I spy nationalism – and I worry
“a more activist nationalist foreign policy”.
That word again – nationalist. It is striking to hear anxieties about the world taking a sudden nationalist turn being aired by a man who is, by profession, supposed to be measured, detached and discreet. But there is no longer much doubt that the political mood has changed.
It’s being felt in the US, Britain, France, and also in Germany, where the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has been gaining ground. “If the AFD begins to get up to around 30% in the German elections that will indicate a pretty firm shift in German politics,” said Dearlove. It will, he said, also begin to affect Britain’s Brexit negotiations with the European Union. the years when the globalisers were in charge.
“Complete freedom of movement and uncontrolled migration into Europe is catastrophic,” he said. “Obviously one recognises the benefits of some migration, but when you get 1.3 million people coming into Europe – that was the figure in 2015. And the total net migration into the UK was 270 000. The total entry, counting EU and outside the EU, was around 600 000. These are massive numbers.
“The CIA published these predictive papers around 2001,” he said. “I think it was published before 9/11. And at that point they were indicating that mass migration, particularly from the south to the north – particularly out of Africa – was going to be a huge problem for the European continent.
“If you look at the figures for population growth and unemployed youth and that sort of phenomenon, leaving aside the instability in the Middle East, we shouldn’t be particularly surprised by what’s happened. We just didn’t prepare for it.”
The idea that the recent increase in immigration could have been foreseen 16 years ago is certainly open to challenge. And yet Britain’s failure to anticipate and prepare for the ensuing social and political pressures brought about by largescale immigration is beyond question.
That pressure is causing a rightward drift in British politics and when I asked Dearlove whether he thinks that drift will continue he says, “I think for the time being, yes,” but that in the longer term, prospects for the populist tendency are limited.
“It’s not really in the character of British politics to have extremists. Let’s face it, Ukip has done its bit, hasn’t it? I don’t see Ukip being a one-issue party really surviving as it is. I see something coming in, which may suck up some of its support. There are potentially a lot of Lib Dem voters out there as well. Where did they go?”
Britain’s security challenges were made horrifyingly clear by the March attack in London, when Khalid Masood, a man from Kent, drove a car through crowds on Westminster Bridge before stabbing a policeman in the grounds of the palace of Westminster. I reported from the immediate aftermath of the attack, in which four people died. The attacker was shot and killed.
“The Islamist terrorist threat is obviously serious but containable and ultimately manageable,” Dearlove told me in an e-mail the day after the attack.
“We have to keep a sense of proportion about it. Successful terrorist attacks have been few in number. The situation would only change with several mass casualty incidents which would threaten that sense of proportion and drive society towards an extreme response. At the moment I judge that as unlikely to happen. Containment of the threat with occasional failures can continue almost indefinitely.”
Dearlove told me that despite the terrorist threat to Britain, it was not the most serious challenge the country faced. “The deterioration of European politics, with the rise of parties on the extreme right, is a far more serious problem for the UK. It is not in the UK’S national interest to see continental Europe being split apart by the revival of nationalist movements as a postbrexit Britain returns to a mid-atlantic rather than continental orientation to its foreign policy.
“Britain has played a vital role in Europe’s future when Europe has been in crisis,” said Dearlove, referring to the turmoil of the last century, adding that, “we are set to do that again as the EU goes through a period of profound change. That will in part be driven by the rise of extreme-right parties, but it is important that, despite their influence, they do not control the political agenda.”
The election result in the Netherlands was cause for hope – the farright party of Geert Wilders failed to make a breakthrough in the March general election. The question now is whether Le Pen in France and the AFD in Germany remain largely outside the government. “A cohesive Europe is still in the UK’S interests, though the nature of that cohesion may become something rather different from what we largely took for granted during what has been the high point of the EU’S existence,” said Dearlove.
“Europe is now moving into a new historical phase. Postwar and post-cold War Europe are both coming to an end and as they do we will have to endure a period of heightened political and social risk.”
And then there is Russia, the great political pot-stirrer, led by a man who seems determined to reimpose global Russian influence as a means of buoying up his domestic support. “I don’t see it as a return to the Cold War,” said Dearlove, who is more than qualified to make that judgment. “Russia has always set out to destabilise its immediate neighbours in order to exercise influence,” he said.
“Putin’s on a crusade for Russia to be taken more seriously as a player in international affairs,” he said, adding that “if you analyse it historically, it’s in imperial decline.”
Dearlove then delivers another of his startlingly blunt assessments, this time of the country that was his chief adversary for most of his professional career: “It’s got a lousy economy, getting worse, it’s got terrible demographics, it’s got good strategic rocket forces and it’s got special forces, and it’s able to focus its assets on issues and make its impact felt in a rather clever fashion. But that doesn’t disguise the fact that Russia’s in a mess and I don’t think we should be overawed.”
Despite its weakness, the question of how to deal with Russia poses deep problems for governments. The Kremlin has achieved pariah status after its invasion of Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and its activities in Syria. These adventures were capped by its apparent interference in the US presidential election, where Putin allowed Russian operatives to conduct the hacking and propaganda campaign in favour of Trump that is now the subject of an FBI investigation. But how can other nations deal with a country that is so consistently wayward?
“Eastern Ukraine was a bit of a disaster for the Russians, and backing separatists in eastern Ukraine was a hook they were keen to get off,” said Dearlove, attributing his analysis to a “few well-placed Russians that I spoke to”.
The war in Ukraine is “very expensive,” he said and “it’s not really worked,” from Russia’s perspective. “Ukraine has more or less held together. The Ukrainian military has been more effective than the Russians expected and you’ve got a separatist war which is going absolutely nowhere.
“I did an event with Henry Kissinger in the States last summer with an invited audience,” said Dearlove.
“He and I agreed that the isolation of Russia, which was a consequence of the evolution of Obama’s policy, was not beneficial for anybody. Okay – Russia behaved extremely badly and it was difficult to pick your way through that and not end up in a situation where there’s a trade embargo and virtually a breakdown in communication.
“But if we can strengthen Nato and have a dialogue with Russia, which makes issues like Ukraine more manageable…” And with that, he trails off. But his intended message is clear. Better to talk to the Russians than freeze them out.
His criticism of Obama is not confined to Ukraine – Dearlove is also critical of US policy in Syria. “If the US had intervened it probably would have tipped the balance,” he said. In this situation, “the Russians would have maintained their interest by taking Assad out”. The double meaning of the last three words is perhaps unintentional.
And what about Russia’s meddling in the US election? The US’S own intelligence and security agencies have stated that they have evidence of interference. “I am pretty sure they wouldn’t have made those statements if they weren’t clear in their own minds that Russia was the perpetrator,” he said. “Trump himself seemed to have accepted that.” Elwes is Prospect Magazine’s executive editor.