Angry Lords call for higher defence spending

On Thursday, several prominent cross-bench members of the House of Lords called for Britain to boost its military spending. Admiral The Lord Boyce, the former First Sea Lord and Chief of the Defence Staff, used robust language to describe his disdain for the fact that the Secretary of State for Defence has, since Gordon Brown came to power in June 2007, been merged with the role of Secretary of State for Scotland. Des Browne, the current incumbent, now has to run two large government departments, one of which has long been considered as one of the three great ministries of state, along with the Treasury and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In order to show the scathing criticism he heaped on the government, it is worth citing Admiral Lord Boyce’s comments at some length:

It is seen as an insult by our sailors, our soldiers and our airmen on the front line. And I know because I have reason to speak to them a lot. And it is certainly a demonstration of the disinterest and some might say contempt that the prime minister and his government has for our armed forces. And it shows an appalling lack of judgement at a time when our people are being killed and they are being maimed.

During the same debate, another former Chief of the Defence Staff, General The Lord Guthrie, stated:

In my experience...he [Gordon Brown] was a most unsympathetic chancellor of the exchequer as far as defence was concerned—and the only senior Cabinet minister who avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence to be briefed by our staff on our problems. And I think really that he must take much of the blame for the very serious situation we find the services in today.

It is clear that these are fierce and pointed words, coming from two high-ranking former officers well accustomed to military life. It is even more astonishing that they should make such remarks given the tradition that military officers tend not to dabble so explicitly and publicly in British political life. And that their remarks come after statements allegedly made by General Sir Richard Dannatt—the current Chief of the General Staff—in a report leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, suggests that something is not right. The general said that under current conditions troops felt ‘devalued, angry and suffering from Iraq fatigue’. Indeed, these sharp remarks come at a time of an almost unrelenting trickle of claims made by serving officers, soldiers, sailors and airmen, that food is poor, housing outdated, dirty or shoddy, and that equipment often does not work—frequently and unnecessarily putting soldiers’ lives in danger.

The key questions to ask here are these: Is this just a bit of in-fighting for resources between the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and British Army, or is it a set of calculated political interventions designed to damage the current Labour government under the premiership of Gordon Brown—or could the claims actually be accurate? It is certainly possible that some criticisms made, particularly in the past, were not for the good of the British Armed Forces, but rather for the scoring of cheap political points. Equally, we have long known that in-fighting for resources within the three services is nothing out of the ordinary. It is also clear that publications often leading the charge against the present government’s military record, like the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, are positioned to the right of the political spectrum, and are likely drumming-up support for the Tories. Yet it does seem that many serving officers, former officers and service personnel are deeply dissatisfied with current era. Along with their Lordships, it seems clear that many are highlighting a problem in need of urgent attention.

On a broad level, Britain’s Armed Forces have suffered constant cuts since the end of the Cold War. The previous Tory government, under John Major, slashed defence spending and military acquisition ruthlessly. As part of the so-called ‘peace dividend’, military expenditure was reduced almost every year during the 1990s. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, it dropped from 4.1% of the gross domestic product in 1988 to about 2.7% in 1997. Acquisition programmes were halted or put in mothballs and the Armed Forces were moved down the list of priorities. This trend also continued when the New Labour government came to power in 1997 under Tony Blair. By 2001, defence only accounted for 2.4% of national income, lower than at any point since the lofty 1930s. Labour’s record has not been all bad though; the new administration orchestrated a strategic defence review in 1998, which re-calibrated the Armed Forces away from a Eurocentric defensive posture towards one set around expeditionary warfare. Two large new aircraft carriers were called for, as well as enhanced strategic lift and landing platforms to move troops and firepower anywhere in the world. Greater technological capacity was also emphasised.

