Defeating IS Starts in the Mind

Somewhere in Deepest England. 7 October.  Humanitarian Alan Henning died a hero at the hands of Islamic State (IS) thugs this weekend.  He died as he lived trying to reach up and over a deepening cultural and religious divide.  It is a divide between Muslims and non-Muslims in European societies that IS is ruthlessly exploiting to attract alienated young people in Western societies to their cause, and to further destabilise Western European societies already destabilised by hyper-immigration.  In spite of attempts by politicians to cover their political tracks that divide is nowhere more apparent than here in Britain.

Now, I am no bleeding heart liberal.  Ten years ago I left the Labour Party which I had hitherto supported all my life horrified at the complete disconnect between Tony Blair’s immigration and security policies.  It made no sense to me as a strategist and analyst to send large numbers of British troops to Afghanistan to keep Islamism at bay whilst the government actively encouraged large numbers of deeply conservative Muslims from some of the most traumatised parts of the world to immigrate into Britain.  Sadly, my fears were justified as Labour’s insane experiment in multiculturalism led to today’s ghettos of mistrust and mutual incomprehension that are all too apparent in many of England’s broken cities.

Many Britons of my generation look on aghast at what our once secure country has become and the refusal of politicians to face up to the mess they have made of a society once renowned for its balance.  This disconnect with the ordinary people – both immigrant and non-immigrant - who have to live with the consequences of a failed political experiment and the politicians fighting each other in the out-of-touch Westminster bubble helps explain the rise of parties such as UKIP in England and the SNP in Scotland. 

For all that my job as a strategist is to consider where ‘we’ are and look at ways forward to a better future.  Alan Henning showed us a different Britain which I CHOOSE to hang onto and believe in.  Henning showed us a Britain in which compassion can reach across cultural dividing lines.  That good people irrespective of faith or ethnicity can come together.  He also showed me the need for understanding of communities under intense pressure from fear-fuelled racism and the tensions caused within by trying to preserve traditional cultures in a country that has abandoned so much of its own.

Here in deepest England there is much talk of quick fixes.  “Send in the SAS”, one man said to me.  “They will sort out ‘Jihadi John’”, the man believed to be responsible for the murder of several Westerners captured by this murderous group.  Not only is such a plan unworkable such action in and of itself will not even begin to deal with the challenge to regional and world order that is Islamic State.  No, the best way for all of us to confront Islamic State is to honour Alan Henning and the many other victims of IS by reaching out to each other and to actively march across the divide that separates us and which IS exploits. 

As I sit here and write this I am remembering the Muslim cleric who stood in front of IS forces as they took Mosul and pleaded for the lives of his Christian fellow Iraqis.  He was martyred for his courage.  My thoughts also turn to the young British Muslims who serve their country in the armed forces, in the police and in a whole host of other ways that offer a picture of hope rather than the despair that so many indigenous English people now feel about their society and their country. 

In recent days I have spoken to Muslim friends.  They feel they are under siege from quiet but forceful distrust, even hatred is very English here in England.  They are blamed for acts which they detest as much as the rest of us and feel trapped in a no-man’s land between cultures and identities.  There is no future at all for such a society.  

The simple truth is that IS and their fellow-travellers, including the irreconcilables in British society, will never be defeated by RAF bombs, ever more liberty-sapping counter-terrorism laws or ever more freedom of speech killing racism and hate laws.  IS will only be defeated by strong societies built on mutual respect and tolerance which is organised, established and integrated on the fundamental values of liberal-democracy.  If any group rejects liberal-democracy then they have no place in British or indeed wider European society.  Therefore, finding an accommodation between Islam and liberal democracy is now the challenge for Government and governance not just here in Britain but across Europe.  Indeed, the rejection of liberal democracy is after all the rallying cry of Jihadism and which is causing so much tension within Muslim communities within Britain.  

In the wake of Alan Henning’s murder Imams across Britain stood up to condemn IS.  In so doing they honoured Alan Henning by offering a bridge to the rest of a society of which British Muslims are now an important part. The greatest defence against Jihadism will be the creation of a liberal-democracy in which the millions of decent, patriotic and law-abiding Muslims can feel comfortable and welcome.  Such a goal will be a challenge but it is by no means impossible because it is the very idea of freedom for which many people came to Britain.

Yes, my old Britain is dead but long live the new Britain in which mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual tolerance act as the strongest of shields against radicalisation and fanaticism.  

