Lindley-French's Blog Blast: Speaking Truth Unto Power

Why People Do Things and How to Beat Them…and All That

2012-02-21T00:32:00.002-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 21 February. I know, I should be writing about how my Dear Leaders of the Eurozone Onion agreed to Greece having another €130 billion of my money, which I have not got, so that Athens can continue to pretend to reform and that future Greek ‘competitivity’ is more than just an ancient Greek joke re-visited. However, I am so bored by this deceit that I will avail you all of only a summary. The Euro was born of a lie, it is being sustained by a lie and that lie will continue for many years to come. Is that clear?

What is going to happen? That is easy to predict. Greece will get another bail-out next year before leaving the Euro in 2014 when the firewall to protect Italy, Portugal and Spain has been properly topped out with more of my money at which time they will become long-term financial protectorates. Thereafter, we Dutch taxpayers (and others) will be 'invited' to support our Euro-fellows for many years as an act of 'solidarity' (appalling and empty Onion-Speak) as our Dear Leaders hope against hope that a) sufficient economic growth returns to limit the damage to taxpayers in the so-called AAA countries; b) sufficient growth returns soon enough to prevent other European economic basket cases, such as Belgium and much of eastern Europe joining the hand-out queue; and c) we do not take to the streets in mass protest at the tax-raiding of our meagre savings and pensions to fund all this. Ten years ago when I was working for the European Onion I saw the real cause of this mess; the rejection by Brussels and all our Dear Leaders of any reality that did not accord with Euro-reality and the persecution of any heretic brave enough to point this out. Nothing changes. This is one hell of a gamble.

No, today, I am going to talk about something close to my heart – defence education in Europe. Why? Well, because the Euro crisis is not only disconnecting European security from world security, it is turning many European armed forces into little more than armed pensions. Something radical needs to be done to bridge the abyss between strategy and austerity through which our armed forces are now falling.

Now, you all know that I do not normally use my blog-blast to push someone else’s book. Indeed, normally this page is reserved for shameless and utterly ill-deserved self-promotion. Moreover, this book at no points cites any of my own works for brilliant insight. This usually condemns a book in my mind to what Blackadder once said of Dr Samuel Johnston’s “Dictionary”; the most pointless book since “How to Learn French” was translated into French. Sadly, this book suffers from no such failings, although it does have perhaps what Blackadder would have described as the worst title in the history of bookdom since “Paradise Lost” was re-titled “Getting Lost in Chalfont St Giles on a Day Out” (those with a literary bent will get the pun). So, what is the book’s saving grace? Simple - it agrees with me.

Entitled “Behavioural Conflict – Why Understanding People and Their Motivations Will Prove Decisive in Future Conflict”, it should have been called, “Why People Do Things and How to Beat Them...and All That!” It is written by a couple of colleagues of mine – Andrew Mackay and Commander Dr Steve Tatham of the Royal Navy.

The implicit theme running through a book with a decidedly British flavour is that military and defence education as currently conceived simply does not prepare people for the challenges of tomorrow’s conflicts. The status quo is rarely challenged, nor are courses structured or led to encourage the free-thinking vital to future mission success.

My own view of Western military power has long been that it will need to become much more intelligent. Not simply in terms of the weapons it can fire, but how each and every member of the force thinks about his or her role in a mission, and about the people and places where they take place. Indeed, for me the only way for ever-shrinking European armed forces to be effective in a world in which the use of armed force is sadly becoming more not less likely is to exploit comparative advantage – educated human capital.

During my about to end time as Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy I enjoyed some modest success in creating the concept of officer-scholar. A few select officers were taken out of the traditional career chain to undertake doctoral research so that lessons-learned from military operations could be just that – learnt. Too often said 'lessons' end up propping up endless shelves in endless corridors in some classified ‘bibliotheque’ never to be seen again, especially if they say something interesting.

One of the many oft-uttered platitudes that tended to bring on nausea is that armed forces are learning organisations. No they are not. They are too often course-following, box-ticking, exam-passing organisations. Defence academies are thus merely the gate-keepers to promotion. Doing is the thing – not learning. And sadly too often too many defence educators conspire in this cosy conceit, preferring narrow, irrelevant research to the building of life-long learning relationships. A real opportunity is thus missed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our military people…and others. Indeed, with even a smidgen of vision defence academies could be real hubs for the kind of distance and life-long learning partnerships which our armed forces will desperately need if they are to succeed in the complex environments into which they will be inevitably thrust.

The point about learning is that it teaches one how to question and that is the problem. Too often be it staff colleges, defence academies or even defence universities, the role of applied research – the very essence of questioning – is suppressed because it is perceived to challenge the orthodoxy of command authority. If our armed forces are going to have any chance of succeeding this century the entire concept and approach to defence education will need to change. Sadly, there is no appetite for that in either hard-pressed defence ministries or too often in staff colleges and defence academies. Defence academies have become so conservative as to make them pointless. This is self-defeating as the real enemy these days are governments which see defence budgets as targets for deep and damaging raids to fund the kind of Onion-rubbish apparent last night in Brussels. A bunker mentality does not tend to promote free-thinking.

So, those of you ‘in the business’ strong enough to brave the appalling title please read this book. You might learn something. But then what do I know – I am a heretic.

Julian Lindley-French

Entente Frugale: Why England and France Must Hang Together...or Hang Separately

2012-02-17T03:58:00.002-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 17 February. David Cameron is today in Paris to meet with his ‘friend’ French President Nicholas Sarkozy. The ostensible purpose of the meeting is to sign a treaty of co-operation on the sharing of civil nuclear technology, i.e. the French are to remind the English of what they once knew about nuclear stuff but have now forgotten, and to confirm a new joint military headquarters and defence-industrial co-operation over a new unmanned aerial vehicle rather bizarrely called MALE (why not call it 'Fred' or 'Pierre'?).

In fact the real reason for the meeting is both much more political and much more profound – the reaffirmation that in spite all of the usual spats between the two countries the grand strategic principles the two countries share are so profound that England and France must hang together or hang separately. This is the only way both countries can craft real strategy in austerity, via an Entente Frugale.

Now, before I go further I must declare myself. For all my not-so-occasional frustrations with the French ability to be consistently wrong about almost everything I remain a Francophile. And, in spite of once having a very French boss, I retain a strong respect for the country, the people, the culture, and of course French cuisine and wine. Moreover, I speak the language, albeit with a Yorkshire accent, which my French friends call ‘charmant’, and I have lived and worked in Paris. In spite of all that I still like them.

A year or so ago I wrote a big report for the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), entitled “Britain and France: A Dialogue of Decline”, which laid out the enduring principles which force the two countries to co-operate, whatever the short-term irritations. Put simply, the world is getting relatively bigger precisely because England and France are getting relatively smaller. Therefore, to influence the strategic environment, the strategic allies (America and Germany) and potential strategic adversaries, who shall remain nameless, England and France must work together.

However, for the two countries to work together they must also strive constantly to see the bigger picture. That will not be easy as there is much that will likely happen in the coming years to force London and Paris apart. In the defence realm England will shift back towards a maritime strategy, whilst France will retain a continental strategy. However, two political issues stand out – Scottish independence and French debt.

England’s estrangement with the European Union will likely grow, possibly to the point where England departs from the EU. There are those in Paris who harbour hopes that Scottish independence will reduce England’s standing in the world. In fact, if the 5 million Scots (yes, that is all of them, they just make a lot of noise) vote for independence they will simply be marginalising themselves as the Scottish GDP at $207bn is but a small part of Britain’s GDP of $2.25 trillion, and much of that figure is from oil and gas produced in Scottish waters. In such an event the English, the true power in the land, will do all they can to ensure the Scots are just that – marginalised.

The Scottish Nationalists seem to be under the mistaken belief that should they con their fellow Scots into voting for independence nothing much will change – it will. France will be tempted by memories of the 'auld alliance' but would be well-advised not to interfere. Forget all the Braveheart rubbish Alec Salmond is trotting out; William Wallace was ultimately crushed by Edward I, an English king. It was ever and will be ever thus and France's relationship with England is critical. Scotland will still have to follow England’s will whatever, although post-referendum we English will no longer have to pay for these nationalist irritants. Thankfully, my respect for the Scottish people is strong enough to believe that when faced with modern reality they will honour the canny pragmatism for which they are renowned and avoid Scotland becoming an irrelevant rock stuck onto northern England.

As the Euro strains (as it will) and France is finally forced to confront its debt in much the same way the English are confronting their own France will face real challenges, not least finding itself in the EU facing German power without the English. Equally, if Paris tries to defy economic gravity and spend its way out of crisis, which could happen if the Socialists are elected, French decline will only accelerate and ‘La France Forte’ will be but a memory. Either way the need for an alliance with England will only grow.

However, for the English and French relationship to work all the clutter of EU and independence politics must be put to one side as much as possible and a focus established on certain power fundamentals. First, England and France must seek a shared concept of Europe’s role in the world that goes beyond the EU institutions. Second, England and France must together retain sufficient diplomatic power to justify their respective seats on the UN Security Council. Third, England and France must together support each other to develop sufficient military power to both influence US security and defence policy, both through NATO and increasingly beyond. Fourth, England and France must retain sufficient military capabilities to be able to influence key adversaries and lead Europeans back from the strategic wilderness into which they have wandered. Fifth, the societies of both England and France share many of the same social, economic and cultural tensions, not to mention facing a very similar threat from violent Islamists. It is essential that the two countries strive to build an intelligence relationship founded on sufficient trust that it can survive the inevitable and occasional piece of political theatrics.

Whatever one might think of President Sarkozy the simple fact is that his world view is much closer to Cameron’s world view than that of Francois Hollande, his rival in ‘la Presidentielle’. Ed Milliband? I am not sure he has a world view. If Sarkozy loses, as seems likely, like it or not England and France will once again have to reinvent a strategic relationship that, let’s face it, does not come naturally. Therein lies the reason for today’s agreements – to tie England and France to each other in practical areas precisely so that the relationship survives whatever the coming politics throws at it.

The Scottish Nationalists want the independence referendum to be held in 2014 to coincide with the anniversary of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn, an occasional Scottish victory. Far more important is 2015; the six hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt – “we few, we happy few…”.

Julian Lindley-French

Sean Who?

2012-02-16T03:27:00.003-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 16 February. Let me tell you a fairy story. None of it is true. Are you sitting comfortably? Once upon a time a long way, away there was a Yank called Sean, who was not very bright, who wanted we British to hand something he called Lost Mal Virus, or something like that, back to the Argies. Sean was an actor. He was not a very good actor because he spent his days living in a fantasy world so far from reality he could no longer tell the difference. Sadly, not many people went to see Sean's films, which I am told were by and large rubbish because the plots tended to be far too far fetched. Sean was not very bright.

He decided one day to make a new fantasy film which was SO far-fetched it was beyond credulity. In his film a bunch of sad, lost Argie scrap metal merchants accidentally stumbled across a mythical island near the mythical Lost Mal Virus called South Georgia, and which was ruled by an evil prince called William. In the film the naughty scrap metal merchants decide to dismantle the place without the Prince's permission.

Brave to the point of stupidity, Sean was not very bright, our hero defied the evil Prince William by offering Georgia to his fairy Princess La Kirchner. Princess La Kirchner, who was one tango short of a samba, was secretly in love with Prince William. Sadly, Princess La Kirchner felt terribly slighted because the previous year Prince William had married a girl called Kate from Rotherham. So, to make Prince William jealous she pretended to love Sean and start a war.