While the defence review contained the right thinking, it has been neither matched by the spending commitment, nor has it been completed in sufficient time. For example, the British government only ordered the new aircraft carriers in July 2007, almost ten years after they were first planned. And although there have been increases in military spending since 2000—which have ensured that British military spending is the world’s second highest—these have been unable to meet the nation’s needs, especially given the fact of ‘defence inflation’. ‘Defence inflation’ means that the cost of sustaining the Armed Forces grows every year, even if no new equipment is ordered, or personnel recruited. So while defence spending has been increased in real terms from £23.3 billion (€32.5 billion) in 2003 to £33.4 billion (€46.6 billion) in 2006, this only equates to a measly 0.3% rise in spending as a percentage of gross domestic product. And given that Britain has been engaged in two sizeable conflicts during that time (Afghanistan and Iraq), along with one in 1999 (Kosovo) and a number of other small interventions (in places like Sierra Leone), such a small increase seems unacceptable and gives credence to those arguing for higher spending.

While the Conservative Party in Britain has jumped on the bandwagon with the government’s critics, its behaviour seems more like a lot of hot air and political opportunism. After all, it was Conservative policies that reduced Britain’s military might so significantly during the 1990s. And aside the grandstanding of the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence, Dr. Liam Fox, the Tories have not made any commitments of their own to bolster military spending should Britons elect their party to power in the next general election.

So, while the current British government’s military spending is not as incoherent or appalling as some critics argue, it does seem that the current levels of expenditure are at best inadequate. If the government sends the military to project power overseas and do its bidding in foreign territories, it must ensure that the necessary resources are made available. After all, crushing the Taleban, putting pressure on the criminals, bandits and terrorists in Iraq, or smiting hand-lopping killers in Sierra Leone is dangerous, difficult and often bloody work. Making sure that the Armed Forces are adequately supplied and funded is not only a national objective but also a moral priority. It requires a four-edged agenda.

First, the government must simply raise annual defence spending to 3% of the gross domestic product, or about £50 billion (€70 billion), as argued by the newly formed National Defence Association. Protecting and extending the national interest requires military power, and history has shown that societies unwilling to do so soon suffer a terrible fate. Should a large regional conflict break out, Britain’s global interests would compel it to be involved. Second, the government must crack down on waste and inefficiency in the Ministry of Defence; the cost of equipment and hardware in acquisition projects often rises dramatically, or is planned, produced and then not needed. Although this problem is often overemphasised, a lid must be placed on it when it does happen. What is needed is a dynamic strategy, which can be modulated very quickly to provide the equipment that British forces require in any given situation. That British soldiers are still driving around in antiquated and insufficiently armoured ‘Snatch’ vehicles in Iraq, for example, is not only shameful but a national disgrace. They should have been provided with armoured vehicles better equipped to provide protection against sophisticated roadside bombs a long while ago.

Third, the government must show and communicate its commitment to the Armed Forces to the general public. Given the reduction in military personnel, the end of National Service, and the claims made by a lot of silly people who think we can achieve perpetual peace by reasoning with our enemies, there is sometimes a tendency to see the military in a less than positive light. Here, a good start would be to ensure that the Defence Secretary is not double-hatted; so, Mr. Brown, remove your Defence Secretary’s other role as Scottish Secretary forthwith. Finally, the government must ensure that defence procurement and operability is compatible with other European Union armed forces, and that pan-European planning takes place to sustain and nourish the capacities of the defence-industrial base. Here, London should agitate for a comprehensive European Union strategic defence review as soon as the Reform Treaty is adopted across the continent.

In this respect, the decision by the European Union’s Defence Ministers on Wednesday to increase resources for the European Defence Agency should be welcomed. They also agreed to adopt a framework for a joint European Strategy in Defence Research and Technology, to help facilitate the development of the European defence-industrial base. Set up in 2004 to help organise more effective European military modernisation and acquisition programmes, the Agency has a potentially productive future. It was a pity, however, that the Defence Ministers agreed only to raise its budget by a woefully small and inadequate €10 million (£7.2 million). If we Europeans want to have any influence in the world of today—let alone tomorrow—we will have to do better than that. In a world of rising powers and growing resource competition, a strong military is essential. And instead of obfuscating, the British government, which commands the most powerful military in Europe, and the second strongest navy in the world, has got to do more to lead the way.

