Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Free Life Commentary
Issue Number 101
Monday, 14 April 2003
This article and many replies to it will be published in the next issue of Free Life Magazine:
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/freelife/
The War: Won but not Over
by Sean Gabb
Though the pacification is as yet incomplete, Baghdad has fallen and the war seems in the conventional sense to be over. I am glad that the Allies have won, and that they have won so quickly. I did not think they would. I really did expect the Iraqis to use their advantages of defence to greater effect. I expected them to blow up all the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates, and to spread rubble over all the roads into Baghdad - thereby preventing the Allies from driving straight in - and to use snipers to hold up attempts at clearing the rubble. Above all, I expected the Iraqis to defend the city from behind a large and shifting mass of civilians. I do not know why they failed to do any of this, deciding instead on strategies that an idiot child - let alone the Americans - might have countered. As said, I am glad that they failed. But it has made me wrong so far in my gloomy predictions. I was wrong and my more bellicose friends and opponents were right.
This being said, it does not affect my belief that the war was unnecessary and therefore should not have been fought by this country. Success does justify many risks - and this was a risk. But no degree of success can justify a risk that was unnecessary, that has brought human, financial and diplomatic costs, and where the longer term consequences of success may involve still greater costs. Such was this war.
I know that I am repeating myself. Then again, repetition is a valid form of argument where new or forgotten propositions are concerned. But I regard the proper duty of the British Government to be the protection of British life and property. The duty may occasionally require interventions abroad, but will mostly require action only within the borders of the United Kingdom. I believe this for two reasons.
First, a government is an agent of its people, not a principal, and so must take care to spend lives and money on ventures that relate directly to its duty.
Second, when governments set their foreign policies according to known and predictable interests, the chances of war are much reduced. Even when wars do happen, they are for obvious and limited ends, and do not require people to be lied into states of hysteria that are far easier to excite than to abate and that may complicate efforts to make peace.
Against this proposition, three arguments have been raised. Once again, I know that I have disputed these on many occasions. But I have not so far been successful in winning my case. I will therefore risk the impatience of my readers in repeating myself here as well.
First, we were told that Iraq had weapons that it was willing and able to use against this country, or that it was willing to give to others for use against us. Day after day, the media poured out claims to chill the blood. To these were added claims from within my own circle. One person told me - he promised me he had inside knowledge - that there were tunnels under the presidential palaces in Baghdad up to a mile long, filled with chemical and biological weapons. Someone else assured me that there was a secret nuclear programme, but that Tony Blair was unable to reveal its details to us. Someone else told me in a semi-closed meeting about the “verified links” between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Iraq was cried up endlessly as a clear and present danger.
If true, this would have justified war on the principles given above. But I doubted if it was true. Iraq is a poor and barbarous country. It lost a war with the more civilised countries in 1991, and after that was continually monitored and blockaded. That it could, even so, develop weapons for use against us struck me as absurd - and that was without considering the evidence. But just look at the evidence given. Assertions and plain forgeries aside, not even an opportunistic connection was shown between Qaeda and the Government of Iraq.
As for the alleged threat posed by the Government of Iraq in its own right, we can now see the quality of that evidence. Doubt has been justified by events. If I was wrong in my military predictions, it was only so far as I believed the Iraqis to be more effective than they were. Their inability to defend their own country showed the nature of their threat to ours. They used throughout nothing better than old conventional weapons. Many of these they had trouble making to work. If Saddam Hussein had been the lunatic he was claimed to be, he ought surely to have used his chemical and biological weapons on the first day of the war. If he was the scheming tyrant he was also claimed to be, he ought surely to have used them on the last. He did not use them because he did not have them.
Until Saturday, I was willing to believe that such weapons would be “found” by the Americans. They had the means, motive and opportunity for planting them. But the surrender of Amir Humudi al-Sadi has complicated any such plan. He was the chief weapons adviser to the Iraqi Government. Before the war, he had repeatedly denied that his country had any of the weapons it was alleged to have. He helped reveal the report on Iraqi weapons published by the British Government as a mass of lies - and often of plagiarised and obsolete lies. For his own safety, it was in his interest, once the war was over, to confess that he had been lying, and to validate all American claims. In fact, he called a news conference before surrendering and repeated his earlier denials: “I was knowledgeable about these programmes” he said. “I never told anything but the truth and time will bear me out”. Bearing in mind how little shame the present Government of America has about torturing prisoners of war, it will be interesting to see how long Mr al-Sudi maintains this insistence. But no amount of retraction will now be believed. There were no “weapons of mass destruction”. There was no danger to this country. We were lied into this war.