Sadly, there was just an ever so minor flaw in the plan. Sean, who was not very bright, confused South Georgia with Georgia, which was ever so slightly part of the United States of America, and which was known to be ruled by a big, bad ogre called Borat or something like that, who was known for his short temper and had lots of aircraft carriers. Thankfully, being a Yank Borat was a kind, politically correct ogre who had caught onto a new idea called 'democracy', which was Greek and therefore cost a lot. And, he was not at all happy when the scrap metal merchants started dismantling Atlanta, although many north of the Mason-Dixon line thought this a good idea. Sadly, there were rarely good ideas in Borat's White Castle, but this Greek democracy thing was a real bozo; the people got to decide.

Sadly, for Sean, who was not very bright, after two centuries of trying the Yanks had also at last learnt to read a map. Borat, who had many wise counsellors, realised that Sean, who was not very bright, had not only confused South Georgia with Georgia, but Lost Mal Virus with the Falkland Islands. Now, the Falkland Islands were a real, happy place where a happy, bucolic (and ever so occasionally alcoholic) frolicking people had lived for almost 200 years. Like Borat they also believed in democracy and did not have a particularly high regard for the evil Princess La Kirchner. She wanted to steal their homes and expel them from their tropical paradise and send them to a cold, forbidding and damp island called England where the people are ever so slightly wet. Heaven forbid!

Also, the Falklands did not really belong to Prince William, who visited on holiday from time to time in his magic yellow Sea Prince helicopter. The Falklands belonged to the people, who liked sheep...a lot. So, being the owners of the Falklands the good people of the Falklands decided to have a vote (that Greek thing again) in which all of them (i.e. 100% all of them) decided that whilst Prince William may be a tad evil, going bald and married to some woman from Rotherham, he offered infinitely better life insurance than the very evil Princess La Kirchner, who was one tango short of a samba.

Borat, recognising he too faced this democracy thing, and a tough battle with several really ogerish ogres in the Republican Party, thought for a moment about the Latino vote and then decided that democracy might just be a thing called a political principle. He then tells Sean, who was not very bright, and the evil Princess La Kirchner, who was one tango short of a samba, to butt out of the Falkland Islands and leave the happy people in peace and let then decide their future, which was all their hearts desire. They called it self-detoxication or something like that.

If they heeded this friendly advice they would all have lived happily ever after...except Sean that is, who was not very bright, and, of course, Princess La Kirchner, who was one tango short of a samba.

This was a fairy tale. Let's keep it that way!

Julian Lindley-French

Who Will Pay for Greece?

2012-02-15T02:12:00.003-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 15 February. “Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit”, Aristotle once famously wrote. He could have been talking of Greece today. Eurozone finance ministers should today have been meeting to rubber stamp a €130 billion ($170bn) bailout for Greece from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Instead the bailout is on hold primarily because Germany and other northern European states are not at all convinced that the Greeks will follow through with the package of cuts demanded in return for releasing the money.

Unfortunately, the cuts demanded by Greece’s Eurozone partners seem now beyond bearable for a Greek people long accustomed to being subsidized by their fellow European citizens. They have a point; under the austerity plan the already small minimum wage will be cut by a further 20% to around €600 ($700) per month as prices soar with some 150,000 public sector jobs due to be cut. Put simply, someone is going to have to pay for the Greeks because if Greece is forced out of the Euro the very stability of Greece will be at stake. Indeed, if Greece were forced out of the Euro on a Friday and the New Drachma started trading on the global capital markets on a Monday it would probably have a life-expectancy of around five seconds. Greece will thus need to be subsidised for many years to come – either to keep the Euro afloat or to prevent dangerous political instability on Europe’s periphery.

Right now the Germans want a written assurance from Antonis Samaris, the leader of the New Democracy Party, which looks likely to prevail in April’s elections, that he will honour an extra €300 million of cuts on top of the €3 billion already demanded. It is a fair question as attempts thus far by Athens to sell off state assets have been derisory. That is why the EU’s Economics Commissioner Olli Rehn has called on Greek officials to “take ownership” of the crisis. Sadly, Greek leaders continue to believe they can get away with promising much and then doing little or nothing. It is an old Athenian game.

Equally, there are other more structural forces at work that suggest many in Germany would prefer Greece pushed out of the Eurozone so that the problem can be ‘globalised’. That seems to be behind the emerging schism between Chancellor Merkel, who still sees the resolution of the Greek tragedy as essentially a European political problem, and her finance minister Wolfgang Schauble who sees the problem as an insoluble financial catastrophe and wants to shield the German taxpayer from the consequences by getting others to pay. Certainly, if Greece remains in the Eurozone the German taxpayer will indeed have to subsidise Greece for many years to come, supported by Dutch, Finnish and other northern European taxpayers (i.e. me). Schauble’s position has been reinforced this morning by news that the German economy shrank by 0.2% during the last quarter.

There is also a wider issue of political philosophy which speaks to the very viability of the European Union. A good friend of mine who is also one of Germany’s leading political commentators once told me that Germans lack any real sense of solidarity. What Germans really want, he said, is more Europe for no more money, so long as more Europe means more Germany. This crisis is revealing his words to have been wise.

This confluence of cost and political philosophy are already stoking tensions between Germany and France. The French want the money released to Greece quickly because French banks are so exposed to Greek debt. France would also be happy to shackle Germany with Greek debt for many a year to come. This would establish a precedent for all future bailouts should the Greek contagion really spread to Italy, Spain and Portugal and to which French banks are equally exposed. Whilst the Germans seem to be shifting towards the idea that Greece could default and the Euro survive, the French still see such an event as an impending disaster. Either way it is one hell of a gamble.

The sad reality is that unless there is a real game-changer Greece is now locked into a death-spiral of excessive debt, economic depression and massive budget holes from which there seems little chance of escape. One possible game-changer is that the Greek diaspora, amongst whom are some of the world’s richest people, step into to take ownership of their ancestral homeland in its hour of need. There is little sign of that happening thus far.

My bet is that Greece will indeed receive this tranche of my taxes to keep it stumbling on within the Euro for another year or so but that the real crisis will come in 2013, when the Greeks have failed to follow through with cuts in the face of mass public protest. By then the Germans are hoping that sufficient growth will have returned to Eurozone economies and with it a Euro sufficiently strong to survive a Greek default. The fundamental question thus remains not if Greece defaults, but when, and of course who Greece takes down with it.

Thucydides writing of the death of that great Athenian Pericles once said, “…wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it”.

All the Greeks are buying with this bailout is time for Germany.

Julian Lindley-French

Why England Needs a First Amendment

2012-02-14T01:31:00.000-08:00

Alphen. The Netherlands. 14 February. A democracy without a written constitution is always in peril from political law. Three current controversies underline the extent to which England today faces just such peril: the attempt to deport radical Islamist Jordanian cleric Abu Qatada; the Leveson inquiry into Press standards and ethics; and the February arrest and jailing of a woman for a ‘racist rant’ on a London Underground train – the second such action in a month. What all three issues highlight is a simple, sad truth; precedent in English common law has not only become outdated, but is in danger of destroying liberty itself. England therefore needs a written constitution akin to that of the United States and in particular a First Amendment.

The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States is short and to the point, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

My hero, American journalist Edward R. Murrow, in a famous CBS television editorial once said of Senator Joseph McCarthy (“the junior Senator from Wisconsin”) and his anti-communist witch-hunt that, “the line between investigating and persecuting is a very fine one and the junior Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly. His primary achievement has been in confusing the public mind as between the internal and the external threats of communism. We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law”

Let me set all three controversies against the context of Murrow’s warning. First, Abu Qatada is clearly the “very dangerous man” an English judge once cited him to be. And, whilst the European Court of Human Rights is becoming itself ever more politicized and thus falling into disrepute its refusal to permit Britain to deport him to his native Jordan reflects a simple truth; Qatada has never actually faced English justice. He has thus been denied due process, which is the very essence of a civilized state.

Second, there is no question that sections of the English press have behaved in an outrageous and egregious manner. However, any attempt by the state to restrict Press freedom in the name of Press ‘ethics’ is dangerous in the extreme. Respected journalist Trevor Cavanagh writing yesterday of the arrest of ten of his colleagues at The Sun newspaper said, “…in a quite extraordinary assumption of power, police are able to impose conditions not unlike those applied to suspected terrorists. Under the draconian terms of police bail, many journalists are barred from speaking to each other. They are treated like threats to national security. And there is no end in sight to their ordeal. Their alleged crimes? To act as journalists have acted on all newspapers through the ages, unearthing stories that shape our lives, often obstructed by those who prefer to operate behind closed doors”.

Third, no one can doubt that racism exists in England, but the application of a disreputable law is fast becoming dangerous. In 2008 egged on by pressure groups representing ethnic minorities an unelected leftish Labour Government passed draconian race hate laws. Now, I hate racism and all forms of discrimination, not least because it impacts my daily life. However, this odious law is not only threatening freedom of speech, it has for the first time in English jurisprudence created a situation in which there is a presumption of guilt until proven innocent. Moreover, one minority section of society is now deemed to be superior under law to the majority and can thus accuse without fear of redress.

Sadly, so fearful are the Establishment media of being accused of racism they are complicit in the now daily witch-hunts by the ever more extreme pressure groups that feed off the appalling and corrosive political correctness that is so deforming English society. Indeed, legitimate concerns (however crudely expressed) of the English about the massive social and cultural impact of hyper-immigration are being crushed. Their country is changing before their eyes in ways they do not like and politicians are doing nothing to protect them. No wonder a recent survey found that 59% of English people no longer believe the government acts in their interests.

In July former England football captain John Terry will face criminal trial for having allegedly racially abused fellow footballer Anton Ferdinand. There is little chance Mr Terry will face a fair trial. Indeed, he has already been stripped of the England captaincy. Today, careers and lives are being broken not on the fact of any crime committed but merely on the suspicion of having broken an odious law.

There was a time when English law could distinguish between the criminal and the stupid. That time is long gone. . All it needs today is a stupid twitter or someone with a fancy mobile phone and what was once deemed stupidity is now deemed criminal. Sadly, the anti-racist movement which started out as a laudable effort to challenge racism and discrimination is fast becoming the new McCarthyism - the destruction of freedom and justice in the name of freedom and justice.

A week or so ago I had breakfast with one of the most respected and outspoken of Labour Party politicians and put my argument to him. He not only agreed with me but explained why England is in such peril. “Sadly”, he said, “…my colleagues in Parliament no longer believe in democracy”. In the absence of sound political leadership unelected judges are stepping ever more into the political arena. A country in which the executive, legislature and law have simultaneously fallen into disrepute is a country that is indeed in grave peril...and that is England today.

Ed Murrow, once said; “We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to associate, to speak and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular. This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy's methods to keep silent, or for those who approve”.

Good night and good luck.

Julian Lindley-French

Syria: Tragic Epicentre of the New Great Game

2012-02-13T02:07:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 13 February. Rudyard Kipling’s famous 19th century novel Kim is set against the background of the Great Game, the fight for supremacy over Central Asia between the British and Russian Empires. The book’s hero captures the essence of the struggle with a simple, chilling phrase, “The Great Game is not over until everyone is dead. Not before”. Scroll forward 150 years and the Great Game is alive and well and preying on the people of Syria.

The Great Game is about power and influence and for this most base of strategic reasons the Syrian people can expect no redemption from the world’s great and good. With Damascus having last night “utterly rejected” the latest Arab League peace plan and with it the prospect of a UN-Arab League monitoring mission, the struggle to oust President Assad will be long, bad and bloody complicated as it is by the ambitions of all the great powers both from the Middle East and beyond.