World military spending in 2006[1]



British military spending (percentage of gross domestic product)[2]

[1] Figures converted into euros from United States dollars, using constant prices and exchange rates from 2005. Source of graph statistics: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and European Defence Agency.
[2] Source of graph statistics: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Europe and America

Guest article by Louis M. M. Coiffait

Anti-Americanism is again fashionable, acceptable and common across Europe. This is hardly a new phenomenon; European critiques of America pre-date even its founding, and have come from both socialists and conservatives. However such critiques (should) only earn the label anti-Americanism once they become irrational and habitual, akin to the other -isms. And they often have; anti-Americanism has grown to become dangerously high within Europe today. The rallying cries are varied: arrogance, greed, cultural imperialism, reckless foreign policy, corrupt morality, callous use of power, ignorance, military might or religion. How many of these charges are correct? The answer is all of them, and none. That is the problem with anti-Americanism as a concept. It is too simplistic. How can one word, one viewpoint, truly represent a country of such scale, variety and power? It can’t. Yet that is exactly what is happening today in the United Kingdom, the rest of the European Union, and in the wider world.

Another problem with anti-Americanism is that its irrationality invalidates genuine critiques. Biased, unsupported complaints obscure genuine, constructive ones. How can America respond effectively to the torrent of hatred sent its way each and every day? Yes, America is partly guilty of all the ills cited above. Its power magnifies its actions to such an extent that no single person or organisation within or without the country can comprehend its actions or steer them. This is why it needs ‘critical friends’ so badly. But if critics make no attempt at being fair, at understanding their target, at entering into debate, then they are only inflaming the situation on both sides. Love it or loathe it, America has the economic and military might—if nothing else—to remain top-dog for a long while yet. It is in the interests of every European, of every non-American, to influence such power in a positive way.

In reality anti-Americanism is a political word, saying more about the holder of the opinion than the target. In Europe it often represents ignorance and arrogance at least equal to any Yank. It can stem from fear or envy. Sometimes it represents resistance to change, to modernity and to the unknown. It has become a slogan for many, a catchphrase which unites a broad church of often incompatible opinions. In Britain, as elsewhere in Europe, America has repeatedly been a scapegoat for both the Right’s fear of change and the Left’s fear of rampant commercialism. In America itself it is equally used to brand ‘Leftists’, ‘Old Europe’ and a thankless world. Again the debate is polarised, and so becomes irrelevant to genuine progress. It is time we Europeans, the supposedly cultured ancestors of modernity, discard this unhelpful propaganda permanently.

Why? What are the consequences for Europe of this creeping bigotry? They are all bad. We risk alienating one of our most important allies further. We encourage radical responses from within and without America. We place our own continent at risk and do so purely for lack of subtlety and forethought. And we risk using America as a scapegoat for our own problems. So next time you hear an American accent, think a little about what you, as a European citizen, can do to look after your own interests.

Louis M. M. Coiffait was Roosevelt Scholar at Magdalene College, University of Cambridge (2006-2007). His thesis was in Anglo-American relations.

David Miliband says ‘no’ to a European superpower

When a friend sent me a link to this article in The Guardian yesterday morning, I must confess that I got very excited. The newspaper reported that David Miliband, the British foreign secretary, was to present a speech at the College of Europe in Bruges, outlining the need for the European Union to develop the full spectrum of military capabilities to intervene in foreign conflicts as and when necessity dictated. Speaking of Mr. Miliband’s proposed arguments, The Guardian put it like this:

In a speech setting out the direction of Europe over the next two decades, he will warn the EU faces “a fork in the road”, and risks falling back into an age of disorder if it makes the wrong choices, including rejecting the use of hard military power...He will also make a strong case in favour of the EU retaining support for the principle of hard power, through the use of economic influence and military intervention abroad.

