Why does David Cameron support the war in Afghanistan? I have touched on this here and here, but one reason not yet addressed is the importance of the United States. Though not crucial to them, the Special Relationship is vital for us; and Hew Strachan believes this is the reason for our involvement in the war. ‘Britain is in Afghanistan for the same reason that it took part in the invasion of Iraq: the Anglo-American alliance is the cornerstone of British foreign and defence policy.’ If we agree with Strachan, then it creates problems for Britain and the Conservative Party. Not only problems of grand strategy for the former, but also in the identity of the latter.
I bumped into one of these grand strategy problems in October, when I expressed concern that the SDSR might be built around Afghanistan. We should not be building our military around the war, but asking if the war fits into our broader foreign policy. Of course, this presumed we were free to make this choice and not dependent on the ally doing all the fighting. From this perspective, it is obvious why we should build our armed forces around Afghanistan. We need to be useful to the Americans if we are to achieve our broader foreign policy goals. As the great Christopher Coker put it recently:
Being useful to the United States…is not in itself a strategic objective; it’s a tactical instrument to follow a larger strategy – that of the national interest.
But this is where everything starts to get messy. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the focus of the United States is shifting to the Far East. People like Tom Donilon want to ‘get out’ of places like Afghanistan. So if one role for our armed forces is to be useful to the Americans, what use will they have with an army trained in counterinsurgency when it comes to securing the Pacific Ocean? David Cameron is in danger of over-committing to a war to help an ally who is eager to leave. Not over-committing in terms of numbers, but in the structure of our military. As unlike the United States, we can’t be a maritime power and a land one.
How else can the United Kingdom be useful to the United States, if we cannot be useful militarily? One of the few options open to us might be Europe. I don’t mean choosing one over the other, but that American and European interests will come together in the next decade and both would expect us to be in the heart of Europe. Professor Coker suggests this will be an opportunity for the United Kingdom, at least when it comes to European security. NATO and the EU ‘have got to work out a working relationship, and the British, I think, can be absolutely instrumental in that – provided we are seen to be a useful European ally to our European friends.’ This will create a problem for the transatlantic and Eurosceptic identities of the Conservative Party. As one paper argued recently, the former is in many ways a reaction to the latter:
Part of being a British Conservative today is to be Eurosceptic and this is directly related to how Conservatives…understand Britain’s place in the world. Given their lack of affinity for the European Union – a supranational, intergovernmental, political, economic and diplomatic power bloc – they are compelled to steer Britain into the sphere of influence of the United States.
How would the Party handle transatlanticism and Euroscepticism beginning to overlap?
These scenarios are not guaranteed, of course. American policymakers might want to focus on the Far East and not the Middle East, but it is folly to think they can be so easily divorced. It also isn’t clear if the European Union has a future, let alone NATO. ‘Every single instrument of this country’s influence is in crisis’, Professor Julian Lindley-French has warned. The events described above are not impossible, however – they are not even unlikely, and it is frustrating that many Conservatives have given them no thought. We have to start thinking about them; thinking about how we reshape the instruments of our influence to pursue our broader foreign policy. A little strategic thinking on the Special Relationship might help; as would a more constructive approach to Europe, like ones suggested here and here. Otherwise, Britain and the Conservative Party risk living with outcomes they hate.
jedibeeftrix
January 27, 2011
“As unlike the United States, we can’t be a maritime power and a land one.”
Since, at the time of the SDR 98, the Defence budget occupied merely 2.7% of GDP during a period of rapid economic growth, this was actually a viable proposition. It was a stretch, but if this budget priority coexisted with continued growth then this was indeed a defence we could afford. But it wasn’t to be. The Defence budget slipped from 2.7% of GDP in 1997 to 2.2% in 2008, before the recession arrived which killed the economic growth that compensated for defence inflation. However, most lethally, Britain was embroiled in two wars whose endurance and intensity exceeded the planned operational tempo, and which the government paid for by hacking out chunks of the core Defence budget for operational costs, and accepting procurement programs which were completely unfunded.
It should be clear that broad spectrum power-projection hasn’t been affordable for some time, a fact compounded by the Gray report which effectively represents a 10% cut over the next decade, the Treasury insistence on Defence funding of the acquisition costs of the Trident replacement which represents a further 2% cut, and, a Treasury demand for up to a 10% reduction as part of the Defence contribution to balancing the country’s shattered public finances.
If we are not to be capable of broad-spectrum power projection in the furtherance of the British national interest then we have but two choices; to become a narrow-spectrum Great Power, or, alternatively, to concentrate on home defence and give up a leading role in international affairs.
“NATO and the EU ‘have got to work out a working relationship, and the British, I think, can be absolutely instrumental in that – provided we are seen to be a useful European ally to our European friends.”
The US is in the process of gradually disengaging from Europe as its alters its posture to face the challenges of 21st century Asia, and the task for Britain is to retain the engagement of the world’s only superpower in order that this relationship remains a process whereby British interests are advanced. Europe, as a result of declining demographics in the wider region, is destined to become a strategic backwater in the 21st century, as the dominant economies in the next forty years will be China and India, with other extra-European actors biting at their heels. Accordingly, Britain’s utility to the US as an unsinkable aircraft carrier will diminish. As American hegemony declines in the face of aspiring new powers it will search for partners to share the burden and confer legitimacy, and Britain’s influence with the US will derive as much from creating and leading an effective Europe as it does from providing military assets. It is a judgement for Britain to make as to where it will gain most advantage – from a military that will enhance EU effectiveness, and thus build a superpower partner, or a military that will most effectively complement US requirements for sustained ground presence, by supplying force that confers multilateral legitimacy on US operations.
Britain’s ambitions for the US under a land doctrine would no doubt benefit in the short term by being able to sustain a division in theatre wherever this generational epic of failed-state conflicts alights next. We would thereby demonstrate a commitment to the US that would no doubt be reflected in their maintenance of the intelligence and technology sharing functions that forms the real and, for us, beneficial core of the special relationship. However, as America’s interests move further east would the British public be willing to follow the US into wars that are perceived to be ever more remote from what’s recognisable as our national interests? In the 2020 time-frame, without a willingness to fight US COIN wars alongside them, and unable to present Europe as a willing and able partner in 21st century geopolitics, how will Britain keep the US engaged in our interests?
The challenge for Britain’s ambitions for the US under a maritime doctrine lies in convincing Washington that reducing our capability to support their forces in theatre will increase the probability of delivering the EU that can be a genuine partner in a post-unipolar world. American scepticism of European commitment to deliver effective military capability is well justified. The cost of a maritime doctrine may be considered very-long odds contrasted against the capability we provide today. On the other hand, the US State Department has always be keen to see Britain thoroughly enmeshed in ever-deeper-union, presumably on the logic that if there is to be an EU it might as well be both effective and friendly to American interests, neither of which is assured without British involvement.
“Otherwise, Britain and the Conservative Party risk living with outcomes they hate.”
Britain’s Grand Strategy must be to retain the ability for sovereign and strategic power projection inside an ever more multi-lateral world. But that world will be one where our interests are best served by us delivering a NATO in twenty years time which is not fixed on Article V defence of European territorial integrity, but instead provides a genuine institutional bond linking the security and prosperity of North America and Europe.