Like many Arab societies destabilising Syria is not difficult. Syria is a ‘mosaic society’ divided into three distinct elements; town, village and tribe. The power of President Assad has been built on a careful system of patronage through the Baath Party and the security services. Indeed, Assad can still count on the support of some 300,000 troops and much of the population in Damascus who have done relatively well under the regime. Moreover, the opposition, such as it is comprises of many different and differing groups that find it hard to coalesce around a single leader. Sadly, in what is now a prolonged civil war outside powers are taking sides as they pursue their own regional-strategic and strategic ambitions at a moment that will shape the twenty-first century.

Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are the key neighbouring powers. Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been locked in a Cold War for regional-strategic supremacy. There is clear evidence that Mohammed Ali Jafari, the Chief Commander of the elite Iranian Al-Quds Force is in Syria both helping to co-ordinate the regime’s operations and supplying weapons and tactics. The prize for Tehran is clear; enhanced Iranian influence over Syria would further strengthen Iranian influence over Lebanon thus driving a wedge between Israel, Turkey and in time Saudi Arabia. With Iranian President Ahmadinejad about to announce “great nuclear achievements” Iranian activity in Syria is part of Tehran’s much wider strategic ambitions that quite clearly take the region ever closer to war. If war comes, and it is far closer than people think, soon-to-be nuclear Iran and already nuclear Israel will be pitted against each other, with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States forced to choose between them. It would be a war that could re-write the map of the Middle East forever...and much of the world beyond.

In such circumstances, Turkey will not be able to stand idly by. Indeed, of all the powers both in the region and beyond it is Ankara which seems to have the clearest strategic picture of what is going on and what it could mean. Turkey is thus doing all it can to keep this struggle focussed on the future governance of Syria whilst fully aware of the wider forces at work. If Turkey gets involved in a wider war triggered by the Syrian civil war then NATO will inevitably become involved. Then what?

But here is the crunch; much of the wider struggle implicit in Syria is a function of the West’s retreat from central Asia and the Middle East. The obsession in the West with solving the current budget crisis over a short parliamentary cycle, rather than over a longer strategic cycle, is now destabilising the wider world. With massive defence cuts the high-profile centre of such efforts European security in particular is fast becoming detached from world security to the detriment of both. The West's strategic ambition and unity of purpose is being fatally undermined and with it all elements of statecraft. In Europe's backyard Syria is in the front-line of the most profound of power shifts as the West’s stabilising influence is critically reduced just at the moment when the Arab Spring, and Iran’s regional-strategic ambitions are turning the entire region into a powder keg of competing ambitions and dangerous technologies. Indeed, it is the artificially-accelerated self-decline of the West that is making this crisis so dangerous and turning Syria’s civil war into a proxy war.

This is exactly how Beijing and Moscow see it. Forget the false claim to principle made on Saturday by Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin. Moscow has no interest in early elections in Syria. Russia, like China, is playing the Great Game, as they both move to seize an opportunity to push the West out of the Middle East and strengthen their respective strategic and commercial interests and influence in this critical region. To listen to Ambassador Churkin speak about Syria and the Middle East is eerily reminiscent of the Cold War. Long live the new Soviet Union.

In an ideal world the United Nations would be in the lead to find a solution. However, not only have China and Russia effectively and cynically blocked effective UN mediation, but UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon is simply not up to the job. There was a time when the UN Secretary-General was the world’s top diplomat. For all the failings of the UN Dag Hammarskjöld, U Thant, and even Kofi Annan, had real influence. Sadly, Mr Moon is being eclipsed by events, not shaping them. The failure of the UN will not only hasten the descent into the new balance of power implicit in the Syrian struggle but provide the field upon which the Great Game is to be played, thus setting the terms of reference of international relations in the twenty-first century.

The Great Game is not over until everyone is dead. Not before.

Julian Lindley-French

The Falklands: Don't Even Think About it Argentina

2012-02-08T02:30:00.000-08:00

Rolle, Switzerland. 8 February. Strange week - a bouncy week – England, Germany and now back here inSwitzerland on the frozen shores of the magisterial Lake Geneva. Cold or what? There is a local wind here called ‘la Bise’ which blows directly off theSwiss Alps and drops onto the lake that is less breeze and more arcticchainsaw. In between I was mugged atAntwerp Central Station losing my computer and iPod during an attack by four,fine upstanding members of Belgium’s diverse society. Naturally, none of thepeople around me lifted a finger. What asad society Europe is becoming.

Déjà vu all over again? Last night I watched a rather bizarre,rambling speech by Argentine President Cristina Kirchner to which if there wasa point seemed to be a re-asserting of Argentina’s ridiculous claim over the FalklandIslands. Apparently she is to make aformal complaint to the United Nations citing Britain for “militarizing” the SouthAtlantic, following the deployment of the brand-new destroyer HMS Dauntless,together with an equally brand-new nuclear submarine…and Prince William, in theface of Argentina’s deliberate ratcheting up of tensions.

April 2 marks the thirtieth anniversaryof the Falklands War, which defined my early life and that of manyBritons. Some 3000 British andArgentinian soldiers, sailors and airmen perished in a two month war that shouldnever have been fought but which on 14 June was decisively won by Britain withthe surrender of “…all Argentine forces together with their impedimentia” toCommander, Land Forces, South Atlantic. Inspite of the heroic efforts of Argentine pilots in particular the Argentines weretaught a profound lesson about how to fight a war. Britain’s victory also led to the fall of anevil military junta in Buenos Aires that had killed thousands of its owncitizens. So, why on earth are we hereagain?

Kirchner seems to be falling into thesame trap as her incompetent predecessors. So, to assist Madame President to clear her befuddled mind here are thefacts of the matter. First, Buenos Airesis 1183 nautical miles or 1905 kilometres from PortStanley, the capital of the Falklands. Thisis not far short of the distance between London and Moscow. Even at the closest point Argentina is 437miles or 704 kilometres from the Falklands. Second, there have been British settlers onthe Falklands since 1833. This is beforeArgentina ever existed and before that date no-one had lived permanently on theislands. Today’s population of 3000islanders far from being the ‘transplanted population’ Argentina claims is indigenousto the Islands. Third, Mrs. Kirchner mightlike to pointedly ignore the existence of the Islanders, preferring instead tosuggest the Falklands is a colonial “anachronism”. In fact the Falkland Islands are a dependentterritory of Britain with the Islanders enjoying full rights to and ofself-determination. It is the Islanderswho control their own status and they choose to be British.

What seems to be at the heart of Mrs.Kirchner’s ‘fantasy’ are the natural resources that the waters around the Falklandscould yield. Under international law itis the right of the Falkland Islanders to decide the future of those resources –neither Britain nor Argentina.

So, where is this going? Argentina hasmanaged to corral other Latin American countries into banning from their ports shipsflying the Falkland Islands flag. Ifthat is the case then Falkland Island vessels will be re-flagged with Britishflags. If British ships are then bannedfrom Latin American ports then ships from Latin American ports will be banned fromEuropean ports. If Argentina alsosucceeds in blocking the air link between the Falklands and Chile then suchflights will be deemed as flying between Britain and Chile. If those flights are blocked all Argentine andindeed Chilean flights to Europe could well find themselves blocked.

Ironically, what seems to have promptedthis latest and blatant piece of Argentinian sabre-rattlinghas been the withdrawal from service last year of the Royal Navy’s erstwhileflagship, the aircraft-carrier HMS Ark Royal. Thirty years ago the Argentinian junta was prompted to invade theislands by the 1981 withdrawal of the previous HMS Ark Royal. Mrs. Kirchner seems to be making the samemistake having convinced herself that Britain is far weaker than is actuallythe case. If Argentina even thinks aboutmilitary action the Argentine armed forces will be taught the same lesson bytoday’s British armed forces as their forebears back in 1982. So, let us not go there.

Mrs. Kirchner last night called uponDavid Cameron to “give peace a chance”. It is not Britain that is creating this crisis or winding up the rhetoric. The only threat to the peace of the SouthAtlantic comes from Buenos Aires, not London or Port Stanley. So, be careful, Mrs. Kirchner, Britain willdefend to the end the right of the Islanders to self-determine their own allegiancesand their own future. Any attempts tointerfere in that will be met with robust diplomacy and if necessary force.

It is your call, Mrs. Kirchner. However,if I can offer you a piece of humble advice, wind down the aggressive languageand end once and for all your country’s absurd claim to the FalklandIslands. You cannot win this struggle sodo not start it.

The Falkland Islands. Don’t even thinkabout it Argentina.

Julian Lindley-French

Cameron's Munich?

2012-01-31T02:08:00.000-08:00

Alphen, The Netherlands. 31 January. Is this David Cameron’s Munich? It is not without historical irony that the only other country to stand with Britain over the Fiscal Compact at yesterday's EU Summit was the Czech Republic which Chamberlain sold out to Hitler at Munich in 1938. Last night Martin Callanan, the leader of British Conservatives in the European Parliament accused the Prime Minister of “appeasement”. Other Tory Euro-sceptics have accused Cameron of a “retreat” from his 9 December stand when he refused to permit other EU member-states to use the European Court of Justice to enforce the new Fiscal Compact so beloved of Chancellor Merkel.

2012 is not 1938 and on the face of it a mechanism for enforcing greater fiscal discipline amongst the Eurozone members based on stringent austerity is something over which Britain and Germany should be able to agree. The problem is that Cameron seems to have got nothing in return for his ‘adjustment’ which is either shabby politicking, bad negotiating or both. Concessions are never offered in EU negotiations without something in return. London claims that it has secured German ‘assurances’ that Berlin will not press ahead with any new financial services tax. I spoke this morning to my Berlin contacts and as far as they are concerned Berlin has given no such ‘assurances’. Neville Chamberlain of course infamously returned from Munich with ‘assurances’.

However, Britain should have concerns and at the very least Cameron must understand the wider implications of yesterday’s concession should the new Compact ever become a ratified treaty (big if). A precedent has now been established whereby the powers of a German-led EU can now be dramatically increased without the need for a new treaty agreed by all EU member-states. In principle this means that ‘pioneer groups’ can press ahead in all areas of EU ‘competence’, such as defence with a precedent now established for the bypassing of national vetoes.

Cameron also appears to have accepted the principle of a Britain politically subordinate to Germany and France when they choose to act in the guise of the EU. He has partly justified this on Germany’s “fierce” determination to push through the Compact. Since when did German “fierceness” define British policy? If that is indeed the case then London has changed its position not out of pragmatism or principle, but out of weakness.

What all of this reveals is the lack of a Cameron political strategy for Europe other than to keep his increasingly wretched coalition together. What is he actually trying to achieve in Europe? His belief that Britain can influence the single market from outside the Eurozone is dangerous folly. Fiscal Union will sooner or later close the political space that Britain has hitherto occupied. At some point Britain will have to decide; join the Euro (or its survivor currency) or leave the EU. The alternative is more taxation without representation.

The trouble is that whilst Cameron is usually tactically savvy he is strategically crass. Even on 9 December he sold his stand as being solely to safeguard Britain’s financial industry when the political principles at stake and upon which he should have stood were far, far bigger. He simply does not see the bigger picture. Consequently, there is a danger that even if there is a back-room ‘deal’ with Germany it will be seen by other Europeans as the abandonment of all political principle in the face of German pressure; the worst kind of wobbly weakness.

Publicly Cameron places much emphasis on legal redress. Foreign Secretary William Hague said over the weekend that, “If the use of the EU treaties at any point threatens Britain's fundamental rights under the EU treaties, or damages our vital interests such as the single market, then we would have to take action about that, including legal action”. This morning I went to the web-site of the same European Court of Justice (ECJ) who will be charged with ensuring fair play. Page 86 of the 2010 Annual Report should make for sober reading in Whitehall’s shabby corridors. Under the heading “Actions for Failure of a Member State to Fulfil its Obligations 2006-2010” it shows the UK in breach 21 times, Germany in breach 54 times and France in breach 63 times. Unless the ECJ really places justice above politics (which would be a first) some will be more equal before European law than others.

