It's a long way from Port Stanley to the Shatt-al-Arab waterway

Today is the 25th anniversary of Argentina's invasion of the Falklands.  The recapture of the Falklands became the defining event of the Thatcher years.  A nation that had been in decline since WWII found a new confidence.  As Robin Harris wrote in yesterday's Independent on Sunday, the Falklands campaign restored Britain's status in the world and provided Margaret Thatcher with the authority she needed for her domestic reform programme and for her to become Ronald Reagan's leading ally during the Cold War.  A quarter of a century later the role of aggressor is being played by the much more deadly Iran.  On this morning's television screens, for the fourth successive day, we watch kidnapped British sailors being humilated by their Iranian captors.  Former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind is surely right to say that more should be done to put pressure on the regime in Tehran.  His suggestion of a suspension of EU nations' export credits to Iran seems an immediate and minimum necessary response.  For the longer-term, however, what this current crisis exposes is the decline of Britain as a serious power.  In these early years of the war on terror, Tim Montgomerie, Editor of BritainAndAmerica.com, lists ten key factors that have contributed to Britain's vulnerability in 2007.

An overstretched and under-resourced military: Britain's armed forces - although made up of brilliant individual servicemen - are small in number and under-resourced.  Recruitment rates are down and 'quit rates' are up.  As Conservative defence spokesman Liam Fox has noted: "This year we will spend only 2.2% of our GDP on defence.  This is the smallest proportion of our national wealth that we have spent on defending our country since 1930."  If Argentina reinvaded the Falklands today the Royal Navy would be unable to send a task force to free them.

The Iraq war.  Although this blog was and is a supporter of the decision to topple Saddam Hussein it cannot defend the subsequent campaign.  Britain and America attempted to prevail 'on the cheap'.  This might have been forgivable at first but when it was obvious that Rumsfeld's light footprint doctrine was failing there should have been a change in strategy.  US Senators McCain and Lieberman were calling for extra troops in early 2004 but their calls fell on deaf (and stubborn) ears.  President Bush's troops surge is a belated attempt to re-establish American authority.  Britain's withdrawal from southern Iraq only reinforces the view of our enemies that we lack either equipment or resolution to prevail.

Appeasement of Iran.  Tehran has watched Britain and America consistently fail to respond to its militancy.  Its subversive agents have - until recently - been unchallenged in Iraq.  It bore no cost for its material support of Hezbollah during last summer's Lebanon conflict.  There appears to be no limit to the EU nations' commitment to a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear ambitions.  While the talk goes on and on Iran could be less than a year away from realising its dream of becoming a nuclear power.

Appeasement of internal threats.  The 7/7 bombings showed that within the home-grown population there were people who hated Britain so much that they were willing to kill themselves and their fellow countrymen in suicide bomb attacks.  Although the situation is beginning to improve from the darkest days of 'Londonistan', the British authorities have for many years tended to encourage extremism by only dealing with the more extremist 'representatives' of Britain's Muslims.  As Michael Gove MP has written, this effective cold-shouldering of moderate voices is a repeat of the way Tony Blair promoted Sinn Fein's status at the expense of the SDLP during the Northern Ireland peace process.

The weakness of the transatlantic relationship. The special relationship between Britain and America has been historically central to Britain's national interests but is now in danger.  Washington sees Tony Blair - rightly - as a staunch ally but he will soon leave Downing Street and his successor will inherit the leadership of a country that is overwhelmingly hostile to the Iraq war - a war that many see as a war of choice and chosen by George W Bush and America.  Tony Blair has found it difficult to combine support for America with necessary criticism of US policy failures.  The British people want now to see a reassertion of Britain's national interests and the challenge for Britain's next government is to persuade voters that US and UK interests are closely connected.

Decline of NATO.  Membership of NATO was once a pillar of Britain's defence strategy but NATO is a shadow of its former self.  Many of its member states have been unable or unwilling to make any serious contribution to peacemaking operations in Afghanistan.

