Think twice Mr Cameron before arming Syria’s rebels

Aaron Ellis 11.03am

During a statement to the House of Commons yesterday about last week’s European Council, the Prime Minister warned that the Syrian crisis was “attracting and empowering a new cohort of Al Qaeda-linked extremists.” The only way to check their malign influence is if the West arms those “parts of the Syrian opposition that want a proper transition to a free and democratic Syria.”

“My concern is that if the UK with others is not helping the opposition, and helping to shape and work with it, it is much more difficult to get the transition we all want”, said Mr Cameron.

To paraphrase John Maynard Keynes, practical men are usually the slaves of some bad pundit. In this case, the Prime Minister is the slave of pro-interventionist commentators like Anne-Marie Slaughter, who have been arguing this for months.

“Sooner or later some combination of the opposition groups will indeed control Syria,” she wrote in July.

“The eventual winners…will matter a great deal to the health, wealth and stability of what is still the most geo-strategically important region in the world. Syrians will remember those who remember them, those who cared enough to help save their lives.” Neither history nor recent events substantiate her argument.

As Micah Zenko wrote in response to Slaughter, it assumes a number of things:

First, that the post-Assad political leaders of Syria will be the same individuals who received U.S. weapons…Second, any country not arming the Syrian rebels will be remembered for their lack of enthusiasm, and suffer the wrath of Damascus for some period of time. Third, Syria’s political leaders will closely align their policy preferences with the United States, because the Obama administration armed them – rather than say the preferences of the Qataris or Saudis, who are providing weapons to Syrian rebel groups.

From our own correspondent… with William Hague at the Foreign Office

Aaron Ellis 10.30am

I felt a bit ashamed when I joined Twitter a couple of years ago. It felt like I was Winston Smith at the end of George Orwell’s 1984, finally giving in to oppressive forces. Yet the social networking site has furnished me with opportunities I would not otherwise have had - such as meeting William Hague.

Last month, the Foreign Secretary asked his Twitter followers to say what they think should be the United Kingdom’s top foreign policy priority. The best five would then meet him to discuss their suggestions.

Last week, the winners of this competition – Katie Jamieson (@kejamieson), Antonia King (@antoniaking), Jack McCann (@Jack_Mc_Cann), James Willby (@JamesWillby), and I – met Mr Hague and enjoyed a long, interesting talk on a wide range of issues, including trade promotion and the war in Afghanistan.

A chunk of the discussion was about British foreign policy and the ‘Pacific Century’, which had been the topic of my winning suggestion. I argued that the United Kingdom had to define its role (or non-role) in a world where power was concentrated in Asia-Pacific, as it would impact on all our other defence and foreign policies. The Foreign Secretary emphasised to me that we had to be in the region, but he didn’t show that he appreciated how big an effort would be needed by the British to become real players there. ‘It would represent the most judicious, and audacious, use of the hard/soft power combination yet seen in contemporary politics,’ one expert has warned.

Mr Hague agreed with me that a potential role for the United Kingdom would be to “fill in” for the Americans as they retrench to the Pacific, which was what I argued in these pages in the summer. He used the Libyan intervention as an example of this “filling in”, ironic perhaps given my opposition to the campaign. I was too polite (as well as awed) to point out that the United States enabled 90 per cent of the military operations there, which implies we don’t yet have the capacity to take up Washington’s mantle in many areas of the world.

The other issue that I raised was British policy in Central and South Asia; as I argued in May, the United Kingdom is pursuing policies in the region that are incompatible with one another. We want a stable Afghanistan, a special relationship with India, and a strategic partnership with Pakistan – the problem is that the latter two countries believe stability in Afghanistan comes at the expense of either one or the other.

Mr Hague recognises the dilemma – in contrast to the Defence Secretary, Phillip Hammond, who denied it exists when I put it to him in December – but he thinks that the British are best placed to mediate a solution. As an example, he pointed to the recent meeting in New York between David Cameron and the Afghan and Pakistani leaders.

