Iraq: The Strategic Lessons of Chilcot

“The danger is, as ever with these things, unintended consequences”

Prime Minister Tony Blair, 2002

Alphen, Netherlands. 7 July. It is 12 volumes and 2.6 million words in length and took 7 years to prepare. Yesterday afternoon I spent reading the 150 pages of the Executive Summary of Sir John Chilcot’s magnus opus The Iraq Enquiry. The strategic implications of what is a damning report into Tony Blair’s leadership of Britain at the time of the 2003 Iraq War are profound. Indeed, given the report’s condemnation (not too strong a word) of the failings of Britain’s political, intelligence, and military elites Chilcot brings into question the very utility in any circumstances of Western intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere. Indeed, Chilcot begs a question that the good knight himself does not answer; how do western states deal with the very real threats that do emanate from such places?  The West intervened in Afghanistan and Iraq and stayed; the result was disaster. The West intervened in Libya but did not stay; the result was disaster. The West did not really intervene in Syria; the result was disaster.

In recent (and not so recent history) few such Western efforts to shape the Middle East have achieved their stated objectives.  Indeed, in what is now a history of ill-considered consequences there is a certain tragic symmetry in the fact that the July 2016 Chilcot Report was published a century after the May 1916 Sykes-Picot Accord, which led to the creation of Iraq and so many other troubled Middle Eastern states. 

Chilcot underpins the need for sound strategic judgement that was lacking at times in the post 911 political environment. Chilcot reinforces the need for political leaders to understand what is possible on the ground. For example, there is a marked contrast between the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Gulf War. Whereas the 1991 war was undertaken to uphold the Middle East state structure, the 2003 war set out to change the very nature of the Middle Eastern state. Powerful unintended consequences ensued because powerful unwanted forces were unleashed because powerful people, especially in Washington, refused to confront powerful realities.  Indeed, Iraq was too often more about politics inside the Beltway, rather than security outside of it.

Chilcot firmly asserts that if such an intervention is to be launched it must be properly planned, resourced and forced. None of the West’s post-911 interventions have been properly planned and all have failed, including Afghanistan.  In fact, sound planning was indeed undertaken for post-‘conflict’ Iraq by the State Department’s ‘Iraq Shack’. However, President George W. Bush took responsibility for such planning away from State because he did not trust it and handed it to the Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon, which had no experience of such work. The subsequent Coalition Provisional Authority was a disaster.

Chilcot also warns of the dangers of politicising intelligence. Tony Blair had a whole raft of reasons for wanting to stay close to Bush, not least maintaining US support for the peace process in Northern Ireland. However, his lack of influence in the Bush White House was in stark contrast to his desperate need to remain close to Bush. This helped lead Blair to interpret the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) purely through the lens of the transatlantic security relationship rather than wider British interests. It is certainly to the chagrin if not the shame of the elite British civil service that so many did not challenge the Downing Street clique, most notably the British Intelligence services. Iraq revealed the politicisation of the once masterful British civil service which continues to this day, and which even today too often prevents truth being spoken to irresponsible power.

Chilcot is also clear about British military failure. The British Army was humiliated in Iraq, a humiliation that perhaps marked the beginning of the end of the special ‘Special’ US-UK Relationship. The gap between the military power Britain’s leaders said Britain could exert in support of the US soon proved to be false, even though the Americans must also take a lot of the blame for going into Iraq before all the forces and resources necessary to succeed were in place. Britain’s influence in Washington was sorely damaged as a result, and has never really recovered.

One has only to look at the Defence Planning Assumptions in the UK’s 1998 Strategic Defence Review to understand that putting a front-line force in excess of 40,000 troops into Iraq would break the troop bank, to then ‘plan’ in 2006 to go to Afghanistan as well before the mission in Basra was complete was dangerous military nonsense. The Defence Logistics Organisation effectively collapsed in 2003. That is why the occupation force was far smaller than the invasion force and why good military commanders and their civilian counterparts struggled to create a secure space in which stabilisation and reconstruction could take place. However, Britain’s top military commanders at the time must also shoulder some of the blame because they went into Iraq not to succeed but to get out as quickly as possible.

