Tag Archives: Donald Trump

History, Military, Politics, Second World War

Chamberlain had courage. Does Starmer?

POLITICAL HISTORY

Intro: Trump’s comparison between the pair misses the point. Despite what the critics say, whilst Chamberlain did make some grave errors he did have courage. What will Starmer’s legacy leave on the pages of history?  

Just a few days ago Donald Trump delighted in comparing our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, to Neville Chamberlain. Winston Churchill’s predecessor is blamed for the failed policy of trying to appease Hitler rather than confront German expansionism across Europe in the years before the Second World War.

Chamberlain is the most vilified of British prime ministers, “the guilty man” who, it is argued, failed to deter Hitler and left us almost defenceless when he resigned in May 1940.

Had Donald Trump studied history a little more carefully, he would not have made the comparison, however. Far from failing in his duties, Chamberlain was the author of the rearmament policy from the mid-1930s that made it possible for Britain to stand firm in 1940.

To compare our current prime minister to him does a grave disservice to Chamberlain, while some might say it greatly inflates Starmer’s political courage and grasp of strategy, neither of which is in evidence in his policies or speeches. Despite frequent public denigration today, Chamberlain’s reputation among historians is higher than might be expected.

As Chancellor from 1931-1937, and then as Prime Minister, he stuck to a double strategy: try to ease tensions with Germany through diplomacy, while at the same time rearming. Rearmament would not only prepare Britain for any future conflict, but would also deter German aggression by showing that we had the means and commitment to fight.

No one looking at Britain today, with its naval ships and fleet under constant repair, its tanks numbering at only a few dozen, and its Army unable to field anything larger than a brigade – about 5,000 men – for about a month of fighting, would be deterred by the readiness of our Armed Forces.

Chamberlain was the principal author of defence plans from 1936 that committed £1.5bn – then a vast sum – over five years to rearmament. He recognised that Britain’s defence would depend on airpower and set a target of nearly 2,000 front-line planes for the RAF. Were it not for this far-sightedness we would not have had the Spitfire and Hurricane and would likely have been invaded in 1940. New warships were commissioned for the Navy; older ships were modernised.

After Hitler’s invasion of the Czech provinces of Moravia and Bohemia in March 1939, this programme was rapidly accelerated. The Ministry of Supply was established to oversee the production of military equipment, and peacetime conscription began. The Territorial Army was doubled in size. Just as war began in September 1939, the famous chain of radar stations around Britain’s coastline became operational.

Revealingly, Chamberlain had been attacked during the 1935 election campaign by the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Arthur Greenwood, for the “disgraceful” suggestion “that more millions of money needed to be spent on armaments”.

Chamberlain understood something else about war readiness: the need for strong finances. Any war would likely be a long one, and a strong economy with reserves to spend would play a vital part in any struggle. He planned for what is now called headroom, fiscal surpluses that could be used in time of national emergency. In 1937, he put up income tax to 5s in the pound.

Today, our peacetime taxes are at the highest levels since the end of the Second World War and yet we have no headroom at all. Everything points to cuts in expenditure, above all to pay for a ballooning welfare bill. Starmer, though, does not have the courage or political capital to tell his backbenchers, as the former Labour prime minister, Jim Callaghan, told the Labour Party conference during the 1976 International Monetary Fund (IMF) crisis, “the party’s over”: the spending on benefits has to stop.

Chamberlain is rightly blamed and held accountable for giving Germany the Sudetenland, then part of Czechoslovakia, at the 1938 Munich Conference, and for taking Hitler at his word by believing his protestations of peace. These were crucial failures of judgment. Then, when war came and Britain’s position looked increasingly hopeless, Chamberlain lacked the resolve to fight.

It was in this context, in May 1940, that the Conservative MP Leo Amery, speaking in the House of Commons, and using words attributed to Oliver Cromwell, demanded of Chamberlain: “In the name of God, go!”. If the upcoming local elections in May don’t finish off Starmer, it is quite likely that someone will say these words to our current prime minister.

For military campaigners and those on the political right will surely argue it would be excellent if Starmer could behave with Churchillian resilience and bravery by living up to our responsibilities to NATO and the free world. Failing that, it would be enough if he could follow Chamberlain’s example and at least lay a basis for having a stronger military and economy that we now require.

