Category Archives: National Security

Britain, Defence, Economic, European Union, Government, Military, National Security, NATO, Politics

Defence spending and the ‘peace dividend’…

DEFENCE SPENDING

Throughout history, defence spending has always gone up and down, and has responded largely to the perceived level of threat at the time.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War expectations were high for a so-called ‘peace dividend’. This led to the British military, along with its NATO partners, assuming they would no longer have to maintain a massive defence capability in central Europe as a bulwark against the Russians. Tank squadrons, for example, on the German plain were drastically reduced as the threat from the Russian bear showing its claws no longer existed.

This, it was generally agreed, was a good thing. There was never any shortage of other priorities on which politicians could spend otherwise huge sums of money that had previously been spent on defence.

However, the question now, according to General Sir Richard Shirreff, who recently stepped down as NATO deputy supreme commander, is whether a new and heightened level of threat should now require an increase in defence capability, and therefore defence spending.

General Shirreff is eminently qualified to make such a judgment, of that few will doubt. He has said that the dismantling of the West’s presence in mainland Europe has gone too far, leaving us vulnerable and exposed in the face of a renewed Russian threat.

The facts tend to support his case. A recent defence analyst’s report, for instance, revealed that Britain now had fewer tanks than Switzerland.

And there can be little doubt that the threat level facing mainland Europe is now significantly different to what it was a decade ago. Russia has annexed Crimea and the Kremlin is making less pretence about the fact that it is at war with Ukraine.

NATO’s primary role is to defend its members from military threat and attack. Shirreff questions whether NATO is able to perform that key function, at current strength.

Highlighting ‘the reality’, Shirreff says that NATO would be very hard-pressed and they would find it very difficult to put into the field the means required, particularly on land, to counter any form of ‘Russian adventurism’.

Undoubtedly, the signal General Shirreff gives amounts to a stark warning, and one that deserves to be the start of a serious debate.

At a time of continuing financial and economic austerity, this will be the last thing that many European political leaders will want to hear. The ‘peace dividend’ has been taken for granted for a quarter of a century. Even in Britain, following recent bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, have not led to a reversal in political thinking that says Britain needs fewer soldiers and fewer sophisticated weapons.

The focus of efforts in keeping the UK safe has moved away from hard power and more towards intelligence and security led measures in tackling jihadist terror groups – at home and abroad.

While this is bound to remain the key priority, the challenges being posed elsewhere by an expansionist President Putin can no longer be ignored. Putin’s threat to eastern Ukraine as well as to Western concerns over Russian interests in the Baltic States are proof enough that NATO requires and needs an adequate defence capability in dealing with challenges it could be called upon in dealing with. The security of the wider world surely depends on it.

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Britain, European Court, Government, Human Rights, Legal, National Security, Politics, Society

Surveillance legislation: Conflicts exist between freedom and security…

SNOOPING LAWS

The announcement of a new surveillance law has fostered the suspicion that a voracious security state is elbowing aside the rights of civilians to communicate in private. There may well be cause for mistrust – but such concerns lie in the manner of the law’s introduction, and much less so the provisions it contains.

The UK Government justifies bringing in ‘emergency’ legislation as it intends to keep a full-blown register (a ‘who’s who of public enemies) that will shore up the power of government bodies to gather data on British citizens.

This is a law which has been agreed upon in principle by party leaders at Westminster behind closed doors. The speed of its introduction has raised many eyebrows, not least because this is a process that has not been open to public consultation and one which clearly adds to the impression that the Government is seizing for itself unwarranted powers.

In reality, though, the ‘emergency’ being enacted upon is more banal. In a few years, the law may actually benefit the libertarian cause. The exact cause for adopting parliamentary legislation in the first place is down to a legal case launched by the Open Rights group. Although the organisation is temporarily dormant, it has been made active following an April ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). That ruling would have lifted the requirement for telecommunications companies to keep a wide range of billing data on their customers for a period of 12 months.

