or war. Read the official Chinese government statement on The Hague judgement and it is uncompromising. However, read between the lines and Beijing clearly leaves some wriggle room for a negotiated settlement with Brunei, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Vietnam all of which contest the Chinese claim. However, if China continues to turn the series of reefs it has seized of late into military bases, and then moves to exclude the air and sea forces of other states from the South China Sea, then Beijing will be set irrevocably on a collision course with other powers, most notably the United States.
As for the EU if ‘discourse’ is not matched by force and resource then Globstrat will be yet another one of those European exercises in empty geopolitics that sooner or later collapses under the weight of the very meaningless acronyms it generates. If the EU strategy was indeed ‘global’ EU foreign and security policy ‘supremo’ Federica Mogherini would be meeting with European leaders this morning to consider the EU’s position on the South China Sea, and what support Europeans could offer the democracies in the region. There will of course be a statement, but the very idea of ‘EU action’ is absurd, which is precisely why the EU is NOT a global actor.
Globstrat will certainly spawn a lot of talk. Endless Brussels meetings of endlessly ambitious young think-tankers will now ensue in which the illuminati try endlessly to find signs of grand substance where in fact there is none. Globstrat will be minutely examined with each word parsed for signs of life in the corpse that is Europe’s ‘strategic culture’. Brexit happened because too many in Brussels and elsewhere refused to heed warnings of impending disaster, choosing instead to shoot the messenger. If Europeans continue to merely talk about geopolitics, but not act on them, a far greater disaster awaits
However, China too must also face realities which begs another question; why is China so determined to control the South China Sea? Beijing believes that only a state with access to assured natural resources can assure power and influence in the twenty-first century. The Communist Party believes the only way to maintain power is to honour the post-Tiananmen ‘contract’ by which the Party retains unquestioned power, in return for guaranteeing improving living standards. That ‘contract’ can only be honoured if China controls ‘strategic’ resources.
Beijing has a choice to make. China is not a liberal democracy, but nor is President Xi a President Putin, for all the former’s strong ties with the People’s Liberation Army. For the past thirty years China has done well by supporting and often exploiting the ‘rules’ of the international system. However, China’s extra-sovereign behaviour and its ridiculous ‘historical’ claim to almost the entirety of the South China Sea, based on no more than a spurious nine-dash line on a strange map that appeared from nowhere in the 1940s, suggests a China for which might is fast becoming right, even if for China it is patently wrong.
China must seek a negotiated settlement to the South China Sea dispute for such a settlement is in the Chinese national interest and would demonstrate the real leadership to which China rightly aspires. As for Mrs Mogherini and her Globstrat at some point she will be forced to answer the same question Stalin once asked of the Vatican; how many divisions does it have?
China might or right; EU right or might?
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July 3rd, 2016
By Julian French.
Warsaw, Poland. 27 June. The causes of Brexit that I have heard thus far are as follows:
The politics of austerity, the collapse of the Labour Party and the loss of the white working and not-so-working class, splits in the Conservative Party, Tory grandees, David Cameron’s political gambling, David Cameron’s ‘deal’ to the keep Britain in an unreformed EU, English political culture, the erosion by the EU of national democracy and sovereignty, popular demands for ever more devolution, elite demands for ever more centralisation, the Euro, the growing gap between the Eurozone and the non-Eurozone, the 1991 Treaty of Maastricht and the UK opt-outs, the marginalisation by France and Germany of the UK within the EU, immigration and the refusal of the political elite in London and Brussels to address popular concerns over many years, the sheer pace and scale of immigration, failure to prepare sufficient housing, schools and public services to cope with mass immigration, refusal of Brussels to be flexible, the failure to make the case for immigration, Commonwealth immigrants who did not like a perceived bias in favour of migration from the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker, the 1973 lie that ‘Europe’ was only a common market, the 1957 Treaty of Rome, a nostalgic view of English and Welsh history, a lot of Westminster politicians, some Whitehall bureaucrats, the Establishment in general (both British and EU) which many in England just wanted to give a good kicking to, the collapse of political integrity spectacularly revealed by both the Leave and Remain campaigns, Martin Schulze, Tony Blair, George Osborne, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, protectionism, the European Commission and interfering Eurocrats, the European Parliament and its lack of political legitimacy, Iraq, Afghanistan, President Obama, globalisation, blaming globalisation, the British media, de-industrialisation, patriotism, fat cat employers, multinational corporations, the European Court of Justice and the dictatorship of legalism, the European Court of Human Right, because it got confused with the European Court of Justice, ignorance, bigotry and downright prejudice, and from a personal point of view the Eurovision bloody song contest, Sheffield Wednesday which I blame for everything, and me because I predicted it!
