Hats off to the First Sea Lord

Today, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jonathan Band, had published an article in The Guardian on the ongoing need for a powerful naval fleet. This comes at a time when ‘sea-blindedness’ has risen both in Britain and across much of the rest of the European Union—paradoxically during a time when Europeans are more dependent on the sea than ever before. So Admiral Band is to be congratulated; rarely in a comment piece is strategic thinking expressed so elegantly, crisply and clearly. Here are a few snippets from the article:

Strategy is often misunderstood; it is about consequences and outcomes, the plan by which all the instruments of national power—diplomatic, intellectual military and economic—are to be employed in achieving identified goals in support of the national interest.

[...]

Our focus on enduring campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan should not blind us to the longer-term implications of the U.K.’s geostrategic reality. Our ability to deploy globally and use the seas in support of operations is key to the success of the armed forces in war and time of tension; whether it means dropping Royal Marines into Iraq from carriers in the Gulf, as we did in 2003, or using warships to evacuate U.K. nationals from Lebanon in 2006. The sea can be a barrier or a highway, depending on who controls it, so the Royal Navy can shape future events as well as determine them.

[...]

But, even more fundamentally, the global sea lanes are the arteries along which the economy of this island nation flows. We are increasingly and heavily reliant on imported raw materials, goods, food and especially energy. We live in a “just enough, just in time economy”—if the sea lanes are denied to us, the supermarket shelves fall empty and the lights go out...At the same time, the scramble for resources and valuable raw materials is increasingly being played out at sea: the “cod wars” of the 1970s have given way to disputed maritime boundary claims as states vie to establish their access to the sea and the mineral and food wealth beneath it. In the Pacific and Indian oceans, states are expanding maritime forces and establishing strategically positioned naval bases to promote and protect their growing influence and wealth.

All good stuff! Then he goes in for the crescendo:

In the final analysis, a capable fleet is as much about deterring aggression and influencing friends as it is about delivering combat power at sea or from the sea. While we will always need to fight and win if necessary, when it comes to the future we shouldn’t overlook the value to this country of the wars we won’t have to fight as a result of using the Royal Navy strategically as an instrument of national power.

I couldn’t have put it better myself! Maritime power is a primarily a deterrent and a preventative instrument, which is used to project presence around the world. Naval power makes a community strong by extending its political and economic leverage, while simultaneously contributing to its social cohesion and cultural dynamism. All the great powers of antiquity—Athens, Rome, the Hanseatic League, Ming China, Spain, the Netherlands, and the French and British Empires, and the United States—have been at their strongest when their naval reach was at its greatest. This geopolitical fact will be no different for the twenty-first century’s great powers; indeed, any power risking its naval strength for its short term interests will soon cease to be a power at all.

• Please click here to read the rest of the First Sea Lord’s article.

The rise of the New Old Threats?

Last Wednesday, I went to speak at a seminar on maritime security organised by the Institut des hautes études de défense national (French Institute for Higher Defence Studies or IHEDN) and the new Swedish Presidency of the European Union. I was invited to present my work on the renewed geopolitical competition between the Chinese, Indians, Americans, Japanese, Australians and South Koreans in the Suez-Shanghai zone and its possible implications for the European Union.

Both the Swedish Presidency and the IHEDN should be congratulated for placing renewed emphasis on maritime security during a time when many Europeans are seemingly blinded to the sea. Freedom of manoeuvre on the world’s oceans is absolutely critical to European security, and particularly to European economic prosperity given that over ninety percent of imports and exports reach us and leave us by the sea. And many of these goods flow along the main European-Asian shipping route, through the notorious Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

As a related issue, the European Union’s first naval operation, to repress pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden, has also drawn renewed focus on maritime security—as one of the speakers, Commander Snowy Lintern, the current Liaison Officer to the European Union operation off Somalia’s coast, so aptly pointed out during his presentation to the conference last Tuesday.

As Commander Lintern showed, the European Union has become the leading power in the multinational task force to reduce pirate activity and provide a more secure waterway along the world’s premier sea route. Not only does the European Union now have more warships in the Gulf of Aden than any other power, but it also forms the nexus of an expanding anti-piracy operation involving the United States, India, Japan, China and Russia, as well as a few other smaller countries. As a consequence of these efforts, pirate attacks have dropped. In 2008, one in three pirate attacks was successful; by Spring 2009 only one in six succeeded; and today, only one in ten prevails. This is clearly a significant reduction and the European Union has proved itself as a credible maritime and naval power, while Britain—which provides the operational headquarters for the mission—has learnt that it can achieve far more militarily with its European partners than alone.


Me speaking to the Maritime Security Seminar in Brussels
But what does the return of piracy and the emerging geopolitical struggle in Eurasia represent? In short, I think it may suggest that we are about to enter an age of rising discord and tension, where the so-called ‘new threats’ like failed states and Islamist terrorism become the Old New Threats. Instead, what we may now be witnessing is the rise of the New Old Threats, such as inter-state conflict (think of the Russian invasion of Georgia last year, or the naval arms race in Asia) and piracy on the high seas. Unfortunately, if the world is about to move into a more volatile era—say, akin to the period 1890-1914—Europeans are woefully unprepared. Our security doctrines even state that conflicts and struggles between states are almost a thing of the past—or at least unlikely for at least another fifteen years! But who can say? Who knows what the future holds?

After all, who foresaw World War I in 1899; World War II in 1924; the Vietnam War in 1944; the Falklands War in 1967; the Gulf War in 1976 or the Afghanistan War in 1986, and so on? The answer: very few, if anyone. And even if someone did suspect that troubles were resting over the horizon—as, say, Bismarck did in the 1890s—it was more of an educated guess than an accurate prediction or a prophesy. So where am I going with all this? In short, I am trying to point out that Europeans still need to retain strong armed forces (particularly naval forces), which are able to fight conventional foes, ‘old-fashioned’ challenges, and/or the New Old Threats. For, in comparison to terrorism and failed states, the more conventional challenges would damage the European order in a way that the so-called ‘new threats’ never could...

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.