For anyone not yet aware, ‘hard power’ is the capacity to coerce and threaten, literally to impose one’s will on others. It is the opposite of ‘soft power’, which is the ability to attract other societies or people to one’s cause without needing to force anyone into doing anything. For example, ‘hard power’ can include airstrikes, military intervention, economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion, whereas ‘soft power’ includes the ability to woo people with culture, financial inducements and diplomatic recognition. Both concepts were developed by the American political scholar, Joseph Nye, in his books Bound to Lead, The Paradox of American Power and Soft Power. Unfortunately, many politicians and scholars—who should know better—often now use the terms altogether too frequently, sometimes in the wrong context, or simply inappropriately.

Having now read Mr. Miliband’s speech, this criticism cannot be applied to him; like Tony Blair, the former prime minister, the foreign secretary seems to have a good grasp of when either term should or can be applied. Other than getting the differences between the two alleged forms of power right, Mr. Miliband also made a number of timely and useful contributions to the ongoing debate over the shape of British and European Union foreign policy in the twenty-first century. As he put it:

My argument is this:

The prospects and potential for human progress have never been greater. But our prosperity and security are under threat. Protectionism seeks to stave off globalisation rather than manage it. Religious extremists peddle hatred and division. Energy insecurity and climate change threaten to create a scramble for resources. And rogue states and failing states risk sparking conflicts, the damage of which will spill over into Europe.


These threats provide a new raison d’être for the European Union. New because the unfinished business of internal reform to update our economic and social model is on its own not enough to engage with the big issues, nor the hopes and fears, of European citizens. For the EU because nation-states, for all their continuing strengths, are too small to deal on their own with these big problems, but global governance is too weak. So the EU can be a pioneer and a leader. Our single market and the standards we set for it, the attractions of membership, and the legitimacy, diversity and political clout of twenty-seven member states are big advantages. The EU will never be a superpower, but could be a model power of regional cooperation.

For success, the EU must be open to ideas, trade and people. It must build shared institutions and shared activities with its neighbours. It must be an Environmental Union as well as a European Union. And it must be able to deploy soft and hard power to promote democracy and tackle conflict beyond its borders. As Gordon Brown said on Monday there is no longer a distinction between ‘over there’ and ‘over here’.

So there we have it: The threats brought about by globalisation—that is, the compression of space and time, and at an increasing tempo—have introduced a new set of dynamics for all of us to deal with. Such dynamics include processes of migration, Islamist terrorism and organised crime, and so on. Others, which were alluded to in latter parts of his speech, included the rise of China and India, as well as the aggressiveness of a resurgent Russia, and the challenges these three countries might pose to we Europeans by 2030. In order to address such threats, the British foreign secretary argued that the European Union should take a far larger role in preventative intervention and the enhancement of our armed forces:

European Member States must improve their capabilities. It’s embarrassing that when European nations—with almost two million men and women under arms—are only able, at a stretch, to deploy around one-hundred thousand at any one time. EU countries have around 1,200 transport helicopters, yet only about thirty-five are deployed in Afghanistan. And EU Member States haven’t provided any helicopters in Darfur despite the desperate need there.

European nations need to identify the challenges we face; the capabilities we consequently need; then identify targets for national investment in equipment, research, development, and training necessary to make more of our armed forces; work together for efficiency; and back it up with political drive...

Perhaps conceding some of the mistakes made after the Iraq War, Mr. Miliband went on:

As the prime minister set out earlier this week, military forces should be deployed on peacekeeping duties with civilian crisis management experts as an integral part of the operation. There is limited value in securing a town if law and order breaks down as soon as the troops move on. There is limited gain in detaining terrorists and criminals if there is no courthouse to try them in or jailhouse to hold them in. Security without development will soon alienate local populations. Development without security is impossible. They are two sides of the same coin.

Finally, the foreign secretary said that we Europeans must not react to events, but actively seek to shape them:

We must use our power and influence, not just to resolve conflict, but prevent it. We must show we are prepared to take a lead and fulfil our responsibilities.