As for who voted for what and for what reasons please take your pick. However, be careful. The latest I have heard from our Dear Leaders today is a) that the referendum should be re-run so that the peasants can this time get the answer right; b) the referendum should be re-run because it upset Martin Schulze who injured his fist banging a table; c) the referendum should be re-run because the peasantry were so stupid that they ticked the ‘leave’ box when they meant to tick the ‘an awful lot more Brussels’ box, d) the referendum should be ignored by Parliament because Britain has a representative democracy even if it is not very representative; and e) the EU would like the British to pretend the referendum never actually happened at all.
Happy days…not!
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July 2nd, 2016
By Julian French.
Warsaw, Poland. 29 June. It has been an interesting couple of days. My reason for coming here on the eve of the NATO Warsaw Summit was to present my new paper, NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2016 for the German Polish Co-operation Foundation. However, the 65 million person elephant in the room for much of the debate was of course Brexit. Part of me wondered what kind of reception I would get. After all, in the past I called for Britain to leave the EU, I predicted Brexit, before I decided after talking to a lot of people, and in the wake of the Paris attacks, that on balance Britain should remain. My concerns were misplaced. Poland of all countries understands the difficulty of balancing patriotism, interdependence, and membership of an institution a significant part of which would like to replace the democratic state with an oligarchic super-state.
What I found instead this morning at the Sjem, Poland’s parliament, when speaking to senior parliamentarians, was a respect for the democratic decision of the British people. What I also found was Polish pragmatism. Poland deeply regrets Brexit. However, there was absolutely no sense that the British people should somehow be punished for having the temerity to have expressed a majority opinion on a matter of fundamental import to them. Rather, there was a genuine commitment to forge a new relationship for Britain with the EU, and to confirm Britain’s existing relationships with friends and allies on the Continent. The terrible events in Istanbul last night served as a stark reminder of the dangers we all face and must all face together.
Encouragingly it was also an opinion of hope and goodwill expressed by Ambassador Rolf Nikel, Germany’s envoy to Poland, at a delightful reception held last night at the German Embassy. Indeed, the only humiliation to which I was subjected concerned the tactical withdrawal from the European football championships by England following their defeat by mighty Iceland. Don’t worry. I immediately countered by enquiring as to the state of Berlin’s new airport!
Poland is committed to keep the British fully engaged in the security and defence of Europe. They are right. To that end the forthcoming NATO Warsaw Summit must to some extent be a Brexit summit. Indeed, it will be a chance for London to remind it allies and partners that Britain remains a power and is utterly committed to the security and defence of Europe. There is one caveat. David Cameron and George Osborne are talking of more cuts to public expenditure in light of Brexit. It would certainly be a mistake to cut the British defence budget any further. It would also be advisable to re-invest in Britain’s diplomatic machine as London will need all the tools of influence at its disposal in the coming years.
So, Poland need not worry…too much. However, Poland’s help would be much appreciated, recognising Warsaw faces its own political challenges at present. Forget all the pre-negotiation posturing. As France and Germany have proven in the past it is amazing how flexible European ‘principles’ are when it comes to power. A post-Brexit deal is possible. That was also the view of my Polish counterparts.
Which brings me to Scotland. If European partners such as Poland want to find a solution with and for the UK to the mutual benefit of all they must be careful how they respond to the political manoeuvrings of the Scottish Nationalist Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon. Her political mission is and always has been to destroy the UK. The Scots had a referendum in September 2014 which saw a decisive 55%-45% rejection of Scottish independence. Above all, Sturgeon legitimised the UK-wide Brexit referendum as a UK-wide referendum by campaigning in it, and by campaigning outside of Scotland for the Remain side. She can hardly cry foul simply because she lost a vote that she legitimised. She might have had a case if she had ordered the SNP to abstain on the grounds that such a referendum had not been formally endorsed by the Scottish Parliament. She did not. Therefore, countries like Poland have a choice to make; London or Edinburgh.