The failure in Iraq may have also marked the beginning of the end of Britain’s membership of the EU. After championing Britain’s future in the EU, and being seen as a de facto leader by many of the new Central and European members of an enlarged EU, Blair’s failure effectively ended Britain’s influence in the EU and ceded leadership to Germany. The opposition of France and Germany to the war proved to be correct, although the motivations of President Chirac and Chancellor Schroeder were complex.  The subsequent split between Britain on one side, and France and Germany on another, has never really healed and the slide towards Brexit accelerated.

Chilcot addresses another issue – method. In 2008 I wrote two reports following a fact-finding visit to Afghanistan. Both reports highlighted the same problems of commission and omission. Put simply, if a Western state or group of states is going to intervene in places like Afghanistan or Iraq it is vital the ‘human terrain’ is properly understood and all national and international means – civil and military – are applied carefully and rigorously to generate outcomes that give the inhabitants hope of positive change. This all-important unity of effort and purpose backed up by sufficient forces and resources was never achieved in either country leaving military commanders to try and close an impossible gap between intent, capability and capacity.

There is also a dangerous flip-side to Chilcot. In the wake of Iraq Britain steadily lost strategic self-confidence, the elite belief in Britain as a power collapsed, and with it there was a loss of British popular faith in both US leadership and in Britain’s own Establishment. It also demonstrated the extent to which keeping on the right side of a poorly-led Washington led Blair and his close clique to lose the strategic plot as the relationship between ends, ways and means descended into political fantasy.

At the start of this piece I raised a question implicit in Chilcot about the very principle of armed intervention; how do western states deal with the very real threats that do emanate from such places?  A hard truth is that there will be occasions in future when such interventions will sadly be necessary. The world is a dangerous place. If Chilcot leads to improved strategic judgement, better understanding of the challenge, the proper political use of intelligence, the re-establishment of appropriate distance between politicians and civil servants, and the closing of the gap between the roles and missions political leaders expect of armed forces, and the forces and resources needed to do the job asked of them, then all well and good. If, on the other hand, Chilcot leads British and other Western political leaders to conclude that they never want to find themselves alongside Blair facing a political, media and public opinion ‘lynching’ and abandon the very idea of military interventions in extremis then the post-Chilcot world is suddenly more not less dangerous. Reading Chilcot I was struck at times just how political the report is.

Ultimately, Tony Blair achieved the exact opposite of what he said he set out to achieve in Iraq and went to war on a false premise.  Over 150,000 Iraqis died, together with some 179 British military personnel, whilst over one million people were displaced. Blair and the Britain he led must bear full responsibility such for failure. However, the real blame ultimately lies with President George W. Bush and Messrs Cheney and Rumsfeld who at the time confused the need for revenge and ideological fervour for sound statecraft.  The threshold for Western military intervention in the Middle East or anywhere must be necessarily high. Chilcot may now have set that threshold impossibly high.

Julian Lindley-French

        

   

NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2016

Alphen, Netherlands. 4 July. On the eve of the NATO Warsaw Summit it is my honour to announce the publication of my latest hard-hitting report: NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2016: Twenty Vital Defence Planning and Related Questions the NATO Warsaw Summit Should Address…but will probably not.

Launched last week in Warsaw for FWPN the report considers the questions the political leaders of the Alliance should answer given the threats posed to NATO and in light of Brexit:

Is NATO fit for twenty-first century purpose?
Who has real power?
What if war breaks out in Europe?
Just how dangerous is Russia?
Can NATO defend itself?
Is Europe serious about defence?
Is the NATO defence and deterrence posture credible?
Do political NATO and military NATO agree about war?
Can Central Europeans influence Europe’s defence?
Is the balance of power in NATO Europe shifting?
What is the EU planning?
What are the strategic implications of Brexit?
Can Germany lead European defence?
Would a European Defence Union work?
Are NATO and the EU compatible?
Has NATO the strategic imagination to fight a new war?
Do NATO Europe’s leaders have the political courage to think about war?
What price will the Americans demand?
What critical defence planning issues must Warsaw address?
Is NATO the enduring Alliance?

