Category Archives: Government

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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Government, Iran, Politics, Society, United Nations, United States

Iran and nuclear talks…

IRAN

Intro: Yet whatever comes of these negotiations will make it unlikely they will be seen as historic. If a comprehensive agreement is signed by the end of June it will be regarded as an important milestone passed on the way

The lengthy and protracted talks in Lausanne between Iran and six world powers in forging a deal to constrain its nuclear programme ran straight through the March 31st deadline. The cause of the overrun (and hence the need for more haggling) has been due to the tension between the fuzzy declaration of principles that the Iranians would prefer and the detailed framework agreement that the United States would need to persuade a sceptical Congress to postpone a vote on new sanctions on April 14th.

For Iran, any deal would require the staged lifting of sanctions. The Americans want precise numbers on how many uranium enrichment centrifuges Iran can activate, the exact quantities of uranium held and how much plutonium can be discharged at the reactor at Arak. At this stage, though, the Iranians want to avoid the specifics on its nuclear limits, while eager to secure firm commitments on the lifting of sanctions – particularly those imposed by the United Nations. For its part, the West wants automatic ‘snap-back’ on sanctions if any serious violation by Iran is detected, but Iran has rejected this demand.

Yet whatever comes of these negotiations will make it unlikely they will be seen as historic. If a comprehensive agreement is signed by the end of June it will be regarded as an important milestone passed on the way. But if the process collapses, the accord would amount to no more than a brave effort that met with failure.

The broad aim in Lausanne is to leave Iran free from most of the sanctions and far enough from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But the apparent inability to nail down critical details and the number of issues that remain unresolved means that the next phase of talks are likely to be even tougher. For America and its allies, forestalling Iran on the building of a nuclear weapon is first and foremost, as this would reduce the incentives for other regional powers, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to move towards the nuclear threshold themselves.

The yardstick is Iran’s ‘breakout capability’. This is the time it would take to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one device. Extending it from a couple of months, the situation today, to at least a year is a sensible and quantifiable goal. Iran had previously indicated it would cut its number of operating centrifuges to about 6,500. Not yet agreed is the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran will be allowed to stockpile – a variable which directly links to the number of centrifuges it can keep.

Iran requires low-enriched uranium for its medical and other civilian projects, but such stockpiles can easily be enriched to weapons grade material. However, the biggest problems which still need to be tackled lie elsewhere. There remains ambiguity about what rights the Iranians will have to continue nuclear research and development. Iran is working on centrifuges up to 20 times faster than today’s which they want to start deploying when the agreement’s first ten years are up. Better centrifuges would reduce the size of the covert enrichment facilities that Iran would need to build a weapon if it were so intent on escaping the agreement’s scriptures. That’s a real concern, as detection by the West would be far more difficult.

This leads to the issue on which everything else will eventually hinge. Iran has a long history of deception about its nuclear programme. For instance, it only declared its two enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow following exposure by U.S. intelligence. A highly intrusive inspection and verification regime is thus essential, and would have to continue long after other elements of an agreement expire. Compliance would mean inspectors from the IAEA being able to inspect any facility, declared or otherwise, civil or military, on demand.

IAEA powers are far more sweeping than those which exist under the safeguard agreements that are part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Under the ‘additional protocol’ granted to the IAEA, inspectors are allowed not only to verify that declared nuclear material is not being squirrelled away for military use but also to check for undeclared nuclear material and activities. In Iran’s case, such powers for the IAEA are seen as essential.

For a deal to be concluded in June, Tehran will have to consent to such a rigorous inspection regime. It will also have to address a string of questions posed by the IAEA over the ‘possible military dimensions’ of its nuclear programme. On March 23rd IAEA’s director, Yukiya Amano, said that Iran had only replied to one of those questions. Parchin, a military base which the IAEA believes may have been used for testing the high-explosive fuses that are needed to implode, and thus set off, the uranium or plutonium at the core of a bomb, remains strictly out of bounds. Nor has the agency been given access to some of Iran’s leading scientists such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the physicist and Revolutionary Guard officer who is alleged to be at the heart of the research on weapons development.

The IAEA’s report on Iran in February stated that it ‘remains concerned about the possible existence – of undisclosed nuclear-related activities – including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.’ Iran insists it will only sign up to strict new inspections when all the main elements of the deal are in place.

II

IT WOULD APPEAR that the talks in Lausanne concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions are nearing a deal. But there will be questions as to whether the agreement is a good one, or whether indeed it allows Iran to keep a stockpile of centrifuges that can then be used to produce weapons grade enriched uranium. Analysts will be scrutinising the deal for signs of how this agreement will help move towards global security.

Iran continues to insist that it wants the nuclear technology for power plants and peaceful purposes only. It would be fair to say that there is a degree of scepticism around that as, Israel, for instance, remains very concerned and has threatened to attack Iran if it feels that is the only way to protect itself from nuclear attack. Israel’s rhetoric should not just be taken as soundbites. Israel has carried out a number of airstrikes in protection of its sovereignty over the years as far back as 1981. Then it carried out the world’s first airstrike against a nuclear plant when its jets bombed a French-built site in Iraq. Perhaps under US pressure Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has not played up past threats to attack Iran.