What struck me most about this visit is the deep and enduring human relationship between Britain and Poland. What rightly matters to Poles is the proper and respectful treatment of the up to one million Poles now living in mainly England. However, if Poland really wants to help a friend at this difficult time it could do so by recognising that it was the sheer scale and pace of inward migration that drove much of the Brexit vote. It was also the refusal of fellow Europeans to heed warnings about this.
Britain will not get access to the single market unless it upholds the principle of free movement. A huge swathe of British people will not accept a new deal with the EU unless and until some degree of pragmatic management of immigration is in place. Absolutism on either side right now will simply entrench already entrenched positions. It would be better for all of us to properly explore the possible, not retreat behind the barricades of the impossible.
So, the message from Warsaw? Let’s all calm down, those trying to stir the pot cease and desist, and those responsible for moving us all forward…get a grip! There will be a solution but together we must fashion it.
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July 1st, 2016
By Julian French.
The Battle of the Somme
“The English generals are wanting in strategy. We should have no chance if they possessed as much science as their officers and men had of courage and bravery. They are lions led by donkeys”.
General Erich Ludendorff.
1 July, 2016. Zero Hour One Hundred Years plus Two. It was the bloodiest day ever for the British Army. A century ago some 300 kilometres/190 miles to the south of me the “big push” was underway. Twenty-nine British Army divisions were advancing across no man’s land in the face of heavy machine gun, mortar, infantry and artillery fire laid down by seven defending German divisions across a 50 km/30 mile front. By Zero plus Five the British had taken some 55,000 casualties, of whom 20,000 were dead.
The reason for the Battle of the Somme was the Battle of Verdun. By 1 July, 1916 the French Army had already been fighting on the charnel fields of Verdun for 134 days. German commander General Erich von Falkenhayn reportedly said his aim at Verdun was to bleed France white. Between February and December 2016 the French Army would suffer up to 540,000 casualties, of whom some 150,000 would be killed.
The French commander-in-chief Marshal Joffre pleaded with the British to launch a major offensive in the west to ease the pressure on French lines at Verdun. Crucially, British commander-in-chief General Sir Douglas Haig believed German forces had suffered sufficient attrition at Verdun to believe a combined Anglo-French assault on the German lines would succeed. Haig even believed it might be possible to enact a complete breakthrough of German defences and commence a rout. The Somme area was chosen for the offensive because it was where British and French forces stood alongside each other.
Five days prior to the offensive the British started an enormous artillery barrage that saw over one million shells fired at the German defences right up until the commencement of the advance. The fact that such a barrage could be mounted was proof the British had overcome the crippling shortage of artillery shells from which the British Army had suffered since the outbreak of war in August 1914.
The British offensive should have succeeded, at least on paper. British forces enjoyed more than a three-to-one superiority in men and materiel. However, the offensive failed. The reasons for failure are manifold. However, in the intervening century the myth of the Somme has become overpowering and made it hard to discern fact from fiction.
The British Army at the Somme included in its ranks a significant number of Kitchener’s New Army. This was a newly-formed, ‘green’ (inexperienced) ‘citizen army’, which included the Sheffield City Battalion, from my own home town, and which fought with distinction on 1 July at Serre. However, there were also a large number of battle-hardened British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and other forces committed to the Somme offensive.
Marshal Joffre had promised the British that the French force on Haig’s right flank would be equal in size to that that of the British. However, by late June the French Army was simply unable to put such a force into the line such was the pressure being exerted on them by Falkenhayn at Verdun.
However, it was not green pal’s battalions or the French that did for Haig’s Somme offensive. It was Haig himself who doomed the Somme offensive to failure through bad strategy and over confidence. By committing to a front some 30 km/50 miles wide the British force was spread far too thinly. The artillery barrage whilst impressive did nothing like the damage expected to the well-engineered German trenches and forewarned the enemy as to the scale and location of the offensive. Cohesion between the British divisions, and communications between high command and operational commanders was via a rudimentary command chain that was unable to withstand the confusion of a dynamic offensive after so long having been committed to a relatively static defence.
By November 18, 1916, when Haig called off the offensive, the British had gained an area some 12 km/9 miles deep and some 25 km/20 miles wide, but had suffered 623,907 casualties at a rate of some 3000 casualties per day. However, German losses also numbered 465,000 casualties. Conscious that the German Army could not suffer such losses again over the winter of 1916/1917 the Germans engineered the fearsome Hindenburg line behind the Somme battlefield to which they retreated in February 2017. Crucially, the Somme offensive did indeed help relieve pressure on the French Army at Verdun.
