Tag Archives: Iran War

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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Britain, Economic, Government, Politics

The Government must allow markets to do their job

ECONOMIC

Intro: Fallout from the Iran war and the energy crisis that has followed is the ultimate test of the UK Government’s economic acumen

A famous story which used to be known by every schoolchild in the land, King Canute famously sat on his throne at the edge of sea during the early 11th century, and ordered the tide to stop coming in.

Needless to say, the tide did not obey. Some modern interpretations suggest that he wasn’t crazy or mad but was rather trying to demonstrate to his courtiers the limits of regal power. Even the King could not stop the tide.

Governments today need to recognise what little power they have in relation to the current energy crisis.

Although there isn’t a lot they can do, unlike King Canute and the tide governments are not completely powerless. But first comes the need for understanding. The energy crisis is a supply shock which changes the terms of trade, acting as a sort of tax that transfers money from net energy-consuming countries to net energy-producing ones. We are a net energy consumer. This crisis, then, makes us worse off, whatever we do.

And there are two major knock-on effects. First, the economy can be sent into recession as people react to the loss of income by spending less. Second, this “tax” takes the form of a rise in the price of energy that delivers an initial upward spike to the general price level, thereby increasing inflation in the short term, and carrying the danger of embedding higher inflation.

Although there is nothing that governments can do to stop the loss of net national income, there are things they can do to try to mitigate these two knock-on effects.

There could be a case for loosening fiscal policy to reduce the hit to consumer incomes and consumer spending and hence aggregate demand. The parlous state of the public finances, however, means that the scope to do that now is restricted. One way they could seek to limit both the hit to real incomes and the upward pressure on the price level is through granting subsidies and imposing caps on prices.

But this isn’t a free lunch because, unless the Government can justifiably and safely borrow more, which it really can’t at the moment, such things have to be paid for by the taxpayer. It is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul or, most of the time, robbing Peter to pay Peter.

This is actually still the case if the money for such subsidies is found by more borrowing rather than through new tax rises. This simply defers when Peter and Paul have to cough up.

Most importantly, the Government needs to let market forces do their job. The increase in energy prices acts as a signal to consumers to minimise their use of energy and simultaneously sends a signal to producers to boost the output of energy.

If the help to consumers takes the form of artificially keeping energy prices down, then the signal to economise on energy usage is smothered. More importantly, in our case the signal to producers is cancelled by the Government’s net zero policy, which is preventing the new extraction of North Sea oil and gas.

The best that governments can do in these circumstances is to manage the economy and their own finances most efficiently. Of course, they should have been doing this anyway, but in these difficult and turbulent times the importance of doing the right thing increases significantly. In the UK’s case, the fundamental error in the Government’s economic policy has been to preside over huge increases in government spending, while passing on a good deal of the burden to employers in the form of higher National Insurance payments.

One thing the Government could do to mitigate the consequences of the current energy crisis is to reverse this policy and bring in substantial cuts to government spending. This is not to tighten fiscal policy. Rather, the money saved should be redistributed to the economy.

The best use of it would be a reduction in employers’ NIC, which would reduce their costs and thereby lead to lower prices. It would also encourage firms to retain their workers.

This, too, would make a contribution to staving off the inflation danger. Over and above this, the principle responsibility lies with the Bank of England and its monetary policy.

History provides an illustration of how different responses to the same adverse shock can produce quite different results. In the 1973-74 oil crisis, all the oil-consuming countries of the West – including the UK – suffered an adverse terms of trade shock. They were all made worse off.

But different countries responded differently to the spike in the general price level. In the UK, inflation peaked t almost 25pc. In Germany, by contrast, inflation peaked at just under 8pc.

It has become clear that this UK Labour Government doesn’t really understand or believe in markets. You can see this everywhere, from the wish to control rents in the belief that this will somehow make tenants better off to the recent blaming of price rises on retailers.

This Government cannot avoid the adverse economic shock that higher energy prices imply but it can limit its consequences by letting markets perform their function.

It should abandon at once the headlong pursuit of net zero and allow new production from the North Sea, while cutting government spending and reducing business costs.

We should understand the political forces standing against such action; it is unlikely that the Government will do anything like this. But that doesn’t mean that there is not an alternative course of action available, if only the Government had the insight and the courage to pursue it.

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