And so this first claim has been dropped for the moment. The war is now justified on the second grounds of “régime change”. Some of my friends have always supported the war on these grounds, and, while I do not agree with them, I do not accuse them of discreditable motives. But I am shocked by the sudden change of excuse in Washington and London. Interference in Iraqi internal affairs was expressly and continually disclaimed before the war started. The talk then was all about disarmament of Mr Hussein. He had only to comply with the weapons inspectors, we were assured, and his country would then be left alone. To see the politicians now changing their story reminds me of the Victory Square parade in George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four.
But let us set aside the manner of its advancement, and consider instead the substance of the claim - that we have a right or obligation to overthrow tyranny throughout the world. Of course, I deny the claim. So long as it does not endanger us, I do not see what happens in other countries as any business of ours. I know there has always been a strain of liberal imperialism in the libertarian movement. But this is misguided. It is no more the business of our government to liberate foreigners from oppression than it is to feed them if they are hungry. If we oppose foreign aid, why support humanitarian invasions? They both involve spend the taxpayers’ money. Why the inconsistency?
I suppose the alleged answer is that foreign aid does not work, but that liberation does. But what reason have we to suppose that it does work? If the Americans were to conquer Iraq and its neighbours, as we conquered India, it might work. We had not only the will to put down widow burning and sacrificial murder, but the means to enforce our will. We stayed there long enough to remake Indian civilisation. Will the Americans now rule Iraq for two centuries? I think not. The intention seems to be to set up a new government there and then withdraw.
Now, liberal democracy requires more than a written constitution and a few bribes. Though all human beings may want to be free, I doubt if all have an equal capacity for freedom. Free institutions are not the same as satellite television dishes and motor cars. They cannot be exported to and established in countries that have not previously had them. Instead, they proceed from the cultural values of a nation. They can be gradually transplanted. They can even spontaneously evolve. But they cannot be unpacked as if from a box.
Unless they can be taken apart and remade, the various civilisations of the Arab world all require strong authoritarian government. The looting and communal violence we have seen in Iraq since the collapse of its government may be in part a reaction against tyranny. But it is also what happens when order is destroyed in a deeply corrupt society. It will be ended when order is restored, but this order will not be liberal or democratic. To set up a constituent assembly that is any more than a fraud will mean reproducing indoors the hatred now running wild in the streets. This is a truth that liberal imperialists need to learn in every generation. Because of this war, we are now due for another lesson in true sociology.
There is worse. By conquering Iraq, we may have destabilised the country and the entire region. The Arab mind of the past hundred years has been divided between secular nationalism and radical Islam. The first of these now looks to have been comprehensively defeated. The resulting void will not, I think, be filled by liberal democracy. Instead, millions of young men can be expected to grow their beards and pay attention to the usual texts. They will probably make everyone around them unhappy. And I am reasonably sure they will contrive to make us unhappy before the fiends who direct foreign policy in Washington move on from preventive war to preventive genocide.
But I turn to the third justification for a specifically British involvement in the war. This takes it as given that the Americans wanted to invade Iraq, and does not ask why. It simply looks at the advantages for Britain of supporting the Americans. The main advantage alleged is that the war may have destroyed all chance of our integration into Europe. There are persistent claims that Tony Blair will use his restored popularity to call a sudden referendum on the Euro. More likely, though, it seems that the French and Germans have just had all their suspicions confirmed that Britain will never be a loyal and contented member of the European Union, and that our leaving it could be more a question of when than whether.
Before the fighting started, I might have been willing to accept this Machiavellian justification of war. Getting out of the European Union, after all, is a first rate British interest. But, having looked at the civilian casualties - small in number as they have so far been - I have changed my mind. I cannot stop thinking about that poor child who last week had his arms blown off and his lower body scorched all over. If the war had been for our immediate defence, I have no doubt I should have hardened my heart and agreed that his suffering was regrettable but necessary. But the war was not for immediate defence. It was at best in pursuit of an interest that requires further contingencies before it can be achieved. His life has been destroyed for nothing. Perhaps worse, it may have been destroyed because we as a nation are too decadent to save ourselves by other means from a wholly political threat. If we cannot use our still formidable constitutional freedoms to save ourselves without that, I do not believe we deserve to be saved. There is a story that Pope Innocent VIII was prescribed human blood to keep him alive. Three boys were chosen and bled. Too much was taken and the boys died. The Pope still died. Perhaps that is now what we have become.
Since that picture of Ali Ismaeel Abbas was published, some of my critics have stopped denouncing me for my cold-hearted nationalism. I am now accused of being soft-hearted - almost a “leftie”. The reason for this is that I have not made myself sufficiently clear. I deny that it is our duty to go out of our way to help foreigners when they are suffering. But I also deny that it is our right to make them suffer when it serves some doubtful interest of our own. What was done to that boy would always have appalled me. But the knowledge that I share in the corporate responsibility for it almost maddens me with shame and horror.