You can download the full report for free via the Atlantic Treaty Association website:

http://atahq.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/FWPN-JLF-NEA-2016-FINAL-230616.pdf

Julian Lindley-French 

Brexit: I Told You So!

Dear All,

Below is a segment from a paper I wrote for the French think tank Fondation de la Recherche Strategique in Paris in February....I told you so!

"It is the morning of 24^th June, 2016. Britain and the rest of Europe, indeed the rest of the world, are coming to terms with the shock result of the Brexit referendum the night before. By a majority of 52% to 48% the British people voted to quit the European Union. Prime Minister David Cameron goes before the TV cameras to announce that he has accepted the settled will of the British people. He takes full responsibility for the result and announces that Britain will invoke Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union and begin the two-year ‘deaccession’ of the United Kingdom from the European treaties and institutions. He also announces his resignation forthwith as prime minister...

The rest of a shocked EU is faced with a quandary. Conscious that on this grey June morning the EU’s erstwhile second power might have set a dangerous precedent for withdrawal an emergency EU summit is called. Reactions across Europe range from pleading with the British people to think again, to outright condemnation of the British as ‘traitors’ to the very idea of a Europe Britain helped forge in blood. Quietly, some hard-line Euro-federalists express satisfaction that political integration can now proceed without the applied brake that London has come to represent for decades.

Berlin and Paris are under no illusions about the strategic and political implications of Britain’s split, especially so as President Putin continues to exert pressure on Europe’s eastern flank, and migrants continue to pour in from Europe’s southern flank. Privately, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande admit they should have tried harder to bring Britain into the Franco-German directoire. Across the Atlantic a lame duck President Obama joins presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to express regret having pushed hard for Britain to remain within the EU. After all, Washington have long seen the British as a strategic convenience and a tool to influence the EU. However, Obama also expresses confidence that now the issue has been ‘settled’ the transatlantic relationship in all of its myriad economic, social, political, and, of course, military forms can move forward. Donald Trump, just anointed Republican presidential nominee, says he really does not care, and that he will be happy to work with Britain as president. Mischievously, President Putin congratulates the British people for having chosen the path of ‘sovereignty’. In fact, for all the concerned leaders Brexit is a leap into the political dark for no-one knows what the strategic implications of Britain’s historic decision to quit EU will be".

Not that I am gloating...the situation is far too serious for that. Well, just a little bit.

Julian Lindley-French

The Battle of the Somme

“The English generals are wanting in strategy. We should have no chance if they possessed as much science as their officers and men had of courage and bravery. They are lions led by donkeys”.

General Erich Ludendorff.

1 July, 2016.  Zero Hour One Hundred Years plus Two. It was the bloodiest day ever for the British Army. A century ago some 300 kilometres/190 miles to the south of me the “big push” was underway. Twenty-nine British Army divisions were advancing across no man’s land in the face of heavy machine gun, mortar, infantry and artillery fire laid down by seven defending German divisions across a 50 km/30 mile front. By Zero plus Five the British had taken some 55,000 casualties, of whom 20,000 were dead.

The reason for the Battle of the Somme was the Battle of Verdun. By 1 July, 1916 the French Army had already been fighting on the charnel fields of Verdun for 134 days. German commander General Erich von Falkenhayn reportedly said his aim at Verdun was to bleed France white. Between February and December 2016 the French Army would suffer up to 540,000 casualties, of whom some 150,000 would be killed.

The French commander-in-chief Marshal Joffre pleaded with the British to launch a major offensive in the west to ease the pressure on French lines at Verdun. Crucially, British commander-in-chief General Sir Douglas Haig believed German forces had suffered sufficient attrition at Verdun to believe a combined Anglo-French assault on the German lines would succeed. Haig even believed it might be possible to enact a complete breakthrough of German defences and commence a rout. The Somme area was chosen for the offensive because it was where British and French forces stood alongside each other.