Unfounded faith in the United Nations: Large sections of the British public - led by the BBC - have come to see the imprimatur of the United Nations as necessary for any military action to be legitimate.  The people of Rwanda and Darfur know that waiting for the UN to arrive at a resolution is a very dangeous thing to do.  Last week's UN statement on the Iranian kidnapping fell well short of London's hopes and we should not have been surprised.  Three of the Security Council's permanent members - China, France and Russia - have a track record of putting commercial interests and relationships with unsavoury regimes before the high principles of the UN's founders.  Conservatives who are rightly sceptical about the multilateralist EU are too willing to give a benefit of the doubt to the UN.

The BBC.  Although the BBC has given extensive coverage to the hostage crisis it has not reflected the breadth of opinion in many of Britain's newspapers where there has been much impatience with the Blair Government's weak response to the Iranian situation.  The BBC has certainly been a leading contributor to public opposition to the war in Iraq.  There has been a relentless focus on the failings of the Iraq campaign but next to no analysis of how coalition forces might ensure that their mission succeeds.  Coverage of the campaign's failures cannot be questioned but the lack of a balance is a failure of its public service mandate.  This is one of the constant weaknesses of the British landscape.  The BBC's sympathetic treatment of the Argentinians' claim to the 'Malvinas' was a great source of controversy in 1982.

Little strategic thinking.  There are very few thinkers in Britain who are preparing for future threats.  There is, for example, no appreciation of the likelihood of nuclear proliferation and the need for missile defence as our only likely protection.

A distracted Opposition.  These weaknesses that Tony Blair will bequeath to his successors are an enormous burden.  The Party of Margaret Thatcher has every chance of winning the next election and has decided that discussion of public services and climate change is much more likely to win that election.  That is understandable but is not likely to steel the British public for the sacrifices that future stages of the war on terror will undoubtedly demand.  It is also unclear if many British Tories have the strategic clarity that Tony Blair has shown since 9/11.  A clarity that was never, sadly, translated into effective applications.

***
Related link: Watch 18DoughtyStreet.com's interview with John Nott, Margaret Thatcher's Defence Secretary during the Falklands War.

Comments

[rodneyl]

nice that they are sending the veterans' minister to the falklands though!

[Matt Davis]

Cranmer is reporting (http://www.archbishop-cranmer.blogspot.com/) that the ever more useless United Nations having failed to condemn Iran for kidnapping British service personnel in international waters or condemning any of the other varied atrocities being commited right now around the world (e.g. Burma, North Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Iran or Uzbekistan) has however managed to pass a resolution the purpose of which is to outlaw the term Islamic Terrorism and to provide Islam with UN support not available to any other religion.Coupled with that same supposed world body's repeated attacks upon only one country, Israel, it is really very worrying that our spineless government, and for that matter spineless opposition, seem to think that the UN are going to effect any kind of solution to the current crisis with Iran, or anything else that might involve standing up to imperialistic, aggressive and violent Islamic countries and cliques, for that matter.

[TomTom]

Britain has increasingly traded on bluff...the decision to let the Japanese Navy represent British interests in the Far East in the 1920s; the Anglo-German Naval Agreement 1935 permitting Germany to violate the Versailles Treaty; both were Treasury-driven to save money - and yet by 1940 Britain had only 6 weeks foreign currency reserves left to fight a war

The Cold War was fought by letting the US take the bulk of the effort and using nuclear weapons as a deterrent against superior Soviet conventional forces. We thus bluffed that we would launch first-strike nuclear attack against a Soviet conventional attack

We then decided the Russians were friendly and we could sell our surplus stocks off to the Middle East and Latin America.

We are "cruising for a bruising" as they say because we try to bluff and bluster with people who will throw their children onto minefields and yet make sure every crying child is available for our TV media to make us give in.

There is a pervading sense of self-delusion in Britain, that nirvana has arrived on credit and even death is a failure of medicine rather than one of life's inescapable truths

[Patrick Carroll]

IIRC, within three days of the Argentinian invasion, there was a 100-ship fleet on the way to liberate the Falklands.

As the fleet was steaming, the RAF was staging Vulcans at Ascension Island and the RN was up-arming its Sea Harriers to the latest Sidewinder missiles.