Though I am often critical of this Government’s foreign policies, I have always believed that Britain needs William Hague as its Foreign Secretary – a belief reinforced after meeting him. His policies are good for the country, even if I think some of them are strategically discontinuous. Mr Hague is also likeable, charismatic, and he has built up good connections with leaders around the world, which aren’t bad things when it comes to diplomacy.

The meeting also showed his enthusiasm for engaging younger people via new technologies, on the issue of the many challenges facing this country in the early twenty-first century.

Follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronHEllis

We cannot intervene in Syria

Giles Marshall 9.16am

I hate to say it, but Vladimir Putin has something of a point about Syria. We could do worse than simply wring our hands and leave things to the once and future Russian President.

Our problem is our outraged liberal values. Yet if we were able to take a step back from moral emotionalism, we would also have to acknowledge that not a single western intervention in the Middle East has resulted in a safer and more stable regime. Usually the reverse - utter chaos, anarchy and extremism, where innocents still die in large numbers.

Peter Oborne has a revealing account from ‘free’ Libya in this week’s Spectator (not yet online). In it he offers a vision of street fighting as a spectator sport, the kidnapping of hotel managers, and the descent of society into a murderous, corrupt abyss. There may not have been sweetness nor light under Colonel Gadaffi, no more than Iraq was a blissful democracy under Saddam Hussein, but what the West has orchestrated in its place is arguably much worse.

There are few things more damaging to a society, or more inimical to the pursuit of worldly peace, than countries without functioning governments. We might rail in our foolishness against governments and politicians here in the liberal West, but that is because we have them.

Governments are absolute prerequisites for stable, functioning and prosperous societies. That is why in 1787 the American Founding Fathers decided it was so important to have strong central government rather than merely a loose confederation of states. And that is why western nations today should err on the side of caution before conniving to overthrow yet another ghastly regime.

It could be that President Assad will fall in time as a result of internal revolt. On the other hand, it could be that we have greatly underestimated the support he still receives in much of Syria, and the fear that Syrians have of being overrun by Islamic militia of the type now ruling the roost in Iraq and Libya.

Whatever the true state of affairs, it would be madness now to propose action on the basis of emotional news reportage, regardless of how imperative and moral such an intervention might seem to us.

In this instance, it is the morally neutral President Putin who could in fact understand the value of realpolitik more than we do. We do not have to like Putin or the Syrian regime to realise that there is far more to Syria than we could ever hope to comprehend. That of course was the case in both Iraq and Libya, but this time, perhaps, we should resist the temptations of our better nature in favour of realism, however unpleasant it may seem to us. It is profoundly conservative, and reflects that clear understanding of man’s flawed nature.

It is not heroic, but international affairs rarely are.

Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesmarshall

The Ellis Doctrine: a step-by-step guide to when to intervene in a foreign country

Aaron Ellis 11.03am

Libya is turning out to be something of a failure. Its cities are divided by competing militia and the country is divided against itself.

Abdel-Rahim el-Keeb, the prime minister, heads a government that has been described as “virtually paralyzed”. Islamist gangs desecrate British war graves and imprison black Africans in cages, forcing them to eat the old Libyan flag of Colonel Gaddafi. The Foreign Office warns British nationals to “keep a low profile” - ironic given that we are meant to be loved as liberators.

I opposed the original intervention precisely because this situation was foreseeable. The UK would be stuck engaged in nation building in another country of marginal importance to British people.

I am not, contrary to what some believe, opposed to all foreign intervention. I am opposed to stupid interventions. “Great disasters,” wrote AJP Taylor, “are caused by trying to learn from history and correct past mistakes.”

Here are my criteria for supporting an intervention, and what I humbly call the Ellis Doctrine.

Does a regime pose a threat to the security of the United Kingdom?

With regard to Libya, the answer to this question was “no”. Colonel Gaddafi was an evil man but he was also an ally - and a reliable one. His regime posed no threat to this country, nor would it have done had it survived, despite the claims of some commentators at the time.

Are there vital national interests at stake?

Libya is of marginal importance to the UK. The many challenges facing this country over the next century will not be influenced by the composition of the Libyan government, thus it was ridiculous - and irresponsible - to go to war to make it so.