Lessons were learned from the failed Somme offensive. In March 1918 Ludendorff launched Operation Michael, a last desperate attempt by the German High Command to split British and French forces which were being reinforced daily by the arrival of US forces. German Stormtroopers were unleashed across what had been the old Somme battlefield. At first the British reeled back but crucially did not break.
At the Battle of Amiens, which commenced on 8 August, 1918, on what Ludendorff called the “black day of the German Army”, an exhausted German force faced a new new All Arms assault by the British. Out of the mist an enormous artillery barrage was unleashed, but this time British, Australian, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand forces, supported by American and French forces, and all under a ‘supreme’ unified command, advanced right behind the barrage employing new flexible ‘grab and hold’ infantry tactics. The force was also supported by a large number of tanks and massive air power.
Crucially, the assault took place over a much narrower front than the Somme offensive enabling the British force to punch through German lines. The German Army true to its tradition fought bravely but as an offensive force it was broken at Amiens. German commanders of a later generation studied the All Arms Battle very closely, but they gave it another name – Blitzkrieg!
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In memory of all the fallen on all sides at the Battle of the Somme which began one hundred years ago today.
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May 19th, 2016
By Julian French.
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Suddenly there is a glut of money. The British government is desperately trying to find projects to spend billions of unspent aid and development money. Meanwhile, the Treasury (finance ministry) has ordered that all of this money must be spent by the end of calendar year 2016. The result? A lot of ill-thought through projects subject to little due diligence that will consume huge amounts of British taxpayer’s money to no particular effect so that David ‘no ifs, no buts’ Cameron can say London has met its target of spending 0.7% of Britain’s economic worth on worthiness. Waste would be a better word than spend. Why?
It is the tyranny of the input culture that generates such waste. The simple truth is that the political cycle and the outcomes cycle do not match. Short-termist, tactician politicians, of whom David Cameron is the doyen, simply do not have the political shelf-life to await the beneficial outcomes they claim to be generating. Therefore, political leaders much prefer to focus on inputs so that they can claim credit for the money spent, rather than await outcomes which will benefit some other political leader, possibly from another political party.
The effect of this tyranny can be devastating because it kills strategy; the considered application of means in pursuit of considered and relevant ends. Indeed, it is the tyranny of the input culture that renders politics the enemy of strategy. This was all too apparent to me on a visit to Afghanistan and in my subsequent report. Too many European states in particular focused on how much money they were investing, how many projects they had undertaken, and how many more children were being educated than hitherto. There was little real regard to the actual needs of Afghanistan as a country or the outcomes that were vitally-needed if the country was ever to be stabilised. The result was strategic failure, an egregious waste of taxpayer’s money, and years of political cover-up and obfuscation.
The tyranny of the input culture also warps the activities of civil society, most notably non-governmental organisations (NGOs). When governments suddenly become desperate to spend money in order to generate a political illusion NGOs go into a feeding frenzy. This encourages small, non-viable charities to offer a myriad of even smaller, non-viable projects. This is exactly what is happening now to Britain’s overseas aid and development budget.
Nor is the tyranny confined to aid and development. It also drives ‘summititis’, a particularly painful and useless infection that takes place shortly before gatherings of EU and NATO heads of state and government. Desperate for something to announce officials cast around for new projects upon which to heap money so that political leaders can give the impression of progress where none exists. The result is a culture in which ‘success’ is too often measured by the smooth running of a summit and/or the agreed ‘language’ that emerges than any outcome on the ground that actually changes things for the better.
Sadly, my own country Britain has become a leading exponent of this tyranny. Indeed, so fixated has the Westminster/Whitehall Establishment become with the need to see short-term politics and inputs as long-term strategy and outcomes that I fear London is no longer capable of conducting a proper audit into the outcomes it desires or the effect of its ‘investments’. There are many dangers from both remaining within a changing EU and leaving it. However, one of the greatest dangers Britain faces comes from London’s input-obsessed political and bureaucratic elite which might suddenly be called upon to think about the real relationship between strategic inputs and outcomes in pursuit of the British national interest. Whatever happens after June 23rd, and whosoever is in Downing Street, expect a flurry of big spending inputs presented as strategy designed to give the impression of post-referendum political momentum, where in fact little or none exists.