The Argentinians decided to fight it out, and got a big lesson with the General Belgrano. In the end they lost the Falklands and IIRC, General Galtieri's junta was quickly tossed on the ash-heap of history.

After ten years of Blair, today the RN is unable to defend its own, never mind the sceptered isle.

The current PM, more a Nanny-in-Chief than anything, is only exposing the weakness of the UK, the EU, NATO, and the UN, thereby encouraging the butchers of Qom.

[realcon]

To add to the above, what credibility does a nation have where most of its laws now come directly or indirectly from outside its own borders?

And the government and most of the media pretend this isn't the case.

[Room 237]

Why can't we all just admit that the west is finished -- that the sooner we turn off the lights the better for everyone.

[Salamantis]

There is an eleventh reason; the corporate-greed-driven feckessness of the Western European members of the EU. Iran's largest trading partners include Germany, France and Italy, and their granting of credits ensure that business transactions between them and Iran continue to proceed. None of them are willing to suspend such business, or even the transaction-facilitating credits which they extend, in response to Iran's perfidy. So much for the European Union being united in the face of an egregious offence against one of its members. Those countries continue to think of themselves solely as French, German and Italian, and 'European' is simply a word on a piece of paper rendered worthless by the fact that no supporting actions by the rest of EU's constituent countries have followed the execrable and unjustifiable injury a non-EU theocratic and totalitarian regime directed against one of them.

[mrsizer]

Room, Europe is done. I still have hope for Britain (not much, but some), Australia, and the US.

[Jan]

"Although the BBC has given extensive coverage to the hostage crisis it has not reflected the breadth of opinion"

...it's not the BBC's job to voice or reflect opinion - the fact that you can't detect opinion is a sign that they are reporting the issue subjectively. It's not so hard to understand. Look it up under "How to be a proper journalist" (Line1, paragraph1, Chapter1)

[Tim Montgomerie]

I suspect you mean "objective" Jan (05:48)?

I think you're wrong about the BBC anyway. If the Corporation was delivering a public service it would give a fair account of all of the options available to the British government. In fact it has implied that it's either the chosen all-diplomatic path or military action against Iran in some way. There has been almost no coverage of the intermediate economic measures that could be used to hurt the Iranian regime. In so many ways the written press (paid for by willing consumers) has been so much more informative and interesting than the BBC (financed by the compulsory licence fee).

[Frogg (USA)]

I think the US will come through with whatever assistance the Brits request; but, respect that it is their call. I am not surprised by the UN failure at all. However, I am dumbfounded that the EU hung the UK out to dry on this one. If the EU can't stand behind one of its own on a matter as obvious as this; then, the EU has no global political strength.

It's going to be a 'long war' made 'longer' if old Europe doesn't step up to the plate.

As far as Iraq troop numbers go. Don't forget.....before the Golden Mosque was bombed General Casey was optimistic about troops starting to come home. Things changed after the Mosque bombing (which is when al Qaeda/Sunni led insurgency and Shite militia clashes caused an uptick in violence). A larger coalition footprint in the early phases of the Iraq war could have also caused more problems. It is hard to second quess past strategy. The best you can do is adjust as you need to until the situation is under control.

[John Coles]

The BBC colours the whole political debate in this country and weights discussion well to the left. Its influence has been most malign when it has come to defence, their correspondents neither understanding the military nor liking them. Their behaviour just 25 years ago during the Falklands was contemptible. When Sheffield was hit, Richard Wainwright, BBC Defence Correspondent, just about suggested giving up there and then.
During my time in the Royal Navy I saw many BBC teams passing through the Wardroom (Wardroom only, of course, the last thing they wanted to do was to mix with the Senior Rates or the lads down on the Messdecks) and the only thought that motivated them, from stepping on board to going ashore, was the prospect of buying duty-free liquor. Everything else went over the top of their pointy heads.
They are a vile bunch of self-seeking pinko-leftists and the sooner their gravy train is stopped, the better for the politicial health of this nation.
Sadly, I can't see Hugo Swire doing much about them - not the sort to take on the Beeb, too accustomed to a quiet untroubled existence.

