The Edge: Is the military dominance of the west coming to an end?
by Mark Urban (Little, Brown, £12.99)
A polemic needs to be well timed to have impact, and Mark Urban’s new book, The Edge, is timely. The recent party leaders’ debate was silent on the issue of defence policy and national security—the only reference came from the Scottish National Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who condemned expenditure on nuclear weapons, saying “the money should be spent instead on the education of our children.” The conclusion must be that each of these politicians felt that to talk about defence as a priority would hurt their electoral prospects, (although Ukip’s manifesto promised to “substantially” increase defence spending).
Urban’s main assertion is that the west, and Europe in particular, is losing the capability and the will to fight a nation-state war—and that its willingness to use force is limited to action against non-state groups like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, and even then it engages with reluctance. Urban also argues that our analysis of the lack of a serious nation-state threat is also flawed, and that Russia and China, along with lesser players like Iran and North Korea, take a different view of their security and are building their military strength. We live in a dangerous and uncertain world where the international security regime created after the Second World War is breaking down, and where Russia and China are beginning to think and act according to their own rules.
Urban is especially critical of the UK’s neglect of the Royal Navy. The most obvious lesson of English and British history is the country’s dependence, as a trading nation with a global reach, on a powerful navy. Militarily, England has always depended on its alliances—its armies, unlike its navy, have seldom campaigned alone, drawing on the resources of empire or buying their way into foreign, mainly European, alliances, as Pitt the Younger did to create the land army that would eventually defeat Napoleon. The navy today is a shadow of what it was 20 years ago—and I have heard many times senior army officers argue that a naval officer should not be appointed Chief of Defence Staff. Urban argues convincingly that, in this instance, we have inverted the lessons of the past.
Like any good polemicist, Urban exaggerates to make his point—but even if he is only half right, his book should at least cause some anxiety. My own professional experience tells me we should be listening carefully to what he has to say—and it is depressing that apparently so few of our politicians have any sympathy with his message. There is a consensus that austerity, however it is implemented, should make defence spending a very low priority. But what good is an improved health service in a country that is unable to meet its primary responsibility of ensuring the safety of its citizens?
The UK Independence Party is alone in criticising the size of Britain’s aid budget, but for reasons that are more parochial than practical. Why, though, do we spend so heavily on aid when we can ill afford it? The argument that funding overseas development makes for a more stable international situation and that it persuades potential migrants to stay at home might be valid if the world’s 20 richest nations really did coordinate and target their aid policies. As they do not and never will, the money might be better spent on foreign and defence policy. And why did we ever abandon the idea that aid should be a branch of foreign policy controlled by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)? Though Urban does not mention it, the decline of the FCO is as much a symptom of the problem he describes as the decline of the navy. Just as we pay lip service to defence policy, so we have abandoned any pretence to an independent foreign policy beyond the vexed question of our membership of the European Union.
The authority that a UK Foreign Secretary used to command has been undermined, not just by the neutering of his or her department, but by the submission of any serious foreign policy decisions to the deliberations of the National Security Council, one of the first creations of the coalition government. The influence on policy-making, both domestic and international, of the intelligence and security agencies has also grown. Though I myself encouraged and promoted this after 9/11, today I incline to the view that a weak foreign policy department does no favours to those responsible for national security.
It would be naive to suppose that the newly aggressive Russia and China will have it their own way. Both states are fragile. Russia’s economy is nosediving and, in the medium term, China looks profoundly unstable, politically and socially. The west’s economic weapons are also powerful and may still deliver beneficial outcomes—Iran being the latest, though still unproven, test case. Nevertheless, the international outlook remains uncertain.
As we approach a general election that promises a new political alignment, it is a worrying sign that not a single influential politician dares to suggest that defence expenditure might be as important as spending on the health service. Perhaps our political leaders are not leaders at all, but followers, in thrall to assumptions that no longer really correspond to the realities of a fraught and insecure world.
A polemic needs to be well timed to have impact, and Mark Urban’s new book, The Edge, is timely. The recent party leaders’ debate was silent on the issue of defence policy and national security—the only reference came from the Scottish National Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon, who condemned expenditure on nuclear weapons, saying “the money should be spent instead on the education of our children.” The conclusion must be that each of these politicians felt that to talk about defence as a priority would hurt their electoral prospects, (although Ukip’s manifesto promised to “substantially” increase defence spending).
Urban’s main assertion is that the west, and Europe in particular, is losing the capability and the will to fight a nation-state war—and that its willingness to use force is limited to action against non-state groups like the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda, and even then it engages with reluctance. Urban also argues that our analysis of the lack of a serious nation-state threat is also flawed, and that Russia and China, along with lesser players like Iran and North Korea, take a different view of their security and are building their military strength. We live in a dangerous and uncertain world where the international security regime created after the Second World War is breaking down, and where Russia and China are beginning to think and act according to their own rules.
Urban is especially critical of the UK’s neglect of the Royal Navy. The most obvious lesson of English and British history is the country’s dependence, as a trading nation with a global reach, on a powerful navy. Militarily, England has always depended on its alliances—its armies, unlike its navy, have seldom campaigned alone, drawing on the resources of empire or buying their way into foreign, mainly European, alliances, as Pitt the Younger did to create the land army that would eventually defeat Napoleon. The navy today is a shadow of what it was 20 years ago—and I have heard many times senior army officers argue that a naval officer should not be appointed Chief of Defence Staff. Urban argues convincingly that, in this instance, we have inverted the lessons of the past.
Like any good polemicist, Urban exaggerates to make his point—but even if he is only half right, his book should at least cause some anxiety. My own professional experience tells me we should be listening carefully to what he has to say—and it is depressing that apparently so few of our politicians have any sympathy with his message. There is a consensus that austerity, however it is implemented, should make defence spending a very low priority. But what good is an improved health service in a country that is unable to meet its primary responsibility of ensuring the safety of its citizens?
The UK Independence Party is alone in criticising the size of Britain’s aid budget, but for reasons that are more parochial than practical. Why, though, do we spend so heavily on aid when we can ill afford it? The argument that funding overseas development makes for a more stable international situation and that it persuades potential migrants to stay at home might be valid if the world’s 20 richest nations really did coordinate and target their aid policies. As they do not and never will, the money might be better spent on foreign and defence policy. And why did we ever abandon the idea that aid should be a branch of foreign policy controlled by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO)? Though Urban does not mention it, the decline of the FCO is as much a symptom of the problem he describes as the decline of the navy. Just as we pay lip service to defence policy, so we have abandoned any pretence to an independent foreign policy beyond the vexed question of our membership of the European Union.
The authority that a UK Foreign Secretary used to command has been undermined, not just by the neutering of his or her department, but by the submission of any serious foreign policy decisions to the deliberations of the National Security Council, one of the first creations of the coalition government. The influence on policy-making, both domestic and international, of the intelligence and security agencies has also grown. Though I myself encouraged and promoted this after 9/11, today I incline to the view that a weak foreign policy department does no favours to those responsible for national security.
It would be naive to suppose that the newly aggressive Russia and China will have it their own way. Both states are fragile. Russia’s economy is nosediving and, in the medium term, China looks profoundly unstable, politically and socially. The west’s economic weapons are also powerful and may still deliver beneficial outcomes—Iran being the latest, though still unproven, test case. Nevertheless, the international outlook remains uncertain.
As we approach a general election that promises a new political alignment, it is a worrying sign that not a single influential politician dares to suggest that defence expenditure might be as important as spending on the health service. Perhaps our political leaders are not leaders at all, but followers, in thrall to assumptions that no longer really correspond to the realities of a fraught and insecure world.