Sadly, such nonsense is not confined to London. One reason the Court of Auditors refuses to sign off on the EU budget year-after-year is that Brussels also suffers from the tyranny of the input culture. Not only is it very hard to understand why many EU projects are funded, it is even harder to see how the money was spent, let alone the ‘beneficial’ outcome that was generated.
However, perhaps the greatest victims of this tyranny are Europeans themselves. So corrosive is this culture become in the body politic that long-term strategic planning is being killed off. Yes, leaders talk a good talk about such planning because the appearance thereof is part of the tyranny. However, because the relationship between the often massive means invested and outcomes generated has become so tenuous the influence of Europeans on world events is far less than the sum of its many parts.
In other words, the tyranny of the input culture is probably the single greatest factor in Europe’s rapid relative decline. And, that decline like the tyranny that spawns it is nowhere more apparent than in Europe’s security and defence.
Ho hum!
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May 5th, 2016
By Julian French.
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“We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow”.
Lord Palmerston.
Alphen, Netherlands. 2 May. If one wants to understand the Donald J (‘J’ for Julius?) Trump world-view one had better be armed with an MBA rather than the international relations degrees I hold. Trump’s 27 April “America First” speech was less foreign policy and more the kind of doctrine beloved of American presidents since Harry S. Truman in the late 1940s. As one would expect European policy wonks went into dismissive over-drive. The current mantra of much of the European policy herd is that anything Trump says must be by definition dumb. Rather, I have considered the provenance, the content, and the implications of Trump’s world view as seen possibly from the White House next January.
First, let me deal with the title;America First. Perhaps it was an unhappy accident. After all, it is a natural political leap for a populist, rabble-rousing, nationalist of the political Right to call for America first in the midst of a US presidential campaign. This is not least because it implies that President Obama has put everything but America first and that Hillary Clinton would do likewise. If no accident then the Trump Doctrine harks back to the America First Committee established on 4 September 1940, almost a year to the day after the outbreak of World War Two in Europe. The committee comprised hard-line isolationists desperate to keep the United States out of what the group saw as another European ‘civil’ war.
However, to my mind there is little evidence in the speech that Trump was aware of the historical irony of adopting America First. There are many current accusations against Trump that stand up to evidential analysis, but isolationism is perhaps the least weighty. No, to understand how Trump sees the world it is vital to understand the man and the group from which he hails.
Donald J. Trump is a New York businessman, an entrepreneur, a risk-taker and deal-maker. He is most decidedly not a member of the Washington policy establishment, and certainly not a member of the Washington foreign policy establishment. Read the speech and it becomes rapidly apparent that Trump sees foreign policy as an extension of business; a series of transactions in which the powerful succeed because they are by definition smart and ruthless, and the weak must accept both their place and their fate.
Professor Mary Beard in her fascinating new history of Rome makes a comment about Caesar Augustus that could equally apply to Trump’s world-view today: “The emperor’s did not make the empire, the empire made the emperors”. Trump is a business emperor and his empire has made him. He has succeeded in business precisely because he understands the space between power and weakness and how best to exploit it and the billions of people who live in that space.
Therefore, President Trump would have no eternal allies and no perpetual enemies. And, whilst Trump uses the ‘love’ word a lot, he ‘loves’ only to the extent that an ally is an ally (i.e. a supplicant) and for how long. Consequently, there is absolutely no room for sentimentalism in Trump’s world-view, no shared values, no special relationships, and no historical worth. A President Trump would be willing to be friends with anyone who supports his power, and an implacable, ruthless foe of those who do not. Critically, he would be utterly dismissive of those who seek to sit on a fence between the two, which is where much of the European elite would seek to ‘hide’. Equally, if a foe sees the error of his or her ways and accepts Trump First then a Trump presidency bear no grudges.
That is why a Trump presidency would likely endeavour to re-kindle the ideas of Viscount Palmerston at the height of British imperial power the chimera of which still lingers in some parts of the British and American bodies politic. As such he would define the American interest in the same way any successful hard-bitten New York businessman would; as an extension of himself. That is why unlike Ronald Reagan there are no members of the Washington foreign policy elite on his team to soften the edges of the Trump Doctrine.