Alan Henning showed in his simple but righteous life that defeating IS begins not just at home but in the mind and demands of all of us the need to reach out and beyond our own prejudice.  That includes me.  The strange thing is that once we are start speaking to each other as a conscious effort to build the new society it might be far easier than many of us think.  Just make the effort, for Alan.

Julian Lindley-French

Brexit: Why the British will get the Scottish Treatment

Alphen, Netherlands. 3 October.  Those of you who are regular victims of my musings will know I am a pro-European Eurosceptic, i.e. I believe deeply in close co-operation between European states and I am implacably opposed to democracy-destroying, freedom-frying, liberty-lacking European federalism in which power is ever further removed from the people.  No sooner has the Scottish referendum been sorted (for now) than the battle over the Brexit referendum has recommenced.  Indeed, in many ways the Scottish referendum was a dry run for the Brexit referendum and here is why.

There are two lessons from the Scottish referendum which will be pertinent for the Brexit vote when it eventually comes in 2017 or 2022. First, the elite Establishment in both London and Brussels will warn of grave economic consequences for Britain should the British leave the EU.  Second, hard commitments should be exacted from the EU Establishment BEFORE the referendum.   

The battle-lines over the Brexit are already apparent.  This week Sir Martin Sorrell, Chairman of WPP a ‘media conglomerate’ (whatever that is), warned the British against even holding a Brexit referendum.  Sorrell’s comments are pretty much the same as those employed by the political Establishment and big business in the week prior to the Scottish vote as the latter threatened to decamp south en masse in the event of secession. 

Now, I know little of Sorrell or his wider views and he may be a model democrat.  However, on the face of it at least his comments appear to reflect contempt for democracy that is apparently shared by many captains of industry and commerce.  The simple truth is that big business does not give a damn about democracy and liberty.

The strange thing about Sorrel’s argument is that it collapses under its own weight.  The EU is the only region in the world that is not growing.  Much of this has to do with EU over-regulation and the political irresponsibility implicit in the economic, financial and fiscal contradiction that is the Eurozone.  And yet Sorrel believes Britain should remain marginal part (in fact the EU and the Eurozone are one and the same thing) of what has become from even the most cursory strategic and structural analysis a European mutual impoverishment pact. 

Given the close relationship between the leadership of the Conservative Party and big business some level of cynicism with Prime Minister Cameron’s promise to renegotiate Britain’s relationship with the EU is not only justified, but entirely healthy.  And yet here is the paradox; Cameron's bid to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the EU is probably the best chance of a pre-referendum deal particularly if the Brussels-elite can be convinced there really is a chance the British might vote to quit.  

However, for Cameron to succeed he must confront two dangerous contradictions in his own position.  First, Cameron will need to fight less for Britain and more for the principle that the ever onward march to ever closer political union and eventual federation must be stopped.  In this he will find a growing number of allies across Europe.  Indeed, a clever Cameron is about the only thing that frightens the euro-fanatics about the Brexit.  Second, he will need to convince EU leaders that if he fails to get EU reform he will recommend a Brexit.

This is what will happen prior to a Brexit referendum.  Firstly, all talk of ever closer political union will be banned in Brussels.  However, eventual political union will remain the purpose of the EU.  Secondly, the European Central Bank will instigate a short-term re-inflation of the Eurozone economy to give the impression of economic growth.  Thirdly, a sustained campaign would be commenced involving the likes of Sorrell designed to intimidate the British people in very similar ways to the intimidation to which the Scots were subjected.  

Therefore, those wanting real change in Britain’s relationship with the EU should not simply wait for the Brexit referendum that may or may not happen and which may or may not be rigged.  Instead, they should push, cajole and support Cameron to press for real EU reform and help him to construct the necessary Europe-wide alliance necessary if future Europe is to be an alliance of nation-states rather than an EU confederation or federation. 

There is of course a game-changer that would move the goal-posts on a Brexit; the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  A transatlantic free trade zone could permit Britain to join a non-Eurozone super-European Free Trade Area AND permit the Eurozone to pursue deeper political and economic union.  In effect, the TTIP would render moot all the dire warnings about Britain having no access to the EU single market in the event of a Brexit, which would in any case be illegal under World Trade Organisation rules. 

There is also a potentially dangerous twist that those desperately keen for a Brexit referendum should consider.  Any such vote would not in fact be considering the EU of today but the EU of tomorrow.  If the vote in the end goes in favour of Britain staying in the EU then the Euro-fanatics will immediately claim a false mandate for Britain to join the Euro just like Jean-Claude Juncker claimed a false mandate from May’s European Parliament elections to become President of the European Commission.  Indeed, far from protecting Britain’s status as an independent nation-state a referendum could actually hasten its demise and open the door to a truly federal European super-state.  In other words, euro-sceptics beware of what you wish for.  Just food for thought.