If Starmer really did behave like Chamberlain he would leave a better legacy, and also do something that would save his future reputation among historians. Time is short and running out for Starmer politically, but he still has time to act.

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Britain, Defence, Europe, Military, NATO, United States

Without the US, can NATO survive?

NATO ALLIANCE

Intro: If Trump follows through on his threat to pull out of the alliance, the West will face its most profound crisis in 80 years

For eight decades, NATO has weathered internal disputes, enemy plots, and shooting wars in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. America’s departure of this historic alliance would be the biggest divorce in history.

If Donald Trump acts on his threat to finally pull the US out of NATO – having said publicly that he is “strongly considering pulling out” after allies failed to join his war on Iran – the transatlantic family will be torn asunder.

At which point, the club that calls itself the most successful alliance in history may as well close its doors.

And the pain could match that of the most acrimonious of break-ups.

The numbers are stark enough: the United States alone accounts for more than 60 per cent of NATO’s total defence spending and provides the bulk of the alliance’s firepower, particularly at sea, in the air, and in nuclear deterrence.

The US has 1.3 million active military personnel – a full million more than Turkey, the next largest NATO force.

The United States is, however, not simply the largest and richest member of the club. It is the linchpin, the tent pole around which the entire edifice has been constructed.

It has logistical capacities in airlift and shipping, as well as satellite and signals intelligence, that other NATO allies rely on to get them into battle and help them fight. And it has always provided the leadership that has kept the alliance together.

Europe

The most profound threat would be for European members, the primary beneficiaries of the Article 5 promise that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all”.

For the first time in 80 years, they would have to face Russia shorn of that basic security guarantee, even as war rages on the continent.

Trump allows other NATO countries to requisition US kit for Ukraine via a programme called The Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List, but has curtailed direct US military aid to Kyiv.

Nonetheless, Moscow has not doubted the seriousness of the NATO alliance. For four years, it has avoided risking a direct confrontation with NATO powers, to the point of refusing (for the most part) to bomb the airbases and railway depots in Poland that supply Ukraine.

But remove American conventional and nuclear power from the equation, and the risks of doing so suddenly look much more palatable. Vladimir Putin has long made the destruction of NATO and creation what he calls a “new European security architecture” one of his dearest and cherished ambitions.  

That does not make a direct Russian attack on Europe inevitable, should the US abandon the alliance. But the chances of Putin taking a gamble would increase substantially.

Greenland and Canada

Quitting the alliance would not only absolve Trump of the obligation to come to allies’ defence. It also opens the way – at least in theory – to one would-be former ally attacking another, a scenario NATO itself would never have been able to survive.

Canada, in particular, would face difficult new realities. Trump, who has ordered attacks across 13 countries since he returned to the White House, has coveted their country (a NATO founding member) as a future “51st state”. Suddenly uncoupled from its enormous neighbour and security partner, Ottawa would no longer live with the certainty that North America is a safe and secure home.

War is perhaps most likely in Greenland. In recent weeks, it emerged that the Danish military had secretly prepared to repel a possible American assault on the island amid repeated threats from Trump to annex it.

Troops were equipped and ordered to blow up key runways and even flew in blood bags to simulate treating the wounded from the anticipated battle.

These nightmarish prospects present serious dilemmas for Canada and Denmark’s remaining allies.

Would Britain, France, and Germany send troops and ships to fight off an American invasion? Or out of dependence on and fear of American might, would they turn their backs? Leaders in Britain will be praying that they never have to make such a choice.

Everything from Britain’s nuclear missiles, which must be serviced at American facilities, to GCHQ’s signals intelligence network, which overlaps with the US National Security Agency, is enmeshed in the apparatus of the US security system.

America

Like any major break up, the pain would not be one way. America, too, would suffer.

Since its founding, NATO has allowed the US to project power globally. US airbases in Britian and Germany, for example, are currently being used for American operations against Iran.

NATO states also house and accommodate American early warning systems. It is the UK and Norway, for example, whom the United States relies on to keep an eye on Russia’s nuclear missile submarines operating out of Kola Peninsula and the Barents Sea. And while some NATO members – France, Spain, and Italy – may have baulked at the war with Iran, the alliance has proved vital in other US-led engagements.