That said, given the dangers of a catastrophic Euro collapse Cameron’s ‘pragmatic scepticism’ should for the moment be given the benefit of the doubt. However, he must be held to account when he says he will be watching developments “like a hawk’’. Time and again I have heard British Prime Ministers cover retreat with such empty rhetoric. The dangers of a Eurozone collapse are very real and radical action is indeed needed, but not at the cost of turning the Union into an Imperium and Britain into a satellite of Germany.

Sadly, the most worrying of precedents is that henceforth Realpolitik will be the currency of change in the EU and much of it driven by German domestic opinion.

Is this Cameron’s Munich? No, not yet…but it could become so.

Julian Lindley-French

Deterring Iran: The Return to American Statecraft

2012-01-27T00:28:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 27 January. On the tomb of Tamburlaine, King of Persia, there is a dread inscription, “When I rise, the world will tremble”. Faced with Tehran’s seeming determination to develop nuclear weapons the march towards confrontation this week quickened. After threats from Iran to close the oil-vital Straits of Hormuz an American aircraft carrier was joined in the Gulf by British and French warships. Sabres are rattling. The EU placed a ban on all new oil contracts with Iran and froze the assets of the Iranian Central Bank. Whilst not overtly supporting US and EU moves the Chinese Ambassador to London signalled Beijing’s concern that should Iran not develop nuclear weapons. And, on 29th January, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) will arrive in Iran “to resolve all outstanding substantive issues”.

So, war is imminent. No. Forget the pattern of the last fifteen years. There will be no sudden missile strikes just yet. Deterring Iran will take a lot more than old-fashioned sabre-rattling or Cruise compulsion. Now is the time for the five elements of good old-fashioned American statecraft: the formal and clear enunciation of reasoned and reasonable goals upon which to construct a political coalition; the legitimisation of those goals through the United Nations Security Council, including the use of “all necessary means” if Iran does not comply; the formalisation of process via a grouping that will include the major global and regional players; the crafting of a clear set of criteria for the application of all elements of coercion on the spectrum from diplomatic to military action; and the building of a popular coalition through effective strategic communications, much of it via social media.

However, America is of itself insufficient to prevail. The unipolar moment has truly passed. Hard though it is to believe Europeans must also re-learn the art of strategic statecraft lost in the daily haggle that is the EU. Indeed, whilst the EU may have notched up its sanctions regime, there is little or no appetite amongst European allies to move beyond that. After ten years of Afghanistan and Iraq Europe is retreating behind the thin walls of a rhetorical fortress. Even the most pressing of dangers are unlikely to shift the focus from not-saving the Euro with only Britain and France to any meaningful extent still left in the military business.

The US is moving away from a terrorism-related, global policing mission creep back to a much more traditional strategy of strike and punish. Fortress Europe/Strike America is in essence a new strategic modesty driven by precipitous economic decline and reinforced by the rise of China and others onto the world stage no longer willing to accept Western liberal criteria as the basis for global security governance. Threaten military action too soon and America will find itself isolated. Act too late and the world will have changed for the immeasurably worse. Iran does pose a strategic threat.

However, for credible pressure to be built on Tehran whilst agreement within the West is the sine qua non such a ‘plan’ (I cannot stand ‘road-map’ as they never go anywhere) must also be worked up with an unlikely coalition including China, India, Russia and critically the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia. Israel’s critical stake can of course only be uttered in hushed Washington corridors, but managing Tel Aviv will for obvious reasons be critical to American statecraft.

In short, Iran is the first real test of a new world order in which institutions such as the United Nations whilst important to the legitimisation of all attempts to coerce Iran to desist will be secondary to the great power politics that is driving systemic change. In that context Europe must decide if it still in the game or merely the powerless led. There is a world beyond the Euro.

The alternative is stark. Iran will get the ‘bomb’ steering a course through the wide gap that today exists in credible and effective global security governance. If Iran succeeds then the world will be very different from the instant Tehran announces its membership of the nuclear club. Indeed, it is hard to see either Israel or Saudi Arabia accepting such a step change in Iran’s power. The old rationalism of mutually-assured destruction that suffused the Cold War will have little place in the Middle East. The clock is very clearly ticking towards conflict.

To many Americans this call for American statecraft will sound European, woolly and messy, but it is simply reality; the consequence of the world in which the West must now enact its strategic business - patient politics of give-and-take. For, as Christopher Marlowe writes in his epic Tamburlaine the Great, “Wilt thou have war, then shake the blade; if peace, restore it to my hands again, And I will sheathe it, and confirm the same”.

Julian Lindley-French

Be Britain Still to Britain True

2012-01-25T05:47:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 25 January. Tonight is Burns Night, beloved of patriotic Scots the world over as they commemorate the 1759 birth of one of Scotland’s most famous sons, the poet Robert Burns. It is for this reason the Scottish First Minister and romantic separatist Alex Salmond has chosen today to outline his plans to hold a 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, the seven hundredth anniversary of the 1314 Battle of Bannockburn. If Salmond has his way he will endeavour as much as is possible to limit the referendum to those who agree with his plans to dismember the United Kingdom, thus denying all expat Scots the right to a vote. Salmond also avoids the irony of citing the Bard; Burns was no Scottish nationalist. As the Bard wrote, “Be Britain still to Britain true, Amang oursels united; For never but by British hands, Maun British wrangs be righted”. As for Bannockburn, it was indeed a decisive 'Scottish’ victory over the English and Welsh and for a time victory strengthened King Robert. However, Salmond's concept of medieval Scotland is pure romantic fiction. Nice story though.

Julian Lindley-French

The Oxford Handbook of War

2012-01-23T00:55:00.000-08:00

Alphen, The Netherlands, 23 January. Have you ever had a Roadrunner/Coyote moment? I step onto my stairs and the next thing I know I am horizontal, paddling furiously to deny gravity and then with a thunderous crash discover that Sir Isaac Newton may have had a point and that I really should have concentrated more in physics lessons. I crash down back first and then bounce down the stairs step by step to the bottom. “Oh, bother (or a word to that effect)” I think. “Something is clearly not right”.

What a strange week. My new Oxford mega-book comes out...and I fall down the stairs. The two are not necessarily connected. Cracked ribs and huge bruises with my reputation for being accident-prone reinforced utterly with my Dutch wife. Being a man it was of course not my fault, but rather the result of a serious design fault in the stairs. As I write this I am laid out on my sofa. I can move but don't make me larf!

My timing as ever was impeccable. I was about to leave for London to attend a high-level meeting with senior NATO officials to discuss the future of the Alliance. Naturally, my enforced absence means that NATO is now doomed. Oh well.

So, humour me awhile as I share a moment of pride. The Oxford Handbook of War is unique. It is my fourth book and my second for Oxford University, my alma mater. It has taken five years to research, plan, structure, prepare, write and edit. It is certainly no 'pot boiler' being almost 600 pages in length over some 45 chapters and considers war in all its forms – strategic, historical, political, military, social and economic.

The Handbook has been a joint collaboration with my old friend and co-conspirator Professor Yves Boyer of the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris. Who says the English and French never get on? ‘Research’ of course occasioned many hours sipping excellent French wine in Yves’s wonderful home overlooking the Loire Valley. Yes, I suffer for my art. Vive, l’entente intellectuelle!

In preparing the Handbook we have been supported by over forty leading thinkers, policy-makers and practitioners from across the globe - Brazil, China, Europe, India and the United States. Indeed, the Handbook is graced by chapters from the British and Dutch Chiefs of Defence Staff, as well as a former US Ambassador to NATO and NATO’s Deputy Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. Why did we set out on such an ambitious project? Well, the reason shines through every page; to prevent war through the better understanding of it.

The Handbook has also been nominated for the prestigious Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, my second book to be so honoured. The book is also a gift to the Netherlands Defence Academy where I have had the honour to be the Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy for the past few years. I hope they notice.

So that’s the plug. Now, let me offer those of you contemplating writing such a book a few words of advice. You do not write a book, you live it. Indeed, a book is rather like a movie in that it needs a cast of many to happen. And, like a movie a book needs commitment heart and soul over many years before that special day when you holds it in your hands. One other thing; you will not become a millionaire.

The active support of an excellent publisher is vital. In this case the support of my publisher Oxford University Press has been invaluable, particularly the utterly professional Dominic Byatt, Elizabeth Suffling and team.

So, if you want to understand war then I humbly recommend a copy of the Oxford Handbook of War because as Plato once so poignantly put it, “only the dead have seen the end of war”. Sadly, there is nothing I can see of this world that convinces me otherwise. There is no glory in war, but sometimes it must be fought.

So, forgive this moment of self-satisfaction. And don’t worry, it will not go to my head – pride after all has come AFTER a fall.

As for the film rights – I see Russell Crowe playing me...or maybe Jeremy Irons.

Julian Lindley-French

Why Britain Can Never Accept German Leadership

2012-01-18T05:45:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 18 January. Regular followers of my musings will recall that in my blog of last week from the no Snow Meeting in Lithuania I came over all Churchillian and suggested that Britain would never accept German leadership even though Germany will emerge from the European crisis as Europe’s leading power. I stand by that assertion – Britain will never accept German leadership. History is still far too close for that ever to happen. Some of you rightly gave me flak (excuse the pun) over that statement because in isolation it came across as German-bashing. So let me expand on my analysis but put it in a more positive context and explain why a new political partnership between Britain and Germany is vital for both Germany and Europe. Indeed, with another Eurozone kerfuffle about to happen it is important that Berlin accepts and understands that any attempt to shackle Britain will fail. There are three essential factors; economic, political and military.

Economic: Britain is too powerful and too different a European economic actor to accept sole German charge of Europe’s economic future. A range of respected economic commentators, including Goldman Sachs and the Paris School of Economics, suggest that by 2025 the British economy will be significantly bigger than that of France and not much smaller than that of Germany.

Political: Germany, ever haunted by its Nazi past will rightly seek to exercise leadership via the European Union. In such circumstances the European Commission would become a kind of civil service with the European Council reduced to a weak version of the US Senate or House of Lords. So many countries will be indebted to Berlin that German leadership will reach into the national political and economic life of other European countries far more extensively than, say, the Americans during the Cold War. Indeed, the EU’s writ runs far wider than NATO. There must be a loyal opposition to Germany and that can only be Britain.

Military: As Germany becomes more powerful it will become less military – history again. The security and defence of Europe could well be put at risk. This is not least because the US is signalling the beginning of a partial withdrawal from Europe. Thus, the defence of Europe is dangerously weak even as dangerous change takes place around Europe’s borders. As they look beyond Afghanistan both the US and UK will shift away from a continental strategy focussed on Europe towards a maritime strategy that goes beyond Europe. The British for a whole host of military-strategic, intelligence and cultural reasons will follow the Americans whatever happens in Europe. At least this will also mean that at least one European country retaining a commitment to big defence, whatever the short-term cuts to the British defence budget.

Germany will champion a new continental strategy, probably in the guise of a new European strategic culture that will be military-lite in the extreme. The fact and nature of German power will thus cede the defence leadership of Europe to the British. And, indeed the French, if London and Paris can learn to stop scoring ridiculously cheap political points off each other. Germany will thus need Britain to lead the serious defence of Europe.

Therefore, Germany needs London to have the political vision and ambition to forge a political partnership with Germany that would itself legitimise German leadership across much of Europe. That is indeed the private message I am getting from all my trips of late across Europe and why the prospect of Britain disengaging from the EU causes so much concern. Thankfully, there is quite a lot happening behind the scenes that may lead to such a political accommodation.

