Britain is leaving the EU but we must not retreat from the rest of the world
The UK must show our allies that we are seeking to maintain our position as a pillar of peace and security
When you are Foreign Secretary and our armed forces are in action around the globe you meet a lot of generals. Too many, to my mind, since our habit has been to rotate the top brass in Iraq or Afghanistan every year, instead of telling the best general to go there and stay there till he has won.
Yet General Sir Nick Carter, who spoke yesterday evening about the need to keep up with potential adversaries, stands out in my mind from visits to bunkers in Helmand, because he particularly seemed to know what he was doing. So when he says “the threats we face are not thousands of miles away but are now on Europe’s doorstep”, I recommend that we all listen to him.
He was referring in part to the massive modernisation programme of the Russian armed forces, prompted by their faltering performance against Georgia in 2008. With a smaller economy than ours, President Putin now has formidable air, sea and land forces, supported by a readiness to use social media and cyber attacks to paralyse an opponent.
More broadly, the booming stock markets of a growing global economy can stop us noticing serious dangers. Arms races are under way in the Asia-pacific region and the Middle East. Kim Jong-un has shown that a determined despot can develop nuclear weapons. Terrorism rapidly surfaces when states collapse.
Within a decade, artificial intelligence will be revolutionising warfare. Without the best technology, a country will find that its radar is showing the previous day’s airspace, its GPS systems are all pointing at the wrong targets, and incoming aircraft are convincing defending computers that they are on the same side. Impressive hardware without up-tothe-minute software will be as useless as cavalry against machine guns.
The security case for strong defences is thus overwhelming, but there is a second argument that generals are less qualified to advance but which is now crucial: that while Britain leaves the EU it absolutely must not retreat from the rest of the world. Be in no doubt that we benefit enormously from the international presence and reputation of the United Kingdom, be it diplomatic, military, humanitarian or educational. And our friends everywhere are currently looking at us, quizzically and rather searchingly, as we negotiate Brexit to assess whether we are shrinking back from them as well.
Is this the UK sorting out a more sustainable relationship with its neighbours, they wonder, or is it the start of a new insularity and impending irrelevance? Are we so preoccupied with internal arguments that we pull back from being one of the most respected pillars of global stability, progress and security?
Feeding the wrong impression is no one’s intention. However people voted on the EU, few wanted to weaken our links beyond Europe. Theresa May has rightly spoken of “Global Britain” and Boris Johnson has proclaimed a new energy in engaging with the traumas of the Middle East. Our Chinooks are being sent to Mali to help France, and our aid budget is as strong as ever.
Even so, we must be careful not to send the wrong message by accident. The Foreign Office is reducing some diplomatic positions in Asia and Africa in order to strengthen embassies around Europe. With a tiny fraction of the £3 billion pound contingency fund the Chancellor announced to deal with the uncertainties of Brexit, it could keep those positions in place. For foreign nations any change, however small, can make a big impact.
In defence, talk of reducing amphibious ships, or the Parachute Regiment or Royal Marines is even more worrying. Leaks of discussions are not always a guide to what is really at stake, and might often highlight the worst-case options. It is important to remember that we are putting to sea our biggest ever aircraft carriers and a new fleet of formidable submarines, as well as a great deal of other new equipment. Nevertheless, eroding the deployability of our forces or diminishing some of the most feared and respected elements of them is not the way to support a global strategy.
This matters to the tortuous Brexit negotiations themselves. Do we not want our neighbours, as they contemplate our departure from the EU, to place value on our vast contribution to the intelligence, diplomatic and military resources of Europe collectively, and not to be under the impression that the importance of these assets to their own security is in decline?
At the same time, we have to have sound national finances and there has clearly been an overestimation of what the defence budget could buy. Any chancellor worth his salt would make the Ministry of Defence sweat before giving it more money. The hundreds of times I have come into contact with that department, as a former constituency MP and minister, have never made me think it is as efficient as it could be. Nor is there a single magic size for the Army, or any chance of keeping everything exactly as it is when new and more expensive technologies are needed.
Long-term changes could be made to the defence budget to try to avoid these regular rounds of agonising. They would lead to defence costing more over time, but in a world of growing threats there will be little escape from that. The cost of the nuclear deterrent could be designated as a separate budget, so that we do not have to increase or decrease our conventional arms because it becomes less or more expensive.
Similarly, the consequences of sterling rising and falling could be met by the Treasury, not by the defence budget. Currencies move around more quickly than commitments to buy new fighter planes, particularly the pound against the dollar. We don’t need less security when the pound depreciates, or more when it goes up.
Such changes would help sensible planning over time. In the short term there clearly has to be some compromise in the Cabinet. When they hammer that out, they should bear in mind that not only is General Carter’s analysis correct, but that a decline in our ability to project military force and diplomatic reach as we withdraw from the EU would be a great error. When we talk of Global Britain we have to mean it.