Five days prior to the offensive the British started an enormous artillery barrage that saw over one million shells fired at the German defences right up until the commencement of the advance. The fact that such a barrage could be mounted was proof the British had overcome the crippling shortage of artillery shells from which the British Army had suffered since the outbreak of war in August 1914.

The British offensive should have succeeded, at least on paper. British forces enjoyed more than a three-to-one superiority in men and materiel. However, the offensive failed. The reasons for failure are manifold.  However, in the intervening century the myth of the Somme has become overpowering and made it hard to discern fact from fiction.

The British Army at the Somme included in its ranks a significant number of Kitchener’s New Army. This was a newly-formed, ‘green’ (inexperienced) ‘citizen army’, which included the Sheffield City Battalion, from my own home town, and which fought with distinction on 1 July at Serre.  However, there were also a large number of battle-hardened British, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and other forces committed to the Somme offensive.

Marshal Joffre had promised the British that the French force on Haig’s right flank would be equal in size to that that of the British. However, by late June the French Army was simply unable to put such a force into the line such was the pressure being exerted on them by Falkenhayn at Verdun.

However, it was not green pal’s battalions or the French that did for Haig’s Somme offensive. It was Haig himself who doomed the Somme offensive to failure through bad strategy and over confidence.  By committing to a front some 30 km/50 miles wide the British force was spread far too thinly. The artillery barrage whilst impressive did nothing like the damage expected to the well-engineered German trenches and forewarned the enemy as to the scale and location of the offensive. Cohesion between the British divisions, and communications between high command and operational commanders was via a rudimentary command chain that was unable to withstand the confusion of a dynamic offensive after so long having been committed to a relatively static defence.

By November 18, 1916, when Haig called off the offensive, the British had gained an area some 12 km/9 miles deep and some 25 km/20 miles wide, but had suffered 623,907 casualties at a rate of some 3000 casualties per day. However, German losses also numbered 465,000 casualties. Conscious that the German Army could not suffer such losses again over the winter of 1916/1917 the Germans engineered the fearsome Hindenburg line behind the Somme battlefield to which they retreated in February 2017. Crucially, the Somme offensive did indeed help relieve pressure on the French Army at Verdun.

Lessons were learned from the failed Somme offensive. In March 1918 Ludendorff launched Operation Michael, a last desperate attempt by the German High Command to split British and French forces which were being reinforced daily by the arrival of US forces. German Stormtroopers were unleashed across what had been the old Somme battlefield. At first the British reeled back but crucially did not break.

At the Battle of Amiens, which commenced on 8 August, 1918, on what Ludendorff called the “black day of the German Army”, an exhausted German force faced a new new All Arms assault by the British. Out of the mist an enormous artillery barrage was unleashed, but this time British, Australian, Canadian, Indian and New Zealand forces, supported by American and French forces, and all under a ‘supreme’ unified command, advanced right behind the barrage employing new flexible ‘grab and hold’ infantry tactics. The force was also supported by a large number of tanks and massive air power.

Crucially, the assault took place over a much narrower front than the Somme offensive enabling the British force to punch through German lines. The German Army true to its tradition fought bravely but as an offensive force it was broken at Amiens. German commanders of a later generation studied the All Arms Battle very closely, but they gave it another name – Blitzkrieg! 

                    

In memory of all the fallen on all sides at the Battle of the Somme which began one hundred years ago today.

Julian Lindley-French

      

Brexit from Poland

Warsaw, Poland. 29 June. It has been an interesting couple of days. My reason for coming here on the eve of the NATO Warsaw Summit was to present my new paper, NATO: The Enduring Alliance 2016 for the German Polish Co-operation Foundation. However, the 65 million person elephant in the room for much of the debate was of course Brexit. Part of me wondered what kind of reception I would get. After all, in the past I called for Britain to leave the EU, I predicted Brexit, before I decided after talking to a lot of people, and in the wake of the Paris attacks, that on balance Britain should remain. My concerns were misplaced. Poland of all countries understands the difficulty of balancing patriotism, interdependence, and membership of an institution a significant part of which would like to replace the democratic state with an oligarchic super-state.