Are there countries with more of an interest in intervening than us?

This was certainly true of Libya; and if one believes we had a moral duty to help overthrow Gaddafi then our involvement should have reflected this fact. France, Italy and the Arab League held more interest in the country than us, therefore the military campaign should have been left to them. By keeping to the diplomatic side of the intervention, our participation would have been more proportionate to our interests.

Is opposition to the regime politically and militarily coherent?

If pressed on why we are not intervening in Syria, government ministers and officials often say that the internal opposition to President Assad is not as organised as the Libyan rebels were.

Yet those Libyan rebels were not unified. They were a coalition of militia, tribal leaders, Islamists and a few liberals encamped in Benghazi, who all merely shared an interest in toppling the regime in Tripoli. The consequences of the rebels’ incoherence was readily foreseeable at the time.

Do we have a coherent political-military strategy?

Far too often, governments think about war and peace sequentially because they tend to happen sequentially: we must win the war and decide what the peace will look like at a triumphant conference.

Instead, we should decide what we want the peace to look like and shape our actions accordingly. Strategy is the bridge.

Otherwise the post-war environment will be shaped by people on the ground, as happened in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Libya. This can draw you into a much bigger and longer conflict than you had first bargained on.

If I were to boil down the Ellis Doctrine into a single phrase, it would be this: help where it is in one’s interests to help, and that help should be proportionate to those interests.

Follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronHEllis

Does Libya absolve Interventionism of its sins?

Alexander Pannett 6.45 am

The death of Colonel Gaddafi heralds the end of his dictatorial regime and another chapter in the Arab Spring uprisings.

For many it will be the culmination of a successful Western intervention that demonstrated the effectiveness of military action with humanitarian objectives.

For others, it will represent a fortunate escape from another potential foreign quagmire that may have bled Western societies of blood and gold without ever achieving the quixotic management speak of “nation building”. 

At a time when the West is facing a existential crisis by increasingly questioning its own democratic and economic structures, it seems a genuine question as to what type of values we are trying to bring to “failed states”?  What type of world are we trying to propulgate or are we merely following airy platitudes about freedom due to an inertia about our own established political and economic truths?

Rory Stewart, the Conservative MP and a contributor to this website, and Gerald Knaus have released a new book, Can intervention work?, which evaluates the dichotomy of the arguments for or against Western interventionism.  He has argued that interventionism can be a useful tool in promoting humanitarian goals but that it must be tempered by a pragmatism about the capacity of the West to help and directed by a rigorous localism that understands the languages, traditions, values and aspirations of the society that will be receiving Western assistance. 

Mr Stewart’s argument is a valuable addition to the debate surrounding interventionism and deftly exposes the hubris that has underlined some of the more spectacular failures of Western foreign policy in the last two decades.  Rory Stewart has particular criticism for the management speak that has pervaded NGO’s and diplomatic circles that take a top down approach to “nation building”.  He also reserves criticism for the optimism of British Generals whose famous “can do” approach has possibly led to far too ambitious a prognosis of what the British military can achieve in countries such as Afghanistan.

Libya must be counted as a success in that the intervention prevented a massacre of civilians by Gaddafi forces, was (just about) carried out with the backing of a UN resolution, avoided large scale Western intervention at the ground level and was not designed to impose a Western style political structure. 

It could, however, have gone otherwise had the NATO airstrikes not been so effective.  With military advisors on the ground we were beginning to see the type of mission creep that led to the full-scale intervention of Vietnam and Afghanistan.  I will not be surprised if we soon hear that Western special forces played a much more active role than has previously been disclosed.  If so, we should not confuse the fortunes of war that have given us success with the inevitability of an interventionist ideology whose scientific application cannot be applied universally. 

Rory Stewart is right that the West must be much more realistic about its capabilities for doing more harm than good.  That we must be pragmatic about whether our values can truly help a society that may be hostile to perceived threats to its traditions and beliefs.