I hear the liberal imperialist argument that he has been destroyed so that others in Iraq might live in peace and freedom. As said, I doubt if they will live in peace and freedom. I am also not concerned. I am suspicious of caring about people whose faces are invisible. I prefer to look at individuals. Perhaps this leads to an imperfect view of suffering. On the other hand, it keeps one from the callous indifference to actual, known lives that has been shown over again these past few centuries by men who killed even as they paraded their universal but abstract love of humanity.
I am told that the American Government has a list of future targets, and that on it are Syria, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. Already, it seems, opinion is being softened for war with Syria - it has, we are told, “weapons of mass destruction”. I do not know whether to laugh or cry. How could these psychopathic children have been elected in London and Washington?
I do not yet know how Mr Blair will emerge from this war. My fear is that he will be strengthened in his ability to do evil at home as well as abroad. But perhaps the people of Britain have not joined in the worship of power so fully as the opinion polls now indicate. Perhaps they will turn on him. We cannot unwrite this page of our history, or even blot it out. But perhaps by destroying the career and execrating the memory of its author, we can yet rescue some of our self-respect.
==========================
Free Life Commentary is an independent journal of comment, published on the Internet. To receive regular issues, send an e-mail
To: sean@libertarian.co.uk
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This article is being discussed on:
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Replies to Sean Gabb, Mobile Number: 07956 472199
Sean Gabb, author of the above article, declares that it may be reproduced in any form, on condition that it is reproduced in full, accurately and without any distortions of meaning; and on condition that if he would under normal circumstances have been paid a fee, he shall be paid the full going rate for the work, whenever it is reproduced.
Issue Number 101
Monday, 14 April 2003
This article and many replies to it will be published in the next issue of Free Life Magazine:
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/freelife/
The War: Won but not Over
by Sean Gabb
Though the pacification is as yet incomplete, Baghdad has fallen and the war seems in the conventional sense to be over. I am glad that the Allies have won, and that they have won so quickly. I did not think they would. I really did expect the Iraqis to use their advantages of defence to greater effect. I expected them to blow up all the bridges over the Tigris and Euphrates, and to spread rubble over all the roads into Baghdad - thereby preventing the Allies from driving straight in - and to use snipers to hold up attempts at clearing the rubble. Above all, I expected the Iraqis to defend the city from behind a large and shifting mass of civilians. I do not know why they failed to do any of this, deciding instead on strategies that an idiot child - let alone the Americans - might have countered. As said, I am glad that they failed. But it has made me wrong so far in my gloomy predictions. I was wrong and my more bellicose friends and opponents were right.
This being said, it does not affect my belief that the war was unnecessary and therefore should not have been fought by this country. Success does justify many risks - and this was a risk. But no degree of success can justify a risk that was unnecessary, that has brought human, financial and diplomatic costs, and where the longer term consequences of success may involve still greater costs. Such was this war.
I know that I am repeating myself. Then again, repetition is a valid form of argument where new or forgotten propositions are concerned. But I regard the proper duty of the British Government to be the protection of British life and property. The duty may occasionally require interventions abroad, but will mostly require action only within the borders of the United Kingdom. I believe this for two reasons.
First, a government is an agent of its people, not a principal, and so must take care to spend lives and money on ventures that relate directly to its duty.
Second, when governments set their foreign policies according to known and predictable interests, the chances of war are much reduced. Even when wars do happen, they are for obvious and limited ends, and do not require people to be lied into states of hysteria that are far easier to excite than to abate and that may complicate efforts to make peace.
Against this proposition, three arguments have been raised. Once again, I know that I have disputed these on many occasions. But I have not so far been successful in winning my case. I will therefore risk the impatience of my readers in repeating myself here as well.
First, we were told that Iraq had weapons that it was willing and able to use against this country, or that it was willing to give to others for use against us. Day after day, the media poured out claims to chill the blood. To these were added claims from within my own circle. One person told me - he promised me he had inside knowledge - that there were tunnels under the presidential palaces in Baghdad up to a mile long, filled with chemical and biological weapons. Someone else assured me that there was a secret nuclear programme, but that Tony Blair was unable to reveal its details to us. Someone else told me in a semi-closed meeting about the “verified links” between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Iraq was cried up endlessly as a clear and present danger.
If true, this would have justified war on the principles given above. But I doubted if it was true. Iraq is a poor and barbarous country. It lost a war with the more civilised countries in 1991, and after that was continually monitored and blockaded. That it could, even so, develop weapons for use against us struck me as absurd - and that was without considering the evidence. But just look at the evidence given. Assertions and plain forgeries aside, not even an opportunistic connection was shown between Qaeda and the Government of Iraq.
