In the afterglow of Osborne’s
budget we all behaved like beggars at a medieval banquet, bowing and scraping
our gratitude for scraps thrown our way by the benevolent government. Look a
tiny little tax break, I'm £100 richer this year: break out the champagne, wait
let's not go crazy make it cava. Thank you Lord Osborne for your wonderful
gifts, we aren't worthy. And if anyone's voting decision was swayed by the
budget one way or the other, then I think it's safe to say they should not be
allowed to vote. Hey that's democratic politics for you, the least worst system
of government; when the current alternatives are fundamentalist theocracy or
kleptocratic dictatorship it's hardly much of contest.
What's more worrying is
that as election approaches there is little or no debate about the planned cuts
to the British Armed Forces or their current condition. In 2015,
military spending is seen by many as anachronistic. Why spend money on Trident
submarines instead of hospitals is the standard sort of critique. The problem, as many have already noticed, is that hospitals, although very nice things, are
not very good at dealing with foreign policy crises. They are fixed to the
ground, can't sail round the world and no matter how riddled with MRSA don't inspire fear.
That's the peculiar thing
about military spending, buying two aircraft carries and equipping them with
enough planes seems very expensive when the world is a safe place. Much better to
spend that money on pensioners who vote ; better still decommission your old
aircraft carriers and sell the Harriers to the Marine Corps. Even though the
government is still running a 5% deficit, why not commit to spending 0.7% of
GDP on foreign aid; everyone likes foreign aid. What could possibly go wrong?
Unfortunately successive
British politicians decided that Britain, the sixth largest economy in the
world, with a history of naval power stretching back to the 16th century,
didn't really need those expensive ships, soldiers or planes. Like all short
term decisions, it's backfired. Those pensioners who government throws money at
like past its sell-by date, are grumbling anyway, surprise. And you can't send OAPs to
deal with ISIS. Well maybe you try, perhaps they could bore them to death with
stories about how much better everything was when they were young. For the
record, one of the reasons people didn't use to lock their front doors in the
sixties is that was very little worth stealing. iPads and laptops hadn't been
invented and you needed a four-man team and a flatbed truck to make off with a TV.
So the UK finds itself with
just one aircraft carrier, compared to America's twenty and no planes for the
carrier. It will be 2020 until the next ones come into service. You'd think
that just maybe we might have kept the old ones. In the normal world, outside
of politics, the general rule of thumb is that you keep your old car until the
new one arrives, unless you really like walking and carrying heavy bags ten
miles home from the supermarket. We no longer have a big stick, as the US
refers to its Nimitz class carriers, a vessel so vast it won't even fit in
Portsmouth harbour. We have a toothpick.
On the plus side, the one
thing the British Armed Forces do have is plenty of generals, brigadiers,
captains and admirals. The much quoted figure is the Navy now has more Admirals
than ships, the Army has six times more officers than the US Marine Corps,
which is of comparable size. Incredibly, the Ministry of Defence has 60,000
civilian personnel against the 87,000 of the British Army. Even if you add in
the Navy and the Air Force, that's still a surprising ratio. Put it crudely WTF
are all those people in the MoD doing? I suppose being British, we should laugh
at the absurdity of it all and make a sitcom how hopelessly ill-prepared we are
for war and how much we squander in pointless pen-pushers. Dad's Army was produced decades after WW2, I doubt anyone would have
found it entertaining in 1940.
There are many people in
Britain who may be pleased at reduced capability. War is bad isn't it, killing
is wrong. We should have e-petitions and benefit concerts instead, where the
only danger is listening to Bono, the tax avoider, lecture the rest of us about
our responsibilities. Perhaps the combination of failure in Iraq and
Afghanistan, combined with the 100th anniversary of WW1, has cemented this
anti-military feeling. We learned the lesson of history, war is a senseless
waste. Give peace a chance.
It's a lovely idea, but the
likes of ISIS and Putin's Russia don't agree. They are very much pro-war.
Besides the critique of WW1 is deeply flawed. Britain guaranteed the
sovereignty of Belgium, Germany planned to invade. If as Niall Fergusson
suggests, we should have simply stood by whilst Germany overran both Belgium
and France, then the outcome would have been German domination of Europe by
force. The idea that British politicians were warmongers or had any other
option than to intervene is false. Sometimes in foreign affairs there are no
good choices, only less bad ones.
When it comes to the
military, it seems like the British government has continued a long tradition
of opting for the worst possible choices. Impose cuts on the frontline troops,
leave the top brass and bureaucrats in post. Make short term cuts, ignoring
long term strategic needs. Now we face a situation with Russian planes
regularly buzzing British airspace, a low level war in the Ukraine, Libya's
collapse into anarchy, ISIS marching Iraq back to the 7th century, the Yemen's
descent into civil war and to cap in all now there's rumours that the
Argentinians might acquire long range bombers from Russia.
That's the fallacy of the
pacifist position, it depends on everyone else playing by the same rules. Gandhi
is usually cited as an example of peaceful means overcoming military force,
which is sort of true. Except that pretty much any other colonial power in the
1930s would have summarily executed him and Hitler certainly would have done
given the chance. That is not to downplay the moral authority and effectiveness
of non-violent protest, but it can only operate in narrow parameters.
The military failures in
Iraq and Afghanistan should teach us lessons. Sure. It’s much easier to invade
a country that it is to run one, especially if we’ve been there before, the
locals have very long memories and didn't like us the first time round. For those who cite these cases as the reason to
avoid military action at all, there are counter examples. When the Americans
bombed the Serbs in Bosnia, it turned out that those fearless Serbian warriors
were less keen on fighting actual troops than murdering helpless civilians. Likewise
a handful of troops helped protect Sierra Leone's capital from drug-crazed maniacs.
Think of an situation closer
to home. In Britain, we like the fact that our regular police don’t carry guns.
I for one feel a lot safer than I do in Italy, where even the traffic police
carry submachine guns. Although when you consider Italian driving practices,
maybe it’s wise. But if there is a
terrorist on the run or a lone gunman, it’s comforting to know that they are
armed police to deal with the situation. There is a big stick, just in case.
Like all democracies, we
should count ourselves lucky that even though our feckless political class has
crippled our military, one nation hasn’t. America, the arsenal of
democracy, accounts for 39% of world
defense spending. When the other big spenders include the Chinese and the
Russians, that’s a bonus. America has many faults, it is at least a democracy under
the rule of law. The rest of Europe likes to protest about American foreign
policy, safe under the wing of their military. It’s hardly a noble position.
We can resign ourselves to
obscurity and irrelevance, at the mercy of events and hold rallies against US foreign policy to make ourselves feel important. Or we could get a big stick,
just for emergencies. That’s the handy thing about big sticks, just having can be deterrent enough. I think most of the British public, regardless of their political persuasion, would rather the UK had the means to protect its national interest. We need a big stick.