[bundyfan]

As an American I must say I am surprised at some of the pessimism in these British comments. "Britain is finished" and so forth. Buck up! We're with you.

[Eugene A]

As an American I must say I am surprised at some of the pessimism in these British comments. "Britain is finished" and so forth. Buck up! We're with you.

Posted by: bundyfan | April 02, 2007 at 06:35 PM
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Really... Grow some stones already... "America has no truer friend than Great Britain." GWB.

[Blah Boy]

I cannot stand all this standing around and saying "oh my" any longer - is there no one that will do what needs to be done?

I'm with you boys! Let's go kick some Iranian ass! As someone else said, no need to topple their government or occupy their country - we just have to neuter them militarily. If they get uppity and cross the border into Iraq, well then - that's an old fashioned turkey shoot.

[Room 237]

I am an American, I am convicned that we are witnessing the end of the West. Something else is going to replace us.

[Alan S]

100% true. Why do Americans love Tony Blair? Do they not understand what he has done to Britain?

[Yet Another Anon]

President Bush's troops surge is a belated attempt to re-establish American authority
Late in the day but eventually Dubya recognised that more troops should have been committed from the start, although he couldn't quite bring himself to condemn Donald Rumsfeld who seems to still be almost in a state of denial, 2 wrongs don't make a right - it is too late to go back and commit more troops but good can be done from a surge now and it is up to the Coalition working with new Iraqi authorities to ensure that control of the country is fully restored as quickly as possible but taking all the time it needs.

[hotspur]

If the marines/sailors despatched from HMS Cornwall had not had a woman on the boats would they have resisted arrest? Is it possible their ability to respond when challenged was compromised as a result? We are all talking about the aftermath now, but how about looking at why it happened in the first place?

[Steevo]

"I am an American, I am convicned that we are witnessing the end of the West. Something else is going to replace us."

"100% true. Why do Americans love Tony Blair? Do they not understand what he has done to Britain?"

I'm an American and I agree, there are some easy-fix macho Yank responses. We're not too far behind you guys in submissive Western diminitude. We're about 50 - 50 and if we get a democrat elected President, America could well become the premiere global appeaser.

But blaming your sorry state on one man, Tony Blair, is one easy scapegoat. Is prejudice and bigotry with rampant anti-Americanism and anti-Israel his fault? Is multicultural "progressive" religion which has perverted into the tolerance of the intolerant of the most egregious nature, his fault? Is acceptance of an institution (BBC) which has helped make it all but taboo to even speak up, his fault?

There are some deep-seeded problems requiring introspection and acknowledgement on both sides of the ocean. Apathy and a false sense of security, guilt and denial have allowed the Left to destroy much of the very fabric of traditional values that have given strength to these 2 great nations.

[TomTom]

If the marines/sailors despatched from HMS Cornwall had not had a woman on the boats would they have resisted arrest?

Well it didn't encourage resistance !

[Teddy Bear]

The article that best sums up the treasonous and insidious influence that is the BBC is this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6507451.stm?ls

According to this article we pretty much have to blame ourselves for isolating Iran in the first place to cause them to abduct our military personnel this way.

[mamapajamas]

hotspur, re:"If the marines/sailors despatched from HMS Cornwall had not had a woman on the boats would they have resisted arrest?"

I don't know, of course, but I honestly doubt it. 20 years ago, I might have agreed. I think it had more to do with PC rules of engagement than anything else. Women in the military are pretty much taken in stride these days.

When looking at a widely-reproduced photo of several of the hostages eating a meal, there is a Marine in the background (at least he's in camo instead of blue) with a look on his face that would paralyze me with fear. He's looking down at his plate, but his expression is one of pure hostility. If I were an Iranian, I wouldn't get within 10 feet of that Marine!

[Yet Another Anon]

Well it didn't encourage resistance !
As they were ordered not to engage the Iranians it wouldn't have made any difference whether there was a woman on board, they were obeying orders and if they had refused to presumably they would have been court martialled, certainly they should have been permitted to fight back.

[Matt Davis]

I think that we need to be very clear about one thing here and that is that it was not a military failing that led to this unresisted kidnapping in international waters, it was solely a political failure.