Julian Lindley-French

Afghanistan: Ghani or Gandhi?

Alphen, Netherlands. 1 October.  Mahatma Gandhi once said, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”.  The swearing in of President Ashraf Ghani as Afghanistan’s head of state this week is an important moment.  It is the first peaceful, democratic hand-over of power in Afghanistan’s history.  No-one should under-estimate the importance of the moment or the achievement for Afghanistan and democracy in a country deeply divided by ethnicity, power and traditions and which is too often consumed from within by elite corruption and a criminal economy.  Equally, President Ghani faces immense challenges.  He came to power in a disputed election and will need to provide leadership Afghanistan has never known at a particularly dangerous moment.  Is he up to it?

President Ghani and I have engaged on several occasions at meetings over the years.  He is without doubt a brilliant man who always impresses and who has an unrivalled understanding of his country and its challenges.  The very nature of our engagement at such events was itself fascinating.  My approach was to look at the challenge of Afghanistan from an unashamedly Western viewpoint.  This is because having looked at Western strategy in Afghanistan and written several big reports on the challenges posed I thought it important to be clear; Western powers were not in Afghanistan out of an act of charity whatever the rhetoric to the contrary.  It was pure, naked national interest that drove the Western powers into Afghanistan and it is the self-same interests which has driven most of them out.

Ghani’s response to me showed his strengths and his weaknesses.  In our exchanges I was always careful to bow to his knowledge of Afghanistan and simply listen.  His love for and his deep knowledge of his country is something to behold.  However, he also suffers from the weakness of conceit shared by many brilliant people.  A very clear weakness evident on several occasions (and not just to me) was his occasionally dismissive belief that he knew about the interests, strategy and policy of my country far better than me.  He was wrong. 

Part of his ‘certainty’ was the natural defensiveness of anyone who is part of the Washington ‘thinktocracy’.  To survive in DC think-tanks one must know everything, all of the time and never be wrong about anything.  However, too often the Ghani lecture (for that is what it was) was not so much an analysis of Western interests as a wish list of his ideas for a permanent Afghanistan-centric Western interest.  This led him to believe that Afghanistan and by extension Ghani himself were and are far more central to the national security of Western powers than was ever the case.

This juxtaposition between leader and thinker, informed and inspired leadership and wishful thinking is probably the place where Ghani’s presidency will succeed or fail.  If he approaches his task as an elevated Washington think-tanker he will fail.  Indeed, as President Ghani he needs to be able to look down upon ideas from the heights of power and great responsibility rather than up at power via a simple exchange of ideas without great responsibility, which is where I live. 

Furthermore, to succeed Ghani will need to achieve and reconcile two almost contradictory missions both of which concern the ‘normalisation’ of Afghanistan as a state.  On the one hand, President Ghani must build on the very genuine sense of nationhood that most Afghans feel irrespective of ethnicity if he is to create a state called Afghanistan that is more than a giant security complex.  On the other hand, President Ghani must deal with the consequences of ‘success’ that ‘normalisation’ entails, i.e. the more normal Afghanistan becomes the less interested the US and indeed other allies will be in Afghanistan and by extension him.

With this week’s signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement with the US and the exemption of American forces from prosecution under Afghan law the security effort to buttress the new Afghan state and Ghani’s presidency has been physically reinforced.  The Agreement means some 9800 US personnel can in principle stay in Afghanistan in a training and mentoring capacity until at least 2024.  This is important.  However, for Ghani to be legitimate in the eyes of Afghans Kabul cannot again become synonymous with force or a protected canton of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).  Indeed, if that happens Kabul will again be seen simply as a Western-imposed distant elite ‘legitimised’ by American, i.e. foreign power.  This is something the Taliban, the Haqqani Network and the many fellow-travellers amongst the tribal and clan leaders will exploit, particularly in the Pashtun lands and quite possibly with the assistance of Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence.  If that happens Afghanistan will be cast back not moved forward.