Trump’s hard-edged world-view is also why so many European commentators are bleating. Trump would bring to an end the comforting transatlantic relationship as Europeans have come to know it. That is what Trump clearly implied in his disparaging remarks about NATO. Indeed, to Trump Europe is evidence of all that is wrong in his mind about socialised, welfare junky European state. To Trump Europeans are an inefficient, free-riding, ‘socialist’ drag on American leadership and thus would not fit to be either a partner or an ally of his America. To Trump the EU is a failed ‘business’ led by yesterday’s ‘men’ unable or unwilling to cope in the twenty-first century world, constantly asking the American taxpayer to foot a security welfare bill so Europeans can continue to live a life they can no longer afford.
Furthermore, by focussing on the Trump Doctrine many Europeans hope that a President Clinton would be ‘better’ precisely because she would allow them to continue in their free-riding ways. She would not. Even if she wanted the coming Congress would not let her. Yes, she would be softer in her rhetoric. However, she too has little time for a Europe that wallows in its copious self-delusions.
The ultimate irony of a Trump Doctrine would be the absence of one. A presidential doctrine is traditionally linked to American grand strategy; the organisation of America’s immense means in pursuit of global ends. Instead, the foreign policy of Donald J. Trump would be more akin to a form of super-mercantilism, a series of iterative trade-offs for marginal gain.
Therefore, to understand the Trump Doctrine all one need do is add the missing bit to last week’s speech. The title should have read; America First, China Second, Russia Third, Europe, maybe, Fourth.
Europeans had better start thinking about how to do ‘business’ with a Trump White House. If not, we’re fired!
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March 28th, 2016
By Julian French.
“MacDonough and MacBride, And Connolly and Pearce, Now and in time to be, Wherever green is worn, Are changed, changed utterly: A terrible beauty is born”
“Easter 1916”, by W.B. Yeats
Alphen, Netherlands. 28 March. One of the many things my English teacher gave me was a love of the work of the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. Yeats’s grand poem “Easter 1916” does not simply tell the story of the the Rising against British rule. It speaks for Yeats about the unwanted, often unintended, ambiguous place of violence in politics and history. It also speaks of how love and hatred so quickly wrap themselves around and within the sinews of history to create myth. The pain Yeats suffered as an Irish nationalist who rejected violence also taught a young English historian at an ordinary state comprehensive school in 1970s England a lesson. It was a lesson at least as powerful as his later formal Oxford education; history has many sides, many faces, and many contradictions. Indeed, Yeats taught me to try to see myself in the other, even if the other seems at times beyond understanding.
“For England may keep faith; For all that is done and said, We know their dream; enough To know they dreamed and are dead”. The facts of the Rising and which peers through Yeats’s grand poem are indeed dramatic, although not epic. On Easter Monday 1916, on the eve of the great World War One naval battle of Jutland and the bloody Somme offensive, as tens of thousands of Irishmen rallied to the call of the King-Emperor and duly paid with their lives, a simple Morse code message emitted from Dublin. It stated that the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army had seized several sites across Dublin and the rest of Ireland, most famously Dublin’s post office, the GPO building.
The British Government reacted with fury. For London the rising was an armed insurrection, not a struggle of freedom fighters for independence; a stab in the back in the midst of an existential war of survival. The Rising lasted some six days in Dublin. However, it was not until 29 April, five days after the Proclamation of the Republic was issued that Patrick Pearse agreed to an unconditional surrender of Republican forces to the British. Some 3500 were taken prisoner, with some 500 people killed on both sides, and up to 3000 wounded. Tragically and ironically more Irishmen died over the period of the insurrection fighting for the British in France and Flanders. Sixteen leaders of the Rising were quickly tried by court martial and executed by firing squad.
A century on what does the rising say of Ireland today? Critically, it was the manner by which the leaders of the insurrection were executed that turned a Republican defeat into an eventual victory. However, the Rising also set the tone of division on the island of Ireland that continues to this day. Yes, it led to Irish independence in 1922, but it also cemented armed struggle at the heart of Irish politics. Worse, the triumphalist 50th anniversary of the rising in 1966 led some Unionist leaders in the North of Ireland to conclude that the leaders of the Republic remained committed to armed struggle.
