INT RELS: The End of our Decline?
Staring into the abyss of dependency
For the first time since the end of the Roman Empire, Britain will no longer be able to defend her shores without reliance upon another power for aid and comfort. Such disturbing news was old to some and irrelevant to others but, the announcement was another signal of the decadence that afflicts our withered and senile establishment, even under its present NuLab mask.
It was Geoff Hoon in the Commons who quietly laid to rest the sole claim of Britain to military superiority over her European neighbours: the ability to fight an independent war.
As even The Guardian saw fit to report, ‘Mr Hoon added [to his statement]: "most importantly, it is highly unlikely that the United Kingdom would be engaged in large-scale combat operations without the United States, a judgment born of past experience, shared interest and our assessment of strategic trends"’.
Therefore, the autumn defence policy paper will focus on how Britain can fit its forces into the needs of the United States, or unspoken, of an EU miltary entity. The Defence Secretary argued — to deafening silence from his Tory shadow — that Britain should institutionalise its role as America's figleaf.
Employing the modish rhetoric that calls for an American-style strategic shift from tanks to modern technology (though as Secretary Rumsfeld would be the first to point out, even for them that’s, as yet, more of an aspiration than a statement of establishment), Mr Hoon, to quote the FT, ‘implied it was Europe's responsibility to prevent the US going it alone in future combat. “The issue is not whether the US decides to develop a unilateral or multilateral approach over the long term," the minister told a London conference. "Whether it finds itself in that position or not will depend on the role played, and on the persuasiveness, and ultimately the capabilities of its allies”’.
To this end, Britain will henceforth ‘rationalise’ our armed forces, yet again, as the shortcomings in areas like logistics comes to the fore. Mr Hoon also stated that the number of men in an army was not a primary factor in strategic calculations, as equally, under this new doctrinal dispensation, achieving old-fashioned silliness like, oh, an up to strength army is ‘no longer a matter of simply generating high numbers of combat forces’.
Nevertheless, realities on the ground often contradict the niceties of political calculation and after the massacre of six lightly-armed redcaps, the British army is calling for more troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. An invaded country which, despite the best efforts of HM press not to report on it, has not vanished — though seemingly all the lessons learnt [sic] in governing it have been.
The media response to the brass-hats demands for more bodies was muted. Martin Kettle, a Grauniad contributor, mused on the implications of Geoff Hoon's strategic delight: that Britain would only fight as America's partner. Or, with an understated dry tone:
The government, Hoon is saying, sees Britain as the necessary subordinate of the United States in all practically foreseeable circumstances. It does not matter whether the US wants us in that role. It does not matter whether the US seeks such alliances. It does not matter whether other Europeans think as we do; though in the increasingly platonic European defence strategy we still hope that they will. The British interest - the interest of a small but prosperous armed power in an interdependent world dominated by the US - is to be America's permanent volunteer, and to be capable of carrying out a meaningful military role at America's side if allowed or required to do so . . .For what follows is that there is no exit strategy. Hoon's remarks can only be read as saying it will never be in our interest to oppose the US. We are the US president's to command.
Finding a gloriously Guardianesque underclass angle to the whole affair, Mr Kettle examined the strategic direction of the Rumsfeld doctrine with its emphasis on hi-tech, minimalist deployments and concluded that the British Army may well find a niche as peacekeepers, acting as teletroopers and mopping up after the main battles were completed. ‘But’, even a solidly bigoted left-liberal hack could see, ‘the big implication of Rumsfeldian theory is that we [Britain] may have to do the things in the field that the Americans increasingly do not want to do. Rumsfeldism is brilliant at winning a modern war. It has less to say about winning a modern peace. This is because it remains fundamentally sceptical - in theory more than in practice - about the desirability of committing US troops in peacekeeping operations’.
This article did not recognise the current deployment of military forces over the last two years. Britain, the United States, Australia and other nations had tended to use their special forces in a 'coalition of the willing' and dispensed peacekeeping duties to European allies who had neither the experience or the forces to shoulder a frontline capacity. Donald Rumsfeld understood the advantages of a multilateral approach to conflict and retained Britain as a reliable partner rather than as a peacekeeping vacuum cleaner.
However, given our proximity to the Middle East, Kettle's conclusions were correct: ‘the implication cannot be shirked. The wars will be of America's choosing. The risks could be disproportionately ours’.
The announcement and the attention paid to it by the left wing press alone does not clarify the dilemma that this government continues to face: its position as Janus, willing itself to be “at the heart of Europe” yet tying Britain ever further into America’s iron triangle of politics, intelligence and the military-industrial complex. The two strands of foreign policy are becoming ever-more incompatible under the strains of European integration and American power. Geoff Hoon’s latest statement reveals that Britain can never subscribe to any meaningful European Security and Defence policy, for that could one day risk us being on the opposite side of the fence to Washington.
We are unwilling to switch from one patron for another. There is a strong case to be made (and perhaps some other time . . .) that the sum total of “Euroscepticism” perceived in this government — generally by people who wishfully have wanted to see evidence of it — has resulted solely from what subservience to the US has required from King Charles St at any particular moment on any particular issue.
Wait and see: if it becomes (again) the State Department’s conception of America’s national interest that, to buy off the continentals, Britain should be chucked to them, we will be. The depressing thing is that so many ‘right wing’ Britons will stand up and cheer when Washington takes that decision for us— I suppose it’s easier than thinking for ourselves. Or should I say, weaselier? Yes, I think I should.
Philip Chaston takes on the Quislings of the right at Airstrip One; he likes the US, and wishes that his only Conservative foes were scoundrels like Fat Pang.
Philip Chaston, July 12, 2003 01:11 AM