Category Archives: Britain

Britain, Europe, Foreign Affairs, Government, NATO, Politics, Society, United States

Britain’s shrinking influence on the global stage…

BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY

SOME two decades ago the British foreign secretary, Douglas Herd, decreed that Britain should aim to ‘punch above its weight in the world’. Today the country seems hesitant, reluctant even, to enter the ring. Some, such as a recently retired British NATO chief, have even complained that the prime minister, David Cameron, has become a ‘foreign-policy irrelevance’. America continues to despair of Britain’s shrinking armed forces and has openly criticised Britain’s ‘constant accommodation’ of China. Allies are worried, and so they should be given world events as they are. For example, consider Britain’s non-adoptive approach over events between Russia and Ukraine.

Yet, despite the world’s tensions, the country’s politicians, who are fighting to win a general election on May 7th, appear unbothered by those expressing concern. That is a mistake. Britain’s diminishing global clout and influence has become a big problem, both for the country and the world.

A powerful force in relative decline, Britain’s propensity is to veer between hubristic intervention abroad and anxious introspection at home. Following Tony Blair’s expeditionary misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts which cost us heavily, Britain’s coalition government was always going to shun grand schemes. Now, it would seem, is that our ruling politicians are not so much cautious, but apathetic, ineffective and fickle.

The prime minister did make a brave and passionate case for armed intervention and assistance in toppling the Libyan regime of Muammar Qaddafi. But like so many other examples concerning foreign intervention he did not reckon for the day after and Libya is now in a state of internecine civil war. He led America to believe that Britain would support it in bombing raids over Syria, only to find that his parliamentary vote was bungled by strong political opposition. Britain may have been one of the moving forces behind the workings of the 1994 Budapest memorandum, which ostensibly guaranteed Ukraine’s security when it gave up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, but the prime minister has been almost absent in dealing with Russian revanchist aggression against it. Last year, too, as host of a NATO summit in Wales, David Cameron urged the alliance’s members to pledge at least 2% of their GDP to defence. Just months later, a fiscally straightened Britain intent on deficit reduction at all costs looks poised even to break its own rule.

David Cameron’s pledge of an in-out referendum on Europe if he wins the election has given the impression of Britain being semi-detached. Rather than counteracting that position through vigorous diplomacy, the prime minister has reinforced it. In European Union summits, for instance, he has often been underprepared and zealously overambitious. His rather humiliating and embarrassing attempt to block Jean-Claude Juncker from becoming EU president of the Commission left him with only Hungary for company as a dissenting voice. Mr Cameron’s insistence of pulling the Conservatives out of the EU’s main centre-right political group has had the unintended effect of cutting Britain out of vital discussions with other centre-right leaders, such as Angela Merkel of Germany.

And what of Labour? Ed Miliband, the party’s leader, may well be pro-European, but he has no more connection of American foreign policy than Mr Cameron does. He apologises for Labour’s interventionist history so strenuously and unreservedly that he leaves little or no room for liberal intervention. And, of course, differing arguments abound from all political parties over the submarine-based nuclear-missile system that is seen by the Conservative Party as a pillar of Britain’s relations with America and NATO – an argument that swings to total rejection when it comes to the Scottish Nationalist Party, a position which rankles right-wing politicians as the SNP could end up propping-up a potential Labour minority government through confidence and supply motions.

Those who defend the prime minister say that Britons are war weary and impoverished. What do they say, then, of Mrs Merkel and François Hollande, the French president, who have shown that you can have an active foreign policy while dealing with an economic crisis?

Liberal values and promoting international co-operation require defending, especially so just now. New emerging powers, particularly China, want a far bigger say in how the world works. By seizing Crimea at will, and invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s Russia has challenged norms of behaviour that were established after the Versailles Treaty and Second World War. If Britain now refuses to stand up for its values, it will inherit and become part of a world that will be less to its liking.

Britain is still well placed to make a difference. With a great diplomatic tradition, a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and reasonably strong ties to Europe and America, Britain ought to be pushing hard to extend open trade, human rights and international law as well as providing impetus towards new agendas against crime, terrorism and climate change.

If Britain is to make its voice heard, it needs to bulk up its diplomacy and armed forces. Pledging to spend 2% of GDP on defence may seem arbitrary but it is a crucial sign to America and other countries that Britain is prepared to pull its weight in exchange for NATO’s guarantee of joint security. This should make more sense than the obscure commitment to spend a lavish amount of 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid.