And yet, alongside the productive arguments made by Mr. Miliband, one stands out like the sharpest of thorns. This was his assertion that the European Union shall never become a superpower. This is surprising, for it actively moves against the statements of Tony Blair, who said that the European Union should become a superpower, if not a superstate. To some extent, it also contradicts the speeches made by the European Union’s foreign policy High Representative, Javier Solana, who has continued to argue—at times quite insistently—that the European Union has got to become a fully-fledged global power if it is to make real on its foreign policy desires and commitments. Many other European leaders have also stated that they want the European Union to be able to project power in order to defend and extend European values and interests. The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, can certainly be counted among their ranks; he has already claimed that European military integration will be one of his most important priorities once France assumes the role of the presidency of the Council of the European Union next year. Indeed, it is hard to imagine that any single European Union Member State, even Britain or France, will have the aggregated weight and authority to deal as equals with the potential great powers of tomorrow—which Mr. Miliband alluded to himself.

Instead of a superpower in its own right, the foreign secretary seems to advocate that the European Union become some form of ‘model power of regional cooperation’. Perhaps this is just a bit of dumbed-down and unthreatening rhetoric, designed to placate the rabidly Eurosceptic media in the United Kingdom. Or perhaps there is something more to it. Indeed, if this were the case, the idea of Europe becoming a model for the rest of the world to follow chimes nicely with an ongoing academic debate, instigated in part by Professor Ian Manners, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. He suggests that the European Union is a ‘normative power’, which uses the examples it sets for itself as a means to encourage other countries into accepting its ways. Prof. Manners looks specifically at Brussels’ numerous attempts to get capital punishment abolished in foreign lands, using diplomatic pressure and economic inducements. Of course, we should all applaud the spread of European values, for they are certainly more advanced and enlightened than practically anything else on offer. But it is simply insufficient for us to rely on our values to uphold our position of power and authority—let alone our security—in the wider world, particularly if potentially hostile regimes emerge on our borders, or even in other continents where we have extensive commercial and geopolitical interests.

So it is not possible for a political community the size of the European Union to remain only a ‘model’ or ‘normative’ power. As David Miliband himself argued, our interests are truly global in scope; events in the most far-away lands will eventually have some kind of impact at home, whether it be from chaos in certain provinces in Afghanistan, government corruption in Africa or South America, or the build-up of Chinese naval ambitions around South East Asia and the Strait of Malacca—through which one quarter of European maritime trade flows. This means that it is impractical for the European Union not to also evolve into a global power, for failure to do so will lead to our eclipse, and our reduction into a weak and divided power in the wider world. The corollary of this is that our values and normative desires will count for less, and we shall lose the ability to enforce them or to encourage their adoption. After all, there is nothing incompatible between ‘model’ or ‘normative’ and superpower status; indeed, it could be said that each depends on the other, in a fundamentally reciprocal relationship.

Britain: The European power

Dr. Brendan Simms, a colleague of mine, and the Newton Sheehy Teaching Fellow at the Centre of International Studies, University of Cambridge, has recently had published his latest book, entitled Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783. Taking several years to research and complete, it is undoubtedly his longest tome, at approximately 230,000 words, or 802 pages, and charts the emergence of Britain as the dominant political, industrial and military power in Europe during the middling years of the eighteenth century.

The key argument in Three Victories and a Defeat is that contrary to popular belief—a belief which took a firm hold in the latter Victorian era with works such as Sir John Seely’s The Expansion of England—Britain has always been primarily a European power. While the eminence of its global reach cannot be denied, Britain’s grand strategy has always been to extend its security perimeter deep into what Dr. Simms calls the ‘Core of Europe’, that is to say, the Low Countries, the Holy Roman Empire, and surrounding areas. Additionally, he shows that geopolitics and the primacy of foreign policy trump domestic considerations in the driving forward of European history. It is worth citing him at some length, in order to explicate more thoroughly the evidence on which his synthesis is derived:

If eighteenth-century Britons were focussed on Europe, their primary preoccupation there was the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” (often referred to at the time simply as “Germany” or more commonly “the Empire”). In particular, they were concerned with the defence of the Low Countries: Flanders (which was part of the Holy Roman Empire) and the Dutch Republic. It was from Flemish ports that an invasion, by the Austrians, the French or (in earlier times) the Spanish, was most to be feared...Yet experience showed that the defence of Flanders, a territory over which British statesmen claimed joint sovereignty, necessitated a much broader strategic design for Europe. The Low Countries could not be defended by British forces alone, even with the support of the local population; the assistance of other major powers was required. For much of our period that power was Austria, and it therefore made sense to intervene in central Europe, militarily and diplomatically, in order to secure the House of Habsburg the necessary weight and resources to discharge that risk.

