Posts by JulianFrench:
From Kiev to Damascus: The Retreat of International Community
January 24th, 2014By Julian French.
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The Balance of Incompetents
August 3rd, 2013
By Julian French.
The European Federation Benelux Region. 31 July, 2063. The Berlin-based European Government orders the European Federation (EF) English Regional Government to increase taxes to pay for the South-East European Regional Development Plan.
England’s first female President and European Commissioner instructs the English Regional Government to duly rubber-stamp Berlin’s wishes. Comprised as it is of 60% EF appointees the Parliament duly obliges. All of Europe’s remaining constitutional monarchies were scrapped in May 2050 on the centennial of the Schuman Declaration and the creation of the European Federation.
Indeed, democracy as Europeans once knew it has long been replaced by an elite-led technocracy that governs in the name of ‘stability’. The technocracy is ‘overseen’ by a remote and weak European Parliament that acts in the name of the people but rarely has much direct contact with them. The English still get to vote but only on minor local issues.
The United Kingdom ceased to exist in May 2050 as England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland became part of the EF’s British Isles Region. The last vestiges of national sovereignty were finally abandoned at the 2040 Brussels Summit which not only transferred the seat of European government to Berlin but also revealed Europe’s worst-kept secret – no decisions of any substance had been taken at the national level since the 2032 Maastricht Treaty 2. Fanciful?
That is precisely where Britain/England will be in 2063 if London continues to transfer national powers to Brussels at the rate that has been taking place since the 1986 Single European Act. Last week the first reports of the British Government’s so-called Balance of Competences Review were published. Already dubbed the Great Whitehall Whitewash the Review has thus far concluded a) the EU does not cost Britain too much; and b) the balance of competences between London and Brussels are about right.
However, the benchmark against which the reports core judgements are made are impossible to discern. The reason is that most EU member-states can point to tangible benefits of membership but with the cost to Britain so high the ‘benefits’ are at best intangible. The aim of the Review is to demonstrate ‘fairness’. Of course, I should add ‘or otherwise’ but thus far the Review is simply making the case for EU membership and does not begin to address inequities.
For example, of the 1.4 million advertised jobs on a European Commission funded web-site – EURES – 814,359 are in Britain – almost 60% of the EU total. Germany’s economy is some 25% bigger than Britain’s but offers only 20% of the advertised jobs. Why and how? If they ever get the chance in 2017 the British people face the gravest decision over their future since declaring war in 1939.
A real British referendum on the EU would thus ask two questions. Are you the British citizen prepared to accept further reduction in both the power and influence of the British Government and Parliament and see more power transferred to both the European Commission and European Parliament? Are you the British citizen prepared in time to join the Euro? A yes vote would be definition entail an implicit acceptance of both outcomes. However, it is precisely this decision that the Balance of Competences Review clouds by providing the wrong answers to the wrong questions. For Whitehall it is any EU at any cost.
Julian Lindley-French
Professor Julian Lindley-French
Senior Fellow, Institute of Statecraft and Director, Europa Analytica,
Forthcoming Book: “Little Britain? Twenty-First Century Strategy for a Middling European Power”
Operation Irresolute support
July 23rd, 2013
By Julian French.
In 1842 Sir Charles Napier wrote perhaps the most succinct telegram in military history to mark his success at the end of the First Anglo-Afghan War – “Peccavi”, he wrote, “I have sinned”. It was a play on words as Napier had just conquered what is today the Pakistani province of Sindh. In another play on words NATO is ‘planning’ Operation Resolute Support to replace the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan in December 2014 at the end of major combat operations. Resolute Support is vital if Afghanistan is to have any chance of a future that is other than ghastly. Without full American and British backing Resolute Support will be a non-starter because they remain the West’s signature powers.
Sadly, all the mood music I am picking up at a high-level in Washington and London is that if this mission goes ahead at all it will be neither resolute nor offer much in terms of support to Afghanistan’s tottery government. The US and British Permanent Representatives (ambassadors) to NATO’s North Atlantic Council are rebutting perfectly sound military guidance on the grounds of cost. Indeed, the political reflex now is to get out at any cost.
The cost is indeed prohibitive. Afghanistan costs the US taxpayer $110bn per year and it costs $1m simply to keep an American soldier in Afghanistan for a year. Clearly, that burden will need to be reduced drastically.