If not, a decisive shift in the European political balance of power towards Berlin would inevitably push Britain towards the EU exit. Indeed, by accepting German leadership Britain would be tacitly accepting a European Imperium. Britain would over time be reduced to super-Belgium; forced to render unto Caesar what Caesar wanted, not what Caesar deserved nor indeed needed. By Britain standing firm Germany is and must be forced to deal with London as a Great Power, not another European satellite, however irritating that may appear to some in Berlin.

However, to realise such a political partnership London must re-discover grand strategy. In effect, Britain must become to Germany what France has been for many years to the US - difficult but necessary. Whitehall’s acquiescence to Washington might have bought Britain important access to key American defence assets, but it has too often come at the price of strategic subservience and an appallingly risk-averse, astrategic political culture. That must end.

Just for the record some of my best friends are German…really!

Julian Lindley-French

Why the UK is Worth Preserving

2012-01-15T22:19:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 16 January. Winston Churchill once famously said of US leaders that they could normally be relied upon to make the right decision, but only after every other option had been exhausted. Today he might well have said the same thing about British leaders save for one thing; they make the wrong decision after every other option has been exhausted…and have done now for many years. This serial failure of London’s political class can be seen in Britain’s rapid decline which provides the context for Scottish separatism. With the prospect of a Scottish referendum on independence decline could soon turn into disintegration.

When I was a lad those pressing for Scottish independence were confined to a rather dotty minority known as the ‘lunatic Celtic fringe’. Today, upwards of 30% of Scots apparently want to press the Braveheart button. And, if a majority of Scots did indeed vote for independence I would of course accept and respect that decision even if it meant the subservience of both English and Scots to a Brussels that would rarely if ever act in the interests of either.

However, it is not the Scots that concern me but the English. According to a poll in yesterday’s Sunday Telegraph the group keenest to see Scottish independence are the utterly fed-up English. Why are so many of the English apparently so keen on breaking up the Union?

It all comes down to the dawning realisation amongst the English that successive British governments have put the interests and well-being of minorities, both from within the Isles and beyond, before their own. The political Left is fixated on a hyper-immigration driven effort to recreate the class war they believe gives them power. The business Right would seemingly be happy to see the entire country unemployed if it meant it could import and exploit foreigners. The result is that the hard-pressed English are subsidising everybody, but getting very little back in return. The normally docile English have had enough.

There are a whole host of practical reaons why the Union is worth preserving normally to do with money, but four strategic reasons stand out. First, there is little evidence smaller states do economically better than bigger states, particularly in times of economic crisis. The 21st century will place a premium on big states, particularly as institutions such as the EU fail. Indeed, so profound is the current crisis it is quite simply the worst possible moment for Alec Salmond, the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) leader to cut Scotland off from England. He says independence would re-invigorate the friendship and ties between England and Scotland. He clearly has not been to England of late. The English, who make up over 80% of the population of the British Isles, would make Scotland pay.

Second, the Scots do very well out of the UK. To hear SNP leaders talk of English ‘interference’ is a bit rich. The Scots have for many years been over-represented in both Westminster and influence over England. Indeed, the English have been forced to subsidise/bribe the Scots through the hideously unfair Barnett Formula. Salmond counters that all the oil and gas that has been squandered over the last forty years was in fact Scottish – not according to international law. And, I really wonder whether Scotland would be a big enough platform for the Scottish genius for leadership. Post-independence Scots would be barred from London.

Third, for all the strategic incompetence of Westminster the UK still counts for something as a ‘brand’ in international politics. The collapse of the UK would only strengthen political adversaries. The peoples of the British Isles would thus be ever more subject to the whims and prejudices of others. Ask the Irish what they think of German and French leadership of the Eurozone. Sadly, I am sure there are those in Brussels, Berlin and Paris at this very moment considering how they can advance and facilitate the break-up of the UK.

Fourth, and by far the most important factor, such a split would be utterly artificial and reflective of a particular, peculiar political moment, rather than the underlying facts of contemporary British society. Indeed, who is English or Scottish these days, or indeed Welsh or Northern Irish? My grandmother was a Scot which means I could play football for Scotland, both the spherical and ovoid codes, if it were not for the fact I am old, slow, fat and rubbish.

It is not just a question of the English and Scottish being so interwoven that, given the world of the 21st century makes any call to nationalism on either side romantic twaddle. There is also a question as to who should have the right to vote. Be it as an Englishman with close Scottish antecedents or as a Briton I find the whole idea that a few narrowly-defined ‘Scots’ can decide the constitutional fate of the United Kingdom utterly pernicious. That would be one unfairness too far for the English, Welsh and Northern Irish and that is the essential point.

The greatest danger to the Union is not Salmond’s romantic Scottish nationalism but the reactive English nationalism it could trigger. It would be a nationalism born not only of Scottish independence but of all the other inequities, unfairnesses and frustrations the English have had imposed upon them these many years past in the name of ‘social justice’ – the new discrimination. Sadly, it is English nationalism Salmond seems only too keen to encourage.

Sadly, Britain would not be in this position were it not for London’s repeated mistakes, which represent the second greatest danger to the UK...or maybe the first.

Julian Lindley-French

No Snow in Lithuania

2012-01-13T00:51:00.000-08:00

Trakai Castle, Lithuania. 13 January. The Snow Meeting is famous. Every January Lithuania brings together prime ministers, foreign and defence ministers from across what is increasingly referred to as the Nordic Baltic region, together with senior American, French, and German officials and commentators. The British were of course not there. Shame. Thankfully, Blogonaut Friendly-Clinch was in full Churchillian flow at one point asserting that “Britain would NEVER accept German leadership” (adopt suitable Churchillian tones). The old man would have been proud of me.

As I draft this I am gazing across a wistful winter lake at a real-life, make-believe castle dusted by the late snow of an unusually warm Lithuanian winter. We did the rounds of the usual suspect subjects – one feels the warm breath of Russia always in Lithuania, NATO was no-goed, although for once I may have come up with a good idea for the forthcoming Chicago Summit by suggesting the Strategic Concept be reinforced by a Strategic Contract. The European Onion was peeled, skinned and dissected…again, and much time was spent considering America’s retreat from Europe. The Grim Banker sat silent in the corner.

However, what really struck me was the significance of a Nordic Baltic Grouping. What could it possibly mean? The “Nordic-Baltic 8”, or NB8 as it known in the awful parlance of international wonkery, sounds like a group of wrongly-convicted political prisoners. On the face of it there is little in common between them other than a large expanse of water – the Baltic Sea…and perhaps yet another European idea in search of a bureaucracy. Three reasons:

The first is Germany. All roads lead to Berlin. The many new bridge, road and railway projects discussed all had one thing in common – Germany. To appropriately mix my metaphors Berlin is cementing its political leadership of Europe by hard-wiring Germany into the physical centre of Europe. The Nordic Baltic 8 flank Germany to the north. As such the ‘8’ have very little to do with balancing Russia, which was seen more irritant than threat, but influencing Germany. The old East-West European axis is being replaced by a new North-South axis with Germany the 'pivot' (this month's fashionable word in the strategy boutiques).

The second reason is energy and here Russia will be an issue. Massive oil and gas reserves are being discovered in the Barents Sea and Greenland, still nominally Danish. An arc of energy will soon stretch from Canada to Russia via the ‘High North’. The Nordic region in particular will become the epicentre of the new energy geopolitics. This could also lead to renewed tensions with Russia, both in terms of competition over the exploitation of said resources and because over time Europe could well be weaned off Russian energy. The Kremlin needs high oil and gas incomes to maintain its grip. If Russia sneezes the Baltic States catch cold.

The third reason represents nothing less than a revolution in strategic affairs and will turn the world on its head. As the Arctic ice melts the fabled North West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific will become real, linked to a new North East Passage via Northern Norway. This change to global trading and energy shipping patterns will be so profound as to revolutionise the way the world makes money. Norway’s North Cape will become the new Cape of Good Hope. Canada’s Baffin Island will become the new Cape Horn. The Middle East will be by-passed together with much of the piracy-strewn Indian and Pacific Oceans. In time China, Japan, Russia and Central Asia might well look north for their ports and trade routes, rather than south and east.

So, implicit in this modest meeting of modest people in a beautiful place was not just another regional wrangle, but the forthcoming revolution in strategic affairs that will do much to define the twenty-first century world. This makes America’s decision to retreat from Europe all the more silly, just as it makes Europe’s decision to retreat from strategic reality all the more dangerous. Indeed, the world will not just ‘pivot’ on Asia, it will also ‘pivot’ on the two High Norths of Continental North America and Europe; the new Super-Highways for the ‘Global Commons’. A meaningful US-European strategic partnership will be critical to the security of both.

Therefore, the transatlantic relationship will be as important in the twenty-first century as it was in the twentieth and the Nordic-Baltic states will be on the front-line. When I come to the Baltic States I am always reminded why we need NATO and the European Union, which is today little apparent in the old, tired West of Europe. The proud, decent people of Lithuania deserve our support and our solidarity.

Or maybe it is just that the cold, clear air of Europe’s east clears my befuddled strategic brain. Shame there was no real snow though.

Julian Lindley-French

Beaufort: Why We Must Leave Afghanistan Now, Not End 2014

2012-01-09T00:52:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 9 January. Beaufort is a great film. It tells the story of a platoon of young Israeli soldiers at the turn of this century pointlessly asked to defend an isolated, old Crusader fort deep in Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon at the very end of a failed occupation. One-by-one they die, with the only apparent point to their sacrifice being to ease the embarrassment of their squabbling political masters back in Tel Aviv. Swap Lebanon for Afghanistan.

As a professor of defence strategy I know there are times when given the dangerous world in which we live the West must regrettably use force. Equally, I also know that on such occasions people are going to die – enemies, bystanders and our own soldiers. Therefore, I take my profession, my thinking and my guidance very seriously; especially as I am conceited enough to believe my opinion may on occasions count for just a modest something.

On each occasion when our forces are sent into action I ask myself six simple questions concerning objective, strategy, cost and performance. Specifically, I seek to understand the aim and that said aim is properly clarified and weighed against the necessary method and resources - strategy. 1. Is the use of force, the size of the force and its method appropriate to the achievement of a just political objective? 2. Is there a clear strategy for success? 3. Are the minimum conditions for ‘success’ achievable and understood? 4. Is the use of force legitimate in the eyes of the international community and the region to which the force is being sent? 5. Is there sufficient political will and capital at home to sustain such an effort? 6. Are the resources committed sufficient to succeed?

Even back in 2001 none of my six questions could be answered unequivocally in the affirmative. However, such was the impact and gravity of the attacks on New York and Washington and so clearly was Afghanistan the focal point for Al Qaeda activity that a significant response was called for. However, in the wake of the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the US withdrawal from Iraq, the drawdown of forces in Afghanistan, the now decisive shift in US defence strategy away from such types of engagement and given the depth of the West’s economic crisis, and after much careful thought I no longer believe that any of my six questions can be answered in the affirmative.