As for the alleged threat posed by the Government of Iraq in its own right, we can now see the quality of that evidence. Doubt has been justified by events. If I was wrong in my military predictions, it was only so far as I believed the Iraqis to be more effective than they were. Their inability to defend their own country showed the nature of their threat to ours. They used throughout nothing better than old conventional weapons. Many of these they had trouble making to work. If Saddam Hussein had been the lunatic he was claimed to be, he ought surely to have used his chemical and biological weapons on the first day of the war. If he was the scheming tyrant he was also claimed to be, he ought surely to have used them on the last. He did not use them because he did not have them.
Until Saturday, I was willing to believe that such weapons would be “found” by the Americans. They had the means, motive and opportunity for planting them. But the surrender of Amir Humudi al-Sadi has complicated any such plan. He was the chief weapons adviser to the Iraqi Government. Before the war, he had repeatedly denied that his country had any of the weapons it was alleged to have. He helped reveal the report on Iraqi weapons published by the British Government as a mass of lies - and often of plagiarised and obsolete lies. For his own safety, it was in his interest, once the war was over, to confess that he had been lying, and to validate all American claims. In fact, he called a news conference before surrendering and repeated his earlier denials: “I was knowledgeable about these programmes” he said. “I never told anything but the truth and time will bear me out”. Bearing in mind how little shame the present Government of America has about torturing prisoners of war, it will be interesting to see how long Mr al-Sudi maintains this insistence. But no amount of retraction will now be believed. There were no “weapons of mass destruction”. There was no danger to this country. We were lied into this war.
And so this first claim has been dropped for the moment. The war is now justified on the second grounds of “régime change”. Some of my friends have always supported the war on these grounds, and, while I do not agree with them, I do not accuse them of discreditable motives. But I am shocked by the sudden change of excuse in Washington and London. Interference in Iraqi internal affairs was expressly and continually disclaimed before the war started. The talk then was all about disarmament of Mr Hussein. He had only to comply with the weapons inspectors, we were assured, and his country would then be left alone. To see the politicians now changing their story reminds me of the Victory Square parade in George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four.
But let us set aside the manner of its advancement, and consider instead the substance of the claim - that we have a right or obligation to overthrow tyranny throughout the world. Of course, I deny the claim. So long as it does not endanger us, I do not see what happens in other countries as any business of ours. I know there has always been a strain of liberal imperialism in the libertarian movement. But this is misguided. It is no more the business of our government to liberate foreigners from oppression than it is to feed them if they are hungry. If we oppose foreign aid, why support humanitarian invasions? They both involve spend the taxpayers’ money. Why the inconsistency?
I suppose the alleged answer is that foreign aid does not work, but that liberation does. But what reason have we to suppose that it does work? If the Americans were to conquer Iraq and its neighbours, as we conquered India, it might work. We had not only the will to put down widow burning and sacrificial murder, but the means to enforce our will. We stayed there long enough to remake Indian civilisation. Will the Americans now rule Iraq for two centuries? I think not. The intention seems to be to set up a new government there and then withdraw.
Now, liberal democracy requires more than a written constitution and a few bribes. Though all human beings may want to be free, I doubt if all have an equal capacity for freedom. Free institutions are not the same as satellite television dishes and motor cars. They cannot be exported to and established in countries that have not previously had them. Instead, they proceed from the cultural values of a nation. They can be gradually transplanted. They can even spontaneously evolve. But they cannot be unpacked as if from a box.
Unless they can be taken apart and remade, the various civilisations of the Arab world all require strong authoritarian government. The looting and communal violence we have seen in Iraq since the collapse of its government may be in part a reaction against tyranny. But it is also what happens when order is destroyed in a deeply corrupt society. It will be ended when order is restored, but this order will not be liberal or democratic. To set up a constituent assembly that is any more than a fraud will mean reproducing indoors the hatred now running wild in the streets. This is a truth that liberal imperialists need to learn in every generation. Because of this war, we are now due for another lesson in true sociology.
There is worse. By conquering Iraq, we may have destabilised the country and the entire region. The Arab mind of the past hundred years has been divided between secular nationalism and radical Islam. The first of these now looks to have been comprehensively defeated. The resulting void will not, I think, be filled by liberal democracy. Instead, millions of young men can be expected to grow their beards and pay attention to the usual texts. They will probably make everyone around them unhappy. And I am reasonably sure they will contrive to make us unhappy before the fiends who direct foreign policy in Washington move on from preventive war to preventive genocide.
But I turn to the third justification for a specifically British involvement in the war. This takes it as given that the Americans wanted to invade Iraq, and does not ask why. It simply looks at the advantages for Britain of supporting the Americans. The main advantage alleged is that the war may have destroyed all chance of our integration into Europe. There are persistent claims that Tony Blair will use his restored popularity to call a sudden referendum on the Euro. More likely, though, it seems that the French and Germans have just had all their suspicions confirmed that Britain will never be a loyal and contented member of the European Union, and that our leaving it could be more a question of when than whether.