In January 2012 I wrote a piece entitled, “Beaufort: Why We Must Leave Afghanistan Now, Not End 2014”. My sense then was that support for the mission at the highest political levels in both Washington and London was very soft and consequently the campaign was not embedded in a meaningful regional-strategic political, diplomatic and economic strategy. Indeed, I recall a conversation with a very high-level British official shortly after I had published “Plan B for Afghanistan” for the International Institute for Strategic Studies. From his remarks it was clear men and women were dying simply to keep an arbitrary December 2014 date with political failure.
The US now says it will only stay in Afghanistan if the Kabul Government enters into “bilateral security arrangements” that offer American forces immunity from prosecution. President Karzai will enter into no such agreement because he does not want to be seen to be accommodating the soon-to-be departed Americans as he faces potentially life-or-death elections in April 2014.
Washington is locked into sequestration and with relations between Presidents Obama and Karzai close to breaking point the US is threatening a “zero option”; the withdrawal of all US forces by end 2014. Meanwhile, and not for the first time, David Cameron is demonstrating yet again an inability to grasp the strategic implications of his political short-termism.
Even if Resolute Support does finally go ahead for the first such time in NATO history Britain will lose the deputy commander slot of a major Alliance mission. Incredibly Germany and Italy are offering to take the lead in Britain’s absence. In fact Berlin and Rome are also playing narrow politics with Resolute Support as they have no intention of leading anything. It is simply an attempt to mask their respective failures in Libya and Mali.
London says that whilst it will support the new Afghan army training academy (‘Sandhurst in the Sand’) it will do no more. Britain “has done its bit” according to Downing Street. The timing could not be worse. Britain is about to make NATO the centre-piece of its 2015 Strategic Defence and Security Review. London once again will be seen to be saying one thing and doing another.
The Taliban are watching on with deep satisfaction as Western ‘strategy’ collapses and see no reason to enter into meaningful peace and reconciliation talks. Indeed, their attacks are increasing in both scale and volume. In spite of real progress on the ground over the past two years Afghanistan today looks increasingly like 1989 on the eve of the Soviet withdrawal.
A desperate race is now on to establish credible Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) prior to NATO’s departure. Indeed, whilst the Afghan National Army (ANA) is making real progress it still looks and acts nothing like a modern army. Without training, mentoring and above all credible air power there are real questions as to whether the ANA will stand and fight in the coming struggle.
The greatest honour both Obama and Cameron could afford the thousands of their men and women in their national uniforms who have been killed trying to make flawed Afghan strategy work is to properly commit to Resolute Support. Indeed, if Napier were alive today he would send London an entirely different and far less succinct telegram. He would remind his political masters just why sacrifice was necessary. “Stamus contra malo” – “We stand against evil”. If that is not the case then why on earth did we go to Afghanistan in the first place?
As for the cost; what will be the cost of complete and utter failure?
Julian Lindley-French
The New Prince Of Persia
June 18th, 2013
By Julian French.
Alphen, Netherlands. 17 June. Democritus wrote, “I would rather discover one true cause than gain the Kingdom of Persia”. With the election of the maybe vaguely reform-minded Hassan Rouhani many in the West are again hoping that this new Prince of Persia will also mark a new beginning for Iran.
Much of this can by put down to the ‘anything better than Ahmedinejad’ school of international relations. So what are the implications of Rouhani’s election? At the geopolitical level it is likely to harden dividing lines in the short-term because it will make it easier for the likes or Russia and China to support this ‘acceptable’ face of the Islamic Revolution.
For that reason Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu warned the West yesterday against “wishful thinking”. At the regional-strategic level there will be little short-term shift in Iranian foreign policy.
Perhaps more important than Rouhani’s election was the news this weekend that Iran is to openly send members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to support the Assad regime in Damascus. This is in direct response to the EU’s incompetent decision to maybe lift an arms embargo but not actually arm the opposition – the strategic equivalent of being a little bit pregnant. However, over the medium to long-term there may be reasons to believe a carrot and stick policy towards Iran will yield fruit.
The oil embargo has made life hard for a growing number of people who simply seek a better standard of living and an emerging young educated middle class who are keen to throw off the ideological and lifestyle shackles imposed upon them by a regime that seems ever more out of touch with this Internet age. However, the sticking point will remain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. In his first statement as president-elect Rouhani cryptically-talked of Iran’s “national interests”.