1. There is now no clear link between the use of force in Afghanistan and the achievement of something that would look like a stable Afghanistan;

2. There is no clear strategy for success other than the blind hope that the training of Afghan National Security Forces will somehow lead to the creation of a single institutional pillar that can in and of itself sustain a stable Afghanistan post-2014. Forces the paper expansion of which has been so fast that there are clear signs of infiltration by the Taliban and other elements;

3. Some progress has been made on the ground in support of the Afghan people but there is no longer any real chance that legitimate governance, just rule of law and a stable society will be realised in Afghanistan. Far from it – Afghanistan’s venal political class under President Karzai show no signs of getting to grips with the rampant corruption and above-the-law warlords that so corrode Afghanistan’s present and future;

4. With Bin Laden now dead the use of drone strikes is further undermining a failing Pakistan not only critical to the US-led coalition strategy but which is now working to defeat it. And, there is very little meaningful support from the rest of the so-called international community;

5. There is little or no political or popular will back in Western capitals to sustain such an effort. The two key actors, the US and UK, have both made it clear that they need to retrench to fix their ailing economies. The other European members of the coalition never believed in the mission, doing just enough as they saw it to keep the US engaged and paying for much of their own security. All-important unity of effort and purpose is thus a myth. Indeed, the suggestion that some Coalition forces may stay on beyond the end of 2014 is at best fanciful and at worst dangerously misguided; and

6. The gap between the resources available, the use of those resources and strategy-friendly outcomes it generates is now beyond closure.

Therefore, very little that will be done between now and the end of 2014 will make any real difference to the situation in Afghanistan. President Karzai is already doing deals with key Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik and Uzbek ‘politicians’ over a dark future. Afghanistan’s neighbours sit on the periphery like vultures waiting to pick over the bones of a shattered, resource-rich country. Meanwhile, military commanders and their civilian counterparts tick their boxes and file their optimistic command chain reports deluding themselves that they are making real progress. There comes a point when ‘can do’ simply becomes ridiculous. The peace process? What peace process?

And with at least two years to go before all major combat and stability operations end it is likely that hundreds will die and thousands maimed, not to mention the many Afghan and Pakistani civilians who will die alongside them. The Taliban and Al Qaeda? There are other ways to skin those cats.

Afghanistan was always a risk but the essential failing from the outset was to equate ridding the space quickly of Al Qaeda (achieved relatively quickly) with ‘doing good’ by Western liberal criteria and then to organise poorly both the effort and the resources.

Therefore, unless there is a clear reinjection of political capital and resources at the highest levels in Washington and London (forget the rest) to afford our forces all-important mission momentum I can no longer defend the killing or maiming of one more American, British or Coalition soldier.

Failing such a commitment pull our forces out now, politicians. And watch Beaufort. You owe it you our young men and women who have made the supreme sacrifice on your behalf.

Julian Lindley-French

Leaner, Meaner and Weaker. The New US Defence Strategy

2012-01-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 6 January. Reality dawned cold yesterday on a grey January Washington. The Americans have now followed their British allies in conceding that after a decade of extended conflict the first line of defence is and must be the US economy. Indeed, echoing many a past (and not so past) British defence review the rendering weaker of an already hard-pressed US military was explained away as the maintenance of US “…military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats”. Nice try, Mr President.

In his foreword to “Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense”, President Obama pointed to the very hard choices America must now make to credibly defend itself in a world very changed since this difficult century began twelve years ago. ‘Choice ‘in defence strategy always means weakness. Two questions stare out from this review like rabbit eyes in headlights. First, will the world permit America such ‘choices’? Second, what does this cold dawn mean for defence-naked Europeans?

Here are the facts of the matter. The US military will become leaner ('cut' in plain-English) with the aim of “maintaining superiority” where it matters for 21st century America – Asia-Pacific. There will be cuts worth at least $450bn, although given the size of the US deficit this could be the merely the harbinger of much deeper cuts and programme delays. Indeed, the defence budget could lose an immediate additional $500bn this year due to the inability of the US Congress to agree deficit reduction. There will likely be a 10-15% cut in the size of the US Army and Marine Corps over the next decade. Critically, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said that with the Iraq War now over and the Afghan War soon to be declared over the US military, “…will no longer need to be sized to support the large-scale, long term stability operations that dominated military priorities and force-generation over the past decade”. Until now US military strategy has held that the US military must be able to fight two medium-to-large scale wars simultaneously. That strategy is now dead.

Will the world permit America the luxury of choosing which wars to fight and how to fight them? The answer is probably no IF the US still wishes to remain THE superpower. The simple truth is that implicit in this review is a very hard grand strategic realisation by the Americans that they will in time lose their superpower status. Indeed, the President explicitly suggests in the review that the economic is the true font of power. This implicitly suggests an acceptance by the US that China will in time emerge as the balancer of American power. This explains the shift away from Europe to Asia-Pacific and the need for Asian and Australasian allies.

The military-strategic implications of the review reflect that grand strategic judgement and are no less profound. In essence the US is resorting back to a strike and punish posture and away from the grand stabilisation strategy which was the essence of America’s post-Cold War engagement. Partly driven by the nature of post-911 counterinsurgency operations and partly driven by the sensibilities of European allies who can never go anywhere beyond Europe unless they leave a place looking like Europe, the US military was sucked into stabilisation operations for which the US military was not best suited or prepared. The dangerous inference in the new strategy is that henceforth the US will only fight nice, neat and ‘clean’ wars. Oh that the world was so accommodating.

For Europeans this should really be a wakeup call. Sadly Europe’s strategic sleeping Rip van Winkles are far too gone for that. Indeed, the link between defence strategy and military capability was long ago broken in Europe. Until yesterday the transatlantic relationship involved Europeans pretending to be serious about defence and the Americans pretending to believe them. This has left NATO about as hollowed out and militarily robust as an ice cream cone. That must now end.

America will still ‘strategically reassure’ Eastern Europe against those troublesome Russians, military technology permits that and in any case Moscow is not really going to invade any NATO/EU member just yet. Beyond NATO's frontier is an entirely different question. However, the choice for Europeans implicit in the 2011 operations over Libya has suddenly become far more pressing. Either do far more as ‘Europe’ in and around Europe to enable US forces to focus on Asia-Pacific, or in time add some limited capability in support of the US.

My bet that is that as the Eurozone crisis leads inevitably to a tighter core political grouping organised around Germany the EU will become the focus for Franco-German-led ‘European’ security and defence efforts. The British will then join a US-led grouping that includes Australia, Canada, Japan and possibly even India.

NATO? It will be left to focus in its remaining days on maintaining what is called military interoperability (the ability to work together) between forces that increasingly talk a very different strategic language. Indeed, implicit in the new US defence strategy is a world view very different from that of Continental Europeans. Alliances can survive such dissonance for only so long.

Yesterday the world became ever so slightly colder, America ever so slightly weaker and Europeans ever so slightly naked. A new day has indeed dawned. It is time for Europe to wake up.

Julian Lindley-French (Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy)

Another Day, Another Race Row

2012-01-05T04:28:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 5 January. Another day, another race row. Britain really is losing the plot on race. This morning black Labour MP Diane Abbott tweeted that, ''White people love playing 'divide & rule'. We should not play their game''. No sooner had she de-tweeted than the airwaves were full of accusations of racism and calls for her to resign from her position on Labour’s front bench. The country is particularly sensitive to race this week in the wake of the way-too-late sentencing of two racist thugs for the murder of a young, black man almost nineteen years ago, but that does not excuse today's over-reaction. Diane Abbott is an exceptional Labour MP for whom I have a lot of respect, not least because she has the courage of her convictions.

That said, what the latest row has revealed is just how dangerous the elite’s obsession with race is to British democracy and community relations. One cannot turn on British radio or television these days without some worthy lecturing us on the evils of racism and implying that all we white people are racists simply by the fact of ourselves. Sadly, I was never conscious of my colour nor indeed that of others before Britain’s PC madness started. Like many of my 'race' (I find the whole concept awful) I believe all are equal under the law and all and everyone worthy of my respect until they prove otherwise.

Unfortunately, many ordinary, decent white people now believe that race laws only apply to them. And that their just concerns about the changing nature of society due to the hyper-immigration that governments have either encouraged or failed to control are being not just ignored, but suppressed. If a law is perceived by a majority to be unfair not only the law falls into disrepute but the system which created it, especially if that same majority believe government is failing them.

The essential problem is one of political philosophy. I know I have used De Tocqueville’s quote a couple of times but his suggestion that political liberty is easily lost because democratic peoples want equality even if it means losing liberty sums up Britain today. Indeed, Britain’s ever more desperate search for the appearance of absolute equality all the time in all circumstances to mask the failure of policy is slowly but surely eroding liberty. The 500% increase in the number of laws on the statute since 1997 is concrete proof. It is as though the Establishment has been turning slowly Marxist without anyone noticing…until now.

I do not agree with what Ms Abbott said, nor do I like what it implies about her views, although I still like and respect her. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard. However, I defend her right to say it. It is called freedom of speech and the whole point of such freedoms is that whilst one has a responsibility to consider what one says within reason one also has the right to say it unless it is directly inciting an act of violence or hatred. Ms Abbott was certainly not doing that. The alternative is the policing of thought. Do we really want to go there? Perhaps we do in which case Britain will no longer be my country.

By the way, the normal PC suspects are strangely quiet on this occasion. Now there’s a surprise! So much for principle.

Get a grip, Britain!

Julian Lindley-French

Welcome to the Twenty-First Century. It Starts Right Now!

2012-01-02T01:32:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 2 January. It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. My 2012 started here in my beautiful little Dutch village chatting with my nice Dutch neighbours amid the clatter of many thousands of burning Euros being shot into the sky or exploding in brief, bright and brilliant suns.

On New Year’s Eve Alphen seemed a million miles from reality in that fleeting moment when the New Year illuminates the old and casts it to mature into the giant whisky vat of history. And yet even during the brief truce in reality between Christmas and New Year change was regrouping. And, as the smoke clears the strategic landscape has subtly but most profoundly changed. Ten years late the old century has finally passed and the new one is finally upon us.

On 24 December the second round of voting began in Egypt’s parliamentary elections. These elections are crucial not only because of the importance of Egypt in the Arab world, but also because they illuminate the political direction of travel of the Middle East. Specifically, if the Islamist parties do well, as seems likely, Egypt could become the pioneer of a new twenty-first century phenomenon – the legitimate Arab Islamist state. Critical will be the extent to which Islamism embraces democracy and whether indeed it can. One man (or woman), one vote once would simply mark yet another false Arab dawn. Egypt will be central to the stability of the Middle East and its political identity.

On 25 December German President Christian Wulff said that Germany would offer “solidarity to Europe” in “a spirit of unity” to point the way out of the Eurozone crisis. A close ally of Chancellor Merkel President Wulff said that Europe is “our common home,” the values of which must be defended jointly. 2012 will indeed be the true test of German leadership in Europe as Berlin grapples with the Eurozone crisis…and the British. For Europe much will depend on how much Germany is willing to pay for this ‘spirit of unity’ and the leadership of Europe it confers.

Beijing announced on 27 December that the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) would begin looking for oil in Afghanistan’s Amu Darya Basin which is estimated to hold around 87 million barrels of oil. As the West prepares to leave Afghanistan having spent huge amount of treasure and at the cost of many lives China and the neighbours are preparing to exploit Afghanistan’s estimated $1 trillion of mineral and fossil fuel reserves. Much of the first half of the century will be about China’s rapacious search for energy. Indeed, only sustained economic growth will offset the marked absence of political liberty in China. China’s move into Afghanistan also marks another step on the road to a new bipolar world that will be dominated by Beijing and Washington.

On 29 December economists at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) announced that Brazil had overtaken Britain as the world’s 6th largest economy. They also predicted that India and Russia would enjoy surges in growth as the old West stagflates in what the CEBR called Europe’s ‘lost decade’. The only consolation for the British was that the CEBR confidently predicts that by 2020 Britain would have a significantly larger economy than that of France. Here we go again. In fact Brazil will find it very hard to turn such paper wealth into power but Britain and France really do now need to decide the extent of their strategic ambitions and how on Earth they can act together.