Therefore, the true test of President Ghani will be the emergence of some form of civil society across Afghanistan itself buttressed by the just rule of law.  It will see an Afghanistan further established on an economy that moves steadily away from the cultivation and exploitation of hard narcotics and which is properly re-integrated into the wider regional economy.  To achieve the demilitarisation and decriminalisation of Afghanistan President Ghani will need to stamp down hard on corruption in Kabul and the regional capitals and reach out to Afghanistan’s powerful and troublesome neighbours.  Above all he will need to lead a real government of national unity in close partnership with Afghanistan’s new ‘Chief Executive’ and presidential rival Abdullah Abdullah.  Such a strategy will be at least as important as reliance on his many contacts in elite Washington.  

  

Here is my concern.  My reading of President Ghani is that on occasions he too often allows an elevated ego to cloud a masterful intellect.  Indeed, he has an insecurity about him at times which renders him susceptible to the charms of those who ‘agree’ with him out of self-interest.  The President will need to realize that he cannot be an expert on all things and have the strength to seek wise counsel even if he is an if not the acknowledged expert on how to build a broken state. 

President Ashraf Ghani is no Gandhi.  However, Ghani has it in him to be a truly great Afghan leader if he allows himself to rise to the status of his elevated office (as indeed he can) and yet retain the openness of mind to listen.  There is one thing of which I am sure; President Ashraf Ghani will certainly imbue the Presidency of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with the respect and dignity that the Afghan people need and deserve. 

As Gandhi also said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others”.

Good luck, Mr President.

Julian Lindley-French

Stoltenberg’s NATO Challenge

Alphen, Netherlands. 29 September.  Winston Churchill once said, “Civilization will not last, freedom will not be kept, unless a very large majority of mankind unite together to defend them”.  This week Norway’s former Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg will take over as NATO Secretary-General.  In the wake of this month’s NATO Wales Summit Stoltenberg will face the greatest strategic challenge to the Alliance since the Cold War.  The threat comes not specifically from Russia or Islamic State unpredictable and potentially dangerous though they are.  Indeed, no NATO member presently faces an existential threat.  No, the real threat to the Alliance comes from the members themselves and the steadfast refusal of many of them to see the world as it is, not as they would like it to be.  European leaders bereft of vision and political courage talk endlessly about long-term strategy when they mean short-term politics.  Solving NATO’s strategy conundrum is without doubt the greatest challenge Stoltenberg faces. 

In that light Stoltenberg’s tough job will be no less than to nudge the European members of the Alliance back to a strategic reality in which credible military power is re-established in Europe as the hard rock upon which the twenty-first century influence of a twenty-first century Atlantic Alliance must necessarily be built.  Sadly, all my research shows the exact opposite is happening.  Only four NATO members meet the Alliance target of 2% GDP on defence and if one looks closely at the language of the Wales Summit Declaration few have any appetite to meet it. 

Even those states that nominally spend 2% GDP on defence either spend badly or use accounting tricks to maintain the illusion of upheld defence expenditure.  Take my own country Britain.  David Cameron made much of his commitment in Wales that Britain would continue to spend 2% GDP on defence.  Sadly, like so much of his smoke and mirrors premiership the ‘commitment’ is in fact a political illusion and a mask for further defence cuts.  Senior word from within Parliament tells me that Britain will only maintain the 2% target on defence by including costs hitherto outside of the defence budget, such as nuclear forces, pensions and operations.  As ever with Cameron clever politics masks appalling strategy as in all likelihood should he win the British general election in May 2015 he will move to cut the conventional force even more.  Proof of this is the difficulty the Royal Air Force has had mustering six ageing Tornado aircraft for operations against Islamic State this week and the spin operation by London to pretend otherwise. 

Strategy-killing politics oozes from the many pages of the NATO Wales Summit Declarations and reflects a fundamentally false assumption; that the United States is and will remain the strongest military power on the planet, by some distance and for the foreseeable future.  Yes, the Americans are still the strongest military power on the planet but Washington is mired in debt and uncertainty with the US military facing defence cuts between now and 2020 greater than the combined defence expenditure of ALL the NATO Europeans.  In other words, the great age of unrivalled American supremacy is coming to an end and NATO needs collectively to get its heads around the implications of that.

The terrifying truth Secretary-General Stoltenberg will face this week is that the military balance of military power is shifting away from the West at breakneck speed.  By 2016 Russia will spend more on defence than France and Germany combined.  China, which now spends at least $130bn per annum on it armed forces (and probably far more) has been investing per annum double-digit percentage increases in defence ever since 1989.  President Xi is determined to further increase such expenditures.  Contrast that with NATO Europe.  Thirteen of the world’s top twenty defence slashers between 2012 and 2014 are in NATO Europe.  These are cuts upon cuts for between 2008 and 2012 many NATO Europeans cut their defence budgets by up to 30%.