We should also be wary about the wisdom that we impart to non-Western societies that we have learnt from our own political development.   Too often we have approached other societies with answers or solutions when we ignore the main strength of Western political institutions, which is the capacity to evolve as people’s needs change.  Flexibility in order to listen, tolerate, question and serve its people’s changing needs is surely one of the greatest strengths of Western liberal democratic experimentation.  The “answers” that we currently have merely reflect the current choices and aspirations of our current generation of citizens.  These aspirations and traditions may vary greatly with those of citizens of another society or indeed from future or past generations of Western citizens.  Our current navel-gazing about the narrative of Western values is yet another example of our great capacity to re-invent ourselves along new values that better serve our rational sense of our place in the world. 

As the Middle East embraces more democratic forms of government, we should not be surprised or alarmed if such governance forms a democratic system that is different to that of Western democracy.  They will tolerate their people’s various dogmas much as ours tolerate such dogmas as the “right to bear arms” or the belief that a growing prison population reflects a healthy and just society.

Libya has again shown that interventionism can promote humanitarian goals, but it must be used wisely, with pragmatism, localism and a humility about our own values that we seek to spread.

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David Cameron has chosen the wrong replacement for Liam Fox

Aaron Ellis 7.01am

There are few pastimes as pleasurable for politicos as ministerial musical chairs.

They are opportunities for them to show off their smarts about the Westminster bubble: listing the virtues and vices of one obscure politician after another, weighing up their chances; dismissing absurd suggestions.

On Friday, as soon as it was confirmed that Dr Liam Fox was resigning as Defence Secretary, all kinds of names were put forward as his replacement.

Andrew Mitchell was the most credible candidate in the Cabinet: he is an ex-Army officer and has proven to be a success as International Development Secretary.

There were occasional mentions of Philip Hammond, the grey Transport Secretary, but at the time I dismissed this as absurd. How was he qualified for the role, apart from having a reputation for administrative competence?

Perhaps the Prime Minister would choose a figure from outside the Government to avoid a reshuffle. Sir Malcolm Rifkind was talked of, and what about Bernard Jenkin? Maybe he would pick a Lib Dem heavyweight like Lord Ashdown? Oh hell, make it Bill Cash!

I thought it was important to consider what David Cameron could be looking for in a new Defence Secretary. They had to have experience and knowledge. “When the country is at war, when Whitehall is at war, we need people who understand war in Whitehall”, Mr Cameron said at the Conservative party conference in 2009.

They needed to be dissimilar to Liam Fox, in terms of their personality, but also considered as ‘sound’ by Tory backbenchers.

Once all these things had been tallied, it was obvious to me who it should be: James Arbuthnot, MP for North East Hampshire.

Mr Arbuthnot combines experience with knowledge, having served as a junior defence minister under John Major and as Chairman of the Defence Select Committee since 2005. He is not ‘charismatic’ in the risky mode of Liam Fox, but he is a solid figure and favourable to his party’s right wing. His candidacy is strengthened by the fact that he is standing down as a MP at the next election - it would give Mr Cameron the opportunity to bring in ‘fresh blood’ should he win in 2015.

But the Prime Minister did not choose Mr Arbuthnot, or Sir Malcolm Rifkind, or, indeed, any of the many experienced, knowledgeable politicians on offer to him in the Conservative party. He chose Philip Hammond instead, who, according to Fraser Nelson, “has little interest” in defence. It was a bad choice by Mr Cameron, if only because it undermines further his grand ambitions for British foreign policy.

The dominant media narrative about ‘Cameroon foreign policy’ is that it was simply about selling stuff to foreigners until it found a purpose in the Arab Spring. In reality, Mr Cameron and William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, have always fancied themselves as grand strategists who will reverse the drift of the Labour years, revive damaged institutions like the Foreign Office, and ready our country for the challenges of the 21st century.

Since October 2010, however, they have consistently fallen short of these goals: the National Security Strategy (NSS) was bland; the defence review (SDSR) was a mess; and Libya was a distraction. The elevation of the competent but uninformed Hammond to the MoD is just the latest in a long list of things that have shown up this Government’s claims to be re-making British foreign policy.