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Britain, History, Military, Second World War, Society, United States

Dresden and the Allied bombings of World War II…

70 YEARS ON

Today, the blossoming of Dresden in the east of Germany stands in stark contrast to how the city looked from the ruins of the Allied bombings towards the end of World War II.

British and American bombers dropped 3,900 tonnes of explosives on the Saxony city during four raids on 13th-15th February 1945, killing an estimated 25,000 people and reducing the city to rubble.

The bombing, ordered by Royal Air Force marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris, was widely criticised because of the indiscriminate and ‘blanket bombing’ which hit civilian areas as well as military targets – killing thousands of innocents.

Over two days and nights in February 1945, 722 heavy bombers of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and 527 of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), turned the city into a sea of flames and rubble.

The resulting firestorm is said to have reached temperatures of over 1,500C (2,700F), destroying over 1,600 acres of the city centre.

The victims – mostly women and children – died in savage firestorms whipped up by the intense heat of 2,400 tons of high explosive and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs.

It was initially claimed that up to 250,000 civilians lost their lives in the Dresden bombings but an official report released after the war showed the casualty figure was in fact closer to between 22,500 and 25,000.

A police report written shortly after the bombings showed that the city centre firestorm had destroyed almost 12,000 houses, including 640 shops, 18 cinemas, 39 schools, 26 public houses and the city zoo.

The destruction of Dresden has been subjected to much fierce debate in the 70 years since the war. No one has ever been charged over the bombings, but several historians both in Germany and former Allied nations hold the opinion that the bombing was a war crime.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, ultimately responsible for the attack, distanced himself from the bombing of Dresden shortly afterwards.

An RAF memo issued to airmen on the night of the attack said:

… ‘Dresden, the seventh largest city in Germany and not much smaller than Manchester is also the largest unbombed built-up area the enemy has got. In the midst of winter with refugees pouring westward and troops to be rested, roofs are at a premium, not only to give shelter to workers, refugees, and troops alike, but to house the administrative services displaced from other areas.

… At one time, and well known for its china, Dresden has developed into an industrial city of first-class importance…. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed front… and incidentally to show the Russians when they arrive what Bomber Command can do.’

Bomber Command, which suffered the highest casualty rate of any British unit, losing 55,573 of its 125,000 men, eventually gained a memorial in 2012, but sections of society in Britain were outraged and disgusted with public recognition being given to such attacks. It is the view of many that such a memorial should never have been authorised by the British Government because of the attacks on civilians and on non-strategic targets.

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Britain, European Union, Government, Politics, Society

Should Britain leave the EU?