This can be summed up as seeking Iran’s regional strategic dominance and a Shia ascendancy in the region. CNN’s excellent Fareed Zakeria got it right. “Iran is a country of 80 million people, educated and dynamic.
It sits astride a crucial part of the world. It cannot be sanctioned and pressed down forever. It is the last great civilization to sit outside the global order”. Zakeria is right – for good and ill. President Rouhani has gained the kingdom of Persia (sort of) but his one true cause will for the moment remain as it ever was.
Through the PRISM of Hypocrisy
June 14th, 2013
By Dr. Julian French.
Alphen, Netherlands. 12 June. A young British soldier is mown down in a London street and then hacked to death. Mosques and Islamic centres across England are attacked.
The liberal elite in London mouth their concerns and trot out the usual reality-defying, free speech quenching politically correct nonsense. And then it is alleged that the US National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) are using a new computer programme called PRISM to tap into emails and web-sites and that self-same elite go into over-drive.
Who is the problem here? In Britain conspiracy theorists and other assorted nutters are of course having a field day with the revelation that US and UK security services are basically doing their job.
In fact the total number of email accounts accessed by GCHQ has thus far been very small. In a frenzy of false self-righteousness the big picture has as usual been missed. There has been a failure of governments of all persuasions to promote the integration, tolerance and mutual respect upon which any functioning liberal society must rest. Having created the problem government has gone AWOL.
The simple truth is that there are an awful lot of very nasty people out there of all political and faith hues. The Internet has given them the means to connect, plan and carry out their campaigns of hatred. Now, Britain is facing an action-reaction cycle of violence as extremists feed off each other in an increasingly symbiotic relationship of hate.
The job of government is to protect the cohesion of society from enemies within and without. Government must ensure and assure the conditions for reasonable people from across society, Muslim and non-Muslim, Briton and immigrant to deploy society’s greatest defence – tolerance and mutual respect.
That is why the focus should not be on GCHQ but rather on how best to bring decent people together. Who is the enemy? It is the extremists on both sides. Therefore, to listen to the very people who have helped create the fearful society that GCHQ now must protect complain about civil liberties is to see them for what they are – hypocrites.
Influencing the World or Organizing Europe?
May 31st, 2013
Julian French.
Moscow European Security Conference
May 25th, 2013
Julian French.
Moscow, Russia. The Moscow River flows through this ancient seat of Russian power like a timeless reminder of a timeless country and its seemingly endless space. The Moscow European Security Conference at which I today spoke with Russia’s Foreign and Defence Ministers is a jewel in the crown of Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
Now, I am no Russophobe. Indeed, as a student of Russian history my respect for this immense country is great. And, seen from Moscow it is very easy to see just how Russians see their place in Europe and Europe’s place in Russia. And yet listening to several of today’s speeches I was reminded of a nineteenth century Russian Prime Minister Gorschakov who once described Europe as a peninsula stuck on the end of Russia.
In other words what happened in Europe only did so in the context of Russia. That is not how Europe works today if it ever did. Russian concerns must of course be treated with respect but I fear that Moscow is about to miss a great opportunity to influence a Europe more in flux than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
The day has been dominated by what for most Europeans and North Americans are yesterday’s issues; NATO enlargement, the defunct Conventional Forces Europe treaty and that old favorite ballistic missile defense. What has surprised me is the extent to which Moscow obsesses over American plans for a limited NATO missile defense.
There is a very genuine and heartfelt belief in Moscow that plans for BMD are the thin end of a wedge that could in time threaten Russia’s nuclear deterrent. Instead Russia should focus on two things. First, the changing power relations in Europe. When the Euro-zone core deepens political relations relationships with and between Europe’s new peripheral powers- Britain, the Nordic states, Russia and Turkey -will also change.
Indeed, their interests will tend to align beyond existing institutional boundaries. Second, emerging security challenges and threats should be the stuff of Russia’s European and Euro-Atlantic strategy rather than trying to preserve mutually assured destruction in Europe. MAD belongs to Europe’s last century not this one.
To a large extent Prime Minister Gorschakov was right; Europe is indeed a peninsula stuck on the end of Russia. However, given the globalized and globalizing context of contemporary security Russia is a European power and together we are all ever more a peninsula stuck on the end of Asia. Russia is missing a fundamental strategic point – if Russia wants to fashion a single European security space it needs to promote a new security agenda and soon.