We have had seven Defence Secretaries since September 11th, 2001, one of whom doubled as the head of another department. David Cameron reassured many in the military when he promised there would be no “revolving door” at the MoD if he were Prime Minister. Liam Fox’s unavoidable resignation means that we are stuck with Mr Hammond for another four years in order for him to keep that promise. Four years of awkward photo-ops in Helmand, of feigning interest in the jargon of the generals, of polite applause at RUSI events after dull speeches on the future of our Armed Forces.

This does not bode well for the Government’s desired reforms. A vignette from the memoirs of Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the former UK Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, makes this point best:

I suggested to one of the Cabinet Ministers considering the paper that he might want to question whether the deployment made any sense…His reply illustrated all the difficulties of civilian politicians with no military expertise assessing military advice. “Sherard,” he said, “I don’t know the difference between a tornado and a torpedo. I can’t possibly question the Chief of the Defence Staff on this.”

I hope to be proven wrong about Philip Hammond. Perhaps he will be the Robert Gates to Dr Fox’s Donald Rumsfeld, only without the decades of experience that Mr Gates brought to the Pentagon – so making the comparison redundant.

But unless he displays even a fraction of the wisdom and leadership of that great US Defence Secretary, I shall view Philip Hammond’s appointment as a mistake. A mistake that the Prime Minister is responsible for.

Follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronHEllis

British foreign policy must be relevant and useful

Aaron Ellis 6.03am

Conservative thinking on foreign policy is a contradiction in terms. The time and energy spent on a distinctly Conservative world outlook is tiny compared to the thinking on the economy or welfare reform, for instance.

There are two reasons for this: first, there are few votes in foreign policy and second, there is scant funding for foreign policy think tanks. Many British politicians and pundits take their ideas from America.

The worldview of many Conservatives is infected by a ‘hidden Blairism’, from the Prime Minister downwards. Although Mr Cameron has often dismissed the moral certainties of Tony Blair, he buys into the ‘internationalisation’ of the national interest, which was a hallmark of Blairite foreign policy. In short, it is the belief that the world is so globalised and interconnected that every massacre or famine or failed state is a direct threat to our national security and it is vital that we get involved to sort it out. Libya is the most recent case in point.

In an attempt to fix the Conservatives’ deficiency in foreign policy, Dominic Raab MP recently wrote an op-ed in the Telegraph outlining how he thought his party should approach world affairs. Alex Massie criticised the piece for the Spectator, but I would like to explain my own concerns and offer a new foreign policy for the ‘post-coalitionists’.

On top of those detailed by Massie, there are two problems with Dominic Raab’s article: one is conceptual, the other is policy related.

Mr Raab argues that British foreign policy needs to be focused on ‘the national interest’, yet he too buys into its ‘internationalisation’, thus undermining any attempt for that foreign policy to be focused. It is in our interests, he believes, to resolve conflicts and rebuild failed states, but he fails to say which of these problems and where is specifically a national interest to sort out. By linking failed states to terrorism - a link that I criticised recently - shows that Mr Raab’s foreign policy is as much subconsciously Blairite as David Cameron’s and the coalition’s, despite claiming to be an alternative.

His policy recommendations are also similar to those favoured by the coalition government and like them, they leave you asking some basic strategic questions.

Mr Raab suggests that the UK should loosen ties with the United States and strengthen them with emerging powers. We should rehabilitate the Commonwealth. But what exactly does the UK gain from balancing power in the Far East? And with regard to the loosening of ties with the US, we need an explanation of how this radical shift would impact on the Trident nuclear deterrent and close intelligence relationship we enjoy.

The watchwords for British foreign policy in the twenty-first century must be relevance and usefulness.

Lee Kuan Yew, the great Singaporean statesman, has said that the only way his small country can exercise influence in a world dominated by geographical giants is by being relevant to them. One key feature of this policy is acquiring expertise in niche technologies. It would be obtuse to say we should become a ‘mega-Singapore’ but a policy of relevance is appropriate to Tory ideas on the economy, education and welfare reform.