(From the archives) Originally posted on January 17, 2012 by markdowe

THE UK AND THE EU

Argument for the UK to leave the EU… The European Union was sold to the British people as an economic proposition. In exchange for giving up a measure of democratic self-government, it was assumed that the UK would be part of a flourishing trade bloc. The credibility of that argument has been seriously eroded – if not mortally wounded – as most British people associate the EU with a loss of sovereignty and a loss of prosperity. The argument for saying that the UK should leave the EU goes much deeper than the euro crisis – though that has certainly damaged the credibility of those EU pragmatists who, a decade ago, were assuring us that we would be ruined if we kept pound sterling. When Britain joined the European Union in 1973, Western Europe accounted for 40% of world GDP. Today that figure is 25%, and in 2020 it is projected to be just 18%. In retrospect, we could not have picked a worse moment to join. Western Europe had grown spectacularly during the three decades after the Second World War, the years of Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder. But following the OPEC oil crisis in the 1970s, it never properly got going again. Far from joining a dynamic market, we have confined ourselves in a cramped and declining customs union. In doing so, we have stood aside from the parts of the world which are still growing—not least the Anglosphere markets to which we are connected by affinities of habit, outlook and commercial practice. The inauguration in the 1950s of the European Economic Community (EEC) allowed a strong case to be made for regional blocs. Now, though, that case has been undermined and overtaken by technology. With the internet having removed the problem over distance, geographical proximity is not an issue in a globalised market in which Capital can surge around the planet at the mere touch of a button. A company located in the UK can deal as easily with one located within its own shores as it can with a firm located anywhere else. London has the benefit of being English-speaking. Others around the world will have similar accountancy techniques and use compatible common-law arbitration methods. The alternative to EU membership is a free-trade arrangement, along the lines of that enjoyed by Switzerland. Under a series of bilateral accords negotiated in the 1990s, along with the more recent Schengen Agreement, the Swiss participate fully in the four freedoms of movement of the single market – goods, services, people and capital. However, the Swiss are outside the common agricultural and fisheries policies and the EU’s political structures, and pay only a token contribution to the EU budget. Whilst true, of course, that Swiss exporters must meet EU standards when selling to the EU – just as they must meet standards when selling to anybody else – they are not obliged to apply every EU directive or diktat to their domestic economy. But, critically, they are also free in signing trade accords with third countries, and often do so when they feel that the EU is being pedantic or excessively protectionist. Britain, by contrast, is bound by the common external tariff, and is often prevented from adopting a more liberal position by the interest of a cosseted producer elsewhere in the EU. In 2010, the Swiss exported four times as much per head to the EU as the British did. What credibility does that give to the argument that the UK’s exports to the continent depends on its participation in the EU’s political structures? It can hardly be the case that other member states might discriminate against those exports if the UK were to leave the EU. The UK would still be covered by World Trade Organisation (WTO) and European Economic Area (EEA) rules. More to the point, perhaps, is that Britain’s trade with the EU, which was in surplus before it joined, has been in deficit in all but one of the subsequent years. In 2010, the UK ran a deficit of some £52.4 billion with the EU, but a net surplus of £15.7 billion with the rest of the world. Over the period to which Britain has held membership of the EU it has had a cumulative surplus with every continent except Europe. The UK’s trade deficit would not be a reason for leaving the EU. But it gives the lie to any notion that the other members would seek to restrict cross-Channel trade when they are the chief beneficiaries. Some might say that the EU is showing its age. Essentially, it is a 1950s construct, and is falling rapidly behind in a competitive and globalised world. If Britain were to leave there is nothing stopping it from maintaining its trade links with other countries in the EU, its intergovernmental co-operation and its commitment to the military alliance. Argument for the UK to stay in the EU… The pro-Europeans would start this debate against the backdrop of much negative public polling. Nevertheless, for the UK to cut itself off from a market of some 500m people generating in excess of £10 trillion would not just say we had lost faith in Europe, it would say we had lost faith in the ability of British companies to ever out-compete, out-innovate and out-think their European competitors. To consider how the debate has shifted in recent years, we should look no further than in comparing two ICM polls ten years apart. According to one poll, today, 49% of the public would vote to get the UK out of the EU, against just 40% who would prefer that Britain stayed in. When the pollster asked a slightly different worded question in May 2001, some 68% to 19% of the public indicated Britain should remain a member of the EU, a 49 percentage point lead for the pro-Europeans. One might suggest that there is an implicit propensity among some pro-Europeans to blame the media, or even the voters, for the fact that support has been deteriorating. But are pro-European propositions being rejected because they are not being proposed anywhere near enough in a pro-European way? Not that this will help those advocates win the argument as to why Britain should be firmly embedded within the European Union. For those who support the UK as an active member doesn’t necessarily imply that they will be defending the status quo in Europe or saying that Europe does not need to reform and change. By being part of a wider and integrated union gives a member nation within it influence and real power. There are two dominant arguments that resonate in terms of Britain’s continued EU membership. The first is on access to the single market, and being a powerful voice in shaping rules by which it is governed. Only those who want to compete on low-skill, low-value added production could argue that having access to these markets without a voice in shaping the rules would be sufficient for Britain. But that’s lubricious. Clearly, with a market of 500m people, Britain needs its companies to be competitive, innovative and by being in a position to out-think their competitors across the EU. Having a voice means engaging in a pragmatic way that benefits contributory nations. The position of the British Government has become a little difficult to understand. It is now understood that, despite the prime minister’s assurances, the new draft EU treaty does include references to the single market – but, for reasons not yet clear, David Cameron has decided to walk away from the table. Laws on common standards, educational property and competition need to be underwritten – such as those involving the law, business and financial services, medical technology and within creative industries – but if the UK is not in the room when critical decisions are being made on such matters, it will lose the ability to shape them in a way that is most advantageous to British business. The second most pressing argument for the UK remaining part of the EU relates to finding ways in which the British voice can be heard. In an era of billion-person countries and multi trillion-dollar economies, this is most likely to happen if the UK is part of a £10 trillion economy rather than just a £1.5 trillion economy. The only logical way to change the rules of the game with large emerging economies (such as China) is to work closely with our European partners. That’s the only way, surely, that markets will be prised open in these countries. Political and economic leadership is about doing what you think is right rather than what you think might get you short-term popularity. See also:

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