And yet, if NATO members got their collective act together as part of a twenty-first century transatlantic security contract they could a) help keep the US strong where it needs to be strong – Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific; and b) demonstrate to the world that whatever a state spends on armed force such expenditures will never outstrip those of the West and are thus a waste of money.  To do that NATO and its members will need to look hard at how to generate real efficiencies and generate new strategic partnerships the world to multiply real effectiveness.  That will require a radical NATO.  Sadly, the words ‘radical’ and ‘NATO’ are strangers to each other.

There is one other challenge Mr Stoltenberg will need to consider on his first day in the office – the coincidence of crises.  It is annoying that the Russia-Ukraine War and the threat posed by Islamic State to the Sykes-Picot Middle Eastern order should come at one and same time.  It would be so nice to deal with crises separately and sequentially.  Welcome to the real world.  The future Alliance will rarely be allowed the luxury of choosing crises.  Indeed, the West’s adversaries will do all they can to complicate American strategy (and by extension NATO ‘strategy’) by generating simultaneous crises.

NATO’s bottom-line is this; the United States is the world’s only world power that is present in strength in every world region.  However, to be critically strong in every region the US will need NATO Allies that can act credibly in and around Europe as crisis first responders.  Succeed and NATO will reinvent itself as an Alliance and regenerate itself in the American political mind.  Fail and NATO will simply fade into anachronistic strategic irrelevance and the world will be a very much more dangerous place for that.

European defence irresponsibility has been a major factor in making the world today more dangerous than it need be because it has made the costs of challenging the West’s supremacy both achievable and bearable.  Therefore, if freedom is to be defended Stoltenberg’s first challenge will be to shift the Alliance beyond its false comfort zone. To do that Secretary-General Stoltenberg will need to get the North Atlantic Council to look up and outwards at big strategy rather than down and inwards at narrow politics where so many of Europe’s short-sighted leaders find false comfort.

Good luck, Mr Stoltenberg!

Julian Lindley-French

Fukuyama, Europe, Power and Law

Riga, Latvia. 25 September.  "What we are witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War...but the end of history as such...and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government".  Twenty-five years ago Francis Fukuyama wrote one of those epoch-bending, era-defining articles that caught the imagination of the moment.  "The End of History?" first appeared in the review "The National Interest" in 1989 before being expanded into a best-selling 1992 book.  Fukuyama's book has been much misunderstood ever since, mainly by those who claimed to have read it but never actually did.  Fukuyama was not suggesting the end of events but rather that law would replace power in international relations built on the principles of liberal democracy and peaceful free market competition.  'Law' to Fukuyama represented a series of normative rules and practices by which all states would abide.  Still, twenty-five years on the re-appearance of Macho-politik and Machtpolitik in Europe challenge Fukuyama's thesis to the core.

 

The EU is in many ways the ultimate embodiment of the Fukuyama thesis, far more than his own native United States.  Indeed, it is power versus law that is at the very centre of the clash of cultures embodied in the 2014 Russia-Ukraine War.  On the one side of the clash (much more than NATO) is the EU and its European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) which was launched amidst much fanfare in 2004.  Central to the ENP is a very technocratic view of international relations with so-called "association agreements" designed to tie states beyond EU borders to the Brussels Way.  Future EU membership is implicit rather than explicit in such agreements with the prospect of copious amounts of EU taxpayer's cash on offer to ease the path of weak states to the east and south of the EU as they 'align' with Brussels via regulation and EU "law". 

 

On the other side of the clash is Russia.  For Moscow whatever the means the EU employs to extend its influence is still a function of  competitive geopolitics and thus a zero sum game in which Russia loses.  To Moscow Brussels might dress up its advances in "law" but ultimately EU expansion is all about influence and power and thus can only be at Russia's expense.  In the recent past Russia rather lamely tried to counter the EU with its own Eurasian Union. However, Moscow's EU has little attraction to those in Russia's "near abroad" who have no wish to find themselves back in a Soviet Union re-born.  

 

The irony is that Fukuyama's thesis is being contested by a Russia that Fukuyama did not predict.  Russia is simply a traditional illiberal power (although it shares many of the hallmarks) but a state that sees itself as a form of hybrid "sovereign democracy".  This confuses other Europeans and helps to explain why 2014 marks the end of the Fukuyama thesis (at least for now).  Such confusion is also reflected in the stark nature of the clash and Russia's very real return to the principles of Machtpolitik.

