Tag Archives: Military intervention

Britain, Foreign Affairs, Government, Intelligence, Military, National Security, Politics, Society, United States

Reconfiguring Defence for reasons of a changed world…

DEFENCE & FUTURE OVERSEAS PARTNERSHIPS

Over the course of the last half-century defence spending has attracted and been a hot issue of contention. This has been brought to the fore in recent times, through government rounds of budget and expenditure reductions. Most notably, the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review and the cuts to overall manning levels to the armed services have brought the issue into sharp focus. Critics argue this has seriously skewed our defence posture and capability towards mammoth (and massively expensive) commitments such as upgrading and maintaining Trident and the development of new aircraft carriers.

Last month, former US defence secretary, Robert Gates, asserted that defence cuts in Britain have left the UK unable to be a ‘full partner’ in future military operations with the United States. As a result of defence cuts, Mr Gates believes that the UK no longer has ‘full-spectrum capabilities’. This, he says, will affect the UK’s ability to be a full partner and will change the dynamics of how operations are conducted in the future. His comments came in the wake of remarks by General Sir Nicholas Houghton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, who said that manpower is increasingly being perceived as an ‘overhead’ and that Britain’s defence capabilities have been ‘hollowed out’.

It is right that these cuts have been questioned in the UK. The concerns over the knock-on direct and indirect effects on local economies, and the dangers of global military over-stretch, have been well aired. At the same time, however, many have long queried the need for such a large and over-bloated defence budget, particularly when our appetite for overseas engagements in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts has greatly diminished.

The world has changed, too. Britain is certainly not the global power she once was. There is perhaps room for debate on the reasons for this relative decline, but some truths are incontrovertible. The growing focus of global power and wealth from West to East, the profound change in the nature and structure of armed conflict and the threats that we face to our national security are all factors that must enter the equation if we are to explain and account for how the world has changed and how, as a consequence, our influence has declined. Our reduced military capabilities reflect in large part the need to bear down and address our massive budget deficit and public debt. Such considerations have, as Gates himself stated, also forced spending reductions in the US.

But what is also true is that Britain is less committed in performing the role of being an acquiescent subordinate to the United States in international affairs. Widespread disquiet has also stemmed from the ubiquitous relationship that US intelligence has with Britain’s intelligence services and the close links that have existed between America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s communications and listening posts at GCHQ in Cheltenham. In light of these considerations, it is only right and proper that the UK’s military relationship with the US be subject to re-examination.

Public ambivalence is not likely to stop there, either. It should also lead in due course to a more searching examination of Britain’s future commitment to Trident and what justifications there are in keeping a nuclear deterrent. Particularly so, given the changing political landscape in the UK and the very real prospect of Scotland (where Trident and the nuclear deterrent is housed against its will) becoming an independent nation. The referendum for Scottish independence is to be held this year in September.

It may be tempting to compare our defence capacity with what the country was able to sustain in the past and no-doubt some will rue Britain’s reduced capabilities. But the fact remains that the world has changed and with it the shifting balance of global power. It is to the future, not the past, which we should now look in how our overseas partnerships are formed. Britain’s defence arrangements will become a reflection of these changed requirements.

 

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Britain, Finance, Government, Middle East, United Nations, United States

Armed intervention in Syria is an agonising decision…

WESTERN INTERVENTION IN SYRIA

Western military intervention in Syria is moving closer. America’s reluctance to admit that its ‘red line’ had been crossed, said yesterday that there was ‘very little doubt’ that Bashar al-Assad’s forces had killed up to 1,500 civilians in a chemical attack last week. This followed statements from Britain that the only ‘plausible explanation’ for the deaths was an attack by Syrian government forces, and from France who said that a ‘reaction with force may be necessary’ if this is proved to be the case.

Though Damascus has belatedly signalled that UN inspectors can access the site of the attack, its prevarication over the last 6-days to allow inspectors in, means the evidence will have deteriorated or possibly even disappeared altogether.

The outcome of military intervention – most likely air strikes or cruise missile attacks from the U.S. naval fleet operating in the region – is impossible to predict. The threat to stability posed by the Syrian regime must now take account of the use of chemical weapons which violates international law, which implicitly undermines the authority of the UN. Whilst President Obama correctly identified it as a line which could not be crossed with impunity, failure to hold the Assad regime to account will only encourage more of the same. Mr Assad is known to have stockpiles not only of sarin gas, but also of the much more potent and deadly vx nerve gas, both types of chemical nerve agents having been moved around at will in the past few months. The strain is intensifying with refugees amassing on the borders with Jordon and Lebanon. Over the weekend, the UN declared that more than one million children have now been displaced in Syria.

The strategic risks of doing nothing are horribly clear. Armed intervention in a disintegrating Syria is an agonising choice, because the domino effect is an important factor in the equation – Iran, for example, will take heart in its pursuit of a nuclear warhead, which would possibly prompt others to follow suit in a Middle East nuclear arms race, including Israel moving closer towards unilateral military action against Tehran’s uranium enrichment programme.

One may hope that the acceptance by Syria’s backers, Russia and Iran, that chemical weapons have been used will lead to a unanimous Security Council resolution at the UN which will force Assad and his opponents to the negotiating table. That hope may well remain a pious one.

Last week’s hideous images of gassed children mean something must now be done. There can be no further delays, and contingencies should be activated in dealing with the flood of refugees pouring over the Lebanese and Jordon borders: quotas, for instance, should be drawn up in granting many of them asylum – as happened in Indochina after the fall of Saigon in 1975. A humanitarian and emergency response is now desperately needed.

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