Whilst the Israelis are not party to the talks that is not to say they are in favour of how the talks are going. The deal being proposed in Switzerland now has taken some 18-months to arrive at. Mr Netanyahu has reiterated his opposition to the draft, saying it ‘bears out all of our fears, and even more than that’. Others, like the British, insist that any deal must put the bomb beyond the reach of Iran. But the problem here is that Israel does not believe that the restrictions being imposed would do that if Iran chose to suddenly abandon the agreement and gear up its nuclear programme through clandestine means.

There are only eight countries that have successfully detonated nuclear weapons – the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. It is widely believed that Israel also has nuclear weapons, a point the country is deliberately vague about.

The sceptics will always say that any deal will simply legitimise parts of the process and therefore make it easier for Iran to build a nuclear weapon should it choose to do so. There will also be long-term doubts about keeping all the necessary equipment and expertise for bomb-making out of Iran. How can we ever be sure the sanctions being applied are effective and fully-working for which they were intended?

In a passive sense, and in the long-term, it is surely better to have negotiations that keep Iran talking to the international community, as isolation would probably work against long-term peace and security.

Putting the bomb beyond reach is imperative. And the processes involved to make sure that does indeed happen must be verifiable, with confidence and accountability in that verification process.

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Government, Intelligence, National Security, Society, Technology

Britain’s security and intelligence services: Responsibility not just power

SECURITY SERVICES

Intro: Given the extent of their reach and a recent parliamentary report into their activities an operational realignment is called for

Our security and intelligence agencies face greater challenges today than ever before. Advanced and sophisticated technology has become commonplace, and the world strains to keep up or nearly buckles under the weight of our digital communications. Monitoring the activities of terrorists, criminals and other malign forces have become difficult to spot because of the subversive methods they use in defying detection.

Bodies such as GCHQ, though, are hardly mere victims of the electronic advance. You may often hear security chiefs talking about their desperate searches for needles in haystacks, but the fact is they have an impressive operational capacity to cut through a lot of the chaff in order to find what they seek.

The Security and Intelligence Services (SIS) ability to obtain and examine vast swathes of raw data and processed information has been furiously debated ever since the revelations of Edward Snowden, the US fugitive, about how the British agency received data relating to UK citizens from America’s National Security Agency up to 2014 – a practice which was branded unlawful by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. Notwithstanding, there will always be a divergence of views between those who place primacy on GCHQ doing anything in its power to maintain public safety, and those who feel unease at the prospect of innocent people being subjected to continued intrusion.

Earlier this month a report on these matters by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee was a notable intervention. The committee members, like many of their peers across other government departments, believe that the bulk collection of data by GCHQ is legitimate and does not amount to unjustified, Orwellian surveillance. But they do appear to accept that the current legislation, which sets the parameters for such activities, is overly complex and lacks transparency. The legislation may have political oversight in regulating the activities of SIS, but its lack of public transparency and accountability was summed up well by the committee’s description of the existing legal framework. Intelligence agencies, they said, were being provided with a ‘blank cheque to carry out whatever activities they deem necessary’. In essence that is a damning indictment on the legislation that governs the work of our intelligence agencies. The committee has called for a new, single piece of legislation to replace and clarify current statutes as a matter of priority by the next government.

The discovery that a handful of intelligence officers have misused surveillance powers and have subsequently been disciplined by their superiors should also be of concern. The committee may speak reassuringly about the number of wrongdoers being in ‘very small single figures’ but the disclosure will hardly boost public confidence in the integrity of Britain’s security personnel. The recommendations of the committee are right, therefore, to suggest that the next government should consider criminalising such improper use of surveillance techniques.

Despite these positive proposals, there is nevertheless something troublingly simplistic about the committee’s top-line conclusion about GCHQ’s bulk interception capability. It says soothingly: ‘GCHQ are not reading the emails of everyone in the UK’. Whilst it is true that thousands of emails are read by security analysts every day, and that there remains a feeling that individual privacy of citizens comes a poor second to other considerations, few would have suggested otherwise against GCHQ’s simple assertion. That may be comforting for some, but surveillance does have the ability to antagonise as well as protect.

At a time when threats to this country are at a pitch not previously seen Britain’s security and intelligence agencies have a difficult job in tracking and monitoring those who wish to do us harm. But it must not be forgotten that the powers invested at their disposal are immense and more than proportionate for which they are needed. Simply asking that they be used responsibly is surely reason enough to help appease those who clamber to an argument of unnecessary state intrusion into many innocent people’s lives. Such a request stems from a belief that the glue which binds British society is primarily the combined force of its liberal values, not one that erodes it through a heavy-booted security capability.

 

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