What I found instead this morning at the Sjem, Poland’s parliament, when speaking to senior parliamentarians, was a respect for the democratic decision of the British people. What I also found was Polish pragmatism. Poland deeply regrets Brexit. However, there was absolutely no sense that the British people should somehow be punished for having the temerity to have expressed a majority opinion on a matter of fundamental import to them. Rather, there was a genuine commitment to forge a new relationship for Britain with the EU, and to confirm Britain’s existing relationships with friends and allies on the Continent. The terrible events in Istanbul last night served as a stark reminder of the dangers we all face and must all face together.

Encouragingly it was also an opinion of hope and goodwill expressed by Ambassador Rolf Nikel, Germany’s envoy to Poland, at a delightful reception held last night at the German Embassy. Indeed, the only humiliation to which I was subjected concerned the tactical withdrawal from the European football championships by England following their defeat by mighty Iceland. Don’t worry.  I immediately countered by enquiring as to the state of Berlin’s new airport!  

Poland is committed to keep the British fully engaged in the security and defence of Europe. They are right. To that end the forthcoming NATO Warsaw Summit must to some extent be a Brexit summit. Indeed, it will be a chance for London to remind it allies and partners that Britain remains a power and is utterly committed to the security and defence of Europe. There is one caveat. David Cameron and George Osborne are talking of more cuts to public expenditure in light of Brexit. It would certainly be a mistake to cut the British defence budget any further. It would also be advisable to re-invest in Britain’s diplomatic machine as London will need all the tools of influence at its disposal in the coming years.     

So, Poland need not worry…too much. However, Poland’s help would be much appreciated, recognising Warsaw faces its own political challenges at present. Forget all the pre-negotiation posturing. As France and Germany have proven in the past it is amazing how flexible European ‘principles’ are when it comes to power. A post-Brexit deal is possible. That was also the view of my Polish counterparts.

Which brings me to Scotland. If European partners such as Poland want to find a solution with and for the UK to the mutual benefit of all they must be careful how they respond to the political manoeuvrings of the Scottish Nationalist Party leader, Nicola Sturgeon. Her political mission is and always has been to destroy the UK. The Scots had a referendum in September 2014 which saw a decisive 55%-45% rejection of Scottish independence. Above all, Sturgeon legitimised the UK-wide Brexit referendum as a UK-wide referendum by campaigning in it, and by campaigning outside of Scotland for the Remain side. She can hardly cry foul simply because she lost a vote that she legitimised. She might have had a case if she had ordered the SNP to abstain on the grounds that such a referendum had not been formally endorsed by the Scottish Parliament. She did not. Therefore, countries like Poland have a choice to make; London or Edinburgh.

What struck me most about this visit is the deep and enduring human relationship between Britain and Poland. What rightly matters to Poles is the proper and respectful treatment of the up to one million Poles now living in mainly England. However, if Poland really wants to help a friend at this difficult time it could do so by recognising that it was the sheer scale and pace of inward migration that drove much of the Brexit vote. It was also the refusal of fellow Europeans to heed warnings about this.

Britain will not get access to the single market unless it upholds the principle of free movement. A huge swathe of British people will not accept a new deal with the EU unless and until some degree of pragmatic management of immigration is in place. Absolutism on either side right now will simply entrench already entrenched positions. It would be better for all of us to properly explore the possible, not retreat behind the barricades of the impossible.

So, the message from Warsaw?  Let’s all calm down, those trying to stir the pot cease and desist, and those responsible for moving us all forward…get a grip!  There will be a solution but together we must fashion it.