“Too long a sacrifice, Can make a stone of the heart”. Fifty years later a further 3000 lie dead. Read Yeats and it is precisely what transpired that he feared. ‘The troubles’ which tore Northern Ireland apart between 1969 and 1998 owed much of the brutality of both sides to the very nature of the 1916 insurrection and its crushing. As the armed struggle became stalemated it turned into a dirty war with splits within the Republicans and Nationalists being matched by splits within the Loyalist and Unionist. Over time the armed struggle came to look less like a fight for freedom and more like criminal terrorism.
The ‘war’ ended with a grand truce that is just about holding. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement which was then further solidified with the creation of the Power Sharing Executive in the north, and has been further cemented by good Anglo-Irish relations, evident in the sensitivity with which the Republic has approached the centenary of Easter 1916. However, the hatreds that fuelled the Rising and those who rejected it are never far from the surface on the island of Ireland.
“All changed, changed utterly”. A century on how does the rising speak to me? With the tragedy of Syria and the massacres in Paris and Brussels black roses upon roods of time it speaks not only of struggle, of vanguards, but in time of reconciliation, and the never-ending work needed to balance security, legitimacy and respect. However, the Rising still speaks to me of Yeats’s ambivalence, of (to coin the phrase of another poet) roads not taken and, sadly, of wrong roads wrongly taken.
However, this weekend and the manner in which Easter 1916 has been celebrated by the Republic also speaks to me of hope. That those whose hearts are not cast in stone can still desire something others fear without the one descending into hatred of the other… Above all, it shows me that with respect over time even the most hateful of hatreds can be replaced by understanding and tolerance…but only if legitimate power stands firm and only over time.
“I have met them at close of day, Coming with vivid faces, From counter or desk among grey Eighteenth century houses”. The Rising also offers three insights into today’s terrorist threat. First, Easter 1916 was an armed insurrection, not terrorism. However, it also shows that violence over time can destroy the most noble of movements. Second, whilst the insurrectionists were Irish, not all Irishmen and Irishwomen were insurrectionists, even if many had sympathy with the aims of the Rising. Today’s terrorists maybe Muslim, but not all or even many Muslims are terrorists. Third, whatever the nature of struggle when ideas descend into carnage any claimed moral equivalency between terror and legitimate power is lost, whatever romantic poets may later write.
“This man had kept a school, And rode our winged horse”. Irish President Michael D. Higgins asked that all traditions affected by Easter 1916 commemorate/celebrate the Rising “with generosity”. Peace is not yet assured on the island of Ireland…but a century of from the Rising peace is at least a “shadow of cloud on the stream”. Yeats helped me to my ‘generosity’, by helping a young Briton to try and see himself in an Irish other, even when my country and by extension me were somehow painted as the font of all Irish troubles. Will I ever be able to see myself in the madness of an Islamist other? No, but I will continue to honour Islam and my Muslim friends, and the society of the decent to which we all belong; Irish, Muslim, Briton et al.
2016: from terror a beauty must be re-born.
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December 1st, 2015
By Julian French.
Alphen, Netherlands. 30 November. Power politics has and always will be about exploiting space and people over time and distance, to exert the influence of the strategically strong, over the politically weak.
Look at a map of Eastern Europe and Western Asia from north to south. For the Russia Black Seas Fleet to sail from its base at Sevastopol via the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean it must first pass through the Bosporus directly in front of Istanbul, then sail south through the small Sea of Marmara, and finally on past Cernak into the Dardanelles straits before it can enter the Mediterranean. The distance between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean is some 60 miles or 85 kilometres, all of which is under firm Turkish control. In other words without Turkey’s approval Russia’s Black Seas Fleet and Sevastopol, Russia’s only south facing warm water European fleet naval base, is rendered useless.
Consequently, if Turkey turns against Russia in the wake of last week’s downing of a Russian SU-24, much of the strategic rationale behind President Putin’s illegal seizure of Crimea is threatened. That is why for all Moscow’s bluster Putin knows all too well it is the Turks not the Russians who hold most (not all) of the strategic cards. Indeed, the Russian Black Seas Fleet is vital to wider Russian ambitions across and around the Mediterranean basin.
