Never mind talks about British military cutbacks and the "mothballing" of several Royal Navy ships - the truth is that the British military, and its worldwide projection capabilities, will soon be at their most powerful for a long time -
From the Falklands to the Gulf
Apr 4th 2007
From The Economist print edition
A calculated stunt highlights the difficulties of Britain's role in the world
THE week that saw British servicemen humiliated by a former client state was also, as it happened, the one when Britain was marking the 25th anniversary of the Falklands war. On April 7th 1982, five days after the invasion of the Falklands, the government of Margaret Thatcher announced an exclusion zone around the remote south Atlantic islands and signalled that it would get them back by force.
For Tony Blair, Britain's prime minister, the symmetry is uncomfortable. It contrasts Mrs Thatcher's conduct of the war in the Falklands—the first time the country had asserted its military might since Suez in 1956—with his own difficulties, in Iraq in particular. Worse, for a man who believes in his ability to persuade, Mr Blair is out of touch with his people.
In a YouGov survey for the Daily Telegraph this week, 61% of respondents said Britain was right to retake the Falklands, while 72% think the country should hesitate to get involved in conflicts that do not concern it. The British people want out—most clearly from Iraq, which contributed directly to the run-in with Iran, but also now from Afghanistan.
Of course the British, like most people, love success, and respect the bravery of their forces. The findings of one survey do not an isolationist nation make. The same poll found that most people are still in favour of British participation in peacekeeping missions—so long as they can be made to work.
The Falklands are remembered, rightly or wrongly, as a clearly defined and even noble task that coincided with a post-1970s quest for national renewal. The crude need of the British to feel better about themselves was captured in a controversial tabloid headline, the Sun's “GOTCHA”. It was written after a British submarine sank an Argentine cruiser, the Belgrano, that was sailing near the maritime exclusion zone on May 2nd, 1982. More than 300 Argentines died.
The Sun newspaper's famous "Gotcha" headline in May 1982 after the Royal Navy sank Argentine ship the Belgrano during the Falklands War, a hugely popular war in Britain which also helped Thatcher win a landslide victory in the 1983 General Election
Mr Blair has offered the British people a higher moral cause, at first a duty of humanitarian intervention and more recently the need to confront terrorism around the world. He has taken Britain into wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone and the Balkans; Sierra Leone has been a success; Afghanistan is uncertain. He has also committed military forces to keep the peace in Bosnia and Kosovo. On January 12th 2007 he boarded one of the navy's newest ships, HMS Albion, and told the country's defence establishment that in a post-September 11th world it is more important than ever for Britain to project “hard power”.
Based on a 1998 Strategic Defence Review, Britain is spending £14 billion ($28 billion) to improve its ability to conduct expeditionary operations far from home. Under Mr Blair, however, the armed forces are far more active than they planned to be. The army, in particular, is overstretched, and the navy is being forced to reduce the battle-readiness of some ships to concentrate men and equipment in those on front-line duty.
Still, Britain is investing heavily in military kit. Typhoon jets are coming into service, a new generation of ships is being introduced and there are plans to build two large aircraft carriers.
In many ways, Britain will soon be BETTER placed to project military might than at any time since the late 1960s, when an economic crisis forced Harold Wilson, another Labour prime minister, to decommission much of Britain's navy and pull back from “east of Suez”. For instance, HMS Albion is Britain's first Landing Platform Dock, designed to sit in the waters off troubled states and despatch fast amphibious craft around its theatre of operations.
One of the Royal Navy's newest class of shoips, the Albion Class Landing Platform Dock ships launch fast amphibious craft from the rear when needed
How the new Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers may look
In the Falklands war, by contrast, troops had to be moved to the South Atlantic aboard the Canberra, a liner, and requisitioned merchant ships. The war's main aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, was about to be decommissioned as unsuitable for fighting Soviet submarines.
Today, Britain—with an economy that has grown without recession for 15 years—has the money to buy military hardware that could only be dreamed of in the early 1980s. It also has a prime minister given to bold idealism. But a missing link has been highlighted by the past week's events in Iran. Without thoughtfulness and attention to detail (especially the detail that can be provided by good intelligence), all the military hardware in the world is insufficient to protect a state against others that bear old grudges against it. “Pardoning” the British hostages on April 4th, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad referred pointedly to problems left behind by history.
COMMENTS
A GREAT VICTORY FOR THE BRITISH OVER THE IRANIANS
I look at how Tony Blair handled his hostage crisis, and compare it to the way that failure, Jimmy Carter handled the violation of a US Embassy.
Ahmadinejad got his temporary boost in Muslim public opinion. Big deal. Britain has her sailors back; lessons learned will be applied to prevent a second snatch, and Blair, who has been savagely criticized by both American and other allied sideliners comes out of this entire mess proving to me that he is a man of unusually sound and sober judgeent as well as a proficient crisis manager. This man is dangerous . Ahmadinejad hasn't heard the last of Mister Blair. Revenge is often better handled in the insurance brokerages, commodities exchanges, and international credit markets.
The point is that Britain used soft power very well in this crisis. Blair is to be commended for his efforts, not blasted by critics (mainly Yanks) who are bomb happy. He brought his people home alive. Considering the way this crisis could have gone; that is a major Tony Blair accomplishment and a clear British victory over Iran. Anybody who characterizes it as anything else is not reading this resolution closely enough.
economist.com