On 1 January Iran announced that it had successfully test-fired a medium-range surface-to-air missile equipped with the “latest technology” and “intelligent systems”, during military exercises in the Gulf. This followed reports that the West was intending further sanctions against Tehran aimed at Iran’s oil and financial sectors because of Iran’s seeming determination to build nuclear weapons. Ten days of Iranian naval exercises in the Straits of Hormuz signalled Tehran’s response; the closure of the world’s most important oil shipping lane in the event of a future confrontation with the United States and its European allies. Behind all of this posturing lies Persian Iran’s strategic ambitions to dominate its Arab region.

Put simply the power state is back. Unfortunately, the European West in particular seems incapable of thinking big enough to cope with this new/old reality. First, the Eurozone crisis is of such severity that rather like heroin addicts many European leaders would sell their peoples’ futures for a short-term political fix rather than deal with the real problem. As Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker put it over Christmas, “We know how to solve the problem, we just do not know how to get re-elected afterwards”. Oh, for just one truly great leader! Second, Europe only recognises as much strategy as it can afford…which is not a lot. Third, the foreign and security departments of European states are today brim full of counter-terrorism experts and aid and development specialists who skew the focus of national strategies towards failed states and civil strife. Such parochial ambitions are funded at the expense of balanced defence efforts. This is old strategy for an old world.

The twenty-first century will be a big power, big state century. Power will be organised either around big states via informal regional groupings or though institutions such as the new European Union with one such state at its core.

Welcome to the twenty-first century. It starts right now!

Julian Lindley-French

In Shadows Deep

2011-12-30T02:17:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 30 December. Just before Christmas I received an email from a friend of mine for whom I have great respect and have known many a year. He is a fifty-something and like me a tired British social democrat and one-time believer in the great idea that was Europe. His email came as a shock. He suggested that I was ‘right’, the Eurozone crisis had parted the waves of Euro-speak to reveal Germany and France for what they have always been, Britain’s natural and irreconcilable enemies. I beg to differ.

My friend had been following closely my strident defence of Britain in the teeth of the Eurozone crisis and my critique of Germany and France for their flawed and self-assumed ‘leadership’ in the name of ‘Europe’. Not a natural ally of mine the Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker summed up the flawed strategy perfectly when he said, “we know how to solve the problem, we just do not know how to get re-elected afterwards”.

French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in the nineteenth century that political liberty is easily lost because democratic peoples want equality even if it means losing liberty. Germany and France are trying to achieve something much more ambitious - leadership, equality and democracy in crisis. That does not make Germany and France enemies. Yes, it is a fairly fundamental squabble about who is in charge of Europe and how it should be organised but my objection has not been in principle to the leadership of Berlin and Paris, but rather their attempts to exclude London.

My friend's email also touched on much deeper issues that all of us in our fifties and beyond are forced to consider. None of us can expect to die from the land into which we were born. Change happens. However, since my 1958 birth the change that has taken place in my land of Europe has been so revolutionary – for better and for worse. Like him and millions of my fellow time-travellers I do indeed feel alienated not least because much of the change has been imposed upon me. He is also right that ‘positive’ discrimination does indeed condemn many men in their fifties to the wastes of ‘freelancery’ (unemployment without benefits). But we are where we are.

Weak governments Europe-wide are now forced to make difficult choices to manage the dangerous consequences of their previous inactions. Youth unemployment is soaring, populations are rising seemingly uncontrollably and social and cultural diversity now challenges old concepts of society. Britain is a case in point. One only has to look at the place to realise that the London-elite are utterly detached from the everyday reality of ordinary Britons.

So why do I persevere sending out blogs into the unfathomable ether? It is precisely because I do feel alienated from the political process however futile my blogging may on occasions seem. Far from retreating from politics now is the moment to engage. Indeed, if I do not engage liberty in Europe will slowly die. And, strangely, being a fifties-something man I have earned the liberty not to cow-tow to anyone, however powerful or important they believe themselves to be.

Irish poet W.B. Yeats once wrote; “When you are old and grey and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book, and slowly read, and dream of the soft look, your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep”.

So, my friend, I am sorry you misunderstood my meaning but Germany and France are not Britain’s enemies, they are not even friends, they are family. The shadows are indeed deep but there is always hope and you too must engage for the sake of our Europe.

Happy New Year!

Julian Lindley-French

Is Britain Going Mad?

2011-12-22T03:06:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 22 December. Is Britain going mad? Please someone tell me it is not so. Sitting here on this side of the Channel I have been following over the past couple of days what passes for a debate on racism in English football.

On Tuesday Mr Luis Suarez of Liverpool Football Club was found by the Football Association to have used language against an opponent that may have had racist overtones. He was banned for eight games. If he did indeed use racist language then the sanction is just as such language does indeed have no place in modern society. However, what is dangerous about this incident is that it appears that it is simply the word of Mr Suarez against that of his accuser Mr Patrice Evra of Manchester United. There are no other witnesses.

If that is the case then it would appear to mean that a black person can now make a career-damaging accusation and all that matters is that the accusation is made. That would go against all tenets of natural justice.

On Wednesday formal charges of racist abuse were laid against the England Football Captain Mr John Terry by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). I will not comment on that case as it is sub-judice but the way in which the press reacted had all the hallmarks of a witch-hunt. Sadly, the CPS seems increasingly political and politicised and I really do hope Mr Terry gets a fair trial.

Today, Mr Alan Hansen, a football pundit, is being hunted down by the PC wolves. Last night he referred to black people as 'coloured' on the BBC's Match of the Day, a soccer programme, although clearly no offence was intended. Mr Hansen was clear in his message that racism is wrong even if his use of language was perhaps out-dated.

What is behind all of this? First, the derided media are trying to prove their PC credentials by attacking individuals for what are in many cases the slightest infringement of race rules and laws that have become now so draconian that ancient liberties are at stake. Second, the London elite seem determined to ram this issue down the throats of Britons as a warning and because of profound failures of policy. Indeed, these witch-hunts are becoming so shrill that they reflect the steady and dangerous shift of hitherto irritating political correctness into something far more sinister; socio-fascism.

Sadly, this PC madness will only make community relations more tense, not less so as a non-racist but nevertheless fed up English majority feel that implicit in this frenzy is the suggestion that a) they are all racist by association; and b) a precedent is being established by which the law will be applied in favour of one section of society against the rest. In recent polls 85% of the population object to the Establishment obsession over race and racism believing it to be over-reacting.

Racism is wrong and must be dealt with but in a patient and common sense way, not the kind of public show trials that now seem to be the norm and which seem to be taking place almost weekly. Remember, I know what damage discrimination can do to a person and a career and I oppose all forms of such behaviour as I have myself suffered from it. The real danger is not that people will stop saying racist things, but that they will stop saying anything anymore for fear of being accused of racism. If that happens they will join the many millions of Britons who have retreated into sullen silence at work and elsewhere for the very same fear.

Where are the British going with all of this? Maoist-style re-education classes? Thought police? The Dutch think the British are going mad over this issue.

Britain used to be renowned for common sense, tolerance and balanced thinking. On issues of race and racism that is clearly no longer the case.

Julian Lindley-French

Guido Westerwelle: Europe’s New Hillary Clinton?

2011-12-21T00:39:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 21 December. Watching German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle with British Foreign Secretary William Hague this week I was reminded of a John F. Kennedy quote; “The problem with power is how to achieve its responsible use, rather than its irresponsible or indulgent use”. That is not to suggest that Westerwelle is in any way irresponsible. Indeed, what struck me about Westerwelle in London was the vision of a German foreign minister behaving on the European stage much like a US secretary of state on the world stage. It is clear that Germany really does now lead Europe, just as it is clear that Britain is critical to German leadership.

Westerwelle had come to London, “…to build bridges”, and described Britain as an “indispensable partner”. At one level this is a French nightmare and explains the provocations from Paris of late. Paris is always concerned that Berlin will do a deal with London that is not made in Paris. Equally, it would be a mistake for Britain to believe there are tensions between France and Germany to be exploited. The French are clearly in on this ‘good cop, bad cop’ strategy, as evinced by this week’s British-friendly amendments to the EU Common Fisheries Policy which were supported by both Berlin and Paris purely for reasons of grand strategy.

Britain must therefore stand on strategic principle, but is London any longer up to the task? The many attacks on Prime Minister Cameron by London’s Chicken Littles miss the point...as per usual. Cameron’s Brussels ‘no’ was strategic, even if the way the British approached the failed summit was more Ealing comedy than grand epic. “The Economist” called Cameron’s stand a mistake. This merely reflects briefings against Cameron by British diplomats so long lost in the EU trees that they are unable to see the strategic woods.

In fact, Cameron achieved precisely what I said he would achieve at the time. He forced Germany to deal with Britain not simply as another member of the EU 27 but rather as a great power. There was always something strategically unworldly about the idea that even in the teeth of the Eurozone crisis Britain would simply acquiesce to a fiscal union built around Germany that by its very nature would critically damage Britain. Turkeys do not normally vote for Christmas and yet this is what the critics were calling for.

Britain’s strategy towards Germany should be clear and simple. Any move now towards fiscal and political union would by definition exaggerate German power and influence. Any such ‘union’ would force the weak into a system organised around Germany. As such the Union would begin to look more like an empire than a community, even though that clearly is not Berlin’s intention. In Europe of all places power must be held in check. However, the EU as currently structured affords no such checks. Therefore, Britain must act as the check on German power and to that end Berlin must work in partnership with London if German leadership in Europe is to be legitimate and to be seen as such.

Equally, both London and Berlin must recognise the limits to partnership. Westerwelle talked of European integration as ‘…the answer to the darkest chapter in our history”. World War Two may have been the darkest chapter in German history but the British still see it as their "finest hour", to quote Churchill, and modern Britain’s defining moment. The idea that somehow Britain will in time subordinate itself to German power, even if dressed in European finery, is wrong and Westerwelle seemed to be implying that. Britain must always make Germany work hard for British support and the maintenance of some distance between the two powers is therefore vital. The political balance of Europe depends upon it.

So, what about Westerwelle the man? Is he Europe’s new Hillary Clinton? In some respects he is more Nick Clegg than Hillary Clinton; a junior liberal, coalition partner to a conservative leader. He has also made mistakes, such as Germany’s abstention on a key Libya vote in the UN Security Council which sided Germany with China and Russia against Britain, France and the US. His motivation seems to have had more to do with his party’s perilous position in German regional elections than responsible international politics. It is a trait of imperial power to impose local politics onto international partners. Privately the Americans have compared Westerwelle unfavourably with one of his predecessors Hans-Dietrich Genscher who played a critical role in the unification of Germany…and the 1990s disaster in the Balkans. However, shuttle diplomacy in a crisis clearly suits him reinforcing not only his own credibility but German leadership.

And finally... may I take this opportunity to wish all of you who have done me the honour of reading my thoughts this past year a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. No, ‘happy holidays’ here – that is far too politically-correct. More blasting to come in 2012!

Julian Lindley-French

The Power of the Powerless: In Memory of Vaclav Havel

2011-12-19T01:18:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 19 December. Two men died this weekend. One was a towering literary and political figure, one of my heroes, a man who understood change and freedom and put his life on the line for it. The other was not; resisting change and freedom at all costs in the defence of an extreme version of a failed idea against which the other fought.

Vaclav Havel was a Czech patriot, playwright, poet and president who broke the crushing bureaucracy and terror of absolutist totalitarianism. Kim Jong Il was a North Korean born to be president of a dynasty in the ludicrously named Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, an absolutist, totalitarian state that is neither democratic nor of the ‘people’. Son of his dictator father the Dear Leader exercised power through terror, the crushing bureaucracy of an overweening state and by blackmailing neighbours with the threat of an over-costly military and nuclear weapons. Both in their ways defined their age in their space, and yet they occupied opposite ends of truth.