 

This cold new/old reality was evident in the 5 September abduction of senior Estonian Intelligence officer Eston Kohver who now languishes in a Moscow jail.  All the evidence suggests he was abducted from within Estonian territory by the so-called "Alpha" Spetsnaz team from the Special Operations Centre of Russia's FSB Intelligence agency.  On the face of it Russia's action suggests that Estonia, the most exposed of the Baltic States, might be the next target for the ambiguous warfare Russia unleashed on Ukraine.  Certainly, Mr Kohver will have deep knowledge of Estonian defences and Estonia's working relationship with both NATO and the EU and no doubt that has now been extracted.

 

So, power or law in Europe?  At present it looks very much like Russian power is winning with what is essentially a weak hand given the state of Russian society and its economy. The ceasefire in Ukraine is in fact a de facto acknowledgement of Russian gains.  Mr Kohver, much like the shooting down of MH17, seems sadly to have been confined quickly to the politically-convenient archives of history. 

 

The essential folly of Fukuyama's EU has also been revealed.  In practice Fukuyama's thesis has helped to disarm Europe, politically, militarily and even mentally.  For twenty-five years Europe has played EU legal chess in a bid to fulfil Fukuyama's dictum with a Russia that pretended to play along.  In fact, it was only a matter of time before Russia went back to playing the power poker with which Moscow is much more comfortable.  Moscow's "defection" from EU chess this year has left Europeans simply unable or unwilling to see what is happening, not least because many of them have simply forgotten how to play power poker.  Technocracy does not do geopolitics.

 

This reality was brought home to me in Oslo this week.  I had the honour of addressing the excellent international Army Summit 2014 hosted by the Chief of Staff of the Royal Norwegian Army.  It was a fascinating day.  We talked about defence cuts, interoperability between armed forces, diversity and political correctness and the experiences of the ordinary soldier.  The one word that was missing from the conference was 'power', until of course I rose to speak.  I imagined Churchill alive today and what the great man would have said about Europe's retreat from power into 'law'.  He would have gazed sternly at the audience and in good time and no doubt as politically incorrect as me, the great gravel of a voice would have thundered, "Power is a fickle mistress.  Treat her with respect or she will soon seek favours elsewhere".      

 

It is Fukuyama's relationship with power that causes his thesis to fail. In international relations power is more abiding than law.  In geopolitics 'law' can never be an alternative to power but a consequence of it.  Law needs power and no amount of clever technocracy can replace power.  This is what Moscow understands and 1989 Francis Fukuyama caught up in the Cold War ending euphoria of the moment failed to understand.  I bet he does now. Does Europe?

 

Julian Lindley-French 

Operation Market Garden 70

“Let there be sung Non Nobis and Te Deum, the dead with charity enclosed in clay”

Henry V, William Shakespeare

Oosterbeek War Cemetery, Netherlands.  21 September.  A lone Spitfire barrel rolls over the assembled veterans, a C-3 Dakota transport aircraft rumbles overhead in splendid salute.  Russet autumn leaves float to the ground from the giant American oaks that surround this place of sanctuary as if the souls of the paratroopers who lay interred herein are making one final drop.  Amidst the browns, greens and greys of an ageing year airborne maroon on young and old runs like a proud seam between then and now, in a great jump across the seventy years that have passed since the great battle of September 1944.  This is a day of proud men, real men for whom the ranks of Portland stone are not just the names of young men but real people, real comrades, fallen friends.  It is these brave men many weighed down in old age by their own bemedalment who can tell the real story of the real battle for Arnhem, not Richard Attenborough’s “Oh What a Lovely War with Parachutes”, false ‘epic’ “A Bridge Too Far” that so ill-defines those fateful days between 17^th and 25^th September, 1944. 

Seventy years ago today Operation Market Garden had been underway for four days.  A massive combined airborne (‘Market’) and land (‘Garden’) operation in which British, American, Canadian, and Polish forces fought together with the Dutch Resistance and the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade to capture three vital bridges.  If successful Field Marshal Montgomery’s brilliant but risk-laden operation would have seen Britain’s XXX Corps under the command of Lt. Gen. Brian Horrocks cross the Rhine and open the way into Nazi Germany.  The plan came close to succeeding and no doubt would have but for the unexpected presence of the II SS Panzer Corps and the 9^th and 10^th SS Panzer Divisions under the command of Lt General Wilhelm Bittrich.  The key to the battle was the bridge at Arnhem which is today called Johnny Frost Bridge in honour of the British colonel commanding the 1^st Parachute Brigade and who came so close to succeeding.