Its member states joined the Americans in ending the Serbian genocide in Kosovo in 1999, for example, and in the 20-year campaign in Afghanistan. Many also showed up for both the first and second Gulf Wars.

If the United States does find itself embroiled in the much feared and potentially epochal war with China in the Pacific, such former allies will be missed.

The consequences

For these reasons, and the fact that Trump cannot withdraw from NATO without approval of a two-thirds Senate majority or an act of Congress, it is possible the worst fears about transatlantic relations may not come to pass. Indeed, even in a future without the formal North Atlantic alliance, American will need allies and to maintain bilateral ties.

And since Trump’s public doubts about NATO and his threats against Greenland have already undermined the deterrent power of Article 5, perhaps losing it altogether would not do much more damage.

Conventional defence spending in Europe is already rapidly increasing, especially in the east and north of the continent. No sensible Russian general is likely to believe a fight with Poland would be a walk in the park.

Although small compared with America’s, Britain’s nuclear arsenal, which, unlike the French one, is committed to the defence of NATO, is potent enough to act as a serious deterrent. The UK would, however, have to develop a domestic delivery system if it is to eventually wean itself off dependence on US Trident missiles.

There is also the suggestion that the alliance could continue in some form, even shorn of the US. Trump’s repeated attacks on the alliance have already prompted some British and European strategists to think about how to preserve it without America.

The remaining allies could, for example, retain the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s main decision-making body, and the mutual defence clause.

Perhaps, then, there is a very narrow but plausible path to enduring a divorce and not suffering too greatly.

But should Trump or another incumbent president come to see Canada and Europe as enemies, the world will change profoundly.

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Iran, Israel, Middle East, United States

The folly of boots on the ground in Iran

US-IRAN WAR

Intro: After the pain of Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s almost inconceivable the US would again send troops to the Middle East – but its president is desperate and narcissistic

Concern and anguish are justifiably growing that a cornered Donald Trump will send US ground troops into combat on Iranian soil to avoid being personally and politically humiliated in a war of attrition he started, mismanaged, and cannot end. Such a self-serving escalation, however – even if limited in scope and duration – could itself prove catastrophic for him and the American people. Think what happened in previous US-led military interventions. In sum total, he’s caught in a modern-day catch-22. Pick your own metaphor for dumb. Trump’s stumped, hoist by his own petard, stuck between a rock and a hard place, and up the creek without a paddle. The creek in question is, of course, the Strait of Hormuz.

Firmly ensconced in his strange parallel universe, Trump insists the war is all but won, Iran is suing for peace, and talks are making good progress. In the real world, Iran is still fighting on all fronts, Israel is still relentlessly bombing, the strait remains largely closed, and the Iran-allied Houthi militia in Yemen has joined the war, attacking Israel and potentially blocking Red Sea trade routes. The US and Iran have each issued maximalist demands, but there is no sign of actual negotiations. They are poles apart, further even than they were before Trump, egged on by Benjamin Netanyahu, abandoned diplomacy four weeks ago. Sometime soon, Trump will be forced to confront the huge gap between what he wants and what’s on offer. At that point he could turn to the troop buildup amassing in the Gulf and order ground attacks.

How did it come to this? It’s incredible to think that after all the mortal agony and pain of Iraq and Afghanistan, a US president is once again seriously contemplating boots on the ground in the Middle East. It’s even more amazing the president concerned is Trump, a noisy and outspoken critic of costly foreign adventures. Yet this is no unlucky break, no accidental misfortune. It’s the result of deliberate policy. If the US is facing impossible choices, the responsibility is entirely Trump’s, though he will surely blame and scapegoat others. For one, Pete Hesgeth, the Pentagon’s troubled comic-book warlord, is in his gun-sights.

Ignoring facts on the ground, the White House continues to spout lies and bombast. Trump is plainly in denial, claiming “regime change” has already been achieved with the assassination of Ayatollah Khamanei. Trump has this strange habit of behaving like a spectator, detached from the chaotic events he himself sets in motion. He acts and behaves as if the global energy shock, the US’s abject failure to defend the Hormuz strait and its Gulf allies, Iran’s unyielding defiance under fire, and the absence of the much-predicted popular uprising in Tehran, have nothing to do with him. He doesn’t understand Iran is fighting an asymmetric war, that even the biggest bombs cannot obliterate pride and ideology, faith and history.