Britain also needs to be useful, mostly to the United States. Prof Christopher Coker, a sharp observer of world affairs, has noted that being useful to the Americans is not in itself an objective but “a tactical instrument to follow a larger strategy - that of the national interest”. The hope is that our usefulness will be repaid in influence on US policy, as well as justifying the benefits we already enjoy. Iraq and Afghanistan suggest that this hope was misguided then, but the benefits of the Special Relationship continue to be important. Fifty per cent of intelligence processed by the Join Intelligence Committee (JIC) comes from American sources. This is a privilege we should not relinquish.

If we are to be successful then it is essential to impose restraints. Britain needs to determine our areas of expertise that make us relevant and which areas of the world we are useful to. These decisions require leadership. In my opinion, we are still waiting.

Follow Aaron on Twitter @AaronHEllis

The end of the universal Enlightenment?

Alexander Pannett 6.45am

The rising in Libya is reaching its conclusion.  The rebels have all but taken Tripoli and Gaddafi has seemingly fled to ignominy.  The Arab Spring has claimed another triumph against an autocratic regime.  However, it is not Western liberal values that the people on the street are calling for.  A desire for some form of democracy is evident but it will be a democracy that reflects the customs and values of Middle Eastern culture.  Far from being the sign of a teleological march of Western liberal democracy towards a universal civilisation based on Western liberal values, the Arab Spring has shown that the world is becoming increasingly divergent in how its many cultures seek to express themselves both politically and morally.

The Arab Spring has not been an uprising in support of Western values but instead a rejection of the West.  The autocratic regimes that controlled the Middle East were stooges of the West.  Their leaders were propped up with Western money, their children were educated in Western schools and their governments were modelled along Western secular concepts of the state.  Far from being a demonstration of Western influence and power, the risings in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt have exposed the fallacy of Western moral, political and cultural ascendancy.

Events in Libya are concomitant with the increasingly bloody suppression of protests in Syria.  The West has been powerless to prevent such acts of repression by a moderately powerful state.  The West is too war weary and economically humbled to countenance yet another armed conflict.  NATO could barely muster enough military resources to topple Gaddafi, a deeply unpopular leader in a nation of only six million.  Far from being the end of history, as Francis Fukuyama once famously decreed, the post-Cold War world has seen an increasingly divergent multiplicity of political structures and cultures.  The Syrian regime’s hubris looks much more like Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931, at a time of fracturing world politics, than the thwarting of Serbia’s designs in Kosovo in the more uni-polar world of the 1990s.  

If democracy does come to the Middle East it will be an Islamic interpretation and it will be malleable to the prejudices and hopes of Middle Eastern culture.  These are not the same prejudices and hopes that dominate Western political thought. In the West, secular reason dominates above all else and its origins lie in the utopian ideals of the Age of Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment assumed that its values were universal.  However, the Enlightenment values of equality and freedom have not been accepted by emerging powers such as China, India and Russia.  The Arab Street has not called for Western freedoms but for freedom from a tyranny draped in secular Western ideals.  The world is not moving to one, universal civilisation based on Western values.  It is evolving along separate value systems.

The end of the Western project to “civilise” the world along Enlightenment lines should not be presaged with foreboding.  The imposition of Western moral and political values on cultures whose traditions were incompatible with such values has caused untold suffering and destruction.  From colonialism through to Marxism, Western ideas have deracinated traditional cultures across the world, all in the name of modernity.  It could be argued that the Enlightenment apotheosis of man above nature has led to severe environmental consequences.  With climate change and ecological disaster remaining an ever present danger, it would benefit the West to learn from cultures around the world whose value systems have allowed them to live in more environmentally sustainable ways.

Far from being a travesty, the relative decline of Western power will allow for new opportunities and ideas to emerge on how to tackle the world’s pressing ecological and political issues.  Now that divergent value systems are once again emerging, it will be far more likely that humans will communicate to each other in the context of understanding rather than from a procrustean view of the world.  With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, this new development could not have come sooner.

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