On 17 September, 1944 41,628 airborne troops launched the largest airborne operation in history.  The airborne force consisted of the British 1^st Airborne under the command of Major-General Roy Urquhart, the US 82^nd Airborne under the command of Major-General James M. Gavin, and the US 101^st Airborne under the command of Major-General Maxwell D. Taylor with the 1^st Polish Independent Parachute Brigade under the command of Major-General Stanislaw Sosobowski held in reserve.

The strategic aim was for the airborne forces to to enable General Dempsey’s 2^nd British Army to enter Germany quickly, capture the Ruhr industrial belt and so end the war by crossing the rivers Waal, Maas and finally the Rhine at Arnhem.   However, for Market Garden to work XXX Corps would need to reach Eindhoven in 2 to 3 hours and cover the 65 miles/104kms between its jump-off point at Lommel, Belgium and Arnhem in 2-3 days to relieve British 1^st Airborne. 

To assist XXX Corps in its drive north the US 82^nd Airborne would land in the Nijmegen/Grave area and take the bridge over the Waal and the US 101^st Airborne would land in the Eindhoven/Son area closest to the September 1944 front line and seize the bridge over the Maas.  Seven bridges in total had to be seized.  Simultaneously with the drops XXX Corps would punch a hole through the German front lines from their start in Belgium and then drive quickly north to link up with the lightly-armed airborne forces.  Having taken the bridge at Arnhem.

The operation began well.  At 1435 hours on 17 September behind a creeping artillery barrage XXX Corps began its drive north with the Irish Guards in the lead under the command of Colonel J.O.E. Vandeleur.  However, the presence of Bittrich’s forces close to Arnhem placed the British 1^st Airborne in a very precarious position indeed and increased the pressure on XXX Corps to make rapid progress northwards.   

However, the US 101^st Airborne failed to take the bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal at Son before it was demolished by the Germans. This led to a delay of some thirty-six hours for XXX Corps until a temporary British Bailey bridge could be constructed.  Moreover, the narrowness of the roads and the scale of liberation celebrations slowed XXX Corps significantly.  On 20^th September the US 82^nd Airborne after a river-borne crossing seized the north end of the bridge at Nijmegen just as a Tiger-killing Sherman Firefly tank under the command of Sergeant Peter Robinson of the British 2^nd Grenadier Guards stormed across the bridge from the south.

British tanks paused at Lent north of Nijmegen due mainly to logistical reasons and the vulnerability of tanks to German Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons, which were particularly effective given that most Dutch roads are on dykes.  The delay effectively meant that 1^st Airborne in spite of an attempted reinforcement by Polish forces on 21^st September into drop zones that has been overrun by the Germans.  This led to the slaughter of many of the Polish airborne troops.  On Saturday, 25^th September 1^st Airborne received orders to withdraw the remnant of that gallant force back across the Rhine. Some wag at headquarters gave the operation the ironic title Operation Berlin. 

Operation Market Garden had failed.  However, the Allied front-line had advanced over 65 miles/110kms and large parts of the Netherlands had been liberated.  Allied losses were probably around 17,000, of which some 13,226 were British, whilst it is believed German forces suffered up to 6,000 killed.  It is believed between 500 and 1000 Dutch citizens were killed.

This morning I had breakfast with Major-General ‘Mick’ Nicholson, commander of the US 82^nd Airborne and Brigadier Giles Hill of the British Parachute Regiment.  We met to discuss ‘strategy’.  However, the meeting although important was not the main event. We were all really here for the veterans. Today is their day; a day to remember the sacrifice that has given my life the freedom I never take for granted.  There was another group of guests among us, modest in number and modest in demeanour from Germany.  This is as it should be; allies, friends and partners standing in solidarity and paying respect for the ultimate sacrifice that made liberty possible.

Today I saw a past reconciled with a present in which a new generation of children offered us all a bridge to the future.  It is a bridge of liberty that must always be defended and can never be too far - then, now and into the future.

“I was there, you know”.  One brave soldier says to me, tears in his wise eyes.  “I know”, I say.  “For it is for you I have come”. 

Thank you, Gentlemen. 

