Our holiday from history is over
In the year of elections we're still not talking about what matters most
Earlier in June I gave a presentation as part of a panel at the York University Festival of Ideas. https://yorkfestivalofideas.com/2024/calendar/global-security-in-a-year-of-elections/, and thought my presentation might be of interest. All four panellists with me, from Germany, the US and UK were pretty gloomy, even if we also all thought we could still turn the current situation around. My very mildly edited presentation at the start of the 90 minute panel is below. It’s a 6-7 minute read:
Let’s start off with some historical context:
In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Thucydides said in his history of the Peloponnesian War: “…right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
That’s pretty much how the world operated – big boys rules.
Then somehow at the end of the last century we thought we had moved beyond that..Francis Fukuyama, famously said in 1992 humanity has reached "…the end of history as such…the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
The 90s were the high point of what’s often referred to as the ‘Rules-Based International Order’, the RBIO. A banal phrase disguising the noble aspirations of the 1945 UN Charter, reinforced for Europe by a series of accords, especially in the 90s, for instance NATO and Russia agreed on, “…creating in Europe a common space of security and stability, without dividing lines or spheres of influence limiting the sovereignty of any state.”
- Fukuyama’s suggestion now looks like extreme hubris. RBIO was never universal, but Europe’s brief holiday from Great Power rivalry is over. Thucydides was right it seems. As it all started going wrong a Norwegian PM Erna Solberg argued in 2016: “…we cannot have a world where big countries decide what to do with their neighbours.” But that’s precisely the world that’s now looming.
- The peace dividend of cutting defence spending turned into a fire sale, and we’re still struggling with the enormity of the challenges facing us and the need for a new mindset.
- On Russia, their aggression in Georgia in 2008 was a red light we ignored. Their first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 woke us up, but our response was inadequate to the point that Putin felt confident in having another go in 2022. In so doing he highlighted the accuracy of the saying, “Weakness is a form of provocation.”
- So, we are returning to how the world has mostly done business. But as the wheel of history rolls on, exactly how this will play out also changes:
- Firstly, we are now in the era of so-called ‘hybrid conflict’. The black & white division of war or peace was always fuzzy, but we now live much more in a grey zone of strategic competition shading into a continuum of conflict. Meddling in elections through social media, cyber-hacking of essential services, GPS jamming, sabotage of armament factories in NATO countries, and more. It’s happening now. In one very real sense we are already on the lower slopes of war.
- And remember Britain is no longer a Great Power. We no longer decide the fate of others. Thank God for NATO.
- Next, Russia is not going to become a nice neighbour. Europe gave them the benefit of the doubt long after there should have been no doubt. Putin’s worldview looks back. In foreign policy he embraces Catherine the Great’s principle of “I have no way to extend my borders but to extend them.” Domestically he is copying the old Czarist ideology of “orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality.”
- Meanwhile, Europe is still way behind the curve on re-arming and rebuilding its defence industries. The risk of major conflict in Europe is closer than for decades, and preventing war requires deterrence – but effective deterrence requires big enough armed forces with enough equipment and enough stocks. That takes time and we’ve wasted a lot.
- China is watching. Economically dominant, and flexing their muscles. For instance, they have the world’s largest navy and the ambition to control the South China Sea through which much of the world’s trade moves – don’t doubt they would use that control.
- They are also watching us in Ukraine. If Russia wins because we fail, then the risk to Taiwan increases massively, as China will be emboldened to think it can conquer Taiwan with the West watching on. Deterring Chinese adventurism is entwined with events in Ukraine.
- China is a key element in this New World Disorder. We have been comfortable with something akin to a unipolar world, with the US a dominant force in a global order that’s substantially benefitted Europe and our values. That’s fading. Some may feel that’s only fair, but be careful what you wish for as we move into a multipolar world of Great Power competition among countries who do not share our outlook.
- This security environment is contested now by an overlapping mix of disruptors, emerging powers, rivalries, and terrorists.
- The disruptors are countries like Russia and Iran, with its allies in the so-called Axis of Resistance, keen to destabilise the existing order to gain power and influence.
- The emerging powers are countries like China, India, and Saudi Arabia, who feel their time has come and will use their rising power to promote their own interests and values – not necessarily malign, but their world view, not ours.
- The rivalries are between states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. The warring parties to conflicts in places like Libya, Sudan, parts of Africa are backed by a mix of rivalries, disruptors, and emerging powers.
- Then there are the old-fashioned terrorists, like Al-Qaeda, ISIS and militia groups such as the Houthi in Yemen, now further enabled by modern technology.
- Once rag tag guerillas armed with Kalashnikovs, they can now have sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, ballistic missiles, and precision-guided drones. Technology that was once the preserve of major powers is now cheap, widely available, and even challenges the capabilities of the US, as shown in the Red Sea.
- The Red Sea highlights another security risk – control of maritime chokepoints, upon which we depend for our economic survival. Globally, there are eight, and historically we made sure we controlled them. Now, of those eight, five are vulnerable and contested by adversaries.
- This spread of cheap, accessible technology doesn’t apply just to weapons, but also information technology which has empowered us all. Smartphones, social media, AI etc, are tools for good and ill. From a security perspective its use for disinformation, polarisation, deep fakes, and general mayhem makes it a dangerous tool for our adversaries, who are able to more easily weaponise its most alarming elements.
- This brings us back to the year of elections. It’s not going well. Often destabilising toxic populism is on the rise. Across the world, including Europe, extremist parties are gaining power and what they’re espousing is not comforting. NATO itself also has some problematic governments. Given what others have said I don’t need to elaborate on the potential consequences of Trump regaining power, other than to say from a security perspective the likely impact on NATO, along with encouragement to our foes, is potentially disastrous.
- This June we commemorated the 80th Anniversary of D-Day, and remembered the heroism and sacrifice of those involved in the Normandy campaign. But maybe we should also remember what made 1944 necessary – our failure in the 30s to wake up to the threat of Hitler and confront him when he was still relatively weak and could have been deterred. That unwillingness to act then was in part driven by our awareness of our relative weakness after more than a decade of low defence spending.
- It can be a little glib to overstretch historical comparisons, but there’s still a lesson here – the cost of war in both blood and treasure is far, far greater than the cost of deterrence. As the motto of SHAPE, NATO’s military headquarters puts it, ‘Vigilance is the Price of Liberty.’
- All in all, if we’re not worried – really worried – then we’re either kidding ourselves or not paying attention. What we’re mostly discussing in our current election campaign suggests we’re still not paying enough attention. The situation is not irretrievable, but we need to take some hard, unwelcome but necessary decisions – and the longer we leave it the tougher it will be - the clock is ticking.