Moreover, the security of Flanders was inescapable from that of northern and north-western German, from whence it could be outflanked. The security of Britain thus rested on the management of the broader political commonwealth to which Flanders and its hinterland belonged: the German Empire. In short, even if the main threat came from further south, from Spain and especially France, Britain’s European policy was still first and foremost German policy. If the balance of power in Germany was overturned, then the European balance, and with it Britain’s continental bulwarks, would soon be in mortal danger. This would have been true even if the King of England had not been the Elector of the north German territory of Hanover. But it was also clear that in order to secure the Holy Roman Empire, the Baltic, the Mediterranean and the Balkans would need attention as well. It made sense, for example, to distract the Austrians in south-eastern Europe when they were a threat to the Empire, and to relieve them of French-inspired distractions there when they were not. Britons found that they could not conceive of Germany without thinking of Europe as a whole, and that they could not pursue a European policy without putting Europe at the heart of it.

The strategic and political centrality of eighteenth-century Britons was embedded in a shifting mental map. Their horizons gradually spread even further eastwards, northwards and southwards, as well as across the oceans. At the same time, British statesmen strove to maintain and deepen the cohesiveness of the United Kingdom and its overseas possessions upon which the effective exercise of military and political muscle depended. The domestic divisions within the British Isles, between Jacobites and supporters of the Protestant succession; between Whigs and Tories; between metropolis and colonial periphery; between king and ministers; and between individual members, were all part of this world-view. And no matter how hard they tried to insure against adversity, and anticipate new events, British statesmen, parliamentarians and the public knew that any number of strategic wild card—a diplomatic revolution, a lost battle, the sudden death of the monarch, a palace coup or rebellion—might overturn their calculations. For the individual, the price for failure in this environment might be loss of power, disgrace, imprisonment, and even execution; for the state it could be partition and even extinction.[1]

This new and powerful historical narrative has much resonance, even for today. Unfortunately, many Eurosceptics and Europhobes have long seen and continue to see Britain as at best peripheral to European affairs; they imagine that the United Kingdom has more important roles to perform overseas, that it is primarily a global power and international trading nation. Some even see British interests as being more closely aligned to those of the United States, and seem captured by the ‘American Dream’ in a way that even their forefathers might have had trouble coming to terms with. This is not to engage in self-referential and impoverished anti-Americanism, but rather to show that Europeans of all stripes and colours—particularly Britons—should look to themselves with confidence before looking at supposedly greener grass elsewhere. As is shown in Three Victories and a Defeat:

Indeed, much of the current British debate on Europe would have struck and informed eighteenth-century observer as remarkably familiar, if slightly the same. Should Britain engage militarily, politically and financially with Europe? Or should she look to her maritime destiny and seek her future with America? Was Britain politically and psychologically part of Europe, or in some way and island apart? These were questions which exercised Britons some three hundred years ago as much as they do today. On the one hand, there were those who were convinced that British security and prosperity could only be achieved through engagement in Europe. On the other hand, there was a vocal but increasingly important minority, who believed that the nation’s destiny lay in commercial, colonial and naval expansion. It is this strain which has been most audible in the past hundred and fifty years or so...The prevailing sense has been that English and then British history should be viewed in an insular and maritime context.[2]

However, as Dr. Simms points out, this perspective is mistaken, and is perhaps even antithetical to British interests:

To resist this confection is not to deny the importance of the navy, commerce and overseas empire in the development of modern Britain since 1700, or even earlier. All these dimensions need to be taken into account. Rather, it is to question the connections between these factors, and to suggest that a forward policy in Europe best secured Britain’s maritime predominance, whereas a narrow focus on ruling the waves was in fact the best way of losing them to her rivals. It is to recognise that the sea was not a bulwark at all. Rather it was a highway connecting Britain not only to the wider world, but more importantly to her immediate neighbours: a bridge, not a moat. “Rule Britannia” had it wrong: the “main” which mattered most to Britons was not the shimmering “Spanish main” of unlimited colonial opportunity, but the European “mainland” to which they belonged politically, if not geographically. In short, Britain’s first and most important lines of defence lay not in her “wooden walls”, but in Europe itself.[3]

The experiences and lessons learned during the period in question have often been forgotten—especially as peripheral and imperial concerns clouded British judgement during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Brendan Simms shows that by the middle of the eighteenth century, Britain had fostered a comprehensive and sophisticated set of assumptions which formed the prism through which London’s grand strategy was by and large directed:

By mid-century a coherent British strategic culture had emerged. It was firmly Eurocentric: it gave absolute priority to preventing the growth of a hegemon on the Continent. It was mainly, though not exclusively Whig: after all the arch-Whig in domestic matters, Robert Walpole, was something of a Tory in foreign policy. In this strategy political, diplomatic and fiscal instruments counted as much as military or naval ones; sometimes more so. It was restrained and conscious of the limits of British power. The colonial and naval spheres were subordinated to the Continental theatre; at the same time, the Continental strategy ensured continued naval superiority. Underpinning everything was a powerful sense of structure: Europe was conceived as an overall balance with a combination of regional balances. British statesmen thought and spoke of Europe in terms of “systems”, “barriers” and “natural allies”. Rather than being fixed on the “moat” of the surrounding “silver sea”, they conceived of the European mainland itself as an integral part of Britain’s defences—a “rampart”, just as sixteenth- and seventeenth-century ancestors had before them.[4]

What is surprising is that this highly developed strategic culture was not to last very long. Having served Great Britain so successfully during the years in question, it began to break down after the Seven Years’ War. As Dr. Simms goes on to say:

After 1763, the Eurocentric strategic paradigm fragmented. It had long been under attack from those who believed in a more colonial and naval destiny for Britain. Insular rhetoric now became the prevailing tone in public...All this was accompanied by an over-reliance on naval deterrence. The navy had been a useful weapon, but there were limits to what it could achieve. France and Spain did not remain intimidated for long. Naval power could not prevent the occupation of Corsica in 1768 just as it was powerless to end covert and later open Bourbon assistance to the Americans...Of course, British strategic culture did not change overnight, British statesmen continued to see Europe as their primary focus, but they were now working within a context which was more stridently colonial and maritime than anything they had previously known.[5]

It is argued in Three Victories and a Defeat that this growing preoccupation with naval and colonial practice at the expense of European affairs led Britain to disaster during the Thirteen Colonies’ War of Independence in the 1770s and 1780s. Isolated in Europe and having made many enemies with aggressive naval expeditions in the years previous—enemies which were not settled or placated—Britain faced a huge alliance of hostile powers, which would eventually impress on the country to relinquish its first overseas colonial empire. Contrary to American national myths, it was not a ragtag gaggle of supposedly freedom-loving colonists in the New World that fought the ‘redcoats’ to gain their independence, but was rather the combined power of France, Spain and the Dutch who created a United States, having choked the sealanes and fed the Americans with supplies, soldiers and advice. The colonies were thus not lost in America, but in Europe.

Here, it is with the closing of the period under scrutiny that one detects a deeper play of irony and meaning in the title of Dr. Simms’ book. For the British defeat of 1783 was not only a defeat for British prestige, power and authority, but was also a defeat—even if not fully realised at the time—for the new ‘navalist’ strategic paradigm developed after the Seven Years’ War. The British victories in the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, which helped to construct Britain’s highly sophisticated and Eurocentric strategic culture, were also swept away with the loss of the Thirteen Colonies. What is more, their loss did not teach late eighteenth-century Britons many lessons: While there was some movement back to a Eurocentric culture during the Napoleonic Wars, the navalist, globalist and colonialist imaginary regained its traction as the nineteenth century progressed, and perhaps culminated with the concept of ‘Splendid Isolation’, which turned out to be neither very splendid nor isolated, as the United Kingdom got sucked into Europe-centred world wars it had little power to prevent.