Julian Lindley-French

New Britain

Riga, Latvia. 19 September.  I am exhausted, relieved and not a little emotional this morning.  I have been up all night after addressing NATO generals here in Latvia watching the results of the Scottish referendum on television.  I am also deeply proud of my country this morning.  Britain endures,  democracy prevailed and thanks to the good sense of the Scottish people the referendum on Scottish independence delivered a decisive 55%-45% vote for the continuation of an ancient union that not only defines my country but defines me.  A proud Yorkshireman, Briton and Englishman with Scottish forebears the United Kingdom is for me deeply personal, goes to the very heart of my soul and reflects much of who I am.  Indeed, I do not mind admitting to you that this morning a tear of relief ran down my cheek as the Scot's rejection of separation was confirmed. 

This is not just a relief for me but here on the front-line of freedom people have been coming up to congratulate me in my relief.  Like me they would have accepted a vote for separation, albeit in my case I would have been cast down.  If one believes in the liberal democracy that defines much of Europe it is precisely the settled will of the people that must be respected even if one believe that will to be wrong.

No, for many Latvians Britain is more than just any old country.  She is a vital ally and friend the diminution of which would undermine Latvia's precious and precarious freedom.  Too often trapped in the short-termism of modern politics the British political class forget the strategic potency of Britain and the vital role a strong Britain plays in both European and world peace.  Britain might no longer be a world power and the days of jingoism are long dead.  However, Britain is still a strategic brand, a cornerstone of NATO and one of the foundations upon which a stable Europe is built.   With so much uncertainty again in Europe and indeed beyond the need for big Britain to play a big role has never been greater, something Latvians see with a clarity that their position brings sharp into focus  The descent of the United Kingdom into doubt and exaggerated decline (for that is what a vote for separation would have entailed) would have gravely undermined both Europe and the West.

Furthermore, separatists across Europe would have been encouraged and far from strengthening the voice of Europe in the world the Old Continent would have slipped even deeper into fracture and falter.  Perhaps French President Francois Hollande put it best when he said that 'we' Europeans did not make Europe to get to this point; the deconstruction of nations.  M. le President also said that getting smaller, allegedly to be stronger was the very opposite of the European ideal. Wise words indeed. 

This morning Britain is awakening from a nightmare.  Never again must Britain be brought to the point of disintegration.  No doubt this morning Prime Minister David Cameron feels vindicated that he permitted such a referendum. He must also face the fact that he handled the entire process spectacularly badly.  The panic in London after just one opinion poll showed the chance of a vote to separate was eloquent testimony to just how out-of-touch all the leaders of the main political parties have become.  Indeed, Cameron allowed Nationalist leader Alex Salmond not only to set the terms of the debate, but also the timing, who got to vote and even the very question.  In so doing Prime Minister Cameron put the Union at unnecessary risk and gave the separatists every chance of winning.  Thankfully, the separatists did not win and Cameron's yes-no gamble paid off with Scots giving a decisive and clear answer to preserve the Union.  It could have been so different this morning.

One thing is clear from this vote; political business as usual is not an option - be it in London or Brussels.  My over-riding lesson from this whole stressful experience is that twenty-first century democracies only work if power is as close as possible to the people that legitimise it.  Whether it be the arrogant disregard for the people shown for too long by the Westminster/Whitehall elite, or the gross and crass manipulation of democracy and the popular will by the Brussels elite sooner or later people will rebel.  

It is also time to renovate the will of the majority.  Both in Westminster and Brussels two trends have alienated the majority.  First, the over-concentration of high power and high politics in ever fewer and ever less accountable hands.  Second, the obsession of such elites with minorities often at the expense of majorities.  Do not get me wrong, I believe deeply in protecting minorities but for too long the legitimate concerns of decent majorities on matters such as immigration and Europe have been disregarded and dismissed by the elite as populism or nationalism. 

The distaste for big politics the Scots showed in this campaign is not unique to Scotland.  Indeed, I see it a across the UK and indeed across the EU.  I am sick of attending conferences and meetings and listening to presidents, prime ministers and ministers both past and present congratulating each other as great democrats or champions of the people when they are anything but.  I see the political elite almost weekly and the spin of its self-satisfied complacency it is not a pretty sight.

Hopefully, the Scottish people yesterday lit a bonfire under such complacency.  A bonfire that could and should act as a pyre for all the false 'certainties' of Westminster and the single-minded egotism of the EU elite.  Indeed, as President Hollande said prior to the result, the referendum in Scotland may decide the future of not only the United Kingdom but also the future of the EU.  There is a risk Europe could fall apart.  In the words of Wellington it was a close run thing.

Thank you Scotland.  Now it is time for bed.  Tomorrow we start the construction of a New Britain in a New Europe.

Julian Lindley-French