Before the fighting started, I might have been willing to accept this Machiavellian justification of war. Getting out of the European Union, after all, is a first rate British interest. But, having looked at the civilian casualties - small in number as they have so far been - I have changed my mind. I cannot stop thinking about that poor child who last week had his arms blown off and his lower body scorched all over. If the war had been for our immediate defence, I have no doubt I should have hardened my heart and agreed that his suffering was regrettable but necessary. But the war was not for immediate defence. It was at best in pursuit of an interest that requires further contingencies before it can be achieved. His life has been destroyed for nothing. Perhaps worse, it may have been destroyed because we as a nation are too decadent to save ourselves by other means from a wholly political threat. If we cannot use our still formidable constitutional freedoms to save ourselves without that, I do not believe we deserve to be saved. There is a story that Pope Innocent VIII was prescribed human blood to keep him alive. Three boys were chosen and bled. Too much was taken and the boys died. The Pope still died. Perhaps that is now what we have become.
Since that picture of Ali Ismaeel Abbas was published, some of my critics have stopped denouncing me for my cold-hearted nationalism. I am now accused of being soft-hearted - almost a “leftie”. The reason for this is that I have not made myself sufficiently clear. I deny that it is our duty to go out of our way to help foreigners when they are suffering. But I also deny that it is our right to make them suffer when it serves some doubtful interest of our own. What was done to that boy would always have appalled me. But the knowledge that I share in the corporate responsibility for it almost maddens me with shame and horror.
I hear the liberal imperialist argument that he has been destroyed so that others in Iraq might live in peace and freedom. As said, I doubt if they will live in peace and freedom. I am also not concerned. I am suspicious of caring about people whose faces are invisible. I prefer to look at individuals. Perhaps this leads to an imperfect view of suffering. On the other hand, it keeps one from the callous indifference to actual, known lives that has been shown over again these past few centuries by men who killed even as they paraded their universal but abstract love of humanity.
I am told that the American Government has a list of future targets, and that on it are Syria, Iran, Cuba and North Korea. Already, it seems, opinion is being softened for war with Syria - it has, we are told, “weapons of mass destruction”. I do not know whether to laugh or cry. How could these psychopathic children have been elected in London and Washington?
I do not yet know how Mr Blair will emerge from this war. My fear is that he will be strengthened in his ability to do evil at home as well as abroad. But perhaps the people of Britain have not joined in the worship of power so fully as the opinion polls now indicate. Perhaps they will turn on him. We cannot unwrite this page of our history, or even blot it out. But perhaps by destroying the career and execrating the memory of its author, we can yet rescue some of our self-respect.
==========================
Free Life Commentary is an independent journal of comment, published on the Internet. To receive regular issues, send an e-mail
To: sean@libertarian.co.uk
Body: Subscribe “Free Life Commentary” Your Name
Clickable version: Subscribe -
mailto:sean@libertarian.co.uk?body=Subscribe%20FL-Commentary
Issues are archived at http://www.seangabb.co.uk
Associated websites:
http://www.seangabb.co.uk http://www.samizdata.net
http://www.libertarian.co.uk http://www.hampdenpress.co.uk
http://www.liberalia.com http://www.libertarian.to
This article is being discussed on:
libertarian-alliance-forum@yahoogroups.com
and replies will be published in the next issue of Free Life:
http://www.seangabb.co.uk/freelife/
Replies to Sean Gabb
Sean Gabb, author of the above article, declares that it may be reproduced in any form, on condition that it is reproduced in full, accurately and without any distortions of meaning; and on condition that if he would under normal circumstances have been paid a fee, he shall be paid the full going rate for the work, whenever it is reproduced.
Monday, April 14, 2003
Iraq: A spur to European integration - 14th April 2003, 22.32
Daniel Hannan, writing in the Daily Telegraph, takes the temperature in Brussels and assesses what the effect of the war on Iraq on the attitudes of politicians and civil servants in the European institutions. First of all, he summarises the excitable consensus that viewed the diplomatic revolution in February as a revolution of sorts.
A false and dangerous idea is taking hold in Britain, especially among Euro-sceptics. It goes something like this. The Iraq war has wrecked plans for closer European integration. It has set Old Europeans against New ones, driven Britain back on the Anglo-Saxon world, reminded everyone of how much they rely on the Americans, and made the idea of a European Army seem laughable.
What lessons do the European elites actually take from the 'war on Iraq'? The answer is not good.
The trouble is that Euro-fanatics are prone to the same impulse. For them, the war is the strongest demonstration to date of why Brussels needs a unified foreign policy. Never again, they say, should the EU be enfeebled by internal divisions. Never again should Europeans be forced to watch in frustration as the Americans give some tinpot dictator a good kicking. Never again should London be allowed to behave in so non-communautaire a fashion.