Julian Lindley-French    

Causes of Brexit

Warsaw, Poland. 27 June. The causes of Brexit that I have heard thus far are as follows:

The politics of austerity, the collapse of the Labour Party and the loss of the white working and not-so-working class, splits in the Conservative Party, Tory grandees, David Cameron’s political gambling, David Cameron’s ‘deal’ to the keep Britain in an unreformed EU, English political culture, the erosion by the EU of national democracy and sovereignty, popular demands for ever more devolution, elite demands for ever more centralisation, the Euro, the growing gap between the Eurozone and the non-Eurozone, the 1991 Treaty of Maastricht and the UK opt-outs, the marginalisation by France and Germany of the UK within the EU, immigration and the refusal of the political elite in London and Brussels to address popular concerns over many years, the sheer pace and scale of immigration, failure to prepare sufficient housing, schools and public services to cope with mass immigration, refusal of Brussels to be flexible, the failure to make the case for immigration, Commonwealth immigrants who did not like a perceived bias in favour of migration from the EU, Jean-Claude Juncker, the 1973 lie that ‘Europe’ was only a common market, the 1957 Treaty of Rome, a nostalgic view of English and Welsh history, a lot of Westminster politicians, some Whitehall bureaucrats, the Establishment in general (both British and EU) which many in England just wanted to give a good kicking to, the collapse of political integrity spectacularly revealed by both the Leave and Remain campaigns, Martin Schulze, Tony Blair, George Osborne, Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Jeremy Corbyn, protectionism, the European Commission and interfering Eurocrats, the European Parliament and its lack of political legitimacy, Iraq, Afghanistan, President Obama, globalisation, blaming globalisation, the British media, de-industrialisation, patriotism, fat cat employers, multinational corporations, the European Court of Justice and the dictatorship of legalism, the European Court of Human Right, because it got confused with the European Court of Justice, ignorance, bigotry and downright prejudice, and from a personal point of view the Eurovision bloody song contest, Sheffield Wednesday which I blame for everything, and me because I predicted it!

As for who voted for what and for what reasons please take your pick. However, be careful. The latest I have heard from our Dear Leaders today is a) that the referendum should be re-run so that the peasants can this time get the answer right; b) the referendum should be re-run because it upset Martin Schulze who injured his fist banging a table; c) the referendum should be re-run because the peasantry were so stupid that they ticked the ‘leave’ box when they meant to tick the ‘an awful lot more Brussels’ box, d) the referendum should be ignored by Parliament because Britain has a representative democracy even if it is not very representative; and e) the EU would like the British to pretend the referendum never actually happened at all.

Happy days…not!

Julian Lindley-French   

Brexit: Some Personal Reflections

Alphen, Netherlands. 25 June. It is 30 hours or so since Britain’s historic decision to leave the EU and the fallout and backlash is just beginning. What do I feel now about Brexit? Over those hours I have been saddened but little shocked by the vitriol sent my way. One email even suggested that Britain has become an enemy of Europe, whatever that means. Emails have been refused, and one good friendship lost, which I regret. But don’t worry, I can take it. After all, I am cut from the same Yorkshire oak as the many of the people that drove this decision, and I have always taken responsibility for my writings.

I am an analyst and my job is to analyse. Back in 2010 I did believe Britain should leave the EU. Britain was mired in a massive banking crisis, and the Eurozone was mired in a massive debt crisis. The Eurozone faced a choice; integrate or collapse. Britain did not face such a choice.

Back then it was clear to my mind that the only way for the Eurozone to resolve the crisis, and indeed make the Euro work was a deepening of European political and monetary union, including a banking union. Eurozone leaders still face that choice, they just haven’t taken it. And so the Eurozone crisis bubbles away below a thin crust of apparent political stability ready to explode at any moment. Given that Britain was never going to part of deeper political integration my on balance sense was that back then Britain should leave the EU.