Keeping this data available to the authorities is the reason for instigating emergency legislation. This is preferable than to suddenly ‘going dark’, and appears to require no immediate development in changing the status of our security. Important concessions have been conceded: an independent privacy and civil liberties board is to be created, and there will be a review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). This sets the limit on digital surveillance. The emergency amendments will also expire in 2016, so that new laws can be created once the review has been completed and appraised.

Some critics argue that what we need is smarter surveillance, not yet more of it. This far reaching extension of government spying on our daily lives, they say, would be illiberal and possibly ineffective.

Since this Bill is also about interception (and not just retention of data) many people will want to know what the additional protections will be if we are to have any confidence in such powers. One requirement is greater transparency so that we know how and why this data is being used. Government openness around surveillance can be improved without compromising security.

The Government has promised an annual transparency report. The concerns of libertarians will be whether it is sufficiently comprehensive, but that can only be deduced once the full details are known. In his annual report, the Interception Communications Commissioner, Sir Anthony May, said: ‘The unreliability and inadequacy of the statistical requirements is a significant problem which requires attention.’ Sir Anthony also expressed ‘considerable sympathy’ with those who are hazy and unsure about the details and implications of snooping legislation.

The Government has made a strong case for law enforcement agencies to be given access to communications traffic (which precludes its content as this would require a warrant) in the investigation of serious crime and terrorism.

The Coalition remains divided over how wide the new powers should be. The Prime Minister has indicated that he favours revisiting the option of wider snooping powers, but Nick Clegg remains opposed. But however surveillance legislation evolves it is right that a sunset clause exists in the Bill to curtail its powers in 2016. That forces a renewal by the next Parliament – but only after a wider democratic debate about how best to strike the balance between privacy and security.

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Britain, Defence, Europe, Foreign Affairs, Government, Military, National Security, NATO, Politics, Society, United States

Being prepared for war is essential, but war is not cheap…

ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE STUDY

A study released by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) shows that Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost the UK Treasury more than £29 billion. In the report, the think tank argues that the wars were “strategic blunders, spreading terrorism, drumming up resistance and increasing the opium trade”.

The conclusions, though, are controversial. For instance, the authors of the study assert that various terrorist groups would not be infiltrating Syria or threatening Britain had Saddam Hussein stayed in power. Yet, Hussein was a bloodthirsty tyrant and despot, who clearly acted as a state sponsor of terror. Tens of thousands of lives were lost, thousands more were gassed in ethnic style cleansing in northern Iraq, and Saddam Hussein would certainly have had vast stockpiles of nerve and chemical agents at his disposal left over from his 8-years war with Iran. Many of these stockpiles still remain unaccounted for. Had Hussein not been toppled he doubtless would have continued to persecute his own population. The tyrant’s bloody wars against the Kurds in the north and Arab populations of the south should never be forgotten.

Putting aside the arguments about Britain’s role in the ‘War on Terror’, one uncontroversial fact emerges from the report which is indisputable: war is not cheap. The Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) has witnessed massive cuts to our Armed Forces budget. Army numbers have been drastically cut back, aircraft have been withdrawn, tank battalions diminished, and even our last aircraft carrier decommissioned. Further cuts are imminent. Many of these cuts are being justified by the theory that we would never have to engage in the variety of long-term overseas military adventures that typified our activities and engagements during the Cold War era.

Since 2001, however, we have actually been involved in two such operations at a significant cost. And within the last few days, President Barack Obama announced that he would like America to act more as part of an international coalition rather than taking unilateral action. This implies, at least, a continued British role in Western security.

The UK has to be prepared for all eventualities, and adequate contingencies should be in place. As relations with Russia continue to worsen, for example, it might prove necessary for the UK to play a part in the wider campaign of checking Vladimir Putin’s belligerence. Only last month, Britain sent four Typhoon fighter jets to the Baltics as part of a NATO deployment, a sign that the West is unwilling to allow Europe to disintegrate at the hands of the Russian president. Nobody wants a conflict, but the potential for a tough offence remains the best defence.

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