Trump is increasingly isolated and out on a limb. His wealthy Arab business cronies no longer trust him. US bases on their territory now resemble a liability, not a defence. When he demanded NATO’s help, Europe said: we’ll let you know. Likewise, Iran’s ethnic Kurds are less than eager to die for a muppet. Support for the war among the US public and the MAGA right, always weak, is a fast-vanishing mirage. Having egged him on, Netanyahu refuses to bail him out – or to stop bombing everyone in sight. Trump believed Israel’s assurance of quick victory. As for Iran, its surviving leadership, dominated by ultras, reckons it’s winning. Its hard line gets harder by the day.

Imagine being one of the thousands of US marines and paratroopers now deploying to the Gulf. With a commander-in-chief like Trump, who needs enemies? Except plenty more lie in wait. Iran’s armed forces number 610,000 active-duty personnel, with reserves of 350,000. The regime may no longer be able to fight in the air or at sea. But on land, treading familiar terrain and ultimately willing, perhaps, to sacrifice “human waves” of troops, as in the 1980’s Iran-Iraq war, it remains a formidable foe. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says it’s ready to carpet-bomb its own territory if invaded.

If ground attacks were to materialise – both Trump and Netanyahu have publicly discussed the possibility – the targets would most likely be the coastal batteries, missile defences, and concealed armed speedboat bases dotting the northern flank of the Hormuz strait. An attack on the Kharg oil export terminal further up the Gulf is also predicted. Ominously, Kharg is known as the Forbidden Island; it may be easier to overrun than hold. Such incursions would be intended to force the reopening of the strait, thereby easing the energy crisis, and strengthening Trump’s negotiating hand.

The inherent, inescapable military risks are daunting. Causalities would be inevitable. Even if operations went well in the short term, questions would immediately arise about potential escalation when Iran counterattacked, expansion of the operational area, and duration of the occupation. If they went badly, the cry would go up for reinforcements – a scenario grimly familiar to anyone who recalls mission-creep in Iraq and Afghanistan. More risky still, to the point of suicidal, is another floated option: sending US and Israeli special forces deep into the interior to snatch Iran’s hidden, physically volatile stockpile of highly enriched uranium.

For all his childish threats of epic fury and maximum punishment, does Trump really want to unleash this nightmare? A rational person would strive to avoid it. At one level, his desperate-sounding, fiercely disputed claims that Iran is privately “begging” for peace reflect a realisation that a bloody, open-ended land war could destroy his presidency. His problem is that Iran’s regime knows this too. So, entirely logically, it will continue to rebuff his maximalist 15-point “peace plan” – which amounts to a call for complete surrender – while upping its own demands. They include a permanent end to US-Israeli aggression, undisputed sovereignty over the Hormuz strait, financial reparations, and lifting of sanctions.

Any deal that fails to satisfy bottom-line US and Israeli demands – namely, a definitive end to Iran’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development programmes, a halt to Tehran’s support for allied regional militias, and guaranteed freedom of navigation in the Gulf – will be seen as a defeat for Trump. He now plainly wants to end the war but on his terms, with a deal superior to that secured by Barack Obama in 2015 (and subsequently trashed by Trump). Iran – angry, wounded, yet resilient – will not give it to him. Trump’s choice: cave or escalate.

At this dreaded juncture, what is there to say or think? This illegal war should never have been launched. Trump acted foolishly and opportunistically. Netanyahu, too, is greatly to blame. The threat was not “imminent”. And the war’s most persuasive justification – a promise to free Iranians from tyranny – has been abandoned. Negotiations, unconditional on both sides, are the only sane way out. Trump must swallow his pride, admit his error, eat humble pie. Yet, as all the world knows, the very idea that this most ignorant, reckless, and narcissistic of US leaders might actually do so is utterly ridiculous.

Not only was the second Trump presidency going to end in disaster, but the US-Iran war will be the greatest of all disasters of its foreign interventions.

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