This is not the first time in history the Dardanelles and the Bosporus have been a grand strategic flashpoint. A century ago in December 1915 Allies forces were about to be withdrawn in the face of heroic Turkish resistance after Churchill’s failed attempt to force the Dardanelles with the Royal and French navies, and to take the Gallipoli Peninsula with an Allied Expeditionary Force of mainly British, Australian and New Zealand troops. The aim was to push Istanbul (Constantinople became Istanbul in 1453) out of its alliance with Wilhelmine Germany, and thus out of the First World War. The expedition was a spectacular failure as I saw for myself on a visit to Gallipoli as a guest of the Turkish Government.
In fact, Russia and Turkey (or more precisely the Ottoman Empire) have been fighting over the Dardanelles and the Bosporus ever since Moscow decided an all-year round warm water port was an essential Russian interest. In 1807, during the Napoleonic wars, British and Russian forces blockaded the Dardanelles. When Istanbul lost the 1828-1829 Russo-Turkish war Moscow forced the Ottomans to close the straits to all non-Russian (i.e. British) forces. European powers became alarmed by Russia’s de facto control of the straits and Moscow’s ambitions to extend its influence into the Mediterranean and the wider Middle East. Nothing new there then.
In 1841 at the London Straits Convention Austria-Hungary, Britain, France and Prussia, using the precedent set by the 1815 Congress of Vienna, forced Russia to agree that in peacetime only Ottoman warships could traverse the straits. During the 1853-1856 Crimean War the Royal and French navies actually traversed the straits into the Black Sea to blockade Sevastopol with the aim of denying Russia the very same warm water port that is deemed vital to Moscow’s twenty-first century grand strategy. Indeed, the 1856 Congress of Paris which reaffirmed the 1841 convention is still in legal force today!
So, President Putin might make much play of deploying highly-advanced S400 anti-aircraft missiles to the Russian Air Force base at Latakia in Syria, and yes those missiles can reach deep into Turkish air space. He might also escort his SU-24 fighter-bombers with fighters, and hit Turkey with limited sanctions. However, implicit in Turkish President Erdogan’s warning to Russia “…not to play with fire” over the downing of the SU-24 is the inference that it is Istanbul not Moscow that has the strategic upper hand.
Now, turn aforesaid map around and look at it from west to east. All the Syrian and other refugees using the northern route from the Middle East to Europe have to cross the self-same Bosporus. Yesterday Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davotoglu met with EU leaders in Brussels at an EU-Turkey summit. Again, Istanbul not Brussels (or the real power capitals of Europe) held most of the cards. Ankara is using the migration crisis as a means to exert pressure on fellow Europeans (Turkey is both a European and an Asian country) by turning migration flows on and off like a tap. Greek officials reported in October that in the wake of a previous high-level meeting with the Turks the migration flow suddenly eased.
So what does Turkey want? On 12 December, 1999 Turkey was officially recognised by the EU as an official candidate state. Ever since then the EU has pretended to negotiate Turkish membership, and the Turks have pretended to believe them. No more! President Erdogan’s mandate was markedly strengthen in Turkey’s June 2015 presidential elections. In return for controlling the migration flows into Europe President Erdogan is determined to force the EU to take Turkey’s membership far more seriously, and force visa-free travel for Turks upon a reluctant EU. At yesterday’s Brussels EU-Turkey Summit desperate EU leaders were willing to give President Erdogan pretty much all he wants.
Scratch the surface of European politics and one finds history. European fears (for that is what they now are) of such a huge wave of mainly Muslim migrants runs deep in the DNA of Europe’s collective historic memory. Between 1529 and 1683 the Ottomans made repeated incursions into Europe, culminating in the 1683 Battle of Vienna. Inter-mingled with the fear of migrants is that historic fear of Ottoman conquest, even if many Europeans do not realise it. It is a fear that runs deep in contemporary politics.
Presidents Erdogan and Putin also understand each other, and indeed power politics far better than Europe’s many little leaders. Power politically both the downing of the Russian plane and the migrant crisis demonstrate Turkey’s ‘strong’ grand tactical position. However, Turkey must be careful not to confuse a strong grand tactical position with a strong grand strategic position. Indeed, being so close to Syria and the wider Middle East it is also evident that strong NATO allies and EU partners will be vital to Turkey’s long-term security. Consensual (not forced) Turkish EU membership will also be vital to this pivotal power’s future stability and prosperity.
Critically, Ankara does not want to spend too much strategic energy looking over its shoulder north at an aggrieved Russia. Just look at a map, watch this space and indeed twenty-first century power politics at work!
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