Almost everyone I have spoken to in Brussels says the same thing: we need majority voting in foreign affairs, a unified diplomatic service, a harmonised defence policy. Even the most pro-American MEPs, those who loudly backed the war, feel that Europe ought to have been in a position to act on its own.
My point is not that either interpretation is right or wrong. Rather, it is that the Euro-zealots, unlike the sceptics, are in a position to act on their concerns. A poll last week of the staff who work in European institutions showed that, by two to one, they wanted the British and French places on the United Nations Security Council to be replaced by a single EU seat.
Last week, the European Parliament voted to establish a joint procurement agency, that will degrade their defence capacities even further. They also wish to control the European Space Agency and set up a mutual defence clause in the Constitution.
The war on Iraq has reinforced the determination of Europeans to create a 'counterweight' to the United States'.
Daniel Hannan, writing in the Daily Telegraph, takes the temperature in Brussels and assesses what the effect of the war on Iraq on the attitudes of politicians and civil servants in the European institutions. First of all, he summarises the excitable consensus that viewed the diplomatic revolution in February as a revolution of sorts.
A false and dangerous idea is taking hold in Britain, especially among Euro-sceptics. It goes something like this. The Iraq war has wrecked plans for closer European integration. It has set Old Europeans against New ones, driven Britain back on the Anglo-Saxon world, reminded everyone of how much they rely on the Americans, and made the idea of a European Army seem laughable.
What lessons do the European elites actually take from the 'war on Iraq'? The answer is not good.
The trouble is that Euro-fanatics are prone to the same impulse. For them, the war is the strongest demonstration to date of why Brussels needs a unified foreign policy. Never again, they say, should the EU be enfeebled by internal divisions. Never again should Europeans be forced to watch in frustration as the Americans give some tinpot dictator a good kicking. Never again should London be allowed to behave in so non-communautaire a fashion.
Almost everyone I have spoken to in Brussels says the same thing: we need majority voting in foreign affairs, a unified diplomatic service, a harmonised defence policy. Even the most pro-American MEPs, those who loudly backed the war, feel that Europe ought to have been in a position to act on its own.
My point is not that either interpretation is right or wrong. Rather, it is that the Euro-zealots, unlike the sceptics, are in a position to act on their concerns. A poll last week of the staff who work in European institutions showed that, by two to one, they wanted the British and French places on the United Nations Security Council to be replaced by a single EU seat.
Last week, the European Parliament voted to establish a joint procurement agency, that will degrade their defence capacities even further. They also wish to control the European Space Agency and set up a mutual defence clause in the Constitution.
The war on Iraq has reinforced the determination of Europeans to create a 'counterweight' to the United States'.
Missile Defence: Costs and Benefits to the UK - 14th April 2003, 21.20
A dated but relevant article from The Engineer on missile defence. The author, Andrew Lee, argues that national missile defence will be unable to provide protection for the United Kingdom. Yet, the act of upgrading Fylingdales will integrate the United Kingdom further into the missile defence system of the United States and increase the likelihood of an attack designed to degrade the early warning radar system. Fylingdales is designed to detect missile launches from the Near East and raises the profile of the United Kingdom in this unstable region.
National Missile Defence does not form part of the strategy of the 'war on terror'. The system is designed to destroy missiles from hostile states and, as a consequence, this unproven technology potentially destabilises the current hierarchy of power based upon nuclear weapons. It undermines the claim to great power status on the part of France and the United Kingdom. (China, India, and Russia, due to their vast size, remain viable claimants).
NMD is also vulnerable to countermeasures, especially as the system has never been fully tested and requires as yet unproven technologies. The question therefore arises: what advantages does the United Kingdom possess for proceeding with the upgrading of Fylingdales?
Any thought that UK involvement in the missile defence programme will leave the nation nestling under a US-built protective umbrella belongs in the realm of science fiction, according to most commentators. By agreeing to the upgrade of Fylingdales the UK will be buying a share of any future benefits from the limited NMD planned by the Bush administration. Michael Clarke, professor of defence studies at King's College, London, said these are likely to come in the form of intelligence, and possibly some protection for UK forces overseas. 'The possibility of the UK mainland being protected is just not a realistic one,' said Clarke. 'We would be buying a share of the information the system provides, and maybe some benefits for our troops operating in particular theatres.'
Clarke said the concept of an over-arching shield above the UK, or for that matter the US, is a legacy of the ambitions of Ronald Reagan that has lodged in the collective consciousness. 'Given enough time and resources, all the bits of such a system could probably be made to work. But could they be scaled up 100 or more times to the level that would be needed? It's just not realistic.'