In any case, while an exemplary historical narrative and analysis in its own right, it is clear that Three Victories and a Defeat throws much light onto both British relations with the rest of Europe and the importance of the European Union to Britain in the modern world. A common strategy employed by British Eurosceptics and Europhobes like EU Referendum and Global Vision is to deny Britain’s European heritage and to present other Europeans as weak, irrelevant and Machiavellian, that is, plotting to undermine British customs and power. Another connected approach is to assert the primacy of Britain’s global connections and its relations with other parts of the so-called ‘Anglosphere’ of America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Anti-European arguments are pinned on the idea that Britain should withdraw from Europe, especially politically, and look across the seas, specifically North America. What Brendan Simms does is to show that this approach is not only historically dishonest, but that it has even been detrimental to British foreign policy and grand strategy. Britain has always been, and is first and foremost, a European power.

The governing idea of Britain’s first eighteenth-century strategic culture was to prevent the emergence of a European hegemon; it has never been in British interests to allow the development of a European Leviathan, which could gain the power to invade and occupy the British homeland. Britain has always sought to prevent universal sovereignty on the European mainland, whether Spanish, Austrian, French, German, Nazi or Soviet. Today, out of the ashes of World War II and the Cold War, a new universal order has emerged, which is even more extensive than that of Imperial Rome. The European Union spreads from the Arctic to the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic to the Russian rimlands. What is different is that this hegemon has Britain at its heart. This means that the United Kingdom must engage far more in contemporary European affairs, particularly given that British economic and demographic power are projected to surge ahead of every other European Union Member State over the next thirty years. To reject the rest of Europe—which still contains the greatest concentration of wealth and resources in the world—in favour of any alternative like the fanciful ‘Anglosphere’ would be pure folly. As the European Union’s Member State with the greatest military power, Britain should thrust its full weight into the enterprise of European integration, helping to fashion the European Union into a superpower, able to speak as the equal of any giant, today or tomorrow.

This is perhaps Dr. Simms’ most important conclusion: It is only through exercising influence on the continent of which Britain is a part—today meaning the European Union—that the United Kingdom can effectively exercise global power. Extrapolated, it is only by gaining greater leverage over the nascent European government in Brussels that British interests can be protected, defended and extended in partnership with other Europeans, particularly Germany, France, Poland and the Netherlands. Moreover, given the rapid rise of China, the aggressive re-emergence of Russia and the infiltration of Islamism into the rimlands around the European Union, it is only through pooling power and compentences at the European level that Britons and other Europeans will be able to protect themselves and shape the world of tomorrow. The real guardians of British—and of course, European—interests are not therefore the globalists, Eurosceptics and the Europhobes, but the Europeanists. Three Victories and a Defeat ends with a powerful statement, which contemporary Britons would do well to remember (pointer: Brussels is located in the middle of Flanders):

Britain’s security depended on maintaining her “ramparts” in Europe. It was there, in Germany and Flanders, in the “counterscarp” of England, that Britain’s fate would be decided, always had been and always would be.[6]

And if Britain’s ‘ramparts’ have long been in Flanders, the European Union’s ‘ramparts’ are also further afield. The ‘counterscarp’ of Europe reaches out and spans the European Neighbourhood, pressing deeply into the great residual space we should define as the European Union’s ‘Grand Area’, which includes Russia, Central Asia, the broader Middle East and Africa, as well as East Asia. We Europeans need to foster a sophisticated grand strategy to enable our exercising of influence over these geographical spaces, not only for the sake of our collective security and defence, but also for our social cohesion and to facilitate the production of our industrial power and economic wealth.

• Click here to see Nick Cohen’s review of Three Victories and a Defeat in today’s edition of The Observer.

[1] Brendan Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat (London, 2007), pp. 4-5.
[2] Ibid., p. 2.
[3] Ibid., p. 3.
[4] Ibid., pp. 673-674.
[5] Ibid., p. 676.
[6] Ibid., p. 684.