23/03/2015
Yesterday saw the
Sunday Telegraph run a front-page story (continued on page 6) featuring Owen Paterson, now "seen as the standard-bearer for the Tory Right-wing".
He is, we are told, to lead a new battle to stop further cuts to the Armed Forces this week, amid warnings that Britain will be unable to defend itself if funding falls again, using a major speech in America to accuse the government of "succumbing to temptation" to outsource national defence to the European Union and Nato.
The speech is to the Heritage Foundation at the Thatcher Center in Washington on Wednesday, when Paterson will be commenting on the revived ambitions for a European Army, articulated by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
If this ambition was ever realised, Paterson will say, it would cut across the close relationship between the UK and the US, and its "special relationship". It would undermine the structure of Nato and weaken the resolve of individual member states to maintain their own militaries, using the European force as an excuse for cutting back their own defence expenditure.
That, in fact, is the most likely outcome of European defence integration â the different member states using the availability of EU-badged forces as an excuse to cut back on their defence spending. This is a temptation to which the UK is not immune.
The fashionable issue currently is the ratio of defence spending to GDP, and while the United States shells out 4.4 percent, the UK is dipping below two percent and, within the decade, could be down to 1.38 percent.
Scores of Tory MPs, and senior military commanders, says the
ST, are privately dismayed that the party has failed to rule out further cuts to defence after the election. In particular, they fear the Conservatives will fail to meet Nato's target of spending two percent of GDP.
Already we can see the "dismay" being translated into media scares, with the latest coming from the
Mail, which wants us to believe that the 30-year-old Tu-160 "Blackjack" (pictured below) represents a serious threat to the RAF's Eurofighters.
Yet the
latest has even filtered down to
Wikipedia, informing us that there are only eleven flyable models of the latest version. But so far behind is Russian metallurgy that their dodgy engines would actually melt if they were run for too long at full throttle.
To the uninitiated, however, the terrors of a resurgent Russia are all grist to the mill, when it comes to prising open the public coffers. Along with Liam Fox, Admiral Lord West, the Falklands War commander, is right there with the best of them, saying he was "deeply worried about Britainâs future ability to defend itself against aggression from Russia". How useful it is to have those deadly "Blackjacks" on the doorstep.
But, for all the hype, Paterson is not in the "two percent or bust" camp. He believes that we should provide the necessary funds required by an appropriate foreign policy. He is not, he will tell the Americans, fussed about committing to particular projects whether it is aircraft carriers or improved cyber defence, and does not wish to be bound by a particular percentage.
Crucially, according to Paterson, it is the required defence outcome that should be decisive. If foreign and defence requirements change, we should not be afraid to override established percentages.
Before that, though, there are plenty of options, not least improving the performance of defence procurement, and better mission definition, so that we are not wasting billions on fruitless operations such as our intervention in Afghanistan.
In the
Times, the Lord Dannatt, argues that is DfID is struggling to get rid of its money in order to reach its 0.7 percent target, rather than giving it to international agencies, would be better to give the money to defence.
However, the very last thing we need is the likes of Dannatt's successors to be given more money to buy shiny new toys. There are far better ways of squaring the circle. And one of these ways is, as we argued in a series of posts on
Defence of the Realm is to get the Army to deliver aid.
In particular, we saw a role for the Army building roads and infrastructure, and not just doing the work but teaching the locals how to build them. If nothing else, in training the Army excels. And, as we saw with the recent Ebola outbreak, the military are excellent providers of medical aid.
Even, as we saw back in the days of the South-East Asian Tsunami, the US military, with their aircraft carriers and assault ships, were by far the most effective aid providers, while the expenditure on the equivalent of
USNS Mercy (pictured below) would not only bolster the military medical services, but provide a major force for good. If nothing else, this would be a practical application of "soft power", extending our writ into the foreign policy domain.
The direct involvement of the military ensures that money intended for aid actually reaches its destinations â handled by one of the few organisations which is still relatively free from corruption â and it provides a cross-subsidy to the military, helping to maintain the vital but expensive support arms.
In other words, there is far more to the debate than "defence or aid", and there is much to be done in terms of defining foreign policy before we are able intelligently to estimate defence needs.
With that, Owen Paterson will be telling the Americans that continued membership of the EU requires the progressive surrender of much more than national regulatory capacities. With its long-standing political ambitions, Brussels is demanding that we let other national capacities wither.
We are, he will say, learning that a nation cannot give up its national responsibilities in just one area. Nationhood is indivisible â because it is not just material. It is a state of mind and heart. Companies can divide themselves up and spin off divisions. A nation cannot divide its soul without losing its spirit.
America, he will conclude, needs Britain as an ally on many fronts. It needs us to reassert ourselves as a nation ⦠to take our place once again in the counsels of the Earth. And that includes redefining our defence strategies, without getting hung up on percentages.