The upgrade may allow us to retain a superior intelligence capacity compared to our continental rivals and maintains or deepens the close relationship between the defence industries of the United Kindom and the United States. This is the trade-off: better intelligence and defence technology in return for an increased possibility of attack as part of the defence network of the United States.
A dated but relevant article from The Engineer on missile defence. The author, Andrew Lee, argues that national missile defence will be unable to provide protection for the United Kingdom. Yet, the act of upgrading Fylingdales will integrate the United Kingdom further into the missile defence system of the United States and increase the likelihood of an attack designed to degrade the early warning radar system. Fylingdales is designed to detect missile launches from the Near East and raises the profile of the United Kingdom in this unstable region.
National Missile Defence does not form part of the strategy of the 'war on terror'. The system is designed to destroy missiles from hostile states and, as a consequence, this unproven technology potentially destabilises the current hierarchy of power based upon nuclear weapons. It undermines the claim to great power status on the part of France and the United Kingdom. (China, India, and Russia, due to their vast size, remain viable claimants).
NMD is also vulnerable to countermeasures, especially as the system has never been fully tested and requires as yet unproven technologies. The question therefore arises: what advantages does the United Kingdom possess for proceeding with the upgrading of Fylingdales?
Any thought that UK involvement in the missile defence programme will leave the nation nestling under a US-built protective umbrella belongs in the realm of science fiction, according to most commentators. By agreeing to the upgrade of Fylingdales the UK will be buying a share of any future benefits from the limited NMD planned by the Bush administration. Michael Clarke, professor of defence studies at King's College, London, said these are likely to come in the form of intelligence, and possibly some protection for UK forces overseas. 'The possibility of the UK mainland being protected is just not a realistic one,' said Clarke. 'We would be buying a share of the information the system provides, and maybe some benefits for our troops operating in particular theatres.'
Clarke said the concept of an over-arching shield above the UK, or for that matter the US, is a legacy of the ambitions of Ronald Reagan that has lodged in the collective consciousness. 'Given enough time and resources, all the bits of such a system could probably be made to work. But could they be scaled up 100 or more times to the level that would be needed? It's just not realistic.'
The upgrade may allow us to retain a superior intelligence capacity compared to our continental rivals and maintains or deepens the close relationship between the defence industries of the United Kindom and the United States. This is the trade-off: better intelligence and defence technology in return for an increased possibility of attack as part of the defence network of the United States.
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Hungary votes yes - 13th April 2003, 22.22
On a lower than anticipated turnout of 45.56%, the Hungarian electorate voted by approximately 84% to join the European Union. These figures indicate that any opposition to the vote stayed away and accepted, by default, the outcome as inevitable. The low turnout is not an endorsement of the European Union, although, as a proportion of the total electorate, the vote is more than any British party wins at a general election. This withdrawal has been blamed upon the opposition party, Fidesz, which announced that it would look at the terms in order to ensure that they were in the national interests of Hungary. The European Business website commented that this made voters "insecure" although you could just as easily use the term "aware".
Membership of the European Union will be a mixed blessing, at best. Through accession to the acquis communautaire, Hungary will find that its economy is burdened by regulatory costs that will prove difficult to meet, whilst the country loses the flexibility required to maintain or increase its trend rate of economic growth. One of the other arguments for accession is increased security. However, the actions of the European Union towards the accession countries does not suggest that the European Union will act to increase the security of Central or Eastern Europe.
The third trend consists of an accelerating effort by Russian energy companies -- in this case, mainly the state-connected Gazprom and Lukoil -- to buy up strategic energy enterprises of Central and East European countries, offering them long-term supply contracts for Russian oil and gas. Those Russian companies seem to have embarked on a race against the clock for dominance in these countries' energy sectors. Indeed, they appear to follow a strategy of preemption, so as to confront the European Union with faits accomplis in the accession countries and in the EU's new eastern neighborhood.
The European Union does not seem to be responding to this grab. Yet if Russian takeovers and EU passivity continue, the consequences can be serious indeed. The enlarged EU may find itself divided into two zones with very unequal levels of energy security. In the West, Russia will be one among a number of energy suppliers to the EU's old member countries. There, the principles of diversified sources of energy supply will remain in force, even if Russia will be one of major suppliers. In Central-Eastern Europe, however, the EU's new member countries will find themselves overwhelmingly dependent on Russian energy supplies.
While Russian energy giants function mainly as commercial suppliers in the West, they take over a wide and growing range of roles in the Central and Eastern Europe. There they also own and operate refineries and other processing plants, distribution systems, transit pipelines and storages, port terminals, and other key assets. Such a situation would be deemed unacceptable in Western Europe. If allowed to develop in Central-Eastern Europe, this situation can generate long-term internal and external risks to the newly free countries, and to the EU as a whole.