Let me deal first with President Kim Jong Il. Enough said.

Vaclav Havel wrote; “The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line, everyone has a small part of himself in both”. Europeans have fought for centuries to ensure that the powerless have sufficient ownership of the powerful to render accountability real; the very cornerstone of democracy.

Sadly, Central and Eastern Europeans understand the value of freedom in ways which shames us all in Western Europe, where dangerous complacency reins. Perpetual vigilance is vital to protect freedom, particularly at times of crisis such as this. European history is replete with fool's contracts; “we the powerful will resolve the mess we have created if only you the people give us more power and all your money”. Havel would have rejected a choice between being bankruptcy and freedom, but if choice was forced upon him he would have chosen the latter.

Small was beautiful for Havel. Indeed, Havel believed passionately that power should be seen to be alongside the people, in the people, with the people. His desire to bring power down from the high perches of pride it so often and too often claims for itself in Europe saw President Havel oversee the break-up of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. That was the will of the people.

Havel found the presidency an uncomfortable part in a theatre de l’absurde, describing himself ‘absurd’ at his investiture in Prague Castle. And yet perhaps it was not Havel who was absurd but rather the ridiculous ego-driven pomposity, perks, and police-escorted pageantry that Europe’s new great and increasingly not-so-great now routinely claim for themselves in the name of ‘protocol’. Havel rightly mistrusted power and the people with it.

As Europe teeters on the edge of a financial and economic abyss the truly powerful call for more power. There is a very real danger that power in Europe will become systematically ever more distant from the people – the very anti-thesis of freedom and democracy. This elite-driven project comes in various ‘plays’ and ‘acts’ on stages from Berlin to Brussels. Some call upon one superpower state to lead in the name of ‘Europe’, others call for a super-state that is ‘Europe’. Both threaten democracy and freedom if not held in check. Sadly, checks and balances are being eroded in the name of 'Europe', with Havel's Europeans patronisingly encouraged to disengage from the political process, ‘our’ political process and to ‘leave it to them’.

For that reason above all other Havel was an inspiration for this blog and its own self-satirising and pompous mission to ‘speak truth unto power’. Indeed, I see myself as a true Havelist because I have never lost, nor will I ever lose my capacity to laugh at myself. However, whilst I am and can only ever be a pale imitation of my Czech hero my mission remains deadly serious – the defence of freedom in Europe.

Europe is most decidedly not North Korea. We Europeans do at least retain the semblance of choice over our leaders that the Dear Leader denied his people. Moreover, our leaders for all their many faults are not Kim Jong-Il. Nationally-elected political representatives in national parliaments are close enough to the people to understand them and their needs and yet close enough to power to hold to account the eternal and infernal ambition of the super-ego. May it ever be thus.

‘Europe’ remains a good idea in a world that is getting ever bigger as ‘we’ Europeans get ever weaker. However, Big Europe also threatens freedom even if it is not intended and must be guarded against. Havel understood the danger of seeking efficiency and effectiveness at the expense of democracy and freedom. Throughout history that has been the seductive, siren call of the powerful in pursuit of absolute power in the teeth of crisis. The pursuit of absolutism comes in many forms but it is always ‘for’ the people and in the name of the ‘people’, as it is in North Korea. Europe is a long way from that but 'we the people' must remain vigilant.

“I really do inhabit a system in which words are capable of shaking the entire structure of government, where words can prove mightier than ten military divisions”. It was Havel’s optimism that attracted me to him all those years ago, precisely because the system he had fought against had failed to crush Havel’s self-defining ‘hope’. In Havel’s Europe the line between the powerful and powerless must remain blurred even if it is not ‘efficient’. Let us all honour Havel the man by respecting his vision for Europe.

In honour and in memory of Europe’s great, ordinary man. Vaclav Havel was a friend I never met.

Julian Lindley-French

A Week is a Long Time in High and Low Politics

2011-12-16T02:38:00.000-08:00

Alphen, the Netherlands. 16 December. In 1964 former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said, “A week is a long time in politics”. This has been a very long week for both high and low politics.

A week ago I was waking up in Brussels to the British ‘non’ to the Brussels Botch. This was European low politics at its worst as Euro-fanatics and the plain anti-British spurred on by Berlin and Paris attempted to shame Prime Minister Cameron into reversing his position and to blame Britain for a collective failure of strategy and politics. Sadly, they were aided and abetted by the strategically-inept back in London who a) illiterate in the language of power panicked at the thought of British ‘isolation’; and b) seemed willing to pay any price to keep the Germans and French happy. The British reaction was as one would expect – defiant. The British people were up for a fight and it showed.

Recognising the impasse Chancellor Merkel made a conciliatory speech mid-week in Berlin. Britain will remain an important partner, she said. Was this a new political demarche? No. Last night, Christian Noyer, the Head of the French National Bank, called on Britain’s AAA credit rating to be downgraded. On the ‘not very helpful right now’ scale of ten that got at least a nine. Well done, M. Noyer.

It saddens me that the elite of such a great nation for which I have a genuine liking and respect seems unable to resist pressing the anti-Brit button whenever it does not get its way. French low politics will only trigger more British low politics and thus make it far harder to find a solution and maintain political momentum in other crucial areas such as defence co-operation. More worrying M. Noyer would appear not to understand either the nature of the Eurozone crisis or the causes of it. Thankfully, London reacted in a measured and appropriate tone to M. Noyer’s engineered outburst, something I am sure Berlin will have noted.

Let me now switch to the other side of the ‘pond’. On Wednesday President Obama made a speech at Fort Bragg marking the end of nine troubled years of American military presence in Iraq. Since March 2003 over 100,000 Iraqis and 4500 Americans have died with many thousands more wounded, not to mention the dead and wounded from the other coalition partners who took part in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

If Europe is being broken by an excess of low politics, America is endeavouring to extricate itself from an excess of ill-considered high politics. President Obama said that whilst Iraq "is not a perfect place…we are leaving behind a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people". The President went on, "We are building a new partnership between our nations. Because of you [US military personnel], we are ending these wars in a way that will make America stronger and the world more secure". With the hindsight of history the Iraq War as a mistake; there were no weapons of mass destruction, it distracted from the main thrust of post-911 strategy in Afghanistan, cost huge amounts of money and many lives; and tied down American forces in such a way as to embolden the world’s real mischief-makers. The US may not be the world’s policeman, but it is the actor of last resort.

Back in 2003 Germany and France warned against this adventure. Berlin and Paris were correct. The fact that Saddam is gone and some semblance of stability (and it is only a semblance of stability) has been achieved much of it due to the ability of American forces to adapt and learn, does not forgive the error of high politics America and Britain made. The 2011 consequences only indirectly reflect the 2003 war aim, "…to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, to end Saddam Hussein's alleged support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people". Critically, neither America nor its allies have been strengthened by this war and its aftermath, either in the ‘Greater Middle East’ (wherever that is) or the wider world.

The war crucially divided the NATO Alliance at a critical moment from which it has never really recovered and made America and the West seem far weaker than is in fact the case in the eyes of allies and adversaries alike. In particular, the American and British failure to properly prepare for the post-war stabilisation of Iraq was a profound mistake, much of it driven by Washington’s ideological belief that the invasion would be seen by all Iraqis as a liberation.

What conclusions do I draw? It is questionable whether Europeans are any longer capable of high politics in the face of crisis. The gap between the rhetoric of Europe's leaders and their actions is now so wide as to border on self-deceit. Equally, the gap between what America has to do and what it is willing or can afford to to do is itself becoming dangerously wide. Indeed, for Washington the common ground between high and low politics in the international arena remains elusive.

Above all, these two political failures, the Iraq War and Eurozone crisis, have destroyed trust, that most precious of political commodities and the concrete foundation upon which all sound strategy must stand.

A week is indeed a long time in politics and this indeed has been a very long and a very bad political week.

Julian Lindley-French

"Very Well, Alone...ish"

2011-12-14T06:15:00.000-08:00

My Dear Fellow Europeans, don't worry I have not gone terminally Churchillian...yet! However, I thought you should all see Low's famous cartoon which all we British hold close to our hearts at moments of stress with you lot! And, let's face it you can be just so tedious. Your only saving grace is that you are NOT American...and only some of you are French (c'est une pleasanterie, Nicholas). That would be all together too much. All best, Julian

Be Careful Europe. You May Get What You Wish For

2011-12-13T18:44:00.001-08:00

Alphen. The Netherlands. 14 December. Yesterday in Strasbourg at the European Parliament European Parliamentarians made some of the most shocking and inappropriate attacks ever against one member-state - Britain. The leader of the European People’s Party warned of ‘punishing’ Britain and of ‘tanks and Kalashnikovs’. In the feeding frenzy of myth-making and scapegoating much of it using language that verged on the profoundly disrespectful to Britain and its people. Indeed, this was unparliamentary language at its very worst, a clear attempt to create a new ‘narrative’ for a crisis entirely of the Eurozone’s own making by placing responsibility on to the British for the appalling failure of Eurozone leadership.

This is a blame game. Indeed, it is a blatant attempt to implicate a country that is not even a member of their benighted currency and which warned against its structural contradictions from the very outset. Even President Barroso joined in this stitch-up…and we all know who is behind him. How dare they?

Some talked of British ‘egotism’ and ‘nationalism’. These people would not have the freedoms they enjoy but for the sacrifice of the British people in both World War Two and the Cold War. Some talked of a lack of solidarity by Britain. These are the same people who for years have dodged their responsibilities for Europe’s security and defence and imposed its true cost on the British people. These are the same people who have dodged their responsibilities in Afghanistan forcing the British to do too much of the dying. These are the same people who wringed their hands over Libya as the British did what was necessary to prevent a massacre in Benghazi. How dare European parliamentarians lecture Britain about solidarity?

As for the Eurozone crisis the full extent of the Brussels stitch-up is only now becoming apparent. There was no need for a new treaty, only Chancellor Merkel wanted that and by demanding it she sought to make the crisis one of the EU at 27 rather than 17. It is in any case already falling apart validating once again British pragmatism. What is more to the point is that having tried to make this a crisis 'owned'by all 27 neither Merkel nor Sarkozy were prepared to offer Britain the joint leadership role befitting Europe’s second or third largest economy and strongest military power. No, Britain was expected to subject itself formally to German and French leadership even though she is one of Europe’s Big Three. That will never happen. How dare they?

And now these same people pretend that the Euro-crisis is all of Britain’s doing because London failed to properly regulate the banks in the City, many of which are German and French et al. They conveniently forget Germany’s failure at the summit to offer any real leadership to solve the immediate crisis. They conveniently forget the chronic debt into which their national leaders have pitched almost all of the Eurozone countries. They conveniently forget that Britain is the second net contributor to the EU and that the British taxpayer has for years been transferring huge amounts of money to southern and eastern Europeans with little or no prospect of any benefit. They also fail to notice that Prime Minister Cameron is climbing rapidly in UK opinion polls for saying 'no' to the wrong treaty at the wrong time for the wrong reasons for Europe.

Last week I warned against Britain retreating from Brussels however seductive the vision of our standing defiantly on the White Cliffs of Dover shaking our fist and rekindling the defiance of 1940. “Very well, alone then” was, I suggested, neither a policy nor a strategy for Britain. After yesterday’s sham of a debate in the European Parliament, more redolent of a fascist show trial than a modern, tolerant democratic Europe, I am no longer so sure.

Be careful Europe. If you continue down this road of abusing, blaming and scapegoating Britain for your own lamentable failings you may indeed get what you appear to want. Britain out of the EU.

Julian Lindley-French