What has I admit irritated me throughout this entire intervening period is the extent to which some senior Americans have treated my country as a strategic public convenience; Britain and the British people as mere instrument of American grand strategy. In so doing they have denied that Britain is a living, breathing democracy with its own issues, and its own tensions, its own interests, and its own political identity. The Obama administration has routinely dismissed British concerns about the direction of travel of the EU as some kind of post-Imperial psychosis rather than seen such concerns for what they are; a complex reflection of the same distrust of distant power that drove their own revolution back in 1776, and about which Americans are so proud. Indeed, far from backing British calls for EU reform the Obama Administration tried to force Britain into into simply accepting a status quo that was never sustainable over the longer term. Still, one can hardly blame the Americans for that Little Britain view of Britain. Too many needy British leaders have convinced American leaders to think of Britain as little more than an American strategic public convenience.

Several events led me to shift my position on the EU. The outbreak of the Syrian war and the emergence of ISIS began to change the strategic environment in which Britain and Europe reside, and threatened the collapse of states across the Middle East and North Africa. In 2014 Russia seized Crimea and began the long dissection of Ukraine which continues to this day. Moscow also began to threaten and intimidate Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. Huge flows of desperate people forced their way into Europe and compounded the many problems faced by countries in southern Europe. In November 2015 ISIS terrorists attacked Paris and then Brussels. Whilst I retained some sympathy for the frustrations many feel in Britain about the EU. and the way it is run, in such circumstances I could not countenance Britain leaving the EU.

        

There will be some Americans who will also blame Brexit for the weakening of NATO. OK, I will admit that there can be no EU Common Security and Defence Policy worthy of the name without Britain. But then, there never was going to be a truly ‘C’ CSDP with Britain because to make the ‘C’ word mean something a European government would be required. How many of you out there really want a European government? Your call.

As for NATO it is not Britain that has weakened the Alliance. After all, under NATO rules the British are one of of only four Allies who actually meet the target of 2% GDP to be spent on defence with 20% on new equipment. If there is any one factor that has prevented so many Allies meeting what should be a minimum commitment to the Alliance it is the Eurozone rule that prevents a state ratcheting up a budget deficit of more than 3% GDP, even at a time of crisis.  Don’t blame Britain for that.

          

Next week President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel will hold one of their directoire meetings to discuss the post-Brexit EU. Years ago I called for a trirectoire and the inclusion of British prime ministers in such meetings. After all, Britain is Europe’s second biggest economy and strongest military power. That call was rejected. It has always seemed to me one of the EU’s many contradictions how European ‘integration’ has always been defined by two major powers and their national interests in the name of ‘Europe’.

Here’s the irony. At that meeting Merkel and Hollande will call for a more flexible Europe. They will not agree on much else. Had they done that even a few days ago they may have swung enough undecided British voters (you know the people who are meant to matter, but to much of the elite do not) to back Remain.

Brexit also marks a moment of opportunity. With Britain about to leave the EU we will see just how enthusiastic those Europeans (and Americans) who have long blamed Britain for blocking ‘progress’ really are for some form of United States of Europe. This is your moment, guys. No longer can you Euro-federalists blame us British for blocking your glorious Project Europe. I suspect, however, we will soon discover just how many of you do not actually want ever closer political union.

Brexit was long in the making, but too many refused to see it coming. Read my blogs and other writings and I warned people that Brexit could happen because for years Britain and the Real EU, the Eurozone, have been drifting apart. Brexit has now formalised what for a long time has been an observable fact on the ground. Indeed, those that argued that by remaining in the EU Britain would be upholding the status quo were talking as much rubbish as those that argued leaving would mark the start of a new Elizabethan age for Britain, or more accurately England. The EU was never going to, nor could it ever, remain where it is today; trapped between debt, integration, and impotence.

So, we all have a choice to make right now. If the blame game of the past 24 hours gathers pace then Brexit will indeed weaken Europe, Britain and the West and there will be no winners at all. If, however, common sense prevails and a period of calm reflection is then followed by sober considerations of how best to proceed mutually beneficial outcomes can be crafted and at least some positives will come out of this mess. The next two and a half years would then be about the nature of Britain’s future relationship with a future EU. Good sense would ensure such a relationship works for all – Britons (even Scots), other Europeans, and even Americans.

As for Britain as enemy, really? There are plenty of those elsewhere. So, keep calm and carry on talking.

Julian Lindley-French