The European Union must devise measures to halt this potentially dangerous trend on an urgent basis. Some suggestions: Together with the accession countries, the EU should work out targeted investment programs in these countries' energy sectors. It should at last activate the long-dormant proposals to bring North Sea oil and gas to the accession countries, and should link their pipeline and electricity networks with those of the EU's old member countries. The new countries lack the investment funds for these tasks. The EU must step in now, and assist its new members to observe the EU's own norms in terms of energy supply diversification.
These countries are vulnerable especially in terms of 'energy security'. They purchase most of their oil or gas from Russia and one of the reasons for joining the European Union is to reduce the potential pressure that their giant neighbour can bring to bear. However, the facts in the pipeline show that the EU, specifically France and Germany, is unwilling to reduce their potential dependence upon Russia. Russia is a more important suitor than the accession countries, a potential member, and an arc of influence for the bear within the EU is considered an acceptable price to pay for future access to supplies of oil and gas from the Caspian or Siberia.
On a lower than anticipated turnout of 45.56%, the Hungarian electorate voted by approximately 84% to join the European Union. These figures indicate that any opposition to the vote stayed away and accepted, by default, the outcome as inevitable. The low turnout is not an endorsement of the European Union, although, as a proportion of the total electorate, the vote is more than any British party wins at a general election. This withdrawal has been blamed upon the opposition party, Fidesz, which announced that it would look at the terms in order to ensure that they were in the national interests of Hungary. The European Business website commented that this made voters "insecure" although you could just as easily use the term "aware".
Membership of the European Union will be a mixed blessing, at best. Through accession to the acquis communautaire, Hungary will find that its economy is burdened by regulatory costs that will prove difficult to meet, whilst the country loses the flexibility required to maintain or increase its trend rate of economic growth. One of the other arguments for accession is increased security. However, the actions of the European Union towards the accession countries does not suggest that the European Union will act to increase the security of Central or Eastern Europe.
The third trend consists of an accelerating effort by Russian energy companies -- in this case, mainly the state-connected Gazprom and Lukoil -- to buy up strategic energy enterprises of Central and East European countries, offering them long-term supply contracts for Russian oil and gas. Those Russian companies seem to have embarked on a race against the clock for dominance in these countries' energy sectors. Indeed, they appear to follow a strategy of preemption, so as to confront the European Union with faits accomplis in the accession countries and in the EU's new eastern neighborhood.
The European Union does not seem to be responding to this grab. Yet if Russian takeovers and EU passivity continue, the consequences can be serious indeed. The enlarged EU may find itself divided into two zones with very unequal levels of energy security. In the West, Russia will be one among a number of energy suppliers to the EU's old member countries. There, the principles of diversified sources of energy supply will remain in force, even if Russia will be one of major suppliers. In Central-Eastern Europe, however, the EU's new member countries will find themselves overwhelmingly dependent on Russian energy supplies.
While Russian energy giants function mainly as commercial suppliers in the West, they take over a wide and growing range of roles in the Central and Eastern Europe. There they also own and operate refineries and other processing plants, distribution systems, transit pipelines and storages, port terminals, and other key assets. Such a situation would be deemed unacceptable in Western Europe. If allowed to develop in Central-Eastern Europe, this situation can generate long-term internal and external risks to the newly free countries, and to the EU as a whole.
The European Union must devise measures to halt this potentially dangerous trend on an urgent basis. Some suggestions: Together with the accession countries, the EU should work out targeted investment programs in these countries' energy sectors. It should at last activate the long-dormant proposals to bring North Sea oil and gas to the accession countries, and should link their pipeline and electricity networks with those of the EU's old member countries. The new countries lack the investment funds for these tasks. The EU must step in now, and assist its new members to observe the EU's own norms in terms of energy supply diversification.
These countries are vulnerable especially in terms of 'energy security'. They purchase most of their oil or gas from Russia and one of the reasons for joining the European Union is to reduce the potential pressure that their giant neighbour can bring to bear. However, the facts in the pipeline show that the EU, specifically France and Germany, is unwilling to reduce their potential dependence upon Russia. Russia is a more important suitor than the accession countries, a potential member, and an arc of influence for the bear within the EU is considered an acceptable price to pay for future access to supplies of oil and gas from the Caspian or Siberia.
Those cheering crowds, ctd
The picture below comes from an article in the left anarchist site Infoshop, so treat the source with care. However it alleges that this is a BBC picture of the toppling of the Saddam statue outside the Palestine Hotel. I can't find the picture on the BBC site.
So if the picture is kosher, where are those cheering crowds that some of the dimmer pro-warriors touted as a main justification for going in? I'm no crowd expert, but there don't appear to be more than a couple of hundred - a good proportion of who must be journalists. Now I know that this may have been a less populated part of town, people were still afraid of Saddam and all that, but still...