Hollande’s Europe
May 20th, 2013By Julian Lindley-French.
Alphen, Netherlands. 20 May. “It is my responsibility as a leader of a founder member of the European Union…to pull Europe out of this torpor that has gripped it, and to reduce people’s disenchantment with it. If Europe stays in the state it is in now, it could be the end of the project”. Europe owes French President Francois Hollande a deep debt of gratitude. His call for an “economic government” for the Eurozone with its own budget, the right to borrow, a harmonized tax system and a full-time president was the first really honest statement of intent by one Europe’s big leaders. The federal cat is now out of the Euro bag. President Hollande has also revealed for what it is the nonsense being peddled by those in Britain who argue that Britain’s relationship with much of the rest of Europe is about this EU or simply a matter of economics. It is about Britain’s relationship with Hollande’s Europe, a future federalised EU vitally-needed to preserve the Euro. As we approach Le Crunch is there any way a just balance can be found between Hollande’s and Cameron’s very different visions for Europe?
President Hollande faces three major roadblocks before he realises his “Europe”. Berlin buys into much of what Hollande suggests, at least in theory. However, Chancellor Merkel still believes she can prevent the British and French extremes from pulling the EU apart. She is also fully aware that behind President Hollande’s call is not simply a vision of Europe long a dream of those on the Mitterand Left of French politics. It also reflects a Paris desperate to get the German, Dutch and other northern Europeans to bear the burden for French public debt. The German people will not accept debt mutualisation without fiscal and budgetary discipline and that means massive structural economic and political reforms. That in effect is precisely what President Hollande is offering Berlin.
If Berlin accepts the offer then Eurozone governments will need first to overcome deep public dissatisfaction with both the EU and the political elite. Recent Eurobarometer data demonstrates the gravity of the crisis. Since 2008 trust in the EU has crashed from 20 to -29 polling points in Germany, 30 to -22 points in Italy, from 42 to -52 points in Spain, and from 50 to 6 points in Poland. Critically, the polls have moved from 10 to -22 points in France, which is clearly of deep concern to President Hollande. Not surprisingly support in Britain has shifted from a heady -13 to a relationship-busting -49. It is unclear whether this data reflects dissatisfaction with the way the crisis has been handled or something deeper; that the European nation-state actually still matters to its citizens.
For David Cameron President Hollande’s timing could not have been worse, which may of course explain it. The Hollande speech came a day after Cameron suffered the worst parliamentary revolt over Europe of any sitting prime minister. Cameron is now in full EU crisis mode. Hollande has also made it much harder for Cameron to negotiate a “new relationship” for Britain with the EU. Indeed, implicit in President Hollande’s offer to Berlin is another mug’s deal for London; even less influence for the same if not more massive cost. This makes a mockery of London’s mantra that Britain’s relationship is not about to change fundamentally. Even if London does precisely nothing Britain’s relationship with the EU will change fundamentally and not for the better.
So can a “new relationship” be forged? Cameron believes he has allies in both Berlin and The Hague. However, they are inside the Euro and Britain is not. With the best will in the world it is hard to see what deal could be struck amenable to a power centralising Eurozone and to a power repatriation-seeking Britain – one camp which wants a super-Brussels and one state that seeks a mini-Brussels. Unless that is those EU member-states outside the Eurozone are firmly embedded in an EU-US Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement. Such an agreement would be a real game-changer and which explains Cameron’s visit last week to Washington. In effect a huge single market would balance a large currency union. However, Cameron should not hold his breath. One of my well-placed Washington sources tells me that the Obama Administration is only playing with this idea, it has little support in Congress and that part of the reason for floating this is to help Cameron see off his rebellious back-benchers.
Cameron, Hollande and Merkel should at least be given the chance to strike this new balance but they had better get on with it. If not President Hollande is right – the EU and the Eurozone will become one and the same thing and those in the twilight zone between the Eurozone and an exit will find themselves in a strategic, political and economic no man’s land, which apparently is where the Obama administration now wants to cast Britain. So much for the Special Relationship! Why can Americans never ‘get’ Europe?In other words the Eurozone either integrates or disintegrates. If the latter then the Euro fails and it is hasta la vista EU!
Je dois vous remercie, Monsieur le President!
Julian Lindley-French
http://lindleyfrench.blogspot.com/2013/05/hollandes-europe.html