Category Archives: Foreign Affairs

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, Foreign Affairs, Iraq, Islamic State, Syria, United States

Western intervention in Iraq…

IRAQ

The UK Government, backed by the official opposition, has returned to the scene of one of our worst foreign policy misadventures. British fighter jets are once again dropping bombs on Iraq.

We should remember that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the chaotic dismantling of the Ba’athist state, was meant to be an exercise in enlightened ‘liberal intervention’.

Today, however, Iraq is a broken and corrupt state, and is a country that is ravaged by sectarian conflict. Its border with Syria, fractured by perpetual civil war, no longer exists. A self-declared caliphate has been established by Islamic State (IS), a group of barbarous Sunni supremacists, who are highly motivated and well-trained. Many of the militants are from Europe, and the overarching objective of IS is one of genocide. Air strikes may have halted their advances in northern Iraq and parts of Syria but the militants will inevitably regroup, just as the Taliban has done in Afghanistan.

The Yazidis, a group of ancient religious minorities, along with Christians and Kurds, are being persecuted, murdered or cleansed from their ancestral homes. For these groups this is now an existential struggle for survival.

Throughout the region, too, tensions fester. The conflict between Sunnis and Shias shows no sign of abating, and President Assad and his fellow Alawites, a heterodox Shia sect, are holding onto power in what is largely left of Syria. Assad is holding on largely through the proxy support of Iran and through Lebanon’s Shia militia Hezbollah, which itself has sustained heavy losses fighting rebel groups in Syria.

The convolutions and corrupt autocracies within the Gulf, some of whom have been funding and arming the various anti-Assad groupings but now fear blowback, have joined Barack Obama’s fight against Islamic State. Saudi Arabia, for instance, looks both ways on terrorism: it musters all in its power to promote Wahhabism worldwide while simultaneously posing as an ally of the US and Britain, from which it buys fighter jets and other military hardware. For some, IS became a product of Saudi foreign policy.

We should wonder whether President Obama has a coherent strategy for the Middle East. The President was, after all, deeply reluctant to become embroiled and sucked into another Middle East war. In August last year, the US and British were preparing to intervene in Syria on the side of the rebels after the murderous Assad regime used chemical weapons against his own people in Aleppo. Now, the US-led coalition is bombing IS and the al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra in Iraq and Syria, while remaining (ostensibly) opposed to President Assad.

Given the disastrous interventionist approach in both Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003, citizens of the Western world should be asking what Mr Obama’s plan is. What stamina does the US have for nation-building in the Middle East? How does it intend to tackle and defeat IS when its hardened fighters are so adept at melting back into the civilian population and when the president steadfastly refuses to countenance the use of US ground troops? What plan does America have for brokering peace between Sunni and Shia factions in Iraq? And what of geopolitical and diplomatic relations with Iran, without which there can be no lasting peace in the Middle East? Turkey, too, a NATO ally, needs to be fully engaged. The ultimate solution to the conflicts in the Middle East must come from within the region itself.

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Without our aerial support, responsibility for containing IS falls on Iraq’s weak army, overstretched and poorly equipped Kurdish peshmerga fighters, the forces of Syrian tyrant Bashar al-Assad, and a ragtag coalition of secular Syrian militias. Whilst the West should continue to support the Kurds diplomatically and arm their fighters, this alone will not be enough to prevent the genocide of the religious minority groups. If IS is allowed to gain strength and momentum, its deadly threats may well soon extend beyond the Middle East.

Following the democratic debate in the House of Commons Britain is right to join the US air strikes in Iraq. The Baghdad government’s plea for help and assistance makes this war legal. The campaign also has broad regional support, and is a last resort, given that you cannot negotiate with a ruthless and barbaric terrorist organisation.

The UK’s involvement is an admission of culpability for the condition of Iraq. Iraq is what it is now because of what has transpired since that ill-judged invasion of 2003. But while the British Parliament has been eager to support the Americans in the most of limited circumstances, i.e. it has backed intervention in Iraq but not in Syria, with the RAF having allocated six GR4 Tornados, based in Cyprus, to deal specifically with IS positions in Iraq, anything beyond this symbolic support would be a profound mistake. No matter how enthusiastic the Prime Minister is to engage IS in Syria, there is no desire or willingness among the British people for British involvement in a regional and intra-Islamic conflict that David Cameron has already said could last 30-years or more.

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Britain, China, Economic, Foreign Affairs, Hong Kong

China should honour its promise of free and democratic elections in Hong Kong…

HONG KONG

For more than two decades, China’s Communist Party rulers have relied on the rapidly rising prosperity of the masses in an economic boom that has been effective in marginalising any dissent there may have been over their dictatorial rule. Given this rising affluence, the Chinese people have appeared content to do without the need to fight for democracy and liberty.

But the tide has changed, as events in Hong Kong have shown. Sustained protest is being made against the determined approach of the Beijing government to control elections to Hong Kong’s 70-seat legislature by screening and vetting all candidates. This implies it will merely reject those candidates it does not like.

The disruption caused by the tens of thousands of protestors – who have blocked main roads and shut down parts of the business district – presents a challenging if not severe dilemma to Beijing.

The Chinese government could suppress the protests, but if it does so in the violent and intemperate way it suppressed the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, it will not only draw worldwide condemnation but severely damage Hong Kong’s economy. Through trade and commerce Beijing earns a lot of money from Hong Kong and will be determined that this position is maintained.

If it allows the protests to continue, it risks the same pro-democracy movement spreading to its mainland and cities, a fear which has been countered by the government’s shutting down of social media networks.

For the moment, Beijing seems to be relying on Hong Kong’s police to contain the demonstrations and to gradually reduce them with mass arrests, while keeping the People’s Liberation Army and its tanks in their barracks.

This is an opportunity for the Chinese government to show that it is a mature country fit to play a leading role on the world stage. It can demonstrate this by treating the protestors with respect. The agreement signed when Britain handed the colony to China promised democratic and free elections. That pledge should be honoured.

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