A recipe for national suicide?

So, yesterday, the Institute for Public Policy Research revealed their long-awaited report on the future of British security strategy. While I have not read the entire report, I have thoroughly reviewed the Executive Summary, which contains a ream of ‘recommendations’. I was expecting some innovative and forward-looking insights on the future of the world system and how the British government should respond to those challenges. Instead, I was deeply disappointed: rather than innovation, I saw a mishmash of runaway internationalism and wishful thinking, combined with outmoded 1990s security thinking, with too much emphasis on failed states and terrorism. It would seem that the Islamist attacks of 11th September 2001, 11th March 2004 and 7th July 2005 have had an even greater impact on British minds than they did on the strategists of the United States!

The respected authors of the report—people like Lord Ashdown and Lord Robertson—tell us that Britain should consider scrapping its nuclear weapons, as well as its aircraft carrier programme, its cruise-missile-firing submarine programme and its brand new ‘Daring’ class air defence destroyers (these are already under construction and some have already been built!). Apparently, these weapons are old fashioned and are no longer required. I can only wonder how such esteemed minds could come to such a conclusion, particularly when they advocate that the United Kingdom should begin thinking more seriously about greater participation in the European Union’s foreign, security and defence policies.

As such, I completely agree that Britain should reduce its reliance on the so-called ‘special relationship’ with the United States. Here, the report’s authors are spot-on and should be highly commended in raising this issue. Not only has the Anglo-American relationship become one-sided, but—as I have already argued elsewhere—Washington’s geostrategic priorities are beginning to shift towards East Asia, especially with the rise of China. As the report asserts, Britain must carefully position itself at the heart of European defence efforts, and work far more closely with France to achieve a stronger European military capability, backed up with an iron will when we are required to use it.

But to do this, Europeans will continue to require expensive and sophisticated technological strategic platforms like aircraft carriers and cruise-missile-firing submarines. These have been used in almost every conflict since the end of the Cold War; indeed, the full-size aircraft carrier is probably more useful now than during that period. France’s nuclear carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, was used to attack Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, and British aircraft carriers were used extensively in the Balkans wars of the 1990s. Cruise-missile-firing submarines have grown increasingly important too: they allow a government to deliver precise, swift and crushing strikes on a range of targets almost anywhere within 1000 kilometres from the shore.

Europeans will also do well to retain their nuclear weapons, a capability currently provided alone by France and the United Kingdom. We have absolutely no idea how dangerous the world is going to be in ten, let alone twenty years, from now. It’s quite likely that we may be entering a very volatile world (dis)order, underpinned by a number of predatory continental-size Great Powers—such as China, Russia, India and the United States. The report does not seem to see this as a possibility, instead hoping that it is overcome by rising levels of interdependence. Perhaps this will be the case: but what if it isn’t? A naval arms race is already underway in Asia; Russia is claiming large swathes of the Arctic; and China, India, America and Europe are all struggling to gain access to natural resources. Could we rule out even a new nuclear arms race in a few years, especially if smaller countries—such as North Korea, Iran, and Pakistan—increase their own capabilities and stockpiles, in turn leading the bigger powers to enlarge their own arsenals to compensate?

So recommending that the nation sells off its strategic silver is probably misconstrued at best, but then things get really ‘interesting’. The report goes on to stress a number of other British security objectives. One of these is that the United Kingdom should encourage the United States to sign the ‘Covenant on the Rights of the Child’. Maybe I’m missing something, but I fail to see how this will increase British and European security in any way, let alone prepare us for the potential conflicts of tomorrow?

In short, the report strikes me as far too short-term in its orientation, with its authors remaining too mesmerised by the globalisation hysteria of the latter 1990s. Far from having led us to a better world, globalisation’s track record has been very mixed. If the British government implements many of the report’s recommendations—not least the effective scrapping of the Royal Navy and the nuclear deterrent—Britain will almost definitely lose its position as a Great Power. If the authors of the report have this as their secret agenda—robbing the nation of the instruments needed to engage overseas—then I'm almost certain that Moscow and Beijing will be rubbing their hands with glee. But worst of all, the loss of Britain’s military power will also reduce its ability to shape the European Union as a credible military actor.

We may be faced with new challenges like climate change and Islamist terrorism, which in turn my require new instruments and institutions, but reducing our capacity to fight the older threats—like foreign governments, which are potentially more dangerous—is a profound mistake. The answer rests in higher and more efficient defence spending